Damascus Gate

by Robert Stone

  "You believe," Raziel said to Sonia on the stage. "I hear your faith."

  "Yes," Sonia said.

  "The power at work here is like music," he told her. "It transcends ordinary reality the way music does. Whatever happens, Sonia, keep singing. And you'll sing us through the Redemption. You'll sing us into the world to come."

  "Songs," she said. "It's all I know."

  Lucas came up to her.

  "Why won't you take my calls?" he demanded. "Will you just never speak to me?"

  "She will now," Raziel said.

  Lucas ignored him.

  "I've got to talk to you," he said to Sonia. "Anywhere you say. Anytime."

  "Yes, all right," she said. "I'm sorry I didn't get back to you. I'm so confused."

  "It's all right," Lucas said. "I'll call you tomorrow, out here. Will you see me?"

  She put a hand on his elbow and took it away quickly. "Sure I will."

  "That's all I ask."

  Some policemen were overseeing the clearing of the garden. Looking for Obermann, Lucas encountered Sylvia Chin from the American consulate. She was in black, wearing a jade amulet whose patterns suggested sacred geometry, and she looked very sleek and fey. There was a tall graying man, apparently European, with her.

  "Hey, how was Cyprus?" she asked.

  "Crummy."

  "The conference."

  "Edifying like you wouldn't believe."

  "How about tonight?" Sylvia asked. "Pretty edifying too, huh? Smell the patchouli? See all the kids on Ex?"

  "I didn't notice anyone stoned. You mean the kids who were heckling?"

  "Of course not, silly. The kids who were heckling say their prayers every morning. The kids up front. Like in the mosh pit. Crying and carrying on."

  "I didn't notice."

  "I saw the Mr. Marshalls with De Kuff. Both of them."

  "Who are they?"

  "Well, one Mr. Marshall is a crook from New York we're trying to extradite. A hustler in shmattes. The other Mr. Marshall is his son. They've become De Kuffites."

  "I guess they're going to plead insanity," Lucas said. "And they're looking for an alibi."

  "Could be," she said. "The old guy lost all his money at the track. So they made him factor his payments. People ended up paying him and the factor. So everybody went to the D.A. Like millions." Then she was gone.

  "What do you think?" Obermann asked Lucas as they left. "Feel a blessing?"

  "He's going all the way, isn't he?"

  "He seems to be going all the way. Gnosticism. Syncretism."

  "What's next?"

  "I think," Obermann said, "I think I know what's next."

  "What?"

  "Let's wait," the doctor said, "and see if I'm right."

  "There's nowhere for this to go," Lucas said. "It has to crash, doesn't it? And it's dangerous. Here in Israel, of all places."

  "Here," Obermann said, "these are not abstract or academic matters. So it's dangerous. And also dangerous to the self. These people are only people. They can be swept away."

  "But if the end was coming," Lucas said, "someone would have to approach the fire."

  "You sound like one of them," Obermann said. "Maybe you should let yourself go. I see you and Sonia are speaking again."

  "I don't have any choice," Lucas said. "Not at the moment. I can't leave her to this. I mean, where she is now."

  "Send her to me," Obermann said.

  "I don't think so."

  "Tell her," the doctor said, "in all the stories lies a warning not to draw near. Kundalini destroys. Actaeon is torn to pieces. Uzzah is killed by the ark. Remember it yourself."

  "I don't need a warning," Lucas said.

  "Maybe not. But try not to lose your mind. We have a book to write."

  "I'll try."

  "We have a stake," Obermann said. "And I don't trust the devious Raziel. I don't want to see some wretches like Otis and Darletta put them on the road and steal the old man's money."

  35

  UNDERSTAND," Sonia told him the next day, "you have to make a choice. And I don't think you're capable of choosing me."

  "You're just parroting what these people tell you to say."

  "I was your lady if you wanted me. It didn't happen because it couldn't. Not with you despising what I believe."

  "I don't despise what you believe," Lucas said. "I'm really attracted to it in a way. And I certainly don't despise you."

  "Well, I think you do. Raziel says it's what came between us. It always will."

