The couple looked at Steve in disbelief. They had always believed he had a promising career in the church.
“Sounds to me,” Lou commented dourly, “and pardon my ‘French’ but it seems to me the church really gave you the shaft.”
“Not quite,” Steve said defensively. “The hierarchery very likely thought they were simply following some traditional regulations.”
“So, you’re on the run,“ Lou commented. “Who’s chasing you?”
“I was afraid you’d ask that, but I better tell you because they might be after me here.”
“Well, they’ll get no help from us,” Barbara said emphatically.
“Thanks. And I may need your help. There are two burly gray-robed monks, Brothers Michael and John, who have been trying to find me and drag me back to Arizona. And I hate to admit it but they’re more like thugs than brothers of the Catholic Church. If you don’t mind a little white lie, if they happen to come here just tell them I was here but I left and you’re not sure where I went. That should take care of it.”
“By the way,” Lou said. “There’s something you should know. There were two men here yesterday who said they were looking for you. They were here before your ship docked at Ashdod. We told them you weren’t here but you might be on your way.”
“What did they look like?” Steve asked with a frown. “Did they look like the big gray-robed monks I mentioned?”
“No. They were ordinary looking young men in black suits. Nothing special. They looked like seminarians. They spoke with thick Italian accents. Do you know them?”
“Not really,” Steve said puzzled. “But they might have been from the Vatican.” Good grief, Steve thought, now I have two groups looking for me.
“Now, on to a more pleasant subject,” Steve said. “Tell me about what I can see here in Israel. Never been here before. Of course, I’ve read about it but I still find it confusing. I understand you have an old city and a new Jerusalem.”
“Yes, it is confusing,” Lou agreed. In the old walled city, houses and streets have been built over top of crumbled remains for thousands of years. And on top of that, the mix of Jews, Christians and Muslims living near each other is hard for a newcomer to sort out. We live here in the Jewish quarter by the Western Wall, but if you walk a few blocks north from the Wall to the Via Dolorosa you’ll be in the Muslim quarter. So some of the Christian sites lie in Muslim territory. If you go further north and to the west, you’ll be in the area of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre which lies in the Christian quarter. One nice thing is that we all freely go from one area to the next. In fact, with the exception of a few lunatic terrorists, we all get along quite well. So, you might say there are actually three Israels here. As a Christian, you will want to see places like Bethlehem, Nazareth and the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, also the River Jordan where Jesus was baptized by John the Baptist, and Capharnum way in the north at the Sea of Gallilee where Jesus began his ministry. But there are also other places you might want to see—places from the old Testament like Abraham’s tomb and David’s tomb. Many visitors go up to the mountaintop, Masada, where the Jews held out for three years against a siege by the Roman army. Another popular place to visit is the Knesset which is Israel’s parliament building. And, of course one of the holiest Muslim sites is the Dome of the Rock located up behind the Western Wall.”
“How far is the Via Dolorosa and the Church of the Holy Sepulchre?”
“You can walk there from here,” Barbara said as she brought in a platter of fruit. “Father Murphy, you have lost weight; you’re too thin. You need more than coffee and a knish, so eat. While you’re here I intend to put some meat on your bones.”
“Thanks. After I eat, I think I’ll look around at a few nearby sites, and by the way, I’d feel more comfortable if you just called me Steve. Think of me as an old friend from America. I want to blend in with the tourists. I don’t want to advertise the fact that I’m a priest.”
“Make sure you’re back here for dinner at six o’clock.” Lou said. “And in crowded places, keep an eye on your wallet and watch. In some areas, American tourists are considered fair game. And, if you want to follow an old tradition, as you approach the Western Wall, give a dollar to the first beggar you see. It’s considered good luck.”
*****
As Steve stood in front of the Western Wall, he remembered reading that it was frequently referred to as the Wailing Wall because so many Jews came there to cry. The wall was not part of Solomon’s former temple; rather, it was part of the temple mount and apparently extended as far below the surface as above, although it has not yet been fully excavated. The section on the left was for the men; the portion on the right for the women. It was customary to place a note in a nook or cranny of the wall to ask for favors from God or to give thanks for favors received.
Steve noted that the area was heavily guarded by Israeli soldiers and police. Orthodox Jews in black suits with broad flat-rimmed black hats, and some with large drum-shaped hats ringed with fur, came to the wall to pray. It was considered the holiest place in Jewish Israel.
After leaving the Wall, Steve decided to get a closer look at the huge golden dome on the high ground behind the Western Wall. Climbing the hill to the Dome of The Rock, he was awestruck as he approached the massive Dome glistening in the late afternoon sun. Inside, he saw the rock itself—a huge flat irregular rock from which Muslims believe Mohammed leapt into heaven to talk to God. When Steve thought about it, he had to marvel at how difficult it was to believe some of the basic tenets of someone else’s faith, realizing that Christianity had miraculous beliefs that non-Christians undoubtedly found equally incredible.
When Steve returned to the Lavine’s house, Lou met him at the door. “While you were gone, those Italian men were here again. They wanted to rent a room, but I told them we were full up.”
