by Brad Ricca
Monty Parker
JERUSALEM, APRIL 1911
The Arab men, dressed in their customary white robes and with covered heads, made their way across Solomon’s Court, the level porch in front of the gate. There were at least ten men, maybe more. It was almost sunset, and their shadows stretched into lines, almost trying to pull them back from their forward direction. The Dome of the Rock billowed up in front of them, its curving surface catching the last golden streaks of the sun. They kept moving, and quickly. When they reached the guard at the door, another Arab, one of their number, walked up and nodded. They exchanged something in their hands, though in the twilight it was hard to tell what. The man opened the doors and let them in. They walked quickly across the threshold, some of them stilted in their gait, walking like their legs were bound.
Their feet padded first across the marble, then the carpet. The looming ceiling and silent mosaics made them feel small, but they were the only ones moving. They crisscrossed like mice through the pillars, ignoring the parallel lines that had directed so many others. The place had been closed to outside visitors for months because of the shooting of the Americans. They were finally making repairs to some of the damage caused by the bullets. One of the Arabs, taller than the others, saw a scaffold and some open pots. He kept walking, all the way around the massive stone to the trellis structure that marked the entrance where the shooter had been.
The Foundation Stone lay in the center of the room, surrounded by a rail. The stone itself was enormous, with a light silk hanging high above it like a falling leaf, stuck in midair.
The room was getting darker, taking on the color of the stone itself. The lack of sound in the room seemed to solidify the room, which was impossibly bare of people. The tall Arab in front looked back. The place was monumental. The man could only imagine how much time and money had gone into its construction. For a project of such magnitude, the man was beginning to understand that there were the facts of the enterprise, the planning and preparation, but that those things meant almost nothing compared with the vast, inestimable work itself. He also knew, now more than ever, that part of that work was adapting as one went along.
“Lock it,” the man said, in a familiar English accent as he walked toward the stone. Behind him, two of the men placed a bar on the door that fell with a thunk.
“Torch,” he said, in a low voice.
Light pooled over the surface of the stone. The man could see the cuts on its surface. These were scars, he thought.
They advanced toward the trellis and the door to the stairs.
One of the others shone his torch and pushed it downward past the floor. They could see a wide staircase descending into the darkness.
“The Well of Souls,” Monty Parker said, his face lit by fire.
The men watched his shadow on the wall as he unwrapped his head coverings and put his pipe in his mouth. He turned and stood in the light. The rest of the men similarly undressed, revealing pickaxes and hammers underneath their long robes.
They looked down the stairs and began their descent.
Monty took a breath. What they were going to do—what they were doing—was nothing short of heretical. In fact, it was well beyond that. He thought, perhaps, of the shooter in the corner, trying to kill the Americans. The Dome of the Rock, the Haram al-Sharif, was believed to be the center of the world. Monty didn’t know if he really believed that, but at that moment, it was all he could hold on to.
The cave varied in height, from about four to seven feet. It seemed to be a natural cave of limestone, but there were parts of it—the staircase, for one—that had clearly been carved out. The walls lay across each other in jagged layers. The floor was made of square paving, some of it covered in rugs. A chandelier lamp hung down in the middle from a hole in the Rock above. Monty swept his torch in front of him. There were prayer stands in the corners of the cave, four of them, with rugs and carved-out shrines. Some of them were ornately decorated with marble. Monty moved forward with his torch. The scrollwork almost moved in the firelight; it looked quite old.
Monty turned to his men, who were doing the same, lighting the corners of this holy place with fire.
“You know what to do,” he said.
The men started moving the rugs.
“Start walking.”
They began walking slowly around the chamber.
“Stop,” Monty said.
Someone stepped back, then forward, then back again. Monty came over and got on his knees. On the floor in front of him was a flat, shiny mosaic of pointed diamonds and triangles. He put his hand to his jaw in thought, turning his head slightly. The pattern looked somehow familiar to Monty. In the center, alone, was a blackened star.