  "Do you have to tell that asshole everything that happens in your life?"

  "He's my guide."

  "Your guide! For God's sake! He's a junkie manipulator. He can't have sex because he's on drugs. And he doesn't want you having any."

  "He's quit drugs, Chris. And—I'm sorry to say this—I didn't see you setting any fires the other night. And I think Raziel is right about the reason. It's because you refuse to open yourself."

  "Thanks for being sorry to say it," Lucas said.

  That night, she consented to go with him to a concert at Mish-kenot, the outdoor arena overlooking the illuminated walls of the Old City.

  A quartet of Russian immigrants finished their set with Shostakovich's String Quartet in D Major, the one he had written after seeing Dresden and dedicated publicly to the victims of war and fascism and, in addition, privately, to the victims of the regime he pretended to celebrate. The Russians were four women of stern aspect; the first violinist had a tragic homeliness and a style that was almost sacerdotal in its decorous passion. Lucas thought both she and her playing inexpressibly beautiful. Yad Vashem, the Gulag, Gaza, exile, cruelty, compassion. Sometimes her eyes were closed as she played, at other times open in witness to some great sadness. To hear her, Lucas thought secretly, was to be close to the Shekhinah.

  "You can't hear that," Sonia said, "and not believe that God moves through his people. And through his people he touches history."

  "Yes you can," Lucas said. "Of course, it's nicer to believe."

  "Oh, Chris," she said. "What does it take for you?"

  "Art is not supernatural. It's not religion. It's not even real life. It's just beautiful."

  He drove her back to Ein Kerem. When she got out of the car, she stood beside it for a moment.

  "I could make you happy, if you let me," she said.

  "I believe you, Sonia. Being with you makes me happy."

  It was not quite what he had meant to say, and it was not quite the truth. She was the object of his desire and his loneliness.

  "Our souls have the same root. Over the years we keep doing this. But until you believe and understand, you'll be miserable. The way you are now."

  "Maybe you're right," Lucas said.

  He drove back to the garage he had rented off Jaffa Road. His apartment seemed especially ugly and cold; he sorely missed Tsililla's place in the German Colony with its adjoining arbors and gardens. He stood at the window and watched the empty streets of downtown Jerusalem through the rain that had begun to fall.

  The next day was pleasant enough for the Atara to put tables outside. But Obermann kept to his usual table, inside, next to the espresso machines.

  "I'm going to write something about Herzog," Lucas told his collaborator.

  "He's not really a victim of the Syndrome," Obermann said. "But he's an interesting case."

  "An interesting man," Lucas said.

  "You identify with him?"

  "I don't claim the status of a Holocaust survivor," Lucas said. "I don't know if 'identify' is the right word. There's something about him waiting by the cross for his parents. Waiting where they left him."

  "Yes, I see."

  "Something short," Lucas said. "Because he came here searching. Out of a loyalty that's rejected."

  "Despised and rejected," said Obermann. "Good idea. Do it." He looked at Lucas critically over his Turkish coffee. "You don't look well. Are you all right?"

  "Yes, I think so," Lucas said. After a mo
ment he said, "I went to a concert with Sonia last night."

  "Good," said Obermann. "At least they're not cutting her off from the outside world. As yet."

  "I won't let them."

  "My dear fellow," Obermann said, "they'll give her the wood and the nails and she'll build her own prison. Too bad you're personally involved. But believe me, I understand your situation."

  "Because of Linda?" Lucas shook his head. "Funny, I have trouble thinking of you as a pining lover."

  "You think because I'm a doctor I'm without emotion?"

  "Sorry," Lucas said. "Also, if you'll excuse my saying so, I don't care for Linda Ericksen very much. I find it hard to imagine getting emotional about her."

  "She's a popsy," Obermann said. "A little American popsy. But one can grow fond of a popsy." He stirred the sugar cubes in his coal-black coffee. "And I wonder what she talks about with Zimmer. I wonder a great deal about Zimmer. By the way," he asked Lucas, "has Sonia said anything to you about the Ebionites? Or the Clementine Recognitions? Do you know about them?"

