HarperPress
An imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers
1 London Bridge Street
London SE1 9GF
www.harpercollins.co.uk
First published in Great Britain by Collins 1989
Copyright © William Hamilton-Dalrymple 1990
William Hamilton-Dalrymple asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this ebook on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins ebooks
HarperCollinsPublishers has made every reasonable effort to ensure that any picture content and written content in this ebook has been included or removed in accordance with the contractual and technological constraints in operation at the time of publication
Source ISBN: 9780006544159
Ebook Edition © JUNE 2012 ISBN: 9780007397594 Version: 2016-08-30
It was still dark when I left Sheik Jarrah. At the Damascus Gate the first fruit sellers were gathered by a brazier, warming their fingers around glasses of sweet tea. The Irish Franciscan was waiting by the door of the Holy Sepulchre. He nodded from under the hood of his habit and without a word led me past the Armenian chapel and under the great rotunda. Around the dome you could hear the echo of plainchant as twelve separate congregations sang their different matins.
âItâs not long now,â said Brother Fabian. âThe Greeks will be finished by eight-thirty.â
âThatâs in two hoursâ time.â
âOnly half an hour. The Greeks donât allow us to put the clocks back. We work on Byzantine time here.â
He knelt down on a flagstone, folded his hands in his sleeves and began murmuring his devotions. We waited for twenty minutes.
âWhatâs keeping them?â
âThe rotaâs very strict. Theyâre allowed four hours in the tomb, and they wonât leave until their time is up,â
He hesitated then added:
âThings are a bit tense at the moment. Last month one of the Armenian monks went crazy: thought an angel was telling him to kill the Greek patriarch. So he smashed an oil lamp and chased Patriarch Diodorus through the choir with a piece of broken glass.â
âWhat happened?â
âThe Greeks overpowered him. Thereâs an ex-weightlifter from Thessaloniki who looks after the Greek chapel on Calvary. He pinned the Armenian down in the crypt until the police came. But since then the Greeks and the Armenians havenât been on speaking terms. Which means we had to be the go-betweens. Until we broke off relations with the Greeks as well.â
âWhat do you mean?â
âLast month Diodorus was crossing the bridge into Jordan when the border guards found a big bag of heroin in the air filter of his car. They released him but arrested his driver. Diodorus claimed he must have put the bag there. The driver was a Catholic.â
âSo now no one is speaking to anyone?â
âI think the Copts are still speaking to the Maronites. But apart from that, no.â
Brother Fabian pulled one arm out of his habit and pointed to the dome of the rotunda.
âYou see the painterâs scaffolding? Thatâs been up ten years because the three patriarchs canât agree on a colour. Theyâd just about settled on black when the Armenian assaulted Diodorus. Now the Greeks are demanding purple. It wonât get repainted for another ten years now. By which time,â added Fabian, âI shall be back in Donegal.â
At that moment a procession of black-clad Greek monks emerged from the Tomb, a bulbous, kettle-like structure which Robert Byron thought resembled a railway engine. As the monks stepped out some were singing anthems while others sprayed the ambulatory with holy water. They had cascading pepper-and-salt beards and wore cylindrical hats topped with black mortarboards. They scowled in the direction of the Latin chapel then marched off towards Calvary.
âWait here,â said Brother Fabian.
He returned carrying a tin watering can and a tray of what looked like surgical instruments. He handed me the tray then walked up to the tomb, bowed, bent double and squeezed under the low, cusped arch. I followed. We passed through the dim first chamber, then stooped into the inner sanctum. The holiest shrine in Christendom was the size of a small broom cupboard. Raised on a ledge was the Stone of Resurrection and on top of it rested two icons, a tatty Mannerist painting and a vase containing seven wilted roses. Twelve lamps were suspended from the ceiling by steel chains. Fabian knelt down, kissed the Stone and murmured a prayer. Then he rose.