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something here in this place, cracking, splintering, oozing. It
seeped between the stone blocks of the venerable buildings and down the runnels
of the ancient streets. It washed under the feet of the city's inhabitants with
their brief lives. It glowed darkly in the excavations under the floors of
their homes. You had to be dead not to feel it! The very dust was alive, like a
radioactive substance. It stuck to your sandals, thought Tom; it got under your
nails, ingrained your skin, dried your throat and made you thirsty.
    It does all this.
But it doesn't make you a better person. And it doesn't bring Katie back.
    This time he approached
the Old City via another entrance. Outside the wall young men and women of
student age went about in olive army fatigues, Uzi machineguns slung across their
shoulders. To see so many young women militarized intrigued him. Beautiful
girls, armed, strong, confident, somehow unassailable. He was both appalled by
this emancipation-through-arms and strangely energized by the spectacle. The
guns made the girls more desirable.
    New
Gate admitted directly on to the Christian quarter. He had taken another map
from the hotel and had bought a guide book. When he reached the Church of the
Holy Sepulchre, a new queue of visitors had formed, alongside a sizeable
gathering of folk in wheelchairs.
    He
sat on a flight of stone steps and studied his guide book. Within ten seconds
he was approached by two touts who wanted to guide him. 'Get out of my face!'
he yelled. What was it about this city? You couldn't stay still for a moment.
If you didn't keep moving, you became a target. Stillness was weakness. Keep
circulating, or be bitten. You had to live like a small fish, darting away from
bigger fish that moved in at you from all sides.
    He returned
to his guide book. He was dismayed to learn that there was doubt about the
authenticity of the site of the Holy Sepulchre. An alternative site for the
Crucifixion and the Resurrection was proposed just north of Damascus Gate. It
had never occurred to him that the Holy Sepulchre might be bogus. He flipped
the guide book over, checking the name of the author to see if it had been
written by a Jew or an Arab, someone with an axe to grind.
    This site, it claimed,
had always been within the city wall, whereas tradition dictated that the
Crucifixion had taken place outside the city. He looked over at the rows of
wheelchairs, lined up as if for a race, and hoped they hadn't come to the wrong
place. The present site, the book stated, was chosen by Helena, mother of
Constantine, Emperor of Byzantium, three and a half centuries after the
Crucifixion. Helena had made a pilgrimage to Jerusalem and was disappointed by
the absence of shrines. So she built one here.
    Tom
snapped his book shut. He went inside the church again. Guards were still
hurrying people in and out of the chapel inside the church. Around the back the
spider-priest was busy palming plastic crosses to tourists. Tom left.
    He
visited the Dome of the Rock, having read that the Golden Dome, its gold melted
down to pay the caliph's debts, was actually rendered in aluminium-bronze
alloy. From there he drifted back through the Muslim quarter towards Damascus
Gate, threading a narrow street of market stalls selling rush matting and
spices and exotic fruits. If he paused to look, the traders plagued him. To
escape he passed beneath a shady, arched passage, which pitched him into a
quiet cul-de-sac. It was familiar.
    It was the
site of his encounter with the old Arab woman. He swallowed hard. Just a few
yards away was the terminal arch and the stone on which the old woman had
scratched letters. Today she was gone. Tom inched forward into the shadowy
recess, curious to see what she'd been trying to show him.
    There was
no one around. A faint murmur came from the street of market sellers beyond the
arches. He moved closer and at once recognized the cloyingly sweet and
evocative balsam that had characterized the encounter. He