  "I've heard of them somewhere. A long time ago. In school, I guess. Sonia hasn't mentioned them."

  "No? Hasn't she told you that you and she were Ebionites in another life?"

  "She did say our souls had the same root. And she claims to know my tikkun."

  "The Ebionites are an obsession of Raziel's. Soon, if I'm not mistaken, you'll hear about them from Sonia."

  "That's a depressing thought."

  "The Ebionites," Obermann said, "were Hebrew Christians—I mean ancient ones, from the days of the Jewish church, the church of James. The Recognitions were part of their scriptures. Raziel believes De Kuff and Sonia carry the souls of Ebionites. He seems to believe it about you too. He believes the Messiah will come from that root. That's why he's fixated on De Kuff. At least that's my opinion."

  "Do you really think she's so under Raziel's influence?"

  "I'm afraid so. At the moment. But I think she likes you. After all, she's telling you you share a soul with her."

  "Any time," Lucas said.

  In the afternoon, he drove out to the Hebrew University library to see what he could find about Ebionites and Clementine literature. Every word they had, as far as he could determine from the catalog, was in German. There was a single monograph in English, a summary that presented Christ as a Jewish Gnostic aeon who had appeared to Adam as a snake, and then to Moses. Jesus' soul was destined for subsequent appearances until finally, at the End of Days, he would return, inhabiting a different personality, as the Messiah.

  Tracking the concept of Jewish Christians, Lucas discovered that Walter Benjamin had written on Pico della Mirandola's mystical derivation of the Trinity from bereshit, the opening word of Genesis. It gave him a strange sensation to see the reference: Benjamin had been a mentor of his father's, someone he associated with the old man's circle.

  When evening came, he wandered again into the Old City. There was a crowd of foreigners around the doors of the Anglican hostel and the Christian Information Service. Urchins emerged from the shadows to pester them with false information and misdirections. The blind beggar called Mansour moved among them, seizing foreigners by the lapels, demanding baksheesh. Mansour was a legend in the city. He had been blinded with an awl, it was said, by a crazed American girl he had accosted. Many Palestinians believed that the girl had been a setup, her act a brutal lesson meant to undermine Palestinian male confidence, and that she had been repatriated unpunished by the Israeli government. In the souk, Lucas found his Palestinian acquaintance Charles Habib behind the counter of his café.

  "No beer," he told Lucas at once.

  "No beer?"

  "No beer. Respect for the martyrs."

  "I see," Lucas said. "But you stayed. So let me have a Turkish coffee."

  "Arab coffee," Charles reminded him. "How's your writing? You do Woody Allen or the majnoon?"

  "Majnoon."

  "Good," said Charles. "Did I tell you I got my niece coming over from Watertown, Massachusetts? She can teach me the American modes. My job will be to keep her out of trouble."

  "Why's she coming over?"

  "My sister wants her to see the situation. I told them, forget it. Better she knows nothing about it."

  In a back mirror Lucas caught a fleeting glance of a young blond woman. He could have sworn it was the same woman he had seen in Haifa, at Jonas Herzog's Benedictine monastery. He turned and saw her from behind, her exposed fair hair unmistakable among the evening crowds. She seemed headed up the little loop in the Via Dolorosa that led to the square in front of the Holy Sepulchre. A moment later he thought he saw Sonia too, thought he recognized her shawl and the indent of her cheek.

  "I have to go," he told Charles abruptly.

  He stood up and went out after the illusions he had glimpsed. They were nowhere to be seen among the swarm outside the church. Searching that crowd, he suspected that both the young woman penitent from Haifa and Sonia had been creatures of his imagination. He found himself going into the church with all the tourists.

  A young man in a black suit and matching tie immediately approached him.

  "Will you be with us for the vigil?" He sounded like a midwesterner, or possibly Canadian.

  He looked over the young man's shoulder for Sonia or the other woman. They had vanished in the shadows and intersecting planes of the church. Incense wafted, candles flickered. The place never ceased its effort to beguile the tenth-century mind.

  "Maybe," Lucas said.

  "You'll have to be here from nine on."

