The Footprints of God

  Chapter 30

  "David? Wake up. We're here."

  Someone was shaking my shoulder. I blinked and sat up. Rachel was leaning in through the back door of the car.

  "Where are we?"

  "The Via Dolorosa. It's a surrealist painting in motion. Do you still want to see it?"

  I pulled myself out of the car and stood gazing in awe at the throngs of tourists, four of whom carried large wooden crosses over their shoulder. Two of the would-be Jesuses wore white robes, the others street clothes. The crosses had wheels to ease the burden, which to me made the act of carrying them almost pointless.

  "Do you recognize anything from your dreams?" Rachel asked.

  "No. Let's go."

  Ibrahim led us along a cobbled street, weaving through the tourists with practiced ease. I had expected to find reverence here, but the atmosphere was more like a circus. A babel of voices reverberated between the walls: German, French, English, Russian, Hebrew, Arabic, Japanese, and Italian, and those just the languages I recognized. A man with a crew cut and an Alabama accent preached fire and brimstone to a group of Japanese pilgrims. Ibrahim talked all the way, his spiel honed to an emotionless monotone over years of guiding.

  "Wait," Rachel said, stopping him. She turned to me. "What do you want to see?" "Where are we?"

  Ibrahim smiled. "Sir, up there at the blue door is the Omaria School, site of the first station of the cross, where Jesus was condemned to death."

  "Do you want to see that?" Rachel asked.

  "No. What's the second station?"

  Ibrahim pointed down the cobbled street to a half circle of bricks set in the street. "There is where Jesus began to carry the cross. Down the street is the Chapel of Flagellation, where the Roman soldiers whipped Jesus, set on him a crown of thorns, and said, 'Hail, King of the Jews!' Then Pilate led him to the crowd and cried, 'Ecce homo! Behold the man!'"

  Ibrahim delivered this information with the excitement of a man reading bingo numbers in a nursing home.

  "Go on," I said. "To the church."

  Our guide continued down the street. We passed a black door set in a white stone arch, and Ibrahim said something about Jesus falling for the first time. I stared at the door but felt nothing. Perhaps what I sought lay buried beneath this warren of streets and shops and awnings. Jerusalem was probably like Cairo, built upon its own bones, a place where any new construction unearthed lost chapters of history.

  Ibrahim led us to another semicircle of bricks and started his spiel again. "This is the fifth station, where the Romans soldiers compelled Simon of Cyrene to help Jesus carry the cross."

  Rachel glanced at me. "Keep moving."

  A smiling boy wandered by selling thorn crowns. He took my stare as a sign of interest, but Ibrahim shooed him away. As I watched the bundle of thorns bob down the street on the boy's arm, blackness filled my vision, and my knees went to water. Rachel slipped under my right arm, and together we stumbled after Ibrahim.

  The next few stops were a blur, the Palestinian's words blending in a rush of strange images: Here Veronica wiped Jesus' tormented face, at which his true likeness was miraculously imprinted on the veil. . . here Jesus fell the second time . . . here he said, "Daughters of Jerusalem, do not weep for me, but weep for yourselves and for your children" . . .

  We passed over a rooftop and through a dark chapel, and then I found myself in a crowded courtyard before a Romanesque church. Pilgrims, priests, and nuns moved under the watchful eyes of a dozen Israeli soldiers with submachine guns.

  "This is Church of the Holy Sepulchre," Ibrahim said, waving his arm toward the building. "Built by Crusaders over fifty years between 1099 and 1149. Original basilica was built by Queen Helena, mother of Constantine, who came here in 325 and discovered pieces of the true cross in cave below the earth."

  I looked with dismay at the line of tourists before the door.

  "This not bad," Ibrahim said. "Tourism very bad for this time of year. The fighting scare everyone away, even in Western Holy Week. Good for you, bad for me. Do you feel all right, sir? I could get you some water while we wait."

  "I'm fine."

  "You can put more weight on me," Rachel said, repositioning herself under my arm.

  I leaned a little harder on her. "Thanks."

