Damascus Gate

by Robert Stone

  "Dr. Ericksen suggested that I call on you," he said. "I'm researching religious movements in the city."

  "Dr. Ericksen isn't with us any longer," Darletta replied. "Whom did you say you represented?"

  "I'm working on a story for the New York Times Magazine." And in fact he had had a vague conversation with someone there a few months previously. "I also hope to do a book one day."

  "I want you to have a press kit," Dr. Otis Corey Butler said. "You'll find our story and especially the relevant biblical quotations. Some of this material is hot off the press, and you'll find fresh information about our projects that's never seen print before. I'm sure you'll find it a help. In fact," he added, "there's little left out."

  He was the kind of hustler, Lucas realized, who was used to having the hacks take his press kits and run with them, or even lift them whole. No doubt, Lucas thought, he imagined himself a literary man.

  "Do sit down, Chris," said Darletta, when he had stood thumbing through the pamphlets for a while.

  Lucas's eye fell on one project that involved the preservation of Aramaic as a spoken language. It appeared there were some villagers somewhere in the wastes of Iraq who still spoke it.

  "This is interesting," Lucas said. "Spoken Aramaic."

  "We've been subsidizing teachers to preserve it among the children," Darletta explained to him. "We were able to continue our efforts all through the Gulf War."

  "Aramaic," Dr. Otis Corey Butler told Lucas, "was the language spoken by Jesus Christ himself."

  "Yes," added Dr. Darletta, "the very words spoken by Our Lord were in that tongue."

  "Are you of Jewish heritage?" Dr. Otis Corey Butler asked Lucas. "Or otherwise?"

  "Jewish," Lucas said, "and also otherwise. Is the fund to preserve Aramaic well subscribed?"

  The couple looked at him blankly.

  "I mean," Lucas explained, "does it bring in a great many contributions?"

  "The project," Dr. Otis Corey Butler said, "supports itself." He had withdrawn a degree of affability from his voice.

  "And you solicit in church magazines?" Lucas asked. "And through the mail?"

  At the mention of the mail, the Drs. Butler looked distinctly alarmed.

  "Yes," said Darletta. "We do."

  "Deductible, is it?"

  "Certainly it's deductible," Dr. Otis Corey Butler said. "It's a religious charity. We've got to feed and clothe these Iraqi kids too. They live in great poverty."

  Lucas continued thumbing through the press kit. There was a great deal about the Mountain of God and the very stairs that Jesus himself climbed. An American astronaut had climbed them and declared himself more excited than when he had walked on the moon.

  Dr. Otis Corey Butler cleared his throat.

  "What did you mean," Dr. Darletta asked, "Jewish and otherwise?"

  Scanning the pamphlets, Lucas found one that referred to the remains of the Second Temple and, by extension, to the First, that of Solomon. There was a great deal about Qumran and something about language studies, but the central project of the H of G seemed to be a rebuilding of the Temple of Jerusalem on the Temple Mount. It had to do with the coming of the Messiah. Yet it would be possible to read the handout, Lucas thought, even do a sweet story using its inspirational diction, and not quite realize the notion at the core.

  "I mean my background is mixed," Lucas said. "Do I understand," he asked them, "that your organization proposes to rebuild Herod's Temple in the Haram?"

  "The Temple was the Lord's," Darletta said in a tone that might be insisting that he buckle his seatbelt before takeoff. "Not King Herod's."

  Where have I been? Lucas asked himself. The House of the Galilean had been sitting here with its color handouts and palatial villa, spades at the ready, years before he had come to town and he had paid it no attention. It was the very story for a man of his background, a wandering mischling and religion major.

  "I knew there was a Jewish project to rebuild the Temple," Lucas told the Butlers. "I've been to their place in the Old City. I didn't realize they had a Christian counterpart."

  In the Jewish Quarter, an American rabbi named Gold ran a sleek showroom where, for a fee, one could have a window, a wing or a menorah of the coming Temple named for one's Uncle Jack or Aunt Minnie. That a Christian equivalent existed, that this was the purpose of the House of the Galilean, was news to him. He would have to press Sylvia Chin a little harder, he thought. None of the clips on Willie Ludlum mentioned the House of the Galilean's development plans. Lucas decided to raise the awkward association and get it over with.