“Where did they go?” Steve asked.
“I sent them to a small hotel about half a mile from here.”
“Did they say anything about me?”
“No, not this time. They said they just wanted a room.”
*****
Dinner was a lavish affair. Among the dozen guests were four attractive young American women seated opposite Steve at the long table. They were soon into their second glass of wine. During the animated conversation about the sites they had visited, Steve felt that one of the women was coming on to him. She was a beautiful, tall, blue-eyed blonde, with the lithe figure of an Olympic athlete. He sensed that in a wrestling match she would pin him inside of a minute.
Steve was casually dressed. No Roman collar. He tried to ignore the extra attention he was receiving from the young woman who was introduced as Alice. He learned the women were all Catholics. At one point in the conversation, they started kidding about Catholic priests and how sad it was that so many handsome young men chose the priesthood.
Barbara, apologizing to Steve, said she and Lou were embarrassed. “Steve,” she announced, “is a Catholic priest.”
Steve laughed it off. “I should complain,” he said, “when I might have been considered one of the handsome ones?”
Alice looked Steve directly in the eye, “You definitely were, Father.”
A couple of the women nudged each other. “He still is,” they agreed, laughing. “Better watch out, Father… you might have a nocturnal visitor in your room.”
When Steve saw a couple of the young women having their third glass of wine, he decided he’d better lock his bedroom door.
*****
After breakfast the following morning, Steve walked in the direction of the Via Dolorosa. He went through a crowded narrow street that was more akin to an alley bordered with shops that had high-up rows of garments on hangers and open barrels of grains, spices and fruit in front. He breathed in the aroma of spices mixed with the odor of the jostling crowd. Confusion reigned. He wondered if anyone went into the shops since all the business seemed to be conducted out front. At one point he grabbed the wri
st of a young man who had tried to reach into his pocket. He bent back the wrist producing an injury that the young man would long remember. He threaded his way through the mobs along the Via Dolorosa—the street on which Christ had carried the Cross to Mount Calvary. When he came to one of the Stations of the Cross, he remembered what Lou had said that in this region, Jews, Muslims and Christians lived literally on one another’s backs. In fact, much of the Via Dolorosa, so sacred to Christians was in the Moslem quarter.
After pausing to look at the stone inscriptions marking a few of the Stations, Steve came upon a small group of tourists standing in front of the Fifth Station of the Cross. This was the place where Simon of Cyrene had helped Jesus with the Cross after Jesus had fallen under the heavy weight. Steve tried to work his way into the crowd to listen to the guide but the lecture was in German, so he stepped back and waited. Before long, another group with an English-speaking guide approached the Station. The guide was an Israeli. Steve stood at the back of the crowd of about twenty American tourists.
“This is the Fifth Station of the Via Dolorosa, known as the Way of the Cross,” the guide said. “It would be very difficult to begin the tour in the first few Stations because parts of the Via Dolorosa are not accessible due to walls and other new construction. You are on the street where Jesus walked. However, if you wanted to see the actual stones he walked on you should have brought a shovel because the original street is about fifteen feet down. In two thousand years, having buildings decay and fall down, and then having new ones built on top of the rubble, some original streets are far below where they used to be. I hope you aren’t too disappointed but let me assure you that the events of Jesus’ life actually happened in places that you will visit in Israel, although I admit there is controversy over some of the exact locations.”
As Steve listened to the guide, out of the corner of his eye he noticed two men who had been walking just behind him along the Via Dolorosa. They were young, dressed in black suits, but apparently not Jews because they wore no yomulkes, not priests because they had no Roman collars, and not ministers again because of the absence of white collars. Perhaps they were seminarians, he thought.
As the men sidled up to him at the back of the crowd, Steve edged away. One of the men who was closest to Steve suddenly grabbed his arm. Steve twisted loose, pushed the man away and broke into a brisk walk to get lost in the mob on the street. The men followed but apparently lost sight of him. The incident attracted virtually no attention from the crowds of tourists.
Who the hell were they and what did they want? He seriously doubted they could have been from the Passion Monastery because the monastery had always used Brothers Michael and John to track him. Then he remembered that Lou had said two young men had come to the house. He also said they had thick Italian accents. So they could be part of another team that could have come directly from Rome.
Steve’s next stop was at the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, situated on the hilltop where Jesus was crucified. Inside the church, at Golgotha, the place of the Crucifixion, literally dozens of votive lights were suspended from the ceiling. Nearby and lower down was the stone on which Jesus’ body was laid where Nicodemus prepared him for burial. Steve knelt for a moment, touched the stone and said a prayer. Moving further along in the church he came upon a cavelike room containing an altar and a stone sarcophagus. Here again, a score of votive lights were suspended from the ceiling of the small room. Although the burial chamber had originally been at the bottom of the hill of Golgotha, the inside of the church had been levelled out so that both were at approximately the same level.
On leaving the church Steve spotted the two young men who had tried to grab him lingering outside. He quickly slipped back into the dark interior. One of the men remained outside as the other walked into the entrance. In a sudden movement, Steve reached out from a dark corner, grabbed the man in a headlock and pulled him into the dark.
