Lion Heart Read Online Free Page B

crying out for recognition and validation. From the great golden dome of Al-Aqsa to the Chapel of the Ascension, this longing is evident. Both these places – although ‘places’ hardly does justice to their immeasurable spiritual charge – commemorate miraculous events, the night journey of Mohammed to Jerusalem from Mecca (it was a round trip on a small white flying horse, not unlike, I imagine, the Highland ponies) and the ascension of Jesus into heaven.
    Outside my room the early almond blossom is offering itself promiscuously all over the city. I recognise the scent because Emily favoured Roger & Gallet’s Almond Blossom soap – also available in the Marais at fancy prices. As I lie here, waiting to hear the call to assemble, I am seized by an intense awareness of the devotion that is spearing the still-dark dawn, even if in my heart I know it is deluded. Also, I am a little frightened of the Palestinians, because they are seething with ancient resentments and the perception of centuries of accumulated slights.
    The dawns of Jerusalem are beautiful – lavender and rose and ground cumin. Damman Frères’ teas come to mind.
    The muadhin follows the round of Allahu Akbar with As-salatu khayrun minan-nawm – Prayer is better than sleep . I have lain awake before dawn for four days now, waiting longingly for the iqama , the call to line up for prayer. When it comes, it is particularly plaintive, fraught with longing and disappointment. I think that this thread of sound links Muslims with a loose but unbreakable cord; I see all the Muslims of the world walking blindly together, like soldiers gassed in the Great War, following this guideline to some unknown destination. One thing is for sure: it will be better there, wherever they are headed.
    My room, No. 6, is part of the old building of the hotel; it was once the house of a wealthy pasha who kept a small harem. Room 6 is prized; it was built as the bedroom of the Pasha’s beloved fourth wife; it has stone flags, smoothed by the passage of soft Turkish carpet slippers. The Pasha’s wives, I guess, were as plump and soft as turtle-doves.
    As the muadhin calls, I feel the ecstasy of solitude. There can be pleasure in thinking of yourself as alone and in this way closer to your true self. The desert around Qumran and Masada, which I visited yesterday in a bus full of upbeat and fundamentalist Christians from Oklahoma, was where Christ was said to have spent his forty days of solitude and I thought I could see in this parched tumbled landscape what it was the desert fathers valued. I also inhaled the aroma of the Dead Sea below, a strange sulphur smell, which Pliny the Elder noticed two thousand years ago.
    There is a difference between solitude and loneliness. I was diminished by loneliness when Emily left me. As her retreat for her own period of self-expression, she chose Sheffield and for spiritual guidance, Edgar Gaylard.
    I lie eagerly waiting, as if I am expecting some epiphany. Suddenly the muadhin finishes his final call. I have discovered that his inflection changes as the appeal to piety winds down. I take my time – I am assuming the habits of a pasha. All these towels and dressing gowns pander to me and encourage me. I shower and anoint myself in the marbled shower room – separate from the bathroom and its giant bath – and finally dress and go for breakfast in the courtyard, which has a fountain in the shape of a scaly fish standing on its tail in an octagonal pond. Real fish – lazy, overindulged carp and their golden cousins – barely move. Their mouths open idly as if they are expecting a little baklava to be popped into their fleshy lips. A small, obese boy in old-fashioned shorts is pointing out the fish to his mother and father who are eating labneh , a soft white cheese, at the table next to mine. They scoop up the cheese with wedges of pita. We smile at each other indulgently, encouraging the fantasy that children are uniquely charming . . .