  "That New Zealand fellow," he said, "Ludlum. The one who torched the Haram. He'd been staying with you all, had he not?"

  Dr. Otis Corey Butler looked philosophical, Darletta somewhat pissed off.

  "Ludlum was a disturbed individual," Dr. O. C. Butler said. "His delusions were his own."

  "Do you think the government would let us stay here," Darletta asked, "if anyone thought we were responsible for attacks on holy places?"

  The answer presented itself to Lucas with startling and unwonted clarity: It would depend on which government. And on which holy places.

  "Ludlum was mad as a hatter," Dr. Otis Corey Butler said. "But when he came to us, we couldn't turn him out on the street."

  "Not that you'd have known it at first," Darletta said resentfully. "He was quiet. Wrote in his journal. Called everyone sir and madam."

  "When he seemed alienated, we communicated with the N.Z. embassy," said Otis Butler. "But he didn't have a family back home. He hadn't broken the law. Finally a kibbutz took him in, one catering to Christians."

  "Look," Lucas said, "let me be sort of a devil's advocate. Destroying the mosques would make it possible for the Temple to be rebuilt. Doesn't it look as though Ludlum took what he heard here and carried it one step too far? Or," Lucas suggested, "a little prematurely. Of course, there are also a number of Jewish extremists who've called for the destruction of the mosques."

  "Mr. Lucas, Mr. Lucas," Otis Butler declared, "as I'm sure you know, every great Judeo-Christian doctrine has been perverted by negative forces. Satan tempted Christ himself."

  "I suppose," said Lucas.

  "We and Rabbi Gold are aware of each other. We both oppose extremists. We join in renewal projects. We reject confrontation. In our brochure you'll see a statement by Rabbi Gold making plain that Christians will be able to contribute to the rebuilding of the Temple and that they will be able to offer sacrifices there. The Court of the Gentiles will be restored. Only the Jewish priesthood may enter the sanctuary. We accept this absolutely. Only the wicked and idolators will be forbidden to approach God's house."

  "What about the mosques?" Lucas asked. "What happens to them? And what about the Jews? Aren't they supposed to be converted at the end?"

  "Apples and oranges," Darletta Butler told him.

  "You're mixing apples and oranges, Mr. Lucas," said Otis Butler. "Our Christian policy toward the renewal of Israel at the End of Days is determined by Scripture. It's in Romans 3:9 and Romans 9:3. In Galatians 10:4, 5, 6 and 7. In Daniel and Ezekiel and Jeremiah..."

  Lucas looked from Otis to Darletta.

  "And in Hebrews 8:12, 13, 14 and 21," she said, with the smile she might once have employed to demonstrate an inflatable life vest. "Also in Jude, Thessalonians and Timothy."

  "We enter the last days," Dr. Otis Corey Butler said softly. "We enter in faith. We don't know what the end will be like. Now, some people worry that their relatives and friends will be on a freeway when the Rapture comes. They picture trucks flying through the air. We've been in the Holy Land long enough not to be literalist. Only the Lord knows what plans He's made to provide for his Muslim children and their houses of worship. Only He knows how He will resolve His everlasting covenant with Israel. All the righteous will share. Our weapons are spiritual. Our means are patience, brotherhood and prayer. We aspire to light the way for the Light of the World."

  "I see," Lucas said. He was
impressed and even a bit jealous. The Butlers made him feel credulous and naive, as though if he were only a little more intelligent and energetic, he might find a place in their schemes. They had the humor and detachment to make a good living from things he somehow could not keep from taking seriously.

  "Doesn't it say somewhere a third of mankind will be killed?" he asked.

  "It predicts terrible tribulations," Dr. Otis Corey Butler said contentedly. "And soon."

  His wife smiled. Lucas wondered what she could be thinking.

  From the House of the Galilean he went over to the Human Rights Coalition office to see Ernest Gross. Linda Ericksen was at the copying machine, looking pale and shaky.

  "Everything all right?"

  "Oh," she said, "we had a bunch of self-righteous creeps showing us horror movies."

  Ernest had just had an information-exchanging session with a delegation from the International Council of Churches on the subject of Abu Baraka and the killings in Gaza, as recorded by the UN, the NGOs and Ernest's own organization. The session had left him out of sorts too.

