The Expected One (2 page)

She began to take the ring off, to which the shopkeeper objected vehemently, holding up his hands in protest.

“No. Please.”

“Okay, okay. This is where we haggle, right? How much is it?”

Mahmoud looked seriously offended for a moment before replying. “You misunderstand. That ring was entrusted to me, until I found the right hand for it. The hand it was made for. I see now that it was your hand. I cannot sell it to you because it is already yours.”

Maureen looked down at the ring, and then back up at Mahmoud, puzzled. “I don’t understand.”

Mahmoud smiled sagely, and moved toward the front door of the shop. “No, you don’t. But one day you will. For now, just keep the ring. A gift.”

“I couldn’t possibly…”

“You can and you will. You must. If you do not, I will have failed. You would not want that on your conscience, of course.”

Maureen shook her head in bewilderment as she followed him to the front door, pausing. “I really don’t know what to say, or how to thank you.”

“No need, no need. But now you must go. The mysteries of Jerusalem are waiting for you.”

Mahmoud held the door for her as Maureen stepped through it, thanking him again.

“Good-bye, Magdalena,” he whispered as she walked out. Maureen stopped, turning quickly back to him.

“I’m sorry?”

Mahmoud smiled his sage, enigmatic smile. “I said good-bye,
my lady.
” And he waved at Maureen as she returned the gesture, stepping out again into the harsh Middle Eastern sun.

Maureen returned to the Via Dolorosa, where she found the Eighth Station just as Mahmoud had directed her. But she was disquieted and unable to concentrate, feeling strange after the encounter with the shopkeeper. Continuing on her path, the earlier sense of dizziness returned, stronger this time, to the point of disorientation. It was her first day in Jerusalem, and she was undoubtedly suffering jet lag. The flight from Los Angeles had been long and arduous, and she hadn’t slept much the night before. Whether it was a combination of heat, exhaustion, and hunger, or something more unexplainable, what happened next was outside Maureen’s realm of experience.

Finding a stone bench, Maureen eased herself down to rest. She swayed with another wave of unexpected vertigo as a blinding flash emanated from the relentless sun, transporting her thoughts.

She was thrown abruptly into the middle of a mob. All around her was chaos — there was much shouting and shoving, great commotion on all sides. Maureen had enough of her modern wits about her to notice that the swarming figures were robed in coarse, homespun garments. Those who had shoes wore a crude version of a sandal; she noticed as one stepped down hard on her foot. Most were men, bearded and grimy. The omnipresent sun of early afternoon beat down upon them, mixing sweat with dirt on the angry and distressed faces around her. She was at the edge of a narrow road, and the crowd just ahead began to jostle emphatically. A natural gap was evolving, and a small group moved slowly along the path. The mob appeared to be following this huddle. As the moving mass came closer, Maureen saw the woman for the first time.

A solitary and still island in the center of the chaos, she was one of the few women in the crowd — but that was not what made her different. It was her bearing, a regal demeanor that marked her as a queen despite the layer of dirt covering her hands and feet. She was slightly disheveled, lustrous auburn hair tucked partially beneath a crimson veil that covered the lower half of her face. Maureen knew instinctively that she had to reach this woman, needed to connect with her, touch her, speak to her. But the writhing crowd held her back, and she was moving in the slow-motion thickness of a dream state.

As she continued to struggle in the direction of the woman, the aching beauty of the face that was just out of her reach struck Maureen. She was fine-boned, with exquisite, delicate features. But it was her eyes that would haunt Maureen long after the vision was over. The woman’s eyes, huge and bright with unshed tears, fell somewhere in the color spectrum between amber and sage, an extraordinary light hazel that reflected infinite wisdom and unbearable sadness in one heart-searing blend. The woman’s soul-swallowing gaze met Maureen’s in a brief and interminable moment, conveying through those improbable eyes a plea of complete and utter desperation.

You must help me.

Maureen knew that the plea was directed at her. She was entranced, frozen, as her eyes locked with the woman’s. The moment was broken when the woman looked down suddenly at a young girl who tugged urgently at her hand.

The child looked up with huge hazel eyes that echoed her mother’s. Behind her stood a boy, older and with darker eyes than the little girl, but clearly the son of this woman. Maureen knew in that inexplicable instant that she was the only person who could help this strange, suffering queen and her children. A swell of intense confusion, and something that felt far too much like grief, moved through her at this realization.

Then the mob surged again, drowning Maureen in a sea of sweat and despair.

Maureen blinked hard, holding her eyes shut tight for a few seconds. She shook her head briskly to clear her vision, not certain at first where she was. A glance down at her jeans, microfiber backpack, and Nike walking shoes provided reassurance from the twentieth century. Around her the bustle of the Old City continued, but the people were dressed in contemporary fashions and the sounds were different now: Radio Jordan blasted an American pop song — was that R.E.M.’s “Losing My Religion”? — from a shop across the way. A teenage Palestinian boy kept time, drumming on the countertop. He smiled at her without missing a beat.

