O Jerusalem

by Laurie R. King

  “No, just monomaniacal pashas, uncontrollable troops, disease, drought, and starvation,” I said, stabbing a piece of succulent roast beef on my fork and conveying it to my mouth.

  “Yes. Still, that’s over, isn’t it? The Brits are here, there’s water and food. They’ve even taken over the care of the sick and wounded. Perhaps we can carve a few hours out of the week again for leisure.”

  “Well, if you plan an underground outing in the near future, do keep me in mind.”

  “I shall indeed. In fact, why not next week? We could organise a family picnic into Solomon’s Quarries. Some of the younger children have never been in there. It might take a few days to clear the entrance of debris and check the roof for rocks that have worked their way loose, but it would be great fun. Do you know, I can’t remember the last time we did anything just for the pleasure of it.” His sallow cheeks had taken on a degree of colour, and he looked younger than he had before.

  “What are Solomon’s Quarries?”

  “An enormous cave directly beneath the city—its entrance is near the Damascus Gate. It was actually once a quarry, one can still see the chisel marks and a few half-separated blocks, but it’s probably not, as tradition has it, the source of the Temple blocks. As I remember, the stone is too soft.”

  It would have to be a very large cave indeed to stretch to the Cotton Bazaar, thus undermining half the city, but it was underground, and underground was where my interests lay.

  “I should be very interested to see it. How far back does it reach?”

  “I don’t remember the exact measurement, offhand. Perhaps one hundred fifty, even two hundred yards.” My interest increased. Five or six hundred feet was a goodly distance in the tiny city.

  “How does one enter it?”

  “There used to be an iron gate, just east of the Damascus Gate. In fact, our store here at the Colony used to sell tickets for a franc. Not since the war, though. Just let me ask—O’Brien! Say, have you noticed any tourists going into the Cotton Grotto lately? No? I didn’t think so. We were just thinking of getting up a picnic down there. Miss Russell here—”

  “What did you call it?” I interrupted urgently.

  “Call what?” The intensity of my voice confused him. Several of our neighbours glanced over at me, but I paid them no mind.

  “The cave. What did you just call it?”

  “The grotto? Yes, that’s the other name for it. Less grand than Solomon’s Quarries, which is the name the tour books use. Locals go by the Arabic name. The Cotton Grotto.”

  The arts are well established in a city only after sedentary culture has a long duration there.

  —THE Muqaddimah OF IBN KHALDÛN

  he conversations around our end of the table began to founder around the bulk of my stunned silence, until I pulled myself together, closed my jaw, and made some inane comment such as, “How very nice.” Voices started up again, but I did not dare look down to the other end; I could feel Holmes’ eyes drilling into me, but there was nothing for it now. We had to get through dinner first.

  Fortunately, the pudding course was being set before us, soon to be followed by cheese, and then we ladies would excuse ourselves. Ought I to escape then? Or might there be further information to be got across the dining table? No, that would not be wise; I had not only monopolised a partner who was not my own but drawn attention to myself in the process. Best not pursue it now, I decided, and, gathering patience to me as firmly as I could, I turned to the small, nervous Belgian on my left. “What brings you to Jerusalem, Monsieur Lamartine?”

  My patience was chafing me badly by the time we left the gentlemen to their cigars. I followed my hostess with a degree of apprehension; I have never been good at women’s conversation, for my mother died before I could learn the art of small talk with individuals who had no employment aside from needlework and children, and in addition I had not begun the evening with an image guaranteed to endear me to them. However, I need not have worried. In truth, I was impressed with these women, particularly the recently arrived Helen Bentwich, who had been active in the Land Army movement in Britain during the war. The war had changed us all, and although these ladies dutifully began with polite, shallow questions, we were very soon happily embroiled in three or four separate topics, the main two being Zionism’s relationship to Arab nationalism and the means of preserving the historical purity of the Old City in the face of future growth. It was with some reluctance that we rejoined the men. Who, it appeared, had been talking about cricket.