Monty stared. It looked familiar. The cipher had mentioned that a star could direct them to the Ark. Monty thought it would be outside, high in the sky, shining and bright. Not here, in the dark of the underground. Here, where he felt alone. Here, where he no longer was.
Monty took a breath and loosened his arms. He knocked on the stone next to it, releasing a dull sound.
knknk
Monty then knocked on the star itself. He listened intently.
KNOCK KNOCK
The sound had changed. There was a hollow space beneath the stone. Monty handed off his torch. He blew the dust around the corners and, using his fingers, tried to work the stone free. It was loose.
Monty stood up, clamped down on his pipe, and grabbed a shovel.
Thirty-Four
Ava Astor
NEW YORK CITY, 1911
Ava Lowle Willing Astor was in a mood. She reclined back on her chair and paged through the Times to take her mind off things. She pushed through the headlines to the society pages, to look for the names of people she knew and parties she had attended—and those she had ruthlessly avoided. The Sunday-morning light was streaming through her high windows. Her daughter, Alice, was around, somewhere.
“Alice!” she yelled out sharply, in no particular direction but loud. There was no answer. She was probably trying on her jewelry again. Ava made a face.
Ava was back in the devil’s den of New York City, but she did not feel any better. She had been living in London, but it had been a different experience from what she had hoped for. As many parties as she went to, she was now just another divorcée in the eyes of the royal family, and this had greatly limited her range. And in London, that kind of word got around quickly. King Edward and Queen Alexandra had looked the other way when she first arrived, but once the king died, everything got more formal. She thought it a mistake when she was left off an invite list for a state ball for some German dignitary, until she heard that Consuelo Vanderbilt—who had also recently split from the Duke of Marlborough—had been similarly ignored.
The same week of the ball, Ava was driving through Hyde Park on a lovely afternoon when the car ahead of her squeaked to a stop. Ava’s large black hat slid over her eyes.
“What’s the trouble?” she asked a guard on the side of the road.
“Her Majesty,” the guard said, his mouth barely moving. She had no idea how any sounds could escape the sliver lips of these British.
Ava looked to her left. There, near Stanhope Gate, she saw Queen Mary herself passing right by her, with her attendants in tow. She was wearing her usual sedate British gown.
Ava, on the other hand, was wearing a black satin dress that clung to her so closely that it was a miracle she was able to be seated. Ava panicked but bowed as low as she could for being seated in an automobile. When she straightened her neck, another dangerous maneuver, she saw that the queen had recognized her. Perhaps this would be their moment of reconciliation. Ava smiled demurely.
But the queen merely dropped her eyelids and kept walking. The great occasion, indeed.
Ava had first returned to the States two years earlier for her divorce in 1909, before Justice Mills in the New York Supreme Court. Though the proceedings were sealed, the press knew that there was only one ground
for divorce in the state of New York, and that was adultery. The settlement gave her a lump sum of ten million dollars. When the divorce was final, Jacob threw a grand party for one hundred and fifty guests. He spent twenty-five thousand dollars on flowers alone.
To make matters even worse, a year or so ago, her son, Vincent, and his father went on a yachting jaunt to the West Indies together. They were expected to make several stops, yet neither Ava—nor anyone—heard any word from them. Days stretched into several weeks, and the press reported that there had probably been a shipwreck. When they finally returned safe and sound, Ava was furious.
For distraction, Ava plunged herself into habits old and new. She played bridge like a demon and owned the tables up and down Fifth Avenue. She then set her mind to conquering the impenetrable fortress of men’s clubs that littered the metropolis. Ava, with friends, helped found the Colony Club, a social and athletic club for women. She spent many hours at the pool, glorious and blue and set in white marble. She dove into its cool water and relaxed in the Turkish baths. When she asked that more mirrors be set into the walls, the other patrons complained because no one looked like Ava.