  "Right," said Lucas, and went past him. In the unlikely event that Sonia had chosen to pass a vigil in the Holy Sepulchre, he had the feeling that she would make her way to the roof, where the Ethiopians had their chapel. But when he climbed the stairs that led to the rooftop monasteries, he found the door at the top bolted shut.

  He had not been in the Holy Sepulchre since Easter, the day of the majnoon. The dimness was filled with foreign pilgrims, and he supposed the image of the blonde from Haifa had been a projection of their presence in the city. Or a portent, he thought. The angel of loneliness, calling him to a vanished home. Some strange reversal. And he had seen Sonia there simply for wanting to see her.

  The pilgrims wandered, bewildered, drowning in the gloom, awash in the wake of the awesome events they struggled to believe in. Lucas lost track of time. When he went toward the door, the young man who had addressed him coming in barred his way out.

  "I'm afraid it's locked."

  "What?"

  "It's locked. For our vigil."

  Lucas looked at him blankly.

  "It stays locked until four," the man told him. A sickly grin broke out across his thin, ungenerous features. "We don't have the key, you know."

  To his horror, Lucas realized he had arrived on one of the nights designated for nocturnal vigil, during which groups undertook to remain in the church through the hours of the night. It was true that no one in the church had the key. Each night it was taken away by one of two designated Muslim families of the city, who kept it until dawn. Neither fire nor flood would let them out. He was immured.

  "Jesus Christ," Lucas said. "Shit!"

  The young man stepped back in horror and loathing. A wave of invisible indignation reverberated through the half-darkness.

  "You can try to find a sexton, I suppose," the young man said with an air of Christian submission.

  Lucas went off in search of authority. There were only bewildered tourists and dank chambers where candles guttered. It was like trying to find his way back from the hereafter.

  Eventually Lucas happened on a group of kneeling Palestinians in work clothes, surrounded by a welter of mechanical equipment. There was a huge, dirty gray tube that looked like the creation of Hollywood sci-fi, a giant maggot from space. Near it lay some blowers and metal joints. But the Arabs were so rapt in prayer that Lucas was reluctant to disturb them. He sat down on a corner step near the crypt of Saint Helena and conf
ronted his awful situation. Near the Chapel of the Franks, the pilgrims were gathering for prayer. They began to chant in cut-rate plainsong, their nasal, New Agey monotone informed by a dreadful gusto that sounded as though they might still be going strong at dawn.

  Lucas remembered the majnoon. If he went well and truly berserk, it occurred to him, if he leapt and shouted and screeched, they might be terrorized into releasing him. On the other hand, he thought, glancing around, he was probably under the jurisdiction of the ecclesiastical authority of the Six Christianities rather than that of the State of Israel, at least until dawn. Misbehavior might subject him to ghastly admonitions or severe antique confinements. Chains. The rack.

  Jesus Christ. Shit.

  The Christians chanted lustily. Then, all at once, a sound like no other he had ever heard exploded in the place. It was like a sour note from a transcendental off-key calliope, as if all the reprobate jackhammers of hell were gearing up to vaporize the universe.

  The wailing echoes were magnified beyond imagination by the cavernous hollows of the church, transformed into a cacophonous lament for history, or perhaps a very loud twelve-tone Mass, an apology of some sort for the crimes and follies of religion.

  Lucas got to his feet. He was aware of the Christians calling out in protest, but he could not hear their voices for the great sacred noise.

  The Palestinian workmen who had been praying before the Catholicon were gone with their equipment. Approaching the Chapel of the Franks, he saw the heart of the matter under dispute. The Orthodox patriarch of the church had chosen this night to launder his stone property—let vigils and mouthings of schismatics be damned. The proprietors of the vigil, priestly-looking foreigners in lay clothes, were remonstrating with the work crew. From the beatific smiles of the Arabs, who kept the steam coming, it was apparent the remonstrances were in vain.

  The young man who had been at the door saw Lucas and shouted at him.

  "Can you believe it? They're steam cleaning it! Tonight of all nights!"

  It was very hard for the two men to hear each other, so they had to strain.

  "Maybe," Lucas suggested at the top of his voice, "maybe they're getting ready to sell it!"