Harry Mulisch - The Discovery of Heaven

It was sacred here — or was that feeling only caused by the way the spot was represented, like a jewel in a golden setting? Could you turn everything into something sacred like that? Why were there no more than two or three tourists? In the wide gallery on the other side of the circle of arcades Arab women were sitting on the ground here and there, with their faces averted, in long white robes that also covered their heads.

At one corner of the balustrade was a tall structure in the shape of a tower, in which, according to Ibrahim, three hairs from the beard of the Prophet were kept. Then he pointed to a hollow in the stone and said:

"This is his footprint as he took off on his nocturnal journey. And here," he continued, pointing to a number of wide corrugations in the side of the stone, "you see the fingerprints of the archangel, who held back the rock, because it too wanted to go to heaven. That was Gabriel, as you call him, who dictated the Koran to the Prophet."

Quinten let his eyes wander over the stone. "So were the temples of Solomon, Zerubbabel, and Herod here too?" he asked.

"So we assume."

"But surely that's easy to check? Why don't the Jews do a bit of excavating around here?"

Ironic wrinkles appeared on Ibrahim's forehead. "Because our religious authorities don't like Jews doing a bit of excavating around here."

"And so they don't?"

"Not up to now."

"You could even prove it to some extent on the basis of the New Testament," said Onno in Dutch. "Do you remember that text in the dome of St. Peter's: 'Thou art Peter and upon this rock I shall build my church'? Christ probably said it with very special accents: 'Thou art Peter and on this rock I shall build my temple.' That means," said Onno, pointing to the rock, "distinct from the temple on this rock."

Ibrahim waited politely until Onno had finished.

Quentin saw that he didn't like being excluded, and as they walked on, in a clockwise direction, he asked: "Is this where the Holy of Holies was?"

"According to some people. According to others, this was the spot where the altar for burnt offerings stood." He pointed to a glimmer of light coming out of the rock on the other side. "There's a hole in the stone there, which leads to a cave; perhaps the blood of the sacrificial animals ran out through that. In that case, the Holy of Holies would have been more toward the west."

Quinten groped under his shirt for his compass, and first felt his new Star of David. The entrance through which they had come faced due south, in line with the al-Aqsa mosque, which, naturally, pointed toward Mecca. So that west was in the direction of the Wailing Wall, east in the direction of the Mount of Olives. The chapel had doorways there too.

"But surely," he said, as they walked on, "Mohammed didn't come precisely to this spot for his heavenly journey because there were Jewish temples here?"

"No," said Ibrahim with a smile. "Things are still not like that."

"Why, then?"

"For a reason that is also connected with the buildings of the Jewish temples on this spot."

"Which was?" asked Onno. It was as though the inquisitorial manner in which Quinten was again trying to get to the bottom of things had infected him.

Rather surprised, Ibrahim looked from one to the other. "This is like a cross-examination."

"So it is," said Onno decidedly.

"There are all kinds of traditions connected with this place," said Ibrahim formally. "Will you be satisfied with four? The first is that King David saw the angel standing on this rock on the point of destroying Jerusalem. When that danger had been averted, he built an altar here. Solomon, his son, subsequently erected the first temple here."

"And the second tradition?"

"It says that a thousand years before that, the patriarch Jacob dreamed of a ladder to heaven here, by which the angels descended and ascended."

Onno raised an arm and recited the Dutch Authorized Version: " 'And he was afraid, and said, How dreadful is this place! this is none other but the house of God, and this is the gate of heaven!' — That's Dutch," he added in English.

"Nice language," said Ibrahim. "A bit like Arabic. Just as guttural."

"That's right. Your colleagues never tire of saying 'Allemachtig achtentachtig.

Ibrahim looked at him reproachfully. "They are not my colleagues," he said in a voice that suddenly seemed a little hoarser.

At the same moment Onno felt sorry he had made the remark. Perhaps Ibrahim really was a poet who earned his living as a guide, and not a guide who wrote abominable poems in his spare time.

Meanwhile they had walked around the northern, narrow, side of the rock, where there were women in white sitting everywhere. With each step and with each word, Quinten was less and less in doubt that the Holy of Holies had stood here.

"And why," he asked, "did Jacob sleep on this exact spot?"

Ibrahim ran the palm of his hand over his thin gray hair. "Because something else had happened here even earlier. This is also the place where his father, Isaac, was about to be sacrificed by his grandfather, Abraham."

"Of course," said Onno, again in Dutch.

"But at the last moment he was prevented by an archangel."

"Gabriel?" asked Quinten.

Ibrahim made a skeptical gesture. "Michael, if I remember correctly. So in a certain sense there was already an altar in the rock then: for human sacrifices. That was why the Prophet came to this exact spot — or, rather, why Gabriel brought him to this exact spot on his horse. When he arrived, he was welcomed in this place by Abraham, Moses, and Jesus."

"Yes," said Onno. "We accept everything you say at face value because that's how we are. But I'm getting really curious about the fourth tradition, because I detect a rising line in the events as you are narrating them, Mr. Ibrahim." He hesitated for a moment. "What does my ear suddenly hear from my own mouth? Ibrahim? Were you named after Abraham?"

Ibrahim made a short bow. "My father did me that honor." On the eastern side, where the stone was lower and a praying woman in white sat tucked into an alcove like a moth, with her back to them, he stopped. "Of course Jerusalem is the Jewish center of the world," he said, stretching out his arm, "but from the earliest times this rock was the center of the center for the Jews."

"The center of the center?" repeated Quinten, wide-eyed.

"This rock," said Ibrahim solemnly, "not only bore the temples, but according to the Jews it is the foundation stone of the whole edifice of the world. Here is where the creation of heaven and earth began — the first light emanated from this point."

The Big Bang, thought Onno; a pity Max was no longer here to see this tangible proof of the theory — religion and religious background radiation. .. He looked in alarm at Quinten. Something was brewing in that head again; but whatever it was, he was having no more part of it.

Perhaps because he had seen the skeptical expression on Onno's face, Ibrahim now addressed himself solely to Quinten.

"This stone is where heaven and earth and underworld meet. As long as God is served here, he will hold back the ravaging waters of the underworld, which burst forth in the days of Noah."

"But he is not being worshiped here any longer, you say."

"Not in the Jewish way."

Quinten sighed deeply. He was now absolutely certain that here was where the Holy of Holies had been. He had suddenly gone one step beyond the center of the world —he had gone beyond his dream. Here in the center of the center was where the ark of the covenant had stood, and later the tablets of the Law had lain on this rock. What he would have most liked to do was to climb up and see whether a recess had been carved anywhere, by Jeremiah, in which they could have lain. And at the same moment he saw the spot, nearby, at the edge of the rock, where the woman in white sat praying: an oblong hole about eight inches by twenty, into which the tablets would fit precisely.