  “Had a good chat, then, did you?” asked one jolly colonel, rising. “Settle the world’s problems with babies and dress fashions?”

  I spoke up over the rumble of masculine chuckles. “Actually, we were discussing the Balfour agreement and the progress of the Paris peace talks. Any chance of another drop of coffee?”

  I swayed over to the sideboard and took a cup of coffee from the hand of Lieutenant-Colonel William Gillette.

  “Just black, thank you,” I told him, and when the voices had risen around us I murmured over the rim of my cup, “I imagine Mr Gillette would be much amused, were he to find that the character he played on stage was in turn impersonating him.” The original William Gillette was an American actor who had cobbled together one of the first stage plays about Holmes, using bits of the Conan Doyle stories and adding a romantic interest. Holmes’ opinion of the production was what one might expect.

  “I thought it only fair. What did the gentleman across from you say?”

  “He said many things.” I smiled across the room at my young cavalry officer, grown shy when seeing me standing with a lieutenant-colonel.

  “Russell.”

  “Don’t ‘Russell’ me. If I tell you now you’ll flit out of here and I won’t see you for two days. I did the work; I’m not going to allow you to have all the fun.” I took my cup down from my face and turned my smile at an approaching man. “Governor Storrs, you must be quite pleased with the progress being made in the city—at least I hope you are. I was saying to Colonel Gillette here—do you know Lieutenant-Colonel William Gillette? Yes, he does look a bit like the actor, now that you mention it. What an amusing coincidence. I was saying to him not five minutes ago …”

  Twenty minutes of politeness was all Holmes could abide. I had counted on that, allowing myself to be drawn into a silly conversation about rescuing Arab girls from the gutter (Mrs Major’s words, not mine) by teaching them needlework, because I knew that I would not be stuck there for the rest of the evening. The musical portion of the evening was about to begin. Brigadier-General Ronald Storrs, de facto governor of Palestine, had sat down to the piano to play “Vittoria” from La Tosca when Holmes loomed up between Mrs Major and one of my young officers, baring his teeth at me in a tight grimace that passed for a smile.

  “You said earlier you would appreciate a ride back to town. I’m going now.”

  “Thank you, Colonel. That’s very good of you.” I took my leave of my host and hostess, shook off two of my more persistent admirers, and was nearing the door when the archaeological Jacob came into the vestibule.

  “Are you leaving so soon, Miss Russell? What about our excursion into Solomon’s Quarries? How may I get in touch with you?”

  “Er, I—”

  “A message left at Government House always seems to reach one, have you not found, Miss Russell?” Holmes said smoothly.

  “Yes. Yes, it seems to. I move about so much, you know. I may not even be in Jerusalem next week, but thanks awfully.” Before I could make an even greater fool of myself, Holmes dropped my cloak onto my shoulders and propelled me towards the door.

  It was freezing in the car, and I wrapped my inadequate garments about me and shivered. The temperature emanating from Holmes was even colder.

  “I had not intended that you make quite such a spectacle of yourself, Russell,” he said in a low, brittle voice as soon as the driver had pulled out of the compound. “This was a simple exercise in gathering informa
tion, not an eights-week ball.”

  “That dress was your choice, Holmes, and in case you hadn’t noticed, there are probably three other English women under the age of forty in the entire city, and those are safely affianced. How could I help being a spectacle? As it is, they will certainly remember me, but not because I asked a lot of questions about tunnels under the city. Which sort of impression should you have preferred I make?”

  He did listen to my words, and the temperature in the car gradually rose a few degrees. “Very well,” he said, “I see your point. Next time, I shall choose the frock with greater care; I should hate to be responsible for your having to spend another evening parading yourself in front of young men in that manner. I admit I had failed to visualise quite what the frock would look like with you inside it.”