Rising from the bench, Maureen attempted to shake off the vision, if that’s what it had been. She wasn’t sure what it was, nor could she allow herself to dwell on it. Her time in Jerusalem was limited and she had 2,000 years of sights to see. Summoning her journalist’s discipline and a lifetime’s experience of suppressing her emotions, she filed the vision under “research for later analysis” and pushed herself to keep moving.

Maureen found herself merging with a swarm of British tourists as they rounded the corner, led by a guide wearing the collar of an Anglican priest. He announced to his group of pilgrims that they were approaching the most sacred site in Christendom, the Basilica of the Holy Sepulcher.

Maureen knew from her research that the remaining Stations of the Cross were contained within that revered building. Spanning several blocks, the basilica covered the site of the crucifixion and had done so since the Empress Helena vowed to protect this sacred ground in the fourth century. Helena, who was also the mother of the Holy Roman Emperor Constantine, was later canonized for her efforts.

Maureen approached the enormous entrance doors slowly and with some hesitation. She realized as she stood on the threshold that she had not been inside a real church in many years, nor did she relish the thought of changing that status now. She reminded herself firmly that the research that had brought her to Israel was scholarly rather than spiritual. As long as she remained focused, with that perspective, she could do it. She could walk through those doors.

Despite her reluctance, there was something unmistakably awe-inspiring and magnetic about this colossal shrine. As she stepped through the mammoth doorway, she heard the British priest’s words ring out:

“Within these walls, you will see where Our Lord made the ultimate sacrifice. Where He was stripped of His robes, where He was nailed to the cross. You will enter the holy tomb where His body was laid. My brothers and sisters in Christ, once you enter this place, your lives will never be the same.”

The heavy and unmistakable smell of frankincense swirled past Maureen as she entered. Pilgrims from all walks of Christendom surrounded this place and filled the mammoth spaces inside the basilica. She passed a group of Coptic priests huddled in hushed, reverent discussion and watched a Greek Orthodox cleric light a candle in one of the small chapels. A male choir sang in an Eastern dialect, an exotic sound to Western ears, the hymn rising up from some secret space within the church.

Maureen was taking in the overwhelming sights and sounds of this place, and was feeling aimless from the sensory overload. She did not see the wiry little man who eased up beside her until he tapped her on the shoulder, causing her to jump.

“Sorry, Miss. Sorry, Miss Mo-ree.” He spoke English, but unlike the enigmatic shopkeeper Mahmoud, his accent was very heavy. His skills with Maureen’s language were rudimentary at best, and as a result she didn’t understand at first that he was calling her by her first name. He repeated himself.

“Mo-ree. Your name. It is Mo-ree, yes?”

Maureen was puzzled, trying to determine if this strange little man was actually calling her by name and, if so, how he knew it. She had been in Jerusalem for fewer than twenty-four hours, and no one save the front desk clerk at the King David Hotel knew her name. But this man was impatient, asking again.

“Mo-ree. You are Mo-ree. Writer. You write, yes? Mo-ree?”

Nodding slowly, Maureen answered. “Yes. My name is Maureen. But how — how did you know?”

The little man ignored the question, grabbing her hand and pulling her across the church floor. “No time, no time. Come. We wait a long time for you. Come, come.”

For such a small man — he was shorter than Maureen, who was herself uncommonly petite — he moved very quickly. Short legs propelled him through the belly of the basilica, past the line where pilgrims waited to be admitted to the Tomb of Christ. He kept moving until they reached a small altar near the rear of the building, and stopped suddenly. The area was dominated by a life-size bronze sculpture of a woman holding outstretched arms to a man in a beseeching pose.

“Chapel of Mary Magdalene. Magdalena. You come for her, yes? Yes?”

Maureen nodded cautiously, looking at the sculpture and down at the plaque that read:

She read aloud the quotation from another plaque beneath the bronze:

“Woman, why weepest thou? Who is it you are looking for?”

Maureen had little time to contemplate the question as the odd little man was pulling at her again, hurrying at his unlikely pace to another, darker corner of the basilica.

“Come, come.”

They rounded a corner and stopped in front of a painting, a large and aged portrait of a woman. Time, incense, and centuries of oily candle residue had taken their toll on the artwork, causing Maureen to move close to the dark portrait, squinting. The little man narrated in a voice grown deeply serious.

“Painting very old. Greek. You understand?
Greek.
Most important of Our Lady. She needs you to tell her story. This is why you come here, Mo-ree. We have waited a long time for you.
She
has waited. For you. Yes?”

Maureen looked carefully at the painting, a dark, ancient portrait of a woman wearing a red cloak. She turned to the little man, intensely curious now as to where this was taking her. But he was gone — he had vanished as quickly as he had appeared.