Death Beneath Jerusalem

by Roger Bax

  “And I suppose that visit counted as work!” said Esther enviously. “Does the Morning Call move you about much?”

  “Quite a lot, especially lately. I was in Abyssinia until the rains came on—that was my first war job. Then they discovered I spoke Arabic—result of a youthful enthusiasm and an interest in the East—and they sent me out here to ‘cover’ the riots. When the place got too hot to hold me, and I was beginning to think I’d earned a holiday, they gave me six weeks in Madrid. Directly there was a lull there—nothing happening except a few people getting killed each day!—they moved me to Bilbao, and I was nearly wiped out at the bombing of Guernica. Now, here I am, back again in Palestine. Life is certainly not devoid of incident.”

  The sun was by now beginning to beat down uncomfortably on the open ground, and Esther was glad to accept Garve’s suggestion that they should return to the shade of the city. They scrambled down quickly between the olives, climbed over a low wall of limestone, skirted a patch of scanty barley, and found themselves with a stone’s throw of the brook Kedron. The warm air was alive with the whirr of grasshoppers, and once Esther was startled in her descent by a lizard which darted under a stone with a dusty flick of its tail.

  “Now where?” asked Garve when they had reached the road. “I must see you home.”

  “If you’re going to make it sound like a duty,” said Esther, her red lips pouting, “I’ll go by myself.”

  “Spoilt—badly spoilt,” thought Garve to himself, but he grinned amiably and murmured something about combining duty with pleasure.

  As they approached the Damascus Gate the environs of the city began to come to life. Arabs from the villages were riding upon the haunches of their asses, bringing great bundles of oranges and lemons, or bales of embroidery for the daily market. Mangy camels toiled slowly up the hill bearing the chattels of whole families. Fierce, dark-eyed Bedouin faces from Transjordan stared at Garve, and again at Esther, sometimes resentfully, sometimes just in cold curiosity. The gate itself was already the scene of stirring cosmopolitan life. There was much noise and gesticulation among the little knots of tarbooshed town Arabs who conversed as though they were arguing, and argued as though they were at war. Queues of Arab buses and taxis were drawn up by the gate, waiting in vain for European and hopefully for Arab custom. Beggars, rotten with disease, sprawled in the dust and whined for alms. Garve gently took Esther’s arm, and, attracting as little attention as he could, pointed out the various types who made up Palestine’s population.

  Never in her life had Esther seen or imagined so strange and confusing a spectacle.

  As they watched, fascinated, while a grey-bearded fellah haggled for a handful of dates as though he were buying a whole plantation, a man approached them who was smartly dressed in European clothes, but for his red tarboosh. His face was handsomely tanned, his carriage erect and proud, his features good. In perfect English he asked whether the lady and gentleman would like a guide.

  Garve replied quickly and decisively in several sentences of fluent Arabic. His emphatic tone was just beginning to have an effect when Esther plucked his sleeve confidingly and said, “Let’s go—there’s plenty of time before breakfast,” in a voice loud enough for the guide to hear.

  Garve motioned the now eager man to a distance, and turned grimly on the girl. “Are you mad?” he demanded angrily. “I tell you these places are not safe. At this very moment we’re being watched by a dozen pairs of hostile eyes. You think that because a man is sitting on the ground, quietly smoking a hookah, he’s harmless. He may just as easily be an agent of one of the terrorist societies. They’re everywhere —you can’t trust a soul in Jerusalem.”

  Esther gave an exclamation of impatience. “I’m sure you’re exaggerating. You’re not writing a story for the Morning Call now, you know. I believe you’re one of those awful people who like talking about danger in order to make themselves feel important.”

  “And I’m quite sure,” retorted Garve, now thoroughly roused, ‘that you are one of those dreadful women who feel affronted when they find that social status carries no absolute guarantee of safety in all circumstances.”

  “How dare you?” cried Esther, stamping her foot in a way which, in other circumstances, Garve would certainly have found attractive. “I believe you’re afraid to come with me.”

