“Paul Marcus.”
“Thank you, Paul Marcus. You saved my life. I am indebted to you.”
Marcus smiled. “No, you’re not. I’d like to believe, if the situation was reversed, you’d do the same for me.”
Bahir smiled. “I would like to believe that as well. But I’m not sure I could. I saw your eyes when the man faced you. I saw no fear. None.”
“I was pretty far away.”
“Not that far.” The old man’s croaky voice with the Arabic inflection sounded as if it came from another age. He stepped closer, out of the shadows and into the light. He wore a dark Nehru jacket and pants. A week’s growth of silver whiskers on his weathered face caught the light. “How did you see us so far from the center of the street?”
“I didn’t see you. I saw those graves first. Then I heard you, or at least I heard him threaten you.”
Bahir’s eyebrows rose. “Most people don’t see them, especially at night.”
“Pardon me?”
“The ancient tombs. To most, they go unnoticed. I am waiting for my grandson to bring the car to carry me home. He telephoned and said he ran out of fuel and had to walk to a petrol station. I’ve been here about two hours after I closed my shop. Maybe two hundred people have walked by. You are the only one who stopped at the graves.”
“Who’s buried there?”
Bahir smiled, his eyes opening wider. “It is believed these are the graves of the men who designed and built the very walls that surround the Old City. They were commissioned by Suleiman, the Ottoman ruler, in 1538 to build the granite walls.”
“How’d they die?”
“Murdered. Killed by the sultan, it is said, because the men failed to include Mount Zion and David’s tomb within the walls.” Bahir chuckled. “Suleiman must have had some respect for the architects because he buried them here near the entrance to the gate, which legend says every conqueror of Jerusalem will enter. Why did you stop in the night when so many never see the tombs?”
“I don’t know.”
“Do you need directions?”
“I was just taking in the night air and sort of wound up here.”
“If you are headed for the Western Wall, it’s about five hundred meters straight down David Street. Jewish Quarter is near it. The Muslim section is the area to the north of the Dome of the Rock. The Christian Quarter is to the north of where we now stand.”
A group of teenagers, laughing and singing, walked by heading east on David Street. An organized church group followed them, a dozen people with matching blue T-shirts. In white letters and numbers across the front of each shirt was: John 3:16.
Their leader, a man wearing a baseball cap backwards, bull neck and a girth that strained the shirt said, “Okay, everybody, we’ll make a night stop at the Church of the Holy Sepulchre for pictures only.”
When the group left, Bahir said, “Anything you need to know about this place, please ask me. I’ve lived here all my life, and I have seen many, many things. My coffee shop is called Cafez, right down David Street. I give you my card.” He lifted his jacket and pulled a small leather pouch from a band under his coat. He unzipped it and handed Marcus a business card. “Please, come by. You have free coffee and conversation for the rest of your life.” He grinned.
Marcus smiled. “Thank you.”
“You are American, yes?”
“Yes.”
“You do not look like a tourist.”
“How can you tell?”
“I see thousands of them, each week, from all over the world. You are here for something else, business perhaps?”
“Yes, business.”
The old merchant smiled. “I imagine this business is of interest to others, possibly?”
“Why do you ask?”
“Because the time we’ve been speaking, a man has stood back under the arch at Jaffa Gate, smoking a cigarette and trying not to give the impression of watching you.”
Marcus looked toward the gate when a man turned and walked away. He was cast in silhouette as a small car shot through the entrance and pulled up closer to where Marcus and Bahir stood.
“Ah, here is my grandson.”
Marcus nodded.
The old man opened the passenger side door. “We can provide you transportation to wherever you are staying. Perhaps the man we saw had his eye for that computer bag you carry. Possibly it is something else, yes?”
“I doubt he was watching me.”
“Which hotel are you staying?”
“The Mount Zion.”
“It is very close to us. Please, get in and we will make your journey easier.”
“I appreciate the offer, but my hotel is a short walk.”
“Please, sir. Forgive the concerns of an old man. Although this is a holy city, it still is one of the bloodiest cities on earth. Let us drive you to your hotel. Trust me on this, my new friend.”
TWENTY
Marcus set his laptop on a table in his hotel room, opened the mini-bar and poured two ounces of vodka over ice. He walked onto the balcony facing the Tower of David. The tower, Citadel, and the entire walled city were unmoving in pockets of golden light, ancient stone and shadows captured in a surreal postcard image.
Marcus thought about Bahir Ashari, the man he’d just met — maybe saved his life. There was radiance in the old man’s eyes that Marcus couldn’t recall seeing in anyone’s eyes since Jennifer’s death. Soft but filled with sparkle. Wise yet playful, but, more than anything, there was tenderness. I’ve lived here all my life, and I have seen many, many things.
He sipped his drink and stared at the Old City and its blanket of white light against brown stone. Marcus thought about the Newton numbers and how, by adding events in the Jewish new years and fitting the puzzle pieces tighter, they were beginning to reveal something. Was it a prophecy Newton pulled from the Bible, information related to the Jews return to their homeland? Maybe it was part science and part luck, he thought. What, if anything, would the entire puzzle tell? Prophecies, if they existed, now had little relevance from Isaac Newton’s time. What would be from this day forward? How do I look for them when there was no data, no clues to feed into the Biblical timeline?
The moon rose above the Tower of David, and the inky sky filled with the shimmer of stars, opaque light falling on the stone shoulders of the Old City as if the light floated down from the heavens. Marcus finished his drink, opened his wallet and stared at the photograph of his wife and daughter. Beautiful smiles. Beautiful hearts.
“I miss you both more than I can tell you.”
Lost. Gone forever. His eyes watered looking at their faces. At that moment, they seemed farther away than the ancient city that lay to the east of him. He wiped his eyes and placed his wallet back on the table and looked beyond the Old City to Mount Olive in the distance. Marcus felt a deep sense of loss, utter loneliness. The chilly breeze filled his pores, depositing a mood of solitude in his heart darker than the universe high above the Old City.
The buzzing of his cell phone on the table beside him sounded odd in the silence of the night.
No caller ID.
He hesitated for five rings and then answered.
“Paul, this is Alicia Quincy. How are you?”
“I’m okay. Are you calling from Washington? What time is it there?”
“Yes, it’s almost five. Close to midnight in Jerusalem. Did I wake you?”
“No, not at all. It’s good to hear your voice. Anything new with your niece?”
“Talks are moving at glacial speed. My sister’s on anti-depressants.”
Marcus said nothing.