Predictably, it did not take long until her toad of an ex-husband had taken up with some girl from—Ava drew in a breath—Brooklyn. The cherry on top was that the girl was thirty years his junior. That is when Ava took off for London again. But now she was back. Again.
“Pah,” said Ava to it all, as she turned the thin page of her newspaper. The magazine section opened to a full page with a photograph of some dreary church. Ava began turning the page, but the headline held her back.
Have Englishmen Found the Ark of the Covenant?
“Monty,” she said.
Ava pulled the paper close and kept reading: “A mysterious expedition, apparently not composed of archaeologists, hunts strange treasure under the Mosque of Omar, sets the Moslems in a ferment, and may cause Diplomatic incident.”
The article mentioned no names, but Ava knew. It was him.
It had to be.
That knowledge gave her not only a moment of real curiosity, but one of genuine fear for her friend, followed by her ragged, golden laugh.
Thirty-Five
Bertha Vester
JERUSALEM, APRIL 19, 1911
Bertha Vester kept walking, her two daughters strung behind her. The shouting was rising all around her. She just wanted to get home. Marchers and protestors, their arms in the air, appeared from behind every corner. She nodded and dodged, moving faster with each step. The mob seemed to be headed toward the Ottoman consulate. She heard words that made her nearly weep with sadness.
“Death to the English!”
“Kill the governor!”
The timing for this was nearly unimaginable. The Nabi Musa festival, the annual trek of Arab believers to the Valley of Moses, had just returned. Even they, in the middle of the Dead Sea valley, had heard the news from the city. When the governor greeted them, as was the custom, they spat at him and called him “pig.” Easter had just passed as well, and the city was full of beaming tourists. It was the Greek Orthodox Easter as well, in addition to Passover! Such a configuration of the major faiths was not only rare but, in this case, incendiary. This city, her city, in which she saw brotherhood and friendship every day, was coming apart over a single line of incredible news: Englishmen had pillaged the Dome of the Rock.
Bertha and her children sped down a narrow alley, cut back across the square, and made their way past the crowd. They were finally able to walk home, though Bertha did not let up her pace for even one step, much to the distress of her daughters.
“What happened?” said Jacob, as she walked in and locked the door.
“The English diggers.” Bertha put tea on, more for her brother than her. She gave her daughters a treat and sat them down together. “The rumor is that they dug at the Haram…,” Bertha said. She turned and wiped her head. “And that they found the Ark.” She shook her head. “And took it.”
Jacob sat down, though he did not even look if there was a chair beneath him.
“A general strike has been called,” Bertha continued. “There are at least two thousand people gathered in front of the Ottoman consulate right now, shouting for the governor! The gendarmerie was posted on every corner. I’ve never seen anything like it!” Bertha paced. She couldn’t sit down. She just couldn’t.
Over the next two days, Bertha watched from her window and listened to her many friends for news as tensions simmered then burst. Two vendors at the consulate apparently got into a fight over some sweetmeats, and shots were fired into the air, scattering thousands out of the compound. A fearful panic ensued when the peasant women and pilgrims poured out of the walls of the enclosure and ran toward the city gates.
“Massacre! Massacre!” shouted the terrified protestors. The Arab soldiers appeared from the bunkers carrying leather whips, uncoiling like snakes in the dirt.
The business places immediately closed up, as Bertha imagined every family arming themselves and barricading their homes. She heard that the Russian Compound was completely shut up. She heard even wilder rumors, that the sheik himself had been killed, that the governor had been dealt with by the mob, and so forth. She heard that officials had been sent out along the roads in every direction to assure the fleeing people that nothing was the matter. Tradespeople were urged to reopen their stores and resume business. But a few days passed, and Bertha began to breathe easier as everything began to slowly turn to normal.