  She touched my cheek with the back of her hand. "I wish I could take your blood pressure."

  "To the right of the entrance is tenth station," said Ibrahim. "There Jesus was stripped of his clothes. Last five stations of the cross are contained within the church itself."

  "It's strange, isn't it?" Rachel said quietly. "Millions of people traveling to see an empty tomb?"

  All I could manage was a nod.

  "This is only empty tomb in any Christian church on earth," said Ibrahim. "The angel asked the Marys, 'Whom do you seek?' 'Jesus of Nazareth,' they said. 'He is not here,' said the angel. 'He is risen.'"

  The courtyard suddenly faded before me, and my limbs grew less heavy. I seemed to float on Rachel's arm.

  "David?" she asked. "Can you hear me?"

  I blinked and found myself looking at a stone ceiling. "Are we inside the church?"

  "You were sleepwalking," she whispered, her eyes filled with anxiety. "We have to get you back to the hotel."

  "We're here now. We made it. I have to see it."

  "See what?"

  And then I knew. "The tomb."

  She turned to Ibrahim. "Where is Jesus' tomb?"

  "This way. All the sites close together in this church." He pointed at a reddish marble slab on the floor. Several men and women in street clothes knelt with their faces pressed to the stone. Above them, a woman poured something on the slab. A sickly sweet wave of perfume hit me.

  "What's that?" I asked.

  "The Stone of Unction," said Ibrahim, "where Jesus' body was anointed with oils and wrapped in a shroud after he was taken down from the cross."

  I moved closer, but I felt nothing. "Is this the original stone?"

  "No, sir. This stone dates from 1810 and replaces stone from twelfth century. Nothing certain is known beyond that time. This way, sir."

  He led us to the left, into the rotunda of the church. Light cascaded down from a spectacular gold and white dome. Below the dome stood a large rectangular edifice of marble that seemed to have been boxed for shipping in great metal bands. It was topped by a cupola that looked like it belonged on the Kremlin.

  "What's that?" I asked.

  "This is the Holy Tomb, sir. Called the Edicule, or little house. Because Jesus was very important man, Byzantines and Crusaders spent a lot of money to make this tomb for him. It is fourteenth and final station of the cross. By the customs of Jews, always they buried the people outside the city. The present marble exterior is disintegrating and must be held together by iron bands. Come, sir? Get in the line? Madam?"

  Ibrahim continued his unrelenting recitation, but I was too disoriented to process it. I'd expected the tomb of Jesus to be a cave of some kind, situated in an open place, not this mausoleum in a dungeonlike medieval church.

  "The line's moving," Rachel said, helping me forward.

  Soon we were standing before the door of the Edicule. Here Ibrahim spoke with the respect I had expected from the beginning.

  "Inside the tomb we will see two rooms. Let us go in now."

  In the first room I saw a podium with a glass case atop it. Inside the case lay a piece of stone.

  "This we call the room of the angel," said Ibrahim. "Where the dead person wait until they prepare place to bury him. Here is kept a piece of the rolling stone where angels opened the tomb and Jesus raised up from the dead."

  I noticed two holes in the wall to my right. Ibrahim said, "When the people have no fire for their Easter candles, the priest he stand here and give them from the Holy Fire, gives light from his big candle to theirs."

  My attention had been drawn to a low door in the thick marble wall of the inner tomb. I stooped and moved through the door into a small in
ner chamber. A man and woman knelt in prayer before what appeared to be a marble altar slab. They had placed crucifixes on the stone, as though the objects would be blessed by contact. Above them hung ornate silver lamps on chains, and everywhere burning candles threw flickering light around the room. Vases of white roses scented the air, their odor cloying in the small space.

  "David?" Rachel whispered. "Is this what you came to see?"

  I leaned down and touched the marble stone before the praying couple. I didn't know what I'd expected, but something. I'd felt more at Stonehenge when I climbed over the barrier and touched the sarsen stones. "This isn't the place."

  "What?"

  "Nothing happened here."

  The kneeling man and woman looked up at me, their eyes wide.

  "Sir, you must not say this," Ibrahim said from behind me. "This is most holy place."

