Requiem (36 page)

Sharon
said, 'But you told me he was going to the ghetto. What does he want there?'

'He
said he had a score to settle. Some man threw a stone at you, and he was going
to put it right.'

'It's
true; one of the Hasidim threw a stone when I was there the other day. I must
have told him about it.'

'Those
Hasidim will cut him to pieces if he tries to cause trouble in the Jewish
ghetto,' said Ahmed.

'Let's go,' said Sharon. 'Ahmed, will you
come?'

'Are you
crazy? I, a Palestinian, come to the
Me'a
She'arim
? Don't joke.'

'You'll be with us.'

'Worse
still. And, anyway, it's night. I never go outside after nightfall.'

'We need you,' said
Tobie
.
'We've got to find him.'

'What do I
owe this Englishman? He stole my shirt. He stole my shoes.' Here he looked at
Sharon. 'What else has he stolen of mine? I can't do it. Believe me, if I could
come with you, I would. But it is night, and I would risk everything. My
djinn
would be out there, waiting for me.'

'I'm asking
you,' said Sharon. 'Ahmed, I need you to come.'

'But the night,' pleaded Ahmed. 'But the
night.'

^‘
De
prqfundis
,'
Katie said, walking at his side, her right hand resting
lightly on his left shoulder. 'Up from the depths. I have told you everything.
Mary's scroll has been opened to you. Now you know how it was done. Now you
know how the Liar deceived us. You know how we were cheated. Now you know who
is the real Liar.'

She was carefully
steering him through the alleys of the Arab quarter. The towers and the Golden
Dome were illuminated at his back, and the church spires were lit up before
him, wrapped in an exotic shawl of deep sable. People drifted by in the
streets, insubstantial as wraiths, quiet as the dust. Passing into the busier
thoroughfares, they felt a tension thickening the air, a sourness clogging the
oppressive heat. Too many young men thronged the street, all talking in hushed
but animated tones. They skirted a pair of nervous soldiers. The conscripts
were in a state of twitchy, heightened alert. Something had happened or was
about to happen.

'What's going on?'

'There will be a riot,' she said. 'Come
on.'

When they
reached the city wall near Solomon's quarries, Katie gripped his shoulder.
They stopped. She was pointing up at a soldier in silhouette, patrolling the
wall. The soldier had his back to them. As he moved quietly along the parapet,
cradling his automatic rifle, Tom saw the unmistakable swish of a tail from
between the soldier's legs.

Impossible!

But there it
was again, a glistening, black, curving length of demonic tail stroking back
and forth. A fist squeezed Tom's bowels. A sick wave washed over him.

'
Hushhhhh
.' Katie held his face in her cool hands. He felt
his gaze being commanded, held and stilled by her mineral-ocean eyes. 'You are
seeing the
djinn
for the first time,'
she said.

Perspiration
prickling on his brow, Tom looked up again at the solder on the wall. The
soldier seemed to become instinctively aware of him, began to turn slowly, his
face hidden in the dark but rotating slowly towards them. The demonic tail
twitched again, and the face began to emerge out of the shadows.

'Quickly.'
Katie pushed him into a side alley. 'You must not let them know you see through
them. Never. Do you understand?'

But Tom was quivering,
terrified by the physicality of the
djinn
.
He
staggered against a wall, vomiting. Katie placed a hand on the small of his
back and propelled him through the alley. They emerged at Damascus Gate.

It was a relief to be
outside the Old City. The air seemed to sweeten, to lighten. Damascus Gate was
busy with people, and the road was heavy with traffic. Her hand rested lightly
on his shoulder again as she guided him towards the Arab bus station. He
stopped to look back at the wall, spying two more soldiers on the parapet.

'The soldiers,' he said.

'No, they
are not all
djinn
.
The
djinn
disguise themselves as soldiers, just
as they disguise themselves as ordinary people. But you know that.
^’

'Yes. I know that.'

She guided
him to the service station, where he bought a fuel container, filling it with
three litres of petrol. He also bought two plastic bottles of orangeade. At a
short distance from the bus station he stopped to drink. He felt feverish, and
he was sweating profusely. He consumed half of one of the bottles of orangeade
and emptied both bottles into the gutter. Transferring the petrol into the
orangeade bottles, he discarded the remaining petrol, along with its container.

Together they began to
walk back in the direction of Damascus Gate. 'The Liar hated all women,' said
Katie, 'seeing us a source of uncleanness. He also hated Jesus because of his
affection for all women. When Jesus cast out the seven demons from Mary
Magdalene, he recruited her from the Canaanite temple into his own. He wanted
women to be priests, the equals of men; but the Liar hated all of this. The
Liar despised his own flesh. He despised every human frailty.

'After the Crucifixion,
the Liar saw his opportunity. He usurped the Church and moved it to the West.
Mary's punishment was to be written out. It was as if her tongue had been torn
out. No, it was not the Liar who was converted by Christ on his famous journey
to Damascus. It was the Church of Christ which was converted by the Liar.'

'We're not
going to the
Me'a
She'arim
,
are we?' said Tom.

'No.
I just wanted to buy us some time. And we've already arrived.'

They
had come to a stop on the corner of the road known as
Derekh
Shekhem
, directly opposite Damascus Gate, and had
drawn up outside the doors of the great church of St Paul.

'The
Liar's Temple. Paul, hater of women. Despiser of the flesh.
Reviler
of earthly love. False prophet and Apostle of the Lie. Scourge of the female.
Father of the
djinn
.
Liar of liars.'

Tom gazed up
at the face of the church of St Paul. Darkness enfolded its walls like black
wings. He mounted the steps and went inside.