“Now you tell me who you are and why you’re following me.”
“I am not allowed,” the man croaked in broken English trying to breathe as Steve held him in a stranglehold.
“You’ll tell me or I’ll break your neck.”
“You are priest. As priest it is a sin to hurt me.”
Steve put on more pressure. “A priest is allowed to defend himself and I think you guys are a threat to me.”
Steve now had the man down on one knee gasping for air. “I can see you have a dagger hidden in your coat. If you make a move for it, you’ll be dead before you get it out.”
“I talk,” the man said in a gravelly whisper. “We are from Rome. We are of the Knights of Carthage. We are told to find you and bring you back to Rome.”
“Who the hell are the Knights of Carthage?”
“I can tell you no more except—we have taken the oath to protect the church.”
So I really do have two groups of goons after me, Steve thought. And I wonder if these guys picked up the trail when Angelo started making inquiries at the Vatican.
Steve released his grip and pushed the young man down on his bottom in the corner. He pressed his index finger under the man’s chin and dug his fingernail into the man’s throat. “You sit here in this corner and count slowly to one hundred before you move, or I’ll come back here and I’ll really break your neck. You know what one hundred is?”
“Si, cento.”
“Start counting! Ciao,” Steve said as he started to walk away in the direction of the dark church interior to look for another exit. Suddenly, the young man was on his feet. He had pulled out the dagger and was rushing up behind Steve. As Steve wheeled around, he twisted the man’s arm and knocked the dagger to the floor. As he picked it up, he stared at the fourteen-inch long dagger in shock. It was a crucifix—a cross with an image of Christ on the cross—and shockingly, the vertical shaft of the cross had been sharpened to a point. The crucifix had been turned into a weapon.
“This is a damned sacrilege,” Steve muttered angrily to the man, “and I should break it in half, but how can I destroy a crucifix? However, I’d be a fool to give it back to you. For a minute I thought you were trying to grab me and bring me to the Vatican, but I guess if you had to, the plan was to bring me back in a box.”
Looking around, Steve saw a high crevice in the stone wall—one that he could reach but the young man couldn’t. He reached up and slid the crucifix into the crevice, gave the young man one final shove into a corner and hurried into the church interior to find another exit. As he glanced back, he noticed that the young man who had remained outside, came running into the church looking for his comrade.
*****
Father Angelo Mazzone picked up the phone in his office located over the Saint Callistus Catacombs in Rome. “Pronto,” came through the line which Steve recognized as the sonorous voice of his friend.
“Angelo, I assume you haven’t had any news about my situation otherwise you would have contacted me.”
“Si, si, Steve. No word yet from the Vatican.”
“Tell me, Angelo, there are two guys in black suits who have been following me and they tried to grab me today. When I got one of them alone and collared him he said he was with the Knights of Carthage. Who the hell are they?”
“As in America, you have the Knights of Colombus and in Paris at Notre Dame, there are the Knights of Malta, so too in Rome we have Knights. These are the Knights of Carthage. But let me warn you, my friend, the Knights of Carthage are far more aggressive than the others. They believe it is their solemn duty to protect the Church. Here in Rome, they are called ‘The Hounds of Rome’. They are called hounds because they are very persistent. They will hound someone until their mission is complete. They will yelp after you like dogs chasing a fox and they can be very dangerous.”
“Are they sanctioned by the Vatican?”
“No. They are completely independent but they very likely have informants in the Vatican who, shall we say, let them know things the Vatican may be worried about.”
&
nbsp; “You don’t have to tell me how dangerous they are—one of them tried to stab me with a sharpened crucifix.”
“Si. That is their trademark. In fact, whenever the Rome police investigate a stabbing, they can be pretty sure by the unusual square-shaped wound that it was done by one of the Knights using the shaft of a crucifix. It represents the square-shaped upright shaft of Christ’s Cross.”
“And no one stops this?”
“No. There are two ways you can look at this—either the police are unduly deferential to the church or they are afraid of the church. You are surprised, yes? What about the situation in America where 5,000 priests have been credibly accused of sexual abuse but only one, yes, only one has wound up in jail.”
“By the way, I wonder how these Knights managed to find out where I am?”
“I’m very sorry, Steve. It must be my fault. When I put your questions through channels, I was told there would be no answer unless the Church was told your location. I had to tell them or I would have gotten nothing. They said no harm would come to you. They are constantly warned not to resort to violence, but what can you do when young men get angry?”
“I understand, Angelo, but you must realize that now I have two groups of characters after me.”
“Just keep your eyes open my friend. May God keep you safe.”
“I’ll see you in a few weeks, Angelo. God be with you.”
“And with you, Steve.”
*****
“Take the motorbike when you go south to Bethlehem,” Lou said. “My son, David left it here when he went back to America.”
“What about military checkpoints?”
“With your American passport, your driver’s license, your I.D. as a priest, the registration card for the motorbike, they won’t give you any trouble; in fact, you’ll have them snowed with credentials. It’s only about six miles south of here so you should be able to make it back for dinner.”