  Garve grinned mockingly. “In my adolescent days, my dear Miss Willoughby, that taunt would probably have worked. I am old enough now, however, to realize that in addition to being an unusually charming young woman, you are also temperamental, impetuous, and exceedingly foolish—and why you didn’t bring your nurse out with you I can’t imagine.”

  Esther’s eyes blazed. “I suppose you think you’re awfully funny. Personally, I find you merely impertinent. Nobody asked for your advice or criticism. And if you won’t come with me, I’ll go by myself.”

  “Now—please!” said Garve, suddenly pleading. “I’m not exaggerating—it really is dangerous.”

  “Guide!” called Esther in peremptory tones. The man, who had been standing just out of earshot, advanced with alacrity.

  “I want to see the city,” said Esther. “For one hour.”

  “Yes, miss,” said the man.

  “What’s your name?”

  “Saud, miss.”

  “Saud? Are you an Arab?” Esther had always imagined that Arabs invariably had dark skins, and this man was hardly darker than Garve himself.

  “Yes, miss.” The guide’s immobile features alone betrayed his race.

  “Very well, Saud, let’s go.” She turned to Garve triumphantly. “Good-morning, Mr. Garve. Thank you for your company.” She relented a little. “I really have enjoyed our talk, you know. Good-bye.”

  Garve nodded grimly. Had he been a policeman he would have taken her into protective custody. He felt angry at his inability to do anything effective, at his failure to influence her. As Esther and the guide passed through Damascus Gate there was a little stirring of the fellahin squatting in the dust, and, Garve believed, a certain melting away.

  He shrugged his shoulders, put his dignity and his hand in his pocket, and, cheered a trifle by the feel of the automatic that never left him, followed Esther through the gate. At least, he thought, consoling himself, if someone threw a bomb at her it would be a good, exclusive story!

  2. Ordeal by Bomb

  Once Esther discovered that she had succeeded in getting her own way, she stopped and waited for Garve to join her. Unperturbed by the sulkiness of his expression, she placed a small, exquisitely manicured hand confidingly on his arm, as though she had known him for years, and gave him a dazzling smile.

  “You’re very nice,” she said softly, and in the bright sunlight she looked alluringly beautiful.

  “On the contrary,” retorted Garve gruffly, “I’m a fool. Even though a crack on the head would undoubtedly do you a world of good, I ought not to let you expose yourself. However, since you’ve made up what you’re no doubt pleased to call your mind, we won’t start quarrelling again. Hi, Saud, where are we going?”

  “In one hour,” said Saud tonelessly, “we can see very little.”

  “Never mind that. Just take us round the streets—the main streets. He added something in Arabic which sounded like a sharp instruction, and the guide nodded gravely and went a pace or two ahead.

  “Can I see the Wailing Wall?” asked Esther demurely.

  “If you behave yourself,” said Garve, trying hard to look stern in face of the dancing mischief in her eyes. “But I don’t suppose there’ll be anybody wailing at this time of day. The best performance is given on Friday afternoons.”

  Esther’s eager fingers again lightly touched his sleeve. “What about that place where the top of the mountain comes out into the floor of the mosque? Antony Hayson told me about it.”

  Garve raised his eyebrows. “Hayson again? He seems to be a knowledgeable young man.”

  “He’s very handsome,” said Esther. “There are so few presentab
le men in Jerusalem now—except the police.”

  “Considering that you’ve been in the city quite twenty-four hours,” said Garve, abandoning once again all pretence at politeness, “you have naturally had the opportunity to comb it pretty thoroughly! Does Hayson like spoilt young women?”

  “You can judge for yourself when you meet him,” retorted Esther. “Anyway, what about our mosque?”

  “Closed to-day to all but Moslems,” said Garve snappily. He was beginning to feel hot, and to wonder again why he had bothered to come with her. “And you can’t get into anything except a bad temper at this unearthly hour of the morning.”

  Esther laughed gaily. “I do like you,” she declared shamelessly. “You say the rudest things in the most amusing way, and I know I’m a pig. From now on I’ll really be good. Tell me some more.”