  "This isn't the place," I repeated. I ducked down and hurried back onto the floor of the rotunda.

  Rachel came after me. The people waiting in line stared at us, sensing trouble. I didn't care. A wild feeling of panic had gripped me. Soon it would be dark outside, and I had not found what I'd come for.

  "Tell me what's happening," Rachel whispered.

  "Nothing happened in there. That's not the place."

  Someone in the line gasped.

  "What place?" asked Rachel.

  I turned to Ibrahim, who now had a walkie-talkie in his hand and seemed to be debating whether to call for help. "Is that the original stone in the tomb?"

  "No, sir. Marble stone was put there to cover the actual stone where Jesus' body lay."

  "You can't see the actual stone?"

  Our guide's face brightened. "Yes, you can see this. Touch also. Follow me."

  He led us to the rear of the Edicule. There stood another chapel, much less ostentatious and open to the rotunda. It was far more colorful than the marble tomb we'd left, with bright wall hangings, wrought iron, and a casually dressed young man with a five-o'clock shadow tending it.

  "This is the holy tomb from the other side, sir," Ibrahim said in a whisper. "Part of the Coptic chapel. Coptics are Christians from Egypt. Very devout."

  The queue here was much shorter. It disappeared into the shallow chapel and stopped where a small curtain shielded something.

  "Sir, beyond that point lies exposed part of the actual stone where Jesus lay. Here the sick come to be cured, people to be blessed."

  As I waited for the line to move, my skin began to itch as though from hives. At last my turn came. I went through the curtain, knelt, and laid my right palm on the bare stone.

  "David?" Rachel whispered from behind me.

  I shook my head. "Nothing." For the first time in six months, I began to truly doubt my sanity.

  "I think we should go back to the hotel," Rachel said. "Ibrahim is close to calling for help."

  I scrambled up and left the chapel, my mind racing. Ibrahim was staring at me as though I might start shouting blasphemy, which the old guide had probably seen in his day. The walkie-talkie was still in his hand.

  "Nothing happened there either," I told him. "That's not the place."

  "But, sir, this is the holy tomb."

  "There's no doubt of that?"

  "Well . . . some Protestant Christians believe the garden tomb outside the city is the site of Jesus' tomb. But no archaeologist believes this. You have seen the actual tomb, sir."

  A tall, plain woman carrying a King James Bible stepped out of the line before the chapel and said in English, "Does it really matter where the tomb is, brother? ‘He is not there. He is risen.'"

  "Does it matter?" I asked her. "Of course it matters. What if you found the actual tomb with Jesus' bones still in it? It's the difference between a legitimate religion and mass hysteria."

  The woman almost jumped backward.

  Ibrahim looked stricken. "Sir! You must not say these things!"

  "You're a Muslim, Ibrahim. You don't believe any of this."

  "Please, sir—"

  I walked away from the Edicule, not knowing where to turn or what to do.

  Rachel appeared at my shoulder. "David, what is it you're looking for?"

  "The place where Jesus was resurrected."

  "But you don't believe in God. How can you find the place where Jesus was resurrected when you don't believe that he was?"

  Ibrahim had caught up to us. "Sir? Some people believe Jesus rose from the death at another place. I will show you."

  He led us across the rotunda to the door of a large church wholly contained within the bounds of the greater one.

  "This is the Catholicon." He pointed toward a chandelier. "Below the cupola of this church is a marble basin called the Omphalos. The navel of the world. Some Greeks believe Jesus was resurrected here, and will return here to judge the world one day."

  "Can we see it?"

  "This church is usually closed, but I can take you to it."

  He led us past a chain toward a stone chalice standing on an inlaid floor. High above stood a dome with an ethereal image of Christ painted in pastel hues. I looked down at the stone hemisphere, essentially a large bowl. Then I leaned down and touched it. I felt no more than I would had I touched a birdbath in someone's backyard.

  Rachel instantly read my reaction. "What are you hoping for? An electric shock? A voice from heaven?"

