The Celestial Gate by Avital Dicker (great novels to read TXT) 📕

Chapter 17

Nothing could have prepared Anise for the scene outside. She froze at the edge of the sidewalk. The cratered street was stained with blood and all the storefront windows had been blown out. It seemed that all the shops had been looted. Burning rubber tires emitted foul black fumes. Just ten or twelve feet away, her unbelieving eyes saw a dead toddler lying on the ground like a discarded rag doll.

Yam pulled her away from the gruesome sight. “Don’t look,” he whispered.

But Anise shook herself free. She walked over and knelt down next to the child. He couldn’t be more than three, she thought, and gently closed his staring eyes. Though the shooting around them resumed, Anise remained frozen in place. She continued to kneel by the child’s side, holding his small hand.

Bullets whizzed by. Yam crouched and, ducking as best as he could, reached Anise’s side. Gently, he pried Anise’s fingers loose from the child’s hand. “He’s – what? – three years old?” Anise mumbled. Slowly, he helped her to her feet and led her to the side of the street.

All three moved carefully through courtyards. Every time they spied a running group of masked men, they hurried to hide.

Just before the end of the street, Mor saw a little playground between two buildings. The place was relatively concealed and the small park was deserted. He went in and positioned himself next to the fence from where he could safely observe the street.

Still numb, Anise sat down on a swing. God just wouldn’t let things like that happen, she thought.

Yam, leaning against a tree, watched Anise. Her despair scared him. She can’t give up, he thought. She was his beating heart, the reason he kept going at all.

“Your father painted Golden Gate, didn’t he?” Mor suddenly asked, interrupting Yam’s train of thought.

“That’s right,” said Yam. “I can’t believe I couldn’t remember its name. But there’s something else I completely forgot. The earlier name of Golden Gate was Gate of Mercy. We need to be looking for Gate of Mercy! Mercy…” he mused, struck by his own insight. “My dad also told me that the gate, in reality, isn’t one gate. He only painted one, it’s actually a double gate with two arches. One is called the Gate of Repentance and the other the Gate of Mercy. Christians believe that Jesus arrived in Jerusalem through this gate, and that’s how it came to be called Golden Gate. Jews believe that the Messiah will come from there. I think I told you that the gate leads to the part of the Temple Mount that’s sacred to the Muslims. They built a cemetery just outside the gate to block the way to the Jews’ Messiah.”

“Yeah, I heard that too. The Muslims buried forty brave warriors there to fight the Jewish Messiah and keep him from entering.” It was Anise, who’d suddenly come out of her torpor, filling Yam with relief.

“So it’s actually the same stone gate and the exact same God, only the dumb interpretations that vary depending on the religion,” said Mor excitedly, leaping to his feet. “Listen up! I think we found it!”

“Found what?” Anise asked.

“The Lost Gate,” answered Mor.

Chapter 18

Entering the Old City, the first thing that struck Sual was the oh-so-familiar smell: the scents of aromatic spices, strong coffee, and fresh pitas mixed with body odor. Even the stink of gunpowder couldn’t erase it and, for a moment, Sual was once again that frightened nineteen-year-old girl carrying a blonde baby girl in her arms. She breathed into the anxiety that was climbing up her throat. That young woman doesn’t exist anymore, she reminded herself.

The thought that Anise was wandering these alleyways terrified Sual. Her mother had always warned her that this city had yet to give up most of its secrets. Sual remembered the afternoon that, on a lark, she – she must have been around eight – and her girlfriends followed a group of boys roaming through the Old City. They’d been tracking them for about half an hour when – poof! The boys were gone. Just like that, as if the ground had swallowed them up. When she got home and excitedly told her mother about it, Aisha got very angry and scolded her harshly, telling her she was talking nonsense, that there was no city under the city, and that she should hurry up and cut up the vegetables for the salad. Sual never brought it up again, but she’d become convinced there was something underground. She saw the boys disappear with her own eyes, and an underground city was the only rational explanation.

Theo, stunned, looked at the burning tires and scorched car skeletons, a silent memorial to the last few days’ events. He shook himself into action, and he and his three companions crossed the road under the cover of darkness. Sual recognized the hotel with the wrought-iron gate across from them. The place where her life had changed in an instant. Funny, she thought. Back then, when she realized she was pregnant, she’d gone back to the hotel hoping to find someone who remembered the American journalist. She’d stood to the side, waiting for the balding receptionist in his wrinkled, sweat-stained shirt to become available. But when his small eyes finally looked at her, she’d panicked and run out.

Now Ido signaled for them to stop. Sual recognized the Jewish Quarter.

“Last chance to back out,” he said. None of them answered. “All right,” he sighed, “you’re now on your own.” He held out a piece of paper to Theo. “This is an emergency contact. They’ll know how to find me at this number.” The two men shook hands.

Ido stared at Amalia for a long moment. He was finding it difficult to say goodbye. “Take care of yourselves,” he said finally and disappeared into the dark.

The way to the Gate of Mercy went past the Temple Mount. Anise, Mor, and Yam found shelter behind an abandoned building near the Mount’s