Sharon,
Tobie
and Ahmed made their way through the streets in silence. The two women had
linked arms with the Arab, who proceeded in a state of terror. They passed
knots of agitated young men who stopped talking as they drew near and surveyed
them with hostile glares.

'What are
they saying?' asked
Tobie
. 'Is something happening?'

'You
know the
intifada
,'
said Ahmed.
'Something is always happening.'

'But the peace talks -'

'Not
everyone is in favour of Arafat. You know
Hamas
will
try to break the talks.'

The
air was spiced with the sense of impending insurrection. The shadow of
violence was cast ahead of the event. The walls enclosing the streets sweated
with anticipation. The drainage channels flowed with sour rumour.

'Allah,
can't you feel it? Let's get out of the Old City,’ pleaded Ahmed. 'The place is
crawling with
djinn
.
They are
waiting
for corpses.'

At Damascus Gate
Ahmed looked up at the sweating parapets and shivered. For a moment the others
thought they wouldn't be able to get him through the gate. He was rooted.
Neither would he tell them what he saw. He was like an obstinate thread
unwilling to pass through the needle's eye.

A detachment
of soldiers entered the city by the gate, forcing back the small crowd of
youths hanging around under the archway. This fresh commotion and the accompanying
cries of protest broke the spell, and
Tobie
and
Sharon managed to usher Ahmed through.

It was only
a few minutes from the gate to the
Me'a
She'arim
ghetto. They turned alongside the church of St
Paul. Sharon looked up to glimpse the shadow of a man passing through the door
of the church, clutching something to his chest.

'We should hurry,' said
Tobie
.

'Why am I doing this?' wailed Ahmed.
'Why?'

'Because you love Sharon,' said
Tobie
.

'You are the
worst woman I've ever met,' said Ahmed
.

At the entrance to the ghetto,
Sharon paused under the sign 'DAUGHTERS OF JERUSALEM: DRESS MODESTLY AT ALL
TIMES'.
'Shit. Look at what I'm wearing.' A pair
of shorts exposed the sandy expanse of her thighs just above the knee and was
topped off by a sleeveless blouse. She looked hopefully at the other two,
neither of whom had anything they could offer her.
Tobie
at least was wearing slacks and a
sweatshirt.

'It
can't be worse than wearing a Palestinian face,' said Ahmed.

'It
can,' said Sharon. 'The daughters of Jerusalem have proud and haughty necks
.

'
What?'

'Forget
it. Come on, we don't have time to worry about it.'

They stepped
through the wrought-iron archway and into the ghetto as if it were Dante's
Inferno. Inside they patrolled the streets, utterly conspicuous, trying to
exude a confidence none of them felt. The bearded,
behatted
and
beshawled
Hasidim passed by with sidelong
glances, but they were left alone. One old man came out of a small shop and,
spotting Sharon, dropped a bag of red apples on the ground. They rolled into the
gutter. It was a histrionic gesture, a theatrical piece of protest.

'I know some
people in here,' said
Tobie
. 'They might help us.'

'Don't be long,' said Sharon. 'I want you
near.'

Tobie
dived
further into the ghetto. Sharon and Ahmed stayed close to the edge, walking
slowly along a lamp-lit street. An elderly Hasid with a stooped back and a
flowing white beard stood in a doorway, eyeing them
hawkishly
.
When they drew abreast of him he suddenly bellowed, ‘
This is not Mew York
City! This is
Yerushalayim
.
^’

'Stay close,' said Sharon.

'You stay close.'

'Should we hold hands?'

'
Yerushalayim
!’

'Not a good idea.'

They hurried away from
the old man, who was still screaming after them, turning a corner to get out of
his sight. Instantly they realized their mistake. A huddle of younger Hasidim
stood under a street lamp a few yards away. To go forward would take them right
past the men; to retreat would have seemed weak. They chose to go on. The young
men swung their heads, their locks shaking, the light from the street lamp
reflecting in their glasses.

'Lot of shit in the neighbourhood,' said
one.

Sharon
crackled something in Hebrew, which Ahmed missed. It silenced them for a
moment. Then, as they passed, one spat at her feet. 'Whore.'

'Ignore it,’ Ahmed whispered. 'Tom, where
are you?'

They
put the young men behind them, hoping to find a way back to the ghetto
entrance. Instead they turned into a dead end. Another back street curved the
wrong way, leading them past more shops and hostile clusters of men gathered
like crows under weak street lamps. They all seemed to bare their teeth from
behind luxuriant black beards.

'Get us out of here,' said Ahmed.

'I'm trying. I'm trying.'

They passed
into a quadrangle: on one of the walls the slogan 'JUDAISM AND ZIONISM ARE DIAMETRICALLY
OPPOSED' was sprayed in foot-high letters. Sharon paused, trying to figure out
the way back. 'There's nothing for it. We're going to have to retrace our
steps.’

‘I don't think so,' said Ahmed.

Sharon
followed Ahmed's gaze. The way was blocked by a huddle of Hasidim who had
followed them into the quadrangle. The Hasidim were quiet, singularly menacing
in their long black frock coats and their broad-brimmed hats. Every one of them
wore spectacles, as if glasses were also part of the ultra-Orthodox uniform.
Their eyes were magnified and excited behind the spectacle lenses. A second
street running from the quadrangle was filling up with black-garbed spectators.

'Time for negotiation,' said Ahmed.

Someone
shouted out the Hebrew word for 'whore'. A different insult, saved for
Palestinians, was directed at Ahmed. Out of nowhere came a volley of small
stones, cracking on the wall behind their heads. It was impossible to see who
was doing the throwing. The groups of men seemed curiously immobile. Then
Sharon glimpsed a lifted arm and felt a rock strike her leg. It was a heavy,
bruising blow. She gasped, staggering to one side. Another rock came hurtling
through the air, missing Ahmed's face by a small margin.