For some reason, all the fuss about the Ark made Bertha remember another visitor to the Colony from when she was a child. He came from America and always introduced himself as “George A. Fuller, USA.” He was a carpenter and had a beard like Santa Claus. He once crafted a pine box for Bertha’s mother that he presented to her with great solemnity. But the box, painted yellow and black, was so hideous the children referred to it as “the coffin.” Bertha’s mother endured its presence on her table for years until she traded it for some milk when times were tight. George sighed as he watched the box leave her house, but never complained. He had come to the Colony believing that he had sinned greatly, but Bertha’s father assured him that it was only in his imagination. Her father told George that God had forgiven everything. Bertha didn’t know if the people of Jerusalem would forgive this. The only question left was the one everyone was asking: Where were the stolen treasures? What had really happened there at the Dome?
An Arab newspaper provided the best answer: that “none knew, except God and the Englishmen.”
Thirty-Six
Cyril Foley
PARIS, APRIL 1911
Cyril was seated at a sidewalk café with a friend when he read the news from Jerusalem.
“Well,” he said, “I suppose the opportunity was just too much for them.”
Thirty-Seven
Turkish Parliament
CONSTANTINOPLE, MAY 8, 1911
The contrast between the white marble and the hundred or so men in dark wool suits and red fezzes was striking. In the top back corner, the balcony was full of men craned over the rows of seats below them. The men in the front wore fezzes trimmed in white fur. A tight line of soldiers stood near them in front of the halberds hung on the wall, crossed and draped in red cloth, with the Turkish flag of the crescent moon and star. The holy men wore black. The man in front was speaking.
“Our report has been concluded. It was on the night of April 12 that one Mahrumi Effendi, someone who worked at the Dome of the Rock, walked by and found the gates to be unlocked. He investigated and found twelve men digging. When he told them to leave, they threatened him and told him to walk away. Mahrumi Effendi saw that the diggers had two full bags of dirt, or so he supposed.” The words echoed through the Turkish parliament, leaving disbelief in their wake.
“Nine straight nights of digging!” someone yelled. The general assembly began to grumble. They seemed to agree with the outrageousness of this. Or at least most of them did.
“T
he man called for help,” continued the speaker, “and an administrator finally came to investigate. But the Englishmen were gone. They were rumored to have taken several of the Solomon relics.” The crowd got louder. So did the speaker.
“Our governor in Jerusalem, Azmi Bey, was greeted with insults and curses. It was speculated that his life was in danger. On April sixteenth, he ordered an investigation and ordered the British ship at Jaffa to be searched before they escaped.” Men shouted and banged on their tables.
“Their leader, Captain Parker, was not detained.”
The shouting from the floor got even louder.
“Order!”
“We have ordered the arrest of the four who allowed them in. Shaykh Khalil al-Zanaf, the official caretaker of the Haram; two of his sons; and Macasdar, the ‘translator’ who was hired as their middleman.
“The British did not intervene to help. The Palestinian Jews have issued an official letter. We are being ‘raided by foreigners,’ they write. ‘Blood has been shed, disgrace has occurred, public order has been disrupted, security no longer exists … Palestine is a dear land … Protect her in the name of God!’”
The floor sounded again, but it was hard to say if it was in agreement or denial.
“On April twenty-first, Ali Riza Bey said that his military forces would ‘exert themselves night and day’ in order to ‘maintain public security.’” This was a serious response and was met with agreement. The speaker paused for a moment. “Our own investigation,” he continued, “has revealed that Governor Azmi Bey, and others, were receiving monthly monies from Parker.”
The crowd roared.
A parliamentarian, a man named Riza nur Bey, stood and shouted, his fist shaking in the air. “The government covers everything up and hides it!” he yelled.
Halil Bey, the minister of the interior, stood and said that he would be surprised if everyone in the leadership had not been in on the bribes. Parliamentarian Wenton stood and began speaking of a mysterious man who had been accused of being a spy, who had been spotted in several cunning disguises around the Haram. He had been arrested at Nablus and was, according to Wenton, a person of great interest in the case. Someone else said that the English had only left Jaffa because they had gone on vacation. The members were not persuaded.