  I looked at him sharply, but there was not enough light to see his expression. His voice had said that as a flat statement, with neither innuendo nor even humour. Had another man said those words, I might at least have considered the possibility that he had noticed what I looked like, that he had appreciated—I sat up briskly. Enough of that. Too much flirtation, in fact, for one night. It was a good thing I was not staying here long, definitely not as Miss Russell: being the object of adoring gazes of young men in uniform was clearly a heady thing. Time to crawl back into my robe, turban, and abayya.

  I must have sighed or made some noise.

  “Cinderella home from the ball, eh, Russell?” He was, however, smiling when he said it.

  It was after eleven o’clock, and the inn was again shut tight. A yawning boy answered our summons, handed us a small lamp, and stumbled away. At my door I wished Holmes a good night, and he peered at me in the meagre light as if I were mad.

  “We have work to do, Russell.”

  “God, Holmes. You told me that same thing at some unearthly hour this morning, and I’ve been slogging hard ever since. My skull aches, my shoulders ache, my hands are raw; don’t you ever sleep?”

  “You’re young, Russell,” he said brutally. “You can sleep tomorrow.”

  “Do you intend—? You do. We’re going back out.”

  “Just let me get out of this absurd outfit. I should do the same, if I were you.” He ducked into his room, and I closed my own door and wedged it shut while I was changing back into the Arab boy. I fixed my turban, took the wedge from the door, and took a quick step back as it flew open to admit the Bedouin Holmes. He shut it quietly and we squatted together on the floor with the oil lamp between us. Amazing, how comfortable that position had become.

  “Tell me what your archaeological friend said,” he demanded.

  “There are caves under the north end of the city, near the Damascus Gate. They’re called Solomon’s Quarries by the guide-books, but their other name, the one they’re known by to the locals, is the Cotton Grotto.”

  His eyes glittered. “Suggestive.”

  “I thought it was. There’s an iron gate that may be buried in rubble—he thought the cave hadn’t been used since before the war. It’s a big cave, extending about two hundred yards underneath the city.”

  “That still leaves quite a way to go to the Cotton Bazaar. Four, five hundred yards I believe.”

  “Funny, the coincidence in names, though,” I said provocatively. Holmes does not believe in coincidence. He did not respond, just sat. After a minute he pulled out his pipe, which always made the thinking process go more quickly.

  “We need to see some maps,” he said. I waited. “Father Demetrius is certain to have among his maps one that shows everything underground in the city.”

  “Is it too late to go and knock him up?”

  He scowled. “Demetrius is a fine old man, but he had some questionable dealings with the Turks.”

  “Oh, surely not.”

  “The welfare of his people is the only thing that matters to him. Even his passion for old stones takes second place to the Armenian community. Twice for certain, possibly several times, he gave the Turks … someone they wanted, in exchange for which they freed Armenian prisoners. One can understand it, I suppose. After all, the Turks were aiming at genocide, and when a million of one’s people are killed, it is apt to make one view outsiders with a different eye. What, after all, is an Englishman or two compared to a trainload of your countrymen?”

  “He’s not to be trusted, then?” I asked bluntly.

  “He’s not to be tested. He might have the ear of the wrong man for our purposes, and we’ve shown ourselves quite enough in that quarter. There are,” he noted, “a fair number of Armenians still rotting in prisons.”

  “What about Government House? The army has undoubtedly done a survey of every inch of the city, above and below ground.”

  He puffed furiously on his pipe. “I am wary of Government House,” he said finally, sounding not happy.

  “Ellison.”

  “A good clerk is like a servant, invisible and all-seeing. Still, I find myself unconvinced about Ellison. For one thing, I cannot imagine why Haifa would have notified Jerusalem that they were reaching out for Ali and Mahmoud, allowing Ellison to overhear.”

  “You think there is another informant, one in Haifa?” God, I thought; the holes in British security are like Swiss cheese. “What about the driver, was he then killed to cut the tie, or because he had outlived his usefulness?”

  “That is possible. Probable, even. However …”

  “You do not wish to chance bringing Government House in, even if we could keep Ellison from knowing.”