  I turned to our guide, who was shaking his head. "What have I not seen, Ibrahim?"

  "Many things. Most important is Golgotha. In Latin called Calvary. The place where Jesus was crucified."

  "It's inside the church?"

  "Of course, sir. Follow me."

  He led us out of the Catholicon and over to a steep staircase. I counted eighteen steps as I plodded upward, my spirits sinking lower the higher I climbed.

  The moment I reached the top of the stairs, I felt a quickening in my blood. The room was crowded, but to my left, above the heads of the people, I saw a life-size sculpture of Jesus hanging on a cross. He wore a silver cloth around his waist and a crown of silver on his head. It wasn't the sculpture that moved me, but something in the room itself. I felt as if I were standing close to a high-voltage cable, with static electricity raising every hair on my body.

  "What?" Rachel asked. "What is it?"

  "Something in me is vibrating."

  "You've felt that before. That's a textbook precursor to a hypnagogic hallucination."

  "No . . . this is different."

  "Ibrahim?" said Rachel.

  "Yes, madam?"

  "We're going back to the car."

  "Yes," he said with relief.

  I stepped away from them. To my right, a mural showed Jesus lying on the cross, which lay flat on the ground. Some people standing before the mural parted, revealing a cabinet with panels of hammered silver. As I walked toward the mural, pain radiated up my arm from my left hand. For a moment I thought I was having a heart attack. Then pain shot up my right arm as well. I clenched both hands into fists, but it did no good. I turned to Ibrahim.

  "What is this place?"

  "This is the eleventh station, sir. Where Jesus was nailed to the cross."

  I moaned.

  "We have to get him out of here," Rachel said. "Can you get help?"

  "He is walking," Ibrahim said. "Let us go now."

  "I don't think he'll go."

  Some people in the room were staring at me as if I might be mad.

  "I can get soldiers," Ibrahim said. "But I would rather not do this."

  "No," Rachel said quickly. "I mean, yes. That's not necessary."

  A group of pilgrims moved away from the sculpture of Jesus, revealing a fantastically ornate altar. I stepped forward, my eyes locked on a silver-clad Madonna standing below the cross. The altar before her seemed to be sitting on a large glass case, and under the glass I saw rough gray rock.

  "What's that?"

  "Golgotha," Ibrahim answered. "The place of the skull. That is the mountain itself, where the rock cracked whe
n Jesus' blood fell down from the cross. Then came the earthquake."

  Searing white light blotted out the scene before me. I saw the mountain as it had been before the church was here, a bare, rocky hill beside a mountain riddled with tombs. Three crosses stood on the hill, but no one hung from them. The sky darkened and went black, and I fell to my knees.

  I found myself staring at a shining silver disk with a hole in it. The disk lay on the marble base of the altar, a foot off the floor. I put out my shaking right hand and laid my palm on the disk.

  The pain in my hands instantly eased.

  "This is the place," I said. "This is where Jesus left the earth."

  "He is right," said Ibrahim. "That disk marks the spot where the cross stood in the ground. To the right and left are black disks where the thieves' crosses stood, one being good, another being bad. Afterward, Jesus was taken away to the tomb of Joseph of Aramathea and rose from the death three days later."

  "No," I said.

  Ibrahim blanched. "Sir, you cannot say such things here!"

  "Whisper," Rachel pleaded.

  "What's the hole in the disk for?" I asked, my hand caressing the cool silver.

  "You may put fingers through and touch Golgotha. The rock of Calvary."

  I closed my eyes and slipped two fingers through the hole. My fingertips scraped rough stone.

  "Did you dream of this?" Rachel asked.

  I couldn't speak. Something was flowing into me from the living rock. Rachel's voice receded and did not return. I felt as if my bones were singing, vibrating in sympathy with something in the earth. At first the feeling was something like joy, but as the intensity built, I began to shake, then to jerk spastically.

  It s a seizure, said a familiar voice in my head. My medical voice. A tonic-clonic seizure. Through the fog of receding consciousness, I heard people yelling in several languages. Then I fell, and Rachel screamed.

  The impact of the floor was like water.