The Jerusalem Puzzle. Laurence O’Bryan
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us to hear the chanting they’d started.
‘Don’t know,’ said Simon.
I had no idea what they were saying, but there was real tension in the air. Almost everyone in the juice bar was craning their neck every few seconds to see what was going on. Outside on the street people were hurrying past.
I leaned forward, stretching until I could see the demonstration. The crowd had grown since the last time I’d looked. It was totally blocking the Via Dolorosa now.
‘What are they chanting?’ said Isabel.
‘They’re saying that no one should be allowed to dig in this area,’ said Simon. ‘They’re saying that there used to be a Mamluk madrasa over there, that it was burnt down during a revolt five hundred years ago with all its students in it. They say the dig is desecrating a gravesite.’ He finished his juice noisily.
‘Is it?’ I said.
‘There are bones under every house in this city,’ he said. ‘I’m surprised they got permission for this dig at all.’
‘One thing’s for sure,’ I said. ‘A hell of a lot of people will be interested in this site.’
He held his hand flat on the table. ‘I have no idea what the site will prove. But you are right, there are people who will be worried about any records from Pontius Pilate’s era, in case they might show that the truth of that time is any different to what the Bible says.’
‘Maybe there’ll be universal rejoicing,’ I said.
‘And you still think you can get us onto this dig?’ said Isabel.
Simon looked from her to me, then back again. I glanced at Isabel. Her black hair was tied up in a bun, but it was still unruly looking with odd hairs sticking out. She looked good with it that way.
‘Come on then, let’s see if I can.’ Simon stood.
We walked all the way around to the other end of the lane from where the crowd was demonstrating. The lanes behind the Via Dolorosa were only four to six feet wide in places. The high walls of the buildings, constructed mainly out of sandstone, made them seem even narrower too. As did the windows, which were barred as if we were walking beside a prison, and mostly too far up to reach no matter how high you could jump.
Many of them were shuttered anyway, with thick sand-coloured planks. Some had iron bars too. Most of the thin, half-width, wooden doorways had one or two worn sandstone steps leading up to them. In some places canvas awnings and stone arches high up blocked the light out completely.
This wasn’t a medieval warren like you’d find in European cities. It was a Biblical-era warren.
A group of young men pushed past us. Then three more followed. They were all in a hurry.
After making another turn, we found the building they had come from. It looked like a school of some sort. Young men were hurrying out of it with bags under their arms or backpacks on their backs.
After we passed the school there were less people about. The lane we turned into as we circled back to the Via Dolorosa was narrower than any of the others we’d passed through. It seemed as if we were being squeezed by the buildings rising up on either side. There wouldn’t be much we could do if someone with a knife held us up here, demanding our valuables.
Finally we turned another corner and our way was blocked by a shoulder-high blue plastic barrier. There were Israeli soldiers in khaki behind it. Their black helmets had see-through plastic wrapped around them to cover their faces.
As we came up to the barrier, we were the only other people in the lane beside the soldiers. Simon waved an ID card in the air. One of the soldiers shouted something at him. Simon held the card over the barrier. Half a minute later the barrier moved back and to the side.
Beyond it, up against the wall behind the soldiers, was a stack of plastic shields. Two of the soldiers had what looked like black paintball guns in their hands. They were probably tasers or something worse. They looked as if they were prepared for almost anything.
Simon said something in Hebrew as one of the soldiers examined his ID card. It was passed to the oldest looking soldier, perhaps all of twenty-two or twenty-three years old, who pushed his helmet back and started talking fast in Hebrew.
Simon replied calmly. Then he turned to us.
‘Have you got your passports with you?’ he said.
I took mine out of the back pocket of my trousers. I held it in front of me with the photograph page open. The soldier took it from me, peered at it, looking at each page. Luckily it was a new one. It had no stamps that he wouldn’t like.
Isabel took hers and a small bottle of water out of her bag. That action brought four guns to bear on us.
Simon threw up his hands, said something that ended in ‘Ayyyyyeeeee.’
Isabel showed them her passport with one hand, drank from the bottle of water with the other, then passed it to me.
The soldier took Isabel’s passport, looked through it for what seemed like ages. Eventually he passed it back to her. Then they let us pass.
Seconds later we turned a corner and could see the high steel barrier blocking the other end of the lane. There was a group of helmeted Israeli soldiers between us and the barrier. I could hear the chanting in Arabic beyond it.
Suddenly a pair of hands appeared and a walnut brown face peered over the top of the barrier. The soldiers standing on this side banged near the hands with metal truncheons. The face dropped back, but a cry went up, as if the man had been injured, or maybe it was the sight of us beyond the barrier that had set him off.
Whatever the reason, the next thing a shower of stones came over the barrier raining in our direction.
I put my arm up to protect Isabel.
The door we were in front of, a narrow one with a sandstone step, was like the others in the lane, closed tight. It had a notice stuck to it with blue tape around the edges. Simon banged the door. Nothing happened. Stones were dropping around us.
Simon banged on the door again, harder this time. Then it opened and we were looking at a man who took up the whole width of the doorway. He had a freckly-gingery look, ginger eyebrows and ginger hair. His skin was pale pink. And his shirt, which he was bulging out of, had a faded red stripe around the middle.
‘What do you want?’ Mr Ginger said, in a most unfriendly manner. He sounded as if he was from deep in the American south. For a second I thought I might be able to call on a little empathy, seeing how I held a US passport. Then he opened his mouth again and almost snarled at us.
‘No visitors,’ he said. He closed the door, fast. Stones fell around us.
‘Ow,’ said Isabel. She clutched at her side.
I banged the door with my fist. It rocked on its hinges. ‘Open up, for God’s sake,’ I shouted.
I banged the door again and again.
Then it opened. ‘I told you, no visitors,’ said the friendly Mr Ginger.
Simon held up his ID card. ‘I am entitled to come in and inspect this dig. I’m a professor with the Hebrew University. I gave a reference to Max Kaiser to enable him to get on this dig. I need to see where he was working, because of what has happened. These people are my colleagues.’ He gestured towards us.
Ginger threw his hands in the air. ‘We’ve no time to give tours.’
‘We won’t be long. If I have to come back with my friend from the Antiquities Authority, it will take us a lot longer. He is a stickler for sites being run properly.’
Ginger frowned. ‘You gave Max his reference?’ he said. Simon nodded.
A look of recognition replaced the suspicion.
‘Are you working on a red heifer project?’ he said.
‘Yes.’