  “Not until we are more certain. Not for something as important as this.”

  “So what comes next?” I asked, although I thought I knew.

  He held his pipe away and examined the tobacco in the bowl. “Did you notice the lock on the door of Father Demetrius’ study?” he asked.

  “It is a very old lock.”

  His head came around and he shot me a grin. “That’s my Russell,” he said, as if everything had been decided. But then, it had.

  • • •

  We let ourselves out the small door set into the inn’s heavy gates and turned down the black alleyway towards the Armenian Quarter.

  “Just one thing,” Holmes breathed into my ear. “It is assumed in the city that anyone walking through the dark streets without a lantern is no better than he should be, and wants arresting. We can’t very well take a lantern, but if we are caught, you are to get away. Do you understand? They will be satisfied with one of us, and I’ll come to no harm sleeping in a cell overnight, but I’ll not see you in a man’s prison, even for a few hours. Do what you have to do, but get free.”

  I had to agree that the thought was not a happy one. “All right.”

  “I have your word?”

  “I said so.”

  “Good.” He slipped away down the alley and I followed, out to the open area in front of the Citadel, a maelstrom of activity during the day, now deserted but for rats and one scrawny cat. We skulked after the cat, around the sides of the echoing emptiness, over the entrance to the silent David Street bazaar, between the gates to the Anglican church compound and the steps of the Citadel (where the humble victor General Allenby had given his victory speech to the city), past the barracks, and into the Armenian Quarter. Twice we heard noises and plastered ourselves against the walls, but the only living things we saw had either wings or four feet. We came to the church, we went around it, and we eased our way through the gate and the garden to the door of Father Demetrius’ study.

  My shiny new picklocks, a Christmas present from Holmes, were in Mycroft’s flat in London. Holmes’ old ones did the job, and in minutes we were inside the room, which smelt comfortingly of books and faintly of coffee and incense.

  Holmes stretched to remove the tube of maps from its high shelf, and carried it over to a wall of books, where he seemed to be perusing the titles. He moved, and after a while I heard a click, and a bank of shelves opened. We went through, he closed the door, and only then did he turn on his electrical t
orch.

  We were in a tiny closet of a room perhaps eight feet by four, with a thin mattress on the floor and a couple of pots. The only air came from a ventilation grid the size of a hand. I tried not to feel claustrophobic.

  Holmes had the maps out and was spreading them on the floor. I held the sides flat, and he paged through them until he came to what we sought, when he removed the others from the top of the stack and let them curl up tightly.

  The city walls and a few landmarks were the only familiar shapes on this map. The Dome of the Rock, the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, and the Armenian monastery were there; the Tyropoeon Valley that had once bisected the city was sketched in with a pencil, a north-south dip that cut along the edge of the Temple Mount before the city literally grew up and filled it with the rubble and debris of its earlier incarnations.

  And here, drawn in clear, sweeping lines, were the aqueducts. The major one came from the south out of Bethlehem, taking a wide loop along the sides of the Hinnom Valley, around the Sultan’s Pool to the southwest of the city walls, following the topographic lines back along the walls until finally, not far from the Dung Gate, its route crossed under the walls and into the city proper, following the curve of the Tyropoeon Valley until it reached the eastern half of David Street, one of the old boundaries of the changing city. There the line ducked due east, under the Bab es-Silsileh: under the Temple Mount. According to the map, before reaching the Dome of the Rock the aqueduct divided, one arm reaching down to fill the fountain known as the Cup, the other reaching up to trickle into the Birkat Yisrael, now a dry rubbish tip, once, perhaps, the miraculous Pool of Bethesda.

  That upper arm excited my interest, for after the split at the gate to the Haram it turned due north, running between the Western Wall and the Dome of the Rock, less than fifty feet from where the Souk el-Qattanin became the Bab el-Qattanin, the Gate of the Cotton Merchants, which was the Haram entrance closest to the Dome itself.