As Luba offered me some mint tea, she welcomed me: ‘Marhabah! Ahlan! Ahlan wasahlan hawajah. Welcome back sir! What can we do for you? Who would you like to see, hawajah?’ she asked, using the honorific hawajah in a charming, teasing way.
I explained that I had ordered an icon from the nuns who made them and it should be ready for collection. She went off to fetch it.
There was a pile of papers and church magazines in Russian and English on the table next to where I was sitting. I picked up an old copy of the Jerusalem Post. There I found a short article on Ron Wyatt.
According to the Post, he first came to Israel in 1978. His plan, which struck me as being utterly absurd, was to go scuba diving in the Red Sea to look for Egyptian chariot parts, as a way of proving that Pharaoh’s army really had been swallowed up and that the Biblical account of the exodus from Egypt was true.
He soon claimed to have discovered the original site of the Red Sea Crossing, the original sites of the biblical cities of Sodom and Gomorrah, and the genuine original site of the crucifixion of Christ which has never been satisfactorily located.
He first claimed to have discovered the Ark of the Covenant in about 1982 during secret excavations just outside the walls of the Old City. According to him, the Ark was hidden here before the arrival of the Babylonians in an underground chamber above which he located the original site of the crucifixion. No less.
He had a sizeable following in the United States, which included a number of powerful if gullible tele-evangelists, and indeed there was a research institute in Tennessee dedicated to his findings.
As I finished the article, a handsome, longhaired Russian orthodox priest from New York, a friend of Shula’s, whom I had met once or twice, wandered into the vestibule. We chatted for a while about people we knew in common in Jerusalem. As he was turning to go, I asked him, ‘Have you seen this article about Ron Wyatt?’
‘You mean the guy who discovered the lost Ark?’
‘That’s the one.’
‘Yes,’ he laughed. ‘I’ve heard a lot about him. He found what he said was an “earthquake crack” just below the site of what he claimed was the crucifixion, which extended down to the hiding place of the Ark. According to him, the actual blood of Jesus flowed down through this crack onto the Mercy Seat - the lid of the Ark. What Wyatt took this to mean was that the traditions of Old Testament animal sacrifice reached their most sublime point with the sacrifice of Jesus, whom he sees as the new High Priest. When the blood of Jesus dripped onto the Mercy Seat, the great and final act in the cult of sacrifice was consummated. It’s a pretty gripping thought.’
‘Wonderful, but why didn’t he reveal any evidence?’
‘He claimed that the Israeli Antiquities department had made secrecy a condition of his permit. So the access tunnel to the chamber was sealed with reinforced concrete. He refuses to say where it is situated and the Ark will remain where it is. The Israelis, he claims, want to keep it that way. Wyatt believes that more than a dozen people have died because they have since tried to locate the Ark! He has held back the documents, video and photographs he alleges to have in his possession but one day, he says, he will show them. He says traces of Christ’s blood are clearly visible. Shula told me that the CIA guy in Jerusalem, who is famously dim, says the Israelis don’t want the connection between the Ark and the crucifixion revealed as it would lead to the mass conversion of Jews to Christianity.’
‘Oh dear. What I don’t understand is how, without a shred of evidence, a story like this can possibly have the status of anything more than an old wives’ tale?’
‘Quite. But it sure keeps chins wagging in Jerusalem. Oh, I forgot the best bit. Wyatt claims to have had a DNA analysis done of Christ’s blood, which proves he was born of a virgin! If He had no father I guess that means He had no Y-chromosome!’
The priest grinned irreverently, waved at me, and left, just as my old friend, Luba, returned with the icon. I gave her the amount that had been agreed, plus a few shekels for the work of the church.
‘People have been talking about you, Ha w a j a ,’ she scolded. ‘Hara m . Poor fellow! They say you are working with the Jews. Is this true? Do the Jews not have friends enough already? I’ve heard them say you are looking for the Ark of the Covenant. Is this really so? How is the Ark going to help the Palestinians? Will it save us from the Jews? Or will the Jews use it against us? It was a dangerous thing I read about it in the Bible - and people are scared of it. Both here and in my village I see many more people than you think. Some of them are violent men. Take my advice. Be careful!’
She took both my hands in hers and squeezed hard.
Before I walked back to the Old City I sat under the ancient cedars and gazed down at the Temple Mount, listening to the distant noises of the city and the nearby rustlings and crepitations of this most sacred garden of Gethsemane. Clearly Wyatt was one of the enthusiasts Rabin had warned me about. Jerusalem was full of cranks looking for the Ark in soil which had been raked over for thousands of years by Assyrians, Romans, Crusaders and assorted modern investigators of varying degrees of seriousness. I was beginning to feel that Jerusalem was the least likely of places in which the Ark would turn up. I felt anyway that I could put Wyatt and co. out of my mind. Luba’s warning was more worrying.
A few weeks later I was walking in the Old City of Jerusalem carrying a supply of the world’s best humus from Abu Shukri’s famous establishment near the Via Dolorosa. To my surprise I saw Reuven rushing down the street towards me, his coat flapping wildly about him. Every vestige of his vaguely orthodox look had disappeared. He was dressed in a conventional navy blazer and a Hermes tie. This was not his orthodox uniform. His luxuriant beard had been transformed into a small, stiff affair, and he had shaved his moustache.
He looked scared. His suntanned face was red with exertion and he was breathing with difficulty.
‘Quick,’ he said, looking over his shoulder. ‘Let’s have a coffee, I have something urgent to tell you.’
I led him to a small Arab café I sometimes used in the Muslim Quarter. It was lost in a maze of little alleys and had a first-floor room reached by a metal spiral staircase, which was hardly ever used except by young courting couples.
If Reuven was in sudden need of a secure bolthole, this was the place.
I ordered two cardamom-flavoured coffees and jerked my thumb in an upward movement towards the upper room.
Reuven went ahead, breathing with some difficulty and I followed. There was no one else there. It was a good place to talk. We sat on low, perfumed sofas upholstered in elaborate woven Damascus cloth. The coffee, served in small glass cups, arrived almost immediately.
‘Shukran,’ I thanked the waiter, and asked him not to allow anyone up there while we were there. ‘What on earth is the matter?’ I asked Reuven. ‘You look awful.’
‘So do you,’ he said. ‘Have you stopped eating or what?’
I explained that I had spent some time in solitary, scholarly confinement.
He smiled thinly and said, ‘You have been industrious, but I’ve been a fool.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘You remember Anis, that dealer who sold me the Yemenite document about Muhammad?’
‘Yes, I remember very well.’
‘When you told me it was a forgery I stopped the cheque. I gave him back the manuscript, of course, but he was not pleased. The problem is that I had already told him all about my mission. I was absolutely convinced that the document was genuine and really would change the religious and political situation in the Middle East. Of course I told him to keep quiet about it. At the time, Anis was quite sympathetic, or at least he seemed to be. As you know, he is a Muslim,