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I awoke full of energy, ready to see the city in daylight. I would be on my own while we were in Jerusalem. Lawrence and the other gentlemen were busy with matters of state, of course, and Clementine gracefully made it understood that she had no interest in accompanying me on my explorations. Mumma might have taken this as a snub but truth be told, it was fine with me. After nearly two weeks of continuous company, no matter how beloved or remarkable, it would be nice to have a few days when I answered only to my personal desires for rest or meals or walks.
“Don’t bother hiring a guide,” Lawrence advised at breakfast. “Since the war ended, Jerusalem has filled up with American and English tourists,” he added, which was just what Karl had said about Cairo. “You’ll overhear as much as you can bear.”
And I had, in fact, brought along my own guide: my sister Lillian’s spirit. Before I left my room, I’d reread several of her honeymoon letters, telling of her walk along the zigzag path of the Via Dolorosa to the Holy Sepulchre. Here, in Jerusalem, my sister’s faith had been strengthened and confirmed as she and Douglas—newlywed and much in love—retraced the Savior’s path. I meant to follow in Lillie’s footsteps as she had followed those of Jesus. In so doing, I hoped to find a ford through the river of carping questions that lay between my sin of pride and my sister’s shadowless belief.
I’ve told you so much, so I shall confess to you as well that when I was still teaching and lived in Little Italy among my Catholic students, I often envied them their Roman rituals. Conducted as they were in a dead language, such ceremonies could invite a mood of awe while concealing the logical fault lines and scriptural inconsistencies that blared out at me when worshipping in English. Perhaps if Latin chants had crowded out my questions, I’d have found it easier to move away from the mundane and toward the glory of God’s presence. Yet Lillian sat at my side during the services we attended, and she was never troubled by the sermons that made me want to argue. Even as a child, she could always quote a bit of Scripture to settle any question I had. As a grown woman, intelligent and knowledgeable, she devoted her life to the Gospel. Lillian had no need of Latin obfuscation to shelter her from doubt.
As the sun rose, I stood at the gate beneath the kaiser’s eagle, wearing my navy sport suit and my sturdiest shoes. Bethany was close by, a village on the southeastern slope of Olivet. There, Jesus visited his friends Mary and Martha, and raised their brother Lazarus from the dead, and cured Simon the Leper, but I would explore the town on another day. My destination that first morning was the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, which everyone agreed should be seen in eastern light.
There was, however, an additional consideration dictating an early start. You see, the shrine itself was held in joint tenancy by Greek Orthodox, Roman Catholic, Armenian, and Coptic Christians, but the influence of the Prince of Peace had proved insufficient to facilitate development of an orderly schedule. Between ten a.m. and three p.m. each day, clergy of each sect vied to make their processions to all the holy places within its confines. These events sometimes overlapped acrimoniously. Over the centuries, civil authorities had found it necessary to post guards there to referee the fistfights. I’d already experienced as many riots as I cared to attend, thanks all the same, and meant to get to the church by eight.
There are three ways down the Mount of Olives. I chose the most direct—a natural continuation of the Jericho Road and an easy two-mile walk downhill to the city. This was said to be the very path upon which our Lord traveled during his triumphal entry into Jerusalem on Palm Sunday, and it was easy to picture the two vast crowds of people on that morning nearly nineteen hundred years earlier. One had streamed out of the city to meet Him, moving upward with shouts of “Hosa
When Jesus traveled this path, the people carpeted His way with rush mats and palm branches; the road I strode was broad, well paved, and suitable for automobiles. For a short stretch, it descended into a slight declivity and all vistas were lost. I leaned into the hill, climbed to reach a smooth ledge, attained it, and then—Jerusalem! The whole city burst into view, its yellow limestone gleaming in the dawn. Sunday school dioramas and pious paintings made its most prominent features familiar. The Tower of Hippicus, the onion domes of Saint Mary Magdalene, the Mosque of Omar, the crenellated walls, the great city gates …
I know I should have wept to see it, or thought of some sublime psalm, but really? “It’s so small!” I blurted, then looked around to see if anyone had heard me.
No one was nearby, but no one would have been surprised, for mine was hardly a novel reaction. Even Lillian, I recalled, had felt a bit disappointed upon her first sight of the Holy City. “Its size is much less than the importance our imaginations have bestowed upon it,” she wrote. “The entire city would fit comfortably within the municipal limits of a small Ohio town.”
Seen from the Mount of Olives, Jerusalem appeared to have no streets at all. Rather, it seemed a compact mass, nearly solid from center to edge. On more careful inspection, thin lines of shadow delineated individual buildings, every one of which was topped with as many as six circular stone knobs, low and broad and painted white. Add the famous and impressive domes, as well as those of less prominent mosques and churches, and the overall effect was that of an enormous mushroom colony.
Of course, there is a difference between a tourist and a pilgrim: one comes to see the sights, the other comes to visit sites. A tourist takes in the Grand Canyon, the Eiffel Tower, Niagara Falls. Nothing particularly important happened in those places; the wonderment is visual. Pilgrims travel to Jerusalem because they wish to stand in the very place where the Deity stayed Father Abraham’s hand from his sacrifice of Isaac; where Kings David and Solomon ruled; where the Savior walked and died and rose; whence the Prophet rode his mighty steed to heaven. I had come here as a pilgrim, not a tourist, so I shook off my dismay and walked with renewed fervor toward Saint Stephen’s Gate, joining the morning throngs that converged on every passage into the city.
Before we could pass within the walls, we were greeted by the usual beggars crying, “Baksheesh!” As Lillie wrote in 1906, “Mille
In my day, the disease frequently attacked the throat and caused the woeful creatures to make a peculiar sound of heartrending sadness. “Baksheesh,” the lepers wailed, as did all the beggars, but more eerily, more hopelessly. “Baksheesh … Baksheesh …”
I had come to hate the relentless importuning—almost as much as I hated my own revulsion at the sight of ragged children and elderly cripples holding out their hands. Baksheesh is the alpha and omega of travel in the Middle East, the first word one hears upon stepping onto any public street and the last heard as one takes shelter inside a hotel or a shop or café. How to deal with beggars was a lively topic of concern among foreigners. Lillian always carried coins with her and handed them out with the words “The Lord Jesus loves you, dear.” Karl considered baksheesh corrosive to society and deplored the way parents sent their most pitiable offspring out to beg. Even so, he often gave open-handedly. When I asked why, he said, “The sages teach us, ‘Rather than turn away the one who is truly deserving, give to ninety-nine who are unworthy.’ ”