  “Well,” said Garve, relenting in spite of himself, “you must have a look at the Church of the Holy Sepulchre before you leave Jerusalem, but we couldn’t begin to see it in an hour. Solomon’s Quarries, under the city, are well worth a visit—but I remember now, your handsome friend, Hayson, is digging there, so he’ll probably offer to escort you. Then there’s Hezekiah’s Tunnel —a filthy old aqueduct—but I can’t recommend that, because I’m still trying to summon up enough courage to explore it myself. I think the streets will keep us occupied for to-day. The very names take you back a couple of thousand years.”

  He pointed to a blue plate nailed on to an ancient slab of masonry, and Esther read the words, “Via Dolorosa.”

  “You can think what you like about it,” said Garve. “Some say it is and some say it isn’t. Mind that camel!”

  Esther swerved to avoid a nuzzling nose, and a spot of high colour in each cheek betrayed her excitement. As they proceeded cautiously into the heart of the city, the lanes became more and more congested. They were so narrow that in places three donkeys could not have stood abreast. They descended and climbed in a series of irregular steps, so that even by day it was necessary to walk with care. Where a plan of Jerusalem optimistically showed a street, complete with name, the wandering tourist often found nothing but a dark entry between high walls. Walls were everywhere—high walls, low walls, new clean walls, dank and dripping walls, sunlit walls, dark looming walls—all of rock as solid as the seven hills from which they have been hewn. Behind the walls, striking the imagination with terror, garrets and hovels and noisome cells crouched behind narrow unglazed windows. Some of the streets—the main arteries of this uncanny city—struck straight and true from gate to gate, but others turned and twisted as though the builders of Jerusalem had set themselves deliberately to build a maze. Half of them ended blankly and unexpectedly in a wall. One could study the map for an hour before entering this warren, and still be cursing in a cul-de-sac within five minutes.

  Here and there a street ran almost entirely underground, with only an occasional round vent in the stone roof to let in light and air. Shafts of vivid sunlight pierced these holes and stabbed the gloom like searchlights. Where they struck the ground the roughly cobbled surface was revealed in all its filth. Thousands of shuffling feet had beaten the excrement of animals and the decayed remnants of green merchandise into a soft moist mat, which deadened sound. To the left and right, hollows had been carved out of the living rock to serve as shops. Inside, in incredible dimness, picturesque jewellers pored over their rings and silver filigree, greedy merchants fingered Damascus cloth, cobblers hammered with straining eyes. One street was monopolized by leather sellers; one dealt only in the tourist knick-knacks of the East; in one the way was cluttered up with heaps of oranges and lemons, and piles of uncovered fish, round which the flies buzzed unceasingly, and rings of caraway-covered bread.

  Several times Esther paused in doubt as some choice piece of drapery was thrust under her nose by a highly coloured Arab, whose name, she thought, should certainly have been Ali Baba. Each time, Garve took her arm and propelled her gently but firmly outside temptation’s reach, praying that she would show no further signs of temperament.

  “Another day,” he said. “We mustn’t stop.”

  Once, as she squeezed her way between a nosing mule and a peasant bent double under a sack of grain, a bearded old Arab squatting in the dusk of his shop called curses after them. Esther turned sharply, startled by the menace in the words, which she did not understand, but again Garve moved her on, not letting her mind dwell on the incident.

  “Jerusalem, as you see, has its own traffic problem,” he said, gently pushing a donkey’s head from her path, “but no motorists, thank heaven.”

  “It’s a wonderful place,” breathed Esther ecstatically. “I could spend hours and hours here. Look at that striking fellow with the rings on his hand. I think he was nodding to you. Do you know him?”

  “He was nodding to our guide,” said Garve quietly. “Saud had a word with him as he passed. A friendly salutation—I hope. If a row started here we’d be quite helpless.”

  “Panic-monger,” murmured Esther. “But it’s certainly the ideal spot for a rough-house. People of so many religions and nationalities must have riots pretty often.”