  "They come here to hone their Christian self-esteem," Ernest told Lucas, taking him to the inner office. "Jews are bastards, that's all they want to know. They look at me like: why haven't I turned to Jesus?"

  "Think they go to Yad Vashem?"

  "Who cares?" Ernest said. "I don't want them there."

  "You know," Lucas observed, "there's such a thing as burnout. Especially in your business. Maybe you should take a break."

  "Thanks."

  Lucas reflected on the fact that he himself had not made the short trip to the Holocaust memorial of Yad Vashem. There were many reasons that he had not gone yet, but they could not be compacted into an explanation.

  Several days earlier, Ernest had acquired a video of some uniformed Israelis in Jabalia shooting a Palestinian up the rectum and had duly run it for the Christian philanthropists.

  "Want to see it?" he asked Lucas.

  "I suppose I should."

  The video's effect was odd. One moment everyone—the policemen and the man about to be shot—seemed engaged in good-natured, if somewhat physical, hijinks. Rolling on the ground, actually laughing, or appearing to. The man's expression might have been a grimace or a desperate attempt at conventionalization. Everyone was fully clothed.

  Then a sudden convulsion, and the Palestinian turned deathly pale, his teeth set in a rictus. The shot appeared to kill him instantly, a mercy for which Lucas was grateful. He had watched with dread but the thing was over in seconds, before the event it recorded could be properly absorbed.

  "Dumb of them to get taped," Lucas said when it was over. "Who took it?"

  "I can't tell you that. But they brought it to us."

  "And you know that's Abu's merry band?"

  "That's what they called themselves for the Palestinians. They're looking for a reputation." He put the recorder on rewind. "It's being bootlegged around town. The Spanish or the Italians may run it on their news. The police won't comment. Unofficially they say it must be an accident, that they were threatening the bloke and it went wrong. Our police sources say it's Abu all right."

  "Too bad you don't have the shooter's face on the tape," Lucas said. "Of course, it could have been an accident."

  "Oh, the guy they shot probably did it to somebody else," Ernest said. "An informer. On the other hand, maybe he simply bears some unfortunate resemblance to some other fucking Arab. I mean, where does it stop?"

  Some time before, under the last government, after a particularly bloody day for the population of the Gaza Strip, Lucas had found occasion to quote the late Golda Meir to Ernest. Mrs. Meir had said that she could forgive the Arabs anything except making the Israelis cruel and brutal, as the Arabs themselves presumably were. It had once been a much-cited quotation.

  "That statement," Ernest had informed him, "marks the lowest point in the moral history of Zionism."

  Until then, Lucas had always thought of Meir's reflection as thoughtful and sympathetic. It was not every day he learned something. Later, an Israeli journalist had referred to the Meir statement as "moral kitsch" and it was rarely heard thereafter. If there were still tzaddiks, men raised to judgment, Lucas thought, Ernest seemed to be one, as Zimmer had said.

  "That killing was done in broad daylight, and the men were in uniform. They're getting bolder. They're trying to touch something off." He looked over at Lucas. "Going to write it?"

  "I had something else in mind. Religion."

  Ernest looked at him as if he had lost his mind. "You're such a man of leisure. Other reporters work for a living."

  "I have a real story to go with. A nonviolent story. I'll leave the Strip to Nuala."

  "She should watch it," Ernest said. "She's reckless."

  "Really," Linda Ericksen said. She agreed without turning from the copier.

  18

  ADAM DE KUFF woke to the radiance of the newly risen moon. Going to the window, he saw its light silvering the battlements of the Haram. The lambent Dome of the Rock reflected a shimmering vault of sky. The scattered light bore fragrance—jasmine, roses.

  "He wraps himself in light as in a garment," recited De Kuff.

  In the interstices of different orders of dreams, De Kuff had seen the lions guarding the Name. Instead of fear, he had experienced exaltation. And now, this night, the splendor of the sky.

  His room had been Berger's. On a littered dresser stood an oil lamp. A tarnished mirror with a cracking wooden frame was propped against the wall beside it, and De Kuff's first impulse, when he had lit the lamp, was to inspect his own face in the glass. Inspired though he was, he hardly dared. He realized from the beating of his heart how it must appear, how it would shine.

