356
CAIRO TO DAMASCUS
Jerusalem. Should I risk being trapped and captured in this
labyrinth, or chance another interrogation tomorrow?
I sauntered casually into the street, and slipped down one
of the alleys. In a few minutes I found myself in another
world—deep behind the native curtain. I walked through
more twisting alleys until I reached the outskirts of Sur Bahir.
The extraordinary panorama of Jerusalem spread before me.
It was the hour of sunset, and the Old City wall on the rocky
height was a magic island floating in space as the rays caught
the wheat fields, the bluish Dome of the Mosque of Omar,
the Mount of Olives, and the thousand and one historic
buildings and shrines.
I waited until darkness, and then slowly worked my way
down a rocky slope until I reached a wheat patch. There I
rested, dozing off at times, until an hour before dawn. My
plan was to cross this no-man's land while it was still dark
and reach Jerusalem when traffic was heavy with farmers
bringing in their produce. I would then lose myself among
them.
I rose, chilled through, exercised my knees to take the kinks
out, and chewing on a handful of wheat kernels, began walking again in what I thought was the direction of Jerusalem.
I kept going by instinct—I had no other guide; no landmarks
were visible in the pitch darkness. I grew disturbed because
the trail I was taking seemed to be leading to higher and
higher ground. But I had no alternative, except to put as
much distance as possible between myself and Sur Bahir.
Not until the first streaks of gray showed on the horizon
did I realize that I was in totally strange territory. I was lost—
on a narrow road dug into the side of a scrubby mountain. Not
even the famous Tower of the Russian Church on the Mount
of Olives, highest landmark outside the Old City, was visible.
Before me spread range after range of Judean hills. Below me
—at the bottom of a chasm some five hundred feet deep—
was an Arab mud village. Behind me an escarpment rose to
the height of fifty feet. From my left a husky young Arab