  “Not as often as you’d think. The city is divided up into religious areas—invisible boundaries keep Jew from Arab, and Christians from both. That’s why a guide is so useful, even if, like Saud there, he does nothing except walk on in front. He knows where we may go and where we mustn’t. Every sect has its forbidden places, and on your own you keep on meeting villainous-looking guards with raised hands and peremptory orders to return the way you came.”

  “I see. I thought Saud was taking his duties very lightly.”

  “I told him to go on ahead. He’s just near enough to act as a protection from other guides. If we were unescorted we should be assailed on all sides by offers of assistance. They become unpleasantly persistent, particularly when tourists are defenceless and ignorant of the city—and they can be dangerous, even in normal times. But they’re efficient when they want to be—they know their Holy Places as you know the multiplication table, though they treat them with no more respect than you would lavish on a slot machine at Brighton.”

  While Garve talked, his wary eyes were constantly turning from one side of the path to the other, catching and analyzing the glances of strangers, weighing the hostility of some against the apathy of others. Presently the way became less crowded, the street narrower, the light dimmer. There were no longer shops or shoppers, and an increasing silence closed the party in. Saud was still marching along in front, his bright red tarboosh perched at a rakish angle, taking no notice of his clients, except to indicate occasionally by a dignified gesture that they were to strike on in another direction along a path which, without him, they would hardly have noticed.

  “Two more turns, one right, one left, and we’ll be at the Wailing Wall,” said Garve. “It once formed part of the old temple, but it’s now the outside wall of the great Arab mosque—the one you wanted to see. There—you can just catch a glimpse of the dome across that courtyard. The orthodox Jews come and wail here for the departed glories of Israel. It’s a weird, wretched spectacle—the sight of them makes one ashamed of the human race.”

  “Do they really weep?” asked Esther.

  “They do that—salt tears that trickle down their cheeks. And they cry out like souls in torment. Sometimes you can see them kissing the stones and poking bits of prayers into the cracks while they chant an ancient ritual. You remember the rioting here in 1929? That was before my first visit, but, by all acounts, it was frightful. Since then there’s been a police box posted just before you get to the wall, in case of another outbreak, and during the day there’s always an officer on duty. He ought to be about somewhere. Look, you can just see the box now.”

  The wooden shelter stood in the shadows. Saud gave it a hurried glance as he passed, and, suddenly quickening his pace, disappeared round the corner. Garve frowned and was about to hurry along after him when something about the interior of the deser
ted box caught his eye. He stopped and looked more closely. When he glanced up his face was grave. He knew now why there was no sentry to be seen.

  “The policeman seems to have deserted his post …” began Esther.

  “Quiet!” Garve’s tone was peremptory. “There’s something wrong! See this.” Esther peered inside. The box was quite empty except for a light service overcoat hanging from a peg, a tattered Sunday newspaper, and a telephone. Garve was pointing to a foot of useless cable which hung from the instrument, and a gleam of copper where an Arab knife had severed the wire.

  Garve’s fingers tightened like a steel band on Esther’s arm. “Stay inside the box,” he said in an undertone. “Don’t move or make a sound. I won’t be a minute.” Flattening his body against the wall, he glided swiftly to the corner and peered round. His gun was ready in his right hand, but there was nothing to shoot at. He gazed steadily at the unpleasant scene, took a long, deep breath, and, with tightened lips, began slowly to creep back.

  A cold shiver ran down Esther’s spine as she watched him, for she knew he had bad news, and feared to hear it.

  “Is the policeman there?” she called in an anxious whisper.

  “He is,” said “Garve slowly, wiping from his forehead the drops of sweat which had suddenly gathered there. “Lying on his face against the wall with six inches of knife between his shoulder blades. He’s as dead as Methuselah.”

  Even as Garve debated the chances of their own safety, and the best way to secure it, he could not help admiring the manner in which Esther took the blow. Only a faint pallor and the quickness of her breathing betrayed the effort she was making not to seem afraid.