“It’s just a parlor trick,” I reassured them. “We did it all the time in France.”
“And what are the French but infidels and atheists?” the priest rejoined. “No good will come from electricity.”
“On the contrary, learned doctors in France and Germany believe electric shocks may be able to cure illness or madness.” But since everyone knows physicians kill more than they cure, Jericho’s neighbors were hardly impressed by this promise.
Miriam also remained dubious. “It seems like a lot of trouble just to sting someone.”
“But why does it sting? That’s what Ben Franklin wanted to understand.”
“It comes from your cranking, does it not?”
“But why? If you churn milk or hoist a well bucket, do you get electricity? No, there is something special here, which Franklin thought might be the force that animates the universe. Perhaps electricity animates our souls.”
“That is blasphemous!”
“Electricity is in our bodies. Electricians have tried to animate dead criminals with electricity.”
“Ugh!”
“And their muscles actually moved, though their spirits had 4 2
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departed. Is electricity what gives us life? What if we could harness that force the way we harness fire, or the muscles of a horse? What if the ancient Egyptians did? The person who knew how might have unimaginable power.”
“And is that what you seek, Ethan Gage? Unimaginable power?”
“When you’ve seen the pyramids, you wonder if men didn’t have such power in the past. Why can’t we relearn it today?”
“Perhaps because it caused more harm than good.” Meanwhile, Jerusalem worked its own spell. I don’t know if human history can soak into soil like winter rain, but the places I visited had a palpable, haunting sense of time. Every wall held a memory, every lane a story. Here Jesus fell, there Solomon welcomed Sheba, into this square the Crusaders charged, and across that wall Saladin took the city back. Most extraordinary was the southeastern corner of the city, consisting of a vast artificial plateau built atop the mount where Abraham offered to sacrifice Isaac: the Temple Mount. Built by Herod the Great, it’s a paved platform a quarter mile long and three hundred yards wide that covers, I was told, thirty-five acres. To hold a mere temple? Why did it have to be so big? Was it covering something— hiding something—more critical? I was reminded of our endless speculation about the true purpose of the pyramids.
Solomon’s Temple was on this mount until first the Babylonians and then the Romans destroyed it. And then the Muslims built their golden mosque on the same spot. On the south end was another mosque, El-Aqsa, its form distorted by Crusader additions. Each faith had tried to leave its stamp, but the overall result was a serene empti-ness, elevated above the commercial city like heaven itself. Children played and sheep grazed. I’d stride up sometimes through the Chain Gate and stroll its perimeter, viewing the surrounding hills with my little spyglass. The Muslims left me alone, whispering that I was a genie who tapped dark powers.
Despite my reputation, or perhaps because of it, I’d occasionally be allowed to enter the blue-tiled Dome of the Rock itself, taking off my boots before stepping on its red and green carpet. Perhaps they hoped I’d convert to Islam. The dome was held up by four massive piers t h e
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and twelve columns, its interior decorated with mosaics and Islamic script. Beneath it was the sacred rock, Kubbet es-Sakhra, root stone of the world, where Abraham had offered to sacrifice his son, and where Muhammad had ascended for a tour of heaven. There was a well on one side of the rock, and reportedly a small cave underneath it. Was anything hidden there? If this was where Solomon’s Temple once stood, wouldn’t any Hebrew treasures have been secreted in the same place? But none were allowed to descend to the cave, and when I lingered too long, a Muslim caretaker would shoo me away.
So I speculated, and labored with Jericho to beat out horseshoes, sickles, fire tongs, hinges, and all the sundry hardware of everyday life.
I had ample opportunity to interrogate my host.
“Are there any underground places in this city where something valuable might be hidden for a long time?” Jericho barked a laugh. “Underground places in Jerusalem? Every cellar leads to a maze of abandoned tunnels and forgotten streets.
Don’t forget that this city has been sacked by half the world’s nations, including your own Crusaders. So many throats have been cut that the groundwater should be blood. It is ruin built atop ruin atop ruin, not to mention a honeycomb of caves and quarries. Underground?
There may be more Jerusalem down there than up here!”
“This thing I’m looking for was brought by the ancient Israelites.” He groaned. “Don’t tell me you’re looking for the Ark of the Covenant! That’s a lunatic’s myth. It may have been in Solomon’s Temple once, but there’s been no mention of it since Nebuchadnezzar destroyed Jerusalem and carried the Jews into exile in 586 b.c .”
“No, no, I don’t mean that. ” But I did mean it, or at least hope that the ark could lead me to the Book, or that they were one and the same.
“Ark” means “box,” and the Ark of the Covenant was supposedly the gold-plated acacia wood box where the Hebrews who escaped from Egypt kept the Ten Commandments. By reputation it had mysterious powers and was a help in defeating their enemies. Naturally I wondered if the Book of Thoth was in the container as well, since Astiza believed Moses had taken it. But I said none of this, yet.
“Good. It would take you all of eternity to dig up Jerusalem, and 4 4
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I suspect in the end you’d have no more than when you started.
Crawl down holes if you will, but all you’ll find are pot shards and rat bones.”
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Miriam was a quiet woman, but gradually I realized that this quiet was a veil over a keen intelligence, with intense curiosity about the past. As different as she and Astiza were in personality, in intellect they were twins. In the early days of my stay she cooked and served our meals but ate apart. It wasn’t until I’d worked awhile with Jericho at his forge, winning some small measure of trust, that I was able to cajole the two of them into letting her join us at the table. We weren’t Muslims bound to segregate the sexes, after all, and their reluctance was curious. At first she spoke only when spoken to—she was again the opposite of Astiza in that way—and seemed to have little in need of saying. As I’d suspected, she was truly lovely—a beauty that always put me in mind of fruit and cream—but only with reluctance did she shed her scarf at table. When she did, her hair was a golden waterfall, as light as Astiza’s was dark, her neck high, her cheeks lovely. I continued to pride myself on my chastity (since trying to find an adventuress in Jerusalem was like trying to find a virgin in the card cozies of Paris, I might as well take satisfaction in my enforced virtue) but I was astonished that this beauty hadn’t already been swept off by some persistent swain. At night I could hear the sounds of her splashing as she carefully bathed while standing in a wooden tub, and I couldn’t help but wonder about her breasts and belly, the roundness of her rump, and the slim strong legs that my all-too-frustrated brain imagined, runnels of soapy water cascading down the perfect topography of her thighs and calves and ankles. And then I’d groan, try to think about electricity, and finally resort to my fist.