  He lit the lamp all the same, avoiding his direct reflection. Around the mirror were artifacts and externals of his quotidian life. There were the appropriately flesh-colored lithium carbonate tablets from an elegantly antique drugstore on Madison Avenue, years old and perhaps literally poisonous now. His journal, in a child's dappled black and white copybook, bought in the same shop as the prescription, from the same smiling clerk. And what he ironically called his sacramentals: kippa, tallit, tefillin.

  He had inherited Berger's prayer beads. Beside them lay a band of saffron-colored cotton cloth from a temple in Sri Lanka, and incense sticks and, wrapped in a silk cloth, a crucifixion icon in imitation of the one by Dionysius the Monk at the Ferapont Monastery in Russia. He removed the cloth from the crucifix, avoiding the sight of the suffering Logos depicted there as he avoided his own eyes in the glass. Taking his tefillin, he bound them in the manner of the ancient minim, the accursed Gnostics and Nazarenes. In a dream he had seen how it was done, the wearing condemned in the Mishnah as minnut, a secret sign of Yeshu as high priest and Messiah.

  In the mirror, at the edge of vision, he could see his bustling rhythms reflected, so much impatient writhing. After prayer, he allowed himself to face the mask of flesh there. The glow was mainly of blood, but it was his eyes and not the lamp that lit the room.

  And outside, the night!

  No prayer or meditation could contain him. He sat wide-eyed, knuckles against his lips. The worst thing about the exhilaration, he had long ago decided, was its loneliness. Once his notebooks had given him an illusion like companionship. No more, after so much suffering.

  He dressed haphazardly, his heart swelling. Ecstasy. For a moment he stood outside Raziel's door, wondering if the young man was asleep. They had not exchanged a word for days. But De Kuff's desire was toward the streets.

  He jogged over the cobblestones, pulling on his expensive tweed jacket on the run. His face was upturned. Intersecting lines of glowing sky met among the close crowding rooftops. Innumerable stars. He ran across a small courtyard. Luminescence spread overhead. Sheer space was divine, an emanation. Isaac Newton had believed it.

  From the shadows at the end of the courtyard, a ragged, angry voice called after him in Arabic. The single vo
ice raised others. Street dogs yapped. Here and there the alleys of the city trapped a smell of hashish.

  At a turn in the Tariq al-Wad, he saw the lights of the Border Police post and heard military Hebrew crackling from the post's radio. Under an arcade, two men were sliding open the corrugated shutters of their stall. A young man with Down's syndrome, wearing a white religious cap and standing in the light of a bare bulb, screamed at him and gestured with a broom.

  The sky was still blue-black and star-scattered when he approached the Lions' Gate. The morning's first taxis waited there and a half-dozen International Harvester buses, their huge noxious engines running. Palestinian companies operated the buses between West Bank towns and the city they called Al-Kuds, The Holy. De Kuff hung back in the shadows, a few hundred feet from the well of noise and light at the gate.

  For the first time since coming to Jerusalem, he had a sense of the Spirit of God close by. The Temple's Holy of Holies had been inside the Haram. He felt himself drawing strength from its otherness and fearfulness. He felt newly elected, called from the depths of that starry night toward Mount Moriah.

  From the arching shadows, he watched faint lights burning in the Franciscan Monastery of the Flagellation down the street. The lights made him imagine chanted plainsong. After a few moments he was sure he actually heard it, the " Regina Coeli" of Franciscan Matins: " Ave Maria virgine sanctissima."

  With its imagined cadence in his ears, he walked to the gate that enclosed the plaza of the Bethesda Pool and the Church of St. Anne. The sky above the Mount of Olives began to glow.

  In the quickening light De Kuff saw a row of reclining bodies against the wall of the seminary across the cloister. They were young people, and most appeared to be foreigners. Some of them looked ragged and impoverished; others appeared to be prosperous tourists. They must be an overflow, he thought, from the night services at the Holy Sepulchre and the nearby hostels. Some were asleep, some stared at the sky, a few watched him.

  He walked across the stone square in front of the locked church to the edge of the dry ruins that had been the Bethesda Pool. As light gathered over the Mount of Olives, De Kuff felt that he could hear the sunrise, its rhythms and subtleties, the mingling of elements it contained. He thought he might be experiencing the sefirot, the divine emanations. Sweat poured from his body. In spite of his confusion he felt grateful.