I left the Old City of Jerusalem and wandered the hills for the rest of the afternoon. Despite the fervor, you could find peace here, alone in the dirt. There was no wind. I stared out over the countryside and felt a welcoming embrace of heat and epochs.
Even with all of time sewn into Self's soul I found that he was hurrying ahead of me.
Self gazed about the rocky spur of the Judaean hills and laughed, listening to the mania of the land. As expected, all of Jerusalem, full of hostility and passion, echoed his wild happiness.
He was home.
Goddamn, it's good to be back.
I stared down at the city knowing that I should have come here a decade earlier with Danielle, back when my studies might have led to something with purpose and significance. Perhaps even discovery and revelation, at a time when I could have reveled in my belief.
Jerusalem, known in Hebrew as Yerushalayim, and in Arabic as Al Quds, was the center of worldwide credence and certainty. The reverend in Perdido, Alabama, owed his yellow pine altar to this far-off expanse of sand.
I spotted tufts of sallow, a willowlike shrub that supposedly has wept since the Jews' captivity in Babylon. Perhaps it was true. Nature not only reflects God, but history. Each moment is rooted in antiquity. The dead past never recedes, and remains as close now as ever. I had warded off Oimelc, the Feast of Lights sabbat, only to face Lent in the place where Christ had been born, preached, died, and altered the rest of humanity.
Stop it, Self hissed.
What?
Running through it again changes nothing. I'm sick of hearing it. He held his hands over his ears as if I were shrieking into his face. The more sentimental and pensive I grew, the more he leaped around. Quit it! Can't we just have some fun for once?
It would be nice, I said.
Stop it then. Come on, these Israeli army chicks are firm, and they got handcuffs!
He watched the girls walking on the roads and whistled after them. He sighed and dreamed of bruised wrists, lapping at torn veins, and stroking dimpled kneecaps. My stomach tightened and my groin flooded with heat, and I went over sideways in the dust grabbing my guts. He grinned at me, the red sunset washing over his teeth so that it looked as if he had a mouth brimming with blood.
It wasn't his provocation but mine. It had the old familiar feeling. Temptation in the desert was not unknown.
Into this land came a man named Yashua, a stoneworker-not a carpenter-who traveled from a small village to work in the cosmopolitan city of Galilee, during the time of the first zealots. There he learned of the rebellion against the tyranny of Rome, and grew aware of himself within a political tinderbox. He learned at the knee of a man who ate locusts and wild honey and dressed in camel's hair clothes. He returned home to Nazareth and was rejected by his own people, and was forced to start a new and active community with his own disciples.
Just as Jebediah had done.
Is he here yet? I asked.
You know, the fur-lined leather cuffs are just as nice. Twin straps.
It got like this on occasion, when he glided among my weaknesses and took advantage. Is he here?
Yes.
Why hasn't he made his play yet?
Who's to say he hasn't? His grin grew wider. In the coming darkness his mouth was no longer crimson but now hung open filled with moonlit fangs. Why haven't you made yours?
What the hell does that mean?
His smile dropped like a plum stone, and he frowned at me. You're asking the wrong questions.
You deliberately being contrary?
Who, me?
The desert began to grow cold. I stood and headed down the hill. The coastal plain to the west led thirty-five miles to the Mediterranean, and to the east you could see the salt banks of the Dead Sea.
The New City portion of Jerusalem was quite modern, but due to a municipal ordinance all buildings were built with Jerusalem stone, providing a uniquely archaic and primitive aspect to the city. Its garden suburbs, broad avenues, and modern apartment buildings contrasted with the meager dwellings of the OldCity.
I walked through the Dung Gate, located near the Western Wall. It was low and narrow. A great deal of the city's refuse was taken to the KidronValley by an ancient sewer that runs beneath the passage, giving the gate its name. I headed toward the center of town, past the Ben Yehuda mall, and back to the Jerusalem Tower Hotel. Self kept after the Israeli girls and said they all reminded him of the daughters of David. Long black hair curling in waves, features sharp yet somehow soft. He quivered as he rushed into the onset of night.
When I walked in the door to the hotel room, my father giggled and danced with the little bells of his garb ringing wildly. He bounded into my chest like a happy pet and wouldn't let go until I'd patted his back for a few minutes.
Gawain continued his blind vigil, regarding nothing but seeing everything in focus. I realized that he already knew how this would all end, and that he probably didn't really care one way or another.
He and my father, unworldly in their simplicity, could witness and smile at the unfolding of revelations. Gawain was still dressed in a lavender cloak, and his bleached white hair and pale face appeared to glow in the dimness of the room. The lights of Jerusalem opened over his shoulder through the windows.
He mouthed my name and reached for me. I took his hand, but he no sooner grasped it than he let go and moved away. Whatever guidance or warnings he had would remain locked inside him.
Self flipped the channels around past German, French, and Russian stations. With a frustrated snarl he started kicking the television. I can't find Friends, damn it.
The full moon rose over Israel, and my mother came to me again in the gulf of night, into my uncomfortable seat of dreams.
Dad seemed to feel her as well and sat on the floor whispering unintelligibly to himself. Whatever portion of his soul remained would be curled up in shame deep within the harlequin.
Even Self was unsettled. He trembled at the indistinct presence of my mother. He let out caterwauls in tune with Dad's whines and jingling, all of us lost beneath Gawain's endless sight and silence.
She moved as I remembered her, with a lissome balance as though the earth let her go for a moment as she walked, and then took her back again. She'd sit in the church basement teaching Sunday school, surrounded by a ring of children who didn't care about God or our sins or any kind of retribution. We only wanted to go outside to the lake or the park and play softball and try our hand at the rowboats, catching trout on string lines with wet balls of stolen communion wafer.
My mother understood the nest of shadows stirring behind the altar and between the pews. In spite of ourselves, she tried to prepare us for the inevitable. The priests began to scowl at her lessons and eventually dismissed her. She could read the word of the Lord with a clarity unmarred by ages of canon, doctrine, and ego. The hypocrisy of the Pharisees lives on.
My father's clownish face fell in on itself. The painted smile remained though his mouth didn't quite tug so far at the corners. He seemed to be trying to speak, or perhaps even sing, the way he did on the porch during summers when mother swept through the kitchen carrying icy beer out to him.
He leaned back against the headboard, one knee bent and his arm resting atop it, in the same pose as when he tilted his chair on the veranda. He'd sometimes strum his guitar or smoke hand-rolled cigarettes that made him go into sneezing fits. He understood what was coming but refused to be baited by it. He knew calm back then, short-lived as it was, before he started throwing rocks through the church's stained-glass windows.