The Theatre - Kellerman, Jonathan

Anyway, no use crying over split milk… split blood, ha ha.

He grinned, took the file into the stale, empty space that had once been the Ice Palace, sat on the bare wooden floor, and began to read.

Fourteen minutes before Thursday night surrendered to Fri: day morning, Brother Roselli exited the Saint Saviour's monastery and began walking east on St. Francis Street.

Elias Daoud, swaddled in a musty Franciscan habit and concealed in the shadows of the Casa Nova Hospice, was not impressed. The farthest Roselli had ever gone was down the Via Dolorosa, tracing Christ's walk in reverse, to the doors of the Monastery of the Flagellation. Hesitating at the shrine, as if contemplating entry, then turning back. And that was a long-distance hike-usually Roselli walked no farther than the market street that bisected the Old City longitudinally, separating the Jewish Quarter from the Christian Quarter. And the moment he got there, he jerked his head back nervously and turned around.

Hardly worth the effort of following him.

Strange bird, thought Daoud. He'd come to resent the monk, deeply, for the numbing boredom he'd brought into his ife. Sitting, hour after hour,-*ight after night, as inert as the cobblestones beneath his feet, wearing the coarse, unwashed robes or some beggar's rags. So stagnant he feared his brain would soon weaken from disuse.

Feeling the resentment grow as he thought about it, then plagued by guilt at harboring anger toward a man of God.

But a strange man of God. Why did he stop and go like some wind-up toy? Setting out purposefully, only to reverse himself as if manipulated by some unseen puppeteer?

Conflict, he and Sharavi had agreed. The man is in conflict over something. The Yemenite had told him to keep watching.

He'd begun, eventually, to resent Sharavi too. Keeping him away from the action, stuck on this dummy assignment.

But let's be truthful: It wasn't the boredom that bothered him. A week wasn't that long-he was patient by nature, had always enjoyed the solitude of undercover, the shifting of identities.

It was being excluded.

He'd done his job well, identifying the Rashmawi girl. But no matter-now that things had gotten political, he was unwanted baggage. No way would they trust him with anything of substance.

The others-even young Cohen, little more than a rookie, with no judgment and no brains-banded together as a team. Where the action was.

While Elias Daoud sat and watched a strange monk walk two hundred meters and turn back.

He knew what was in store for him when this assignment ended: Off the Butcher case, back to Kishle, maybe even back in uniform, handling tourists' purse-snatches and petty squabbles. Maybe another undercover some day, if it wasn't political.

Working for the Jews, everything was political.

Not a single Arab he knew would regret seeing the Jews disappear. Nationalistic talk had grown fashionable even among the Christians. He himself couldn't muster much passion for politics. He had no use, personally, for the Jews, supposed an all-Arab state would be better. But, then again, without Jews to complain about, Christians and Muslims would surely turn on one another; it was the way things had been for centuries. And given-that state of affairs, everyone knew who'd win-look at Lebanon.

So it was probably best to have Jews around. Not in charge, to be sure. But a few, as a distraction.

He stepped out on St. Francis Street and looked east. Roselli's outline was visible a hundred meters up, just past Es Sayyida Road; the monk's sandal-shuffle could be heard clear up the street. Daoud wore sandals, too, but his were crepe-soled. Police issue. The discrepancy concealed by the floor-length robes.

Roselli kept walking, approaching the market intersection. Daoud stayed out of sight, flush with the buildings, prepared to duck into a doorway when the monk reversed himself.

Roselli passed the Abyssinian monastery, stopped, turned right onto Souq El Attarin, and disappeared.

It took a moment for the fact to register. Caught by surprise, Daoud ran to catch up, his boredom suddenly replaced by anxiety.

Thinking: What if I lose him?

To the east, the souq was ribbed with dozens of narrow roads and arched alleyways leading to the Jewish Quarter. Tiny courtyards and ancient clay-domed homes restored by the Jews, orphanages and one-room schools and synagogues* If someone wanted to lose himself at night, no section of the city was more suitable.

Just his luck, he lamented, sprinting silently in the darkness. All those stagnant nights followed by split-second failure.

A Thursday night, too. If Roselli was the Butcher, he might very well be prepared to strike.

Constricted with tension, Daoud sped toward the souq, thinking: Back in uniform for sure. Please, God, don't let me lose him.

He turned on El Attarin, entered the souq, caught his breath, pressed himself against a cold stone wall, and looked around.

Prayers answered: Roselli's outline, clearly visible in the moonlight streaming between the arches. Walking quickly and deliberately down stone steps, through the deserted market street.

Daoud followed. The souq was deserted and shuttered. Rancid-sweet-produce smells still clung to the night air, seasoned intermittently by other fragrances: freshly tanned leather, spices, peanuts, coffee.

Roselli kept going to the end of the souq, to where Attarin merged with Habad Street.

Pure Jewish territory now. What business could the monk have here? Unless he was planning to head west, into the Armenian Quarter. But a Franciscan would have little more to do with the Pointed Hats than he would with the Jews.

Daoud maintained his distance, ducking and weaving and maintaining a keen eye on Roselli, who kept bearing south. Past the Cardo colonnade, up through the top plaza of the

Jewish Quarter, the fancy shops that Jews had built there. Across the large parking lot, now empty.

Two border guards stood watch on the walls, turned at the sound of Roselli's sandals and stared at him, then at Daoud following moments later. A moment of analysis; then, just as quickly, the guards turned away.

Two brown-robes, nothing unusual.

Roselli passed under the arch that, during the day, served as an outdoor office for the Armenian moneylenders, showing no interest in either the Cathedral of Saint James or the Armenian Orthodox monastery. Daoud followed him toward the Zion Gate, mentally reviewing the Roman Catholic sites that graced that area: the Church of Saint Peter of the Cock-Crowing? Or perhaps the monk was headed outside the Old City walls, to the Crypt of Mary's Sleep-the Franciscans were entrusted with the tomb of Jesus' mother

But neither shrine proved to be Roselli's destination.

Just inside the Zion Gate was a cluster of Jewish schools- yeshivas. Newly built structures constructed on the sites of the old yeshivas Hussein had reduced to rubble in '48, Arab homes built by the Jordanians confiscated in '67 to make way for the rebuilding of the schools.

The typical Jerusalem seesaw.

Noisy places, yeshivas-the Jews liked to chant their studies for the world to hear. Black-coated longbeards and kids with skimpy whiskers hunched behind wooden lecterns, poring over their Old Testaments and their Talmuds. Reciting and debating without letup-even at this hour there was activity: brightly lit windows checkering the darkness; Daoud could hear a low sing-song drone of voices as he walked past.

Heretics, for sure, but one thing you had to give them: They had great powers of concentration.

Roselli walked past the larger yeshivas, approached a small one set back from the road and nearly obscured by its neighbors.

Ohavei Torah Talmudic Academy-domed building with a plain facade. Meager dirt yard in the front; to one side a big pine tree, the boughs casting spidery shadows over four parked cars.