I pushed my way toward the south entrance, dodging the dispirited packs of invalids as best I could until I finally made it outside. From there, I kept going for another fifty yards as I strained to recall the details of the map Lavon had shown us before we departed Bryson’s lab.
I stopped for a moment to get my bearings, savoring the fresh air. To my east, a narrow path ran between a disheveled pile of construction materials at the edge of a steep cliff. According to Lavon, this was most likely the initial segment of what would become a third wall surrounding Jerusalem’s growing northern suburbs.
I didn’t see any laborers, though, and this also fit with what the archaeologist had told us earlier: the Third Wall had been a haphazard enterprise for decades until the Revolt finally lent urgency to its completion.
Not that the effort did the Jews much good. When push came to shove, Roman siege engineers broke through it in a matter of days.
But that was forty years into the future. If I wanted to last forty more hours, I needed to find the others.
Looking down, I could see a narrow trail snaking its way down into the valley below before turning back up to the other side. There, a long ridge ran parallel to the city’s eastern walls: the Mount of Olives.
I didn’t see any other man-made path, so I surmised that travelers wanting to go south from where I was would cross over to the Mount and then follow a parallel track along the back side.
If that was where the others had gone, I still had a chance.
I trekked along the path until I reached the base of the Kidron Ravine, where I turned right and headed down my improvised shortcut at a steady jog. Fortunately, the vegetation had not grown too thick, so I made good progress.
The place smelled — I recalled Lavon’s comment about the ravine being the city’s garbage dump — but after what I had experienced already, I couldn’t complain.
I could also see, as I looked up at the city’s imposing eastern walls, why no invader had ever attacked Jerusalem from this direction. From where I stood, the top of the fortifications must have risen over two hundred feet, straight up.
The scrub trees got thicker, and thornier, as I reached the halfway point. The cheap sandals that my friendly snake-charmers had lent me protected my feet, but it didn’t take long for my arms and calves to look like I had wrestled in barbed wire.
I pressed on, though, and after a few more minutes, I spotted a large crowd of people and animals gathering at Jerusalem’s southern gate.
To my relief, I also saw that the main road swung far to the south of the Mount of Olives before turning back north toward the city. As long as the others had traveled at a normal pace, the odds were good that I had managed to reach the gate ahead of them.
I slowed my pace to a fast walk and decided to check in with Sharon.
I inserted my earpiece, but didn’t even have a chance to call out.
“Oh my God,” she said.
I heard some shouting in the background, too, but it didn’t translate.
“Sharon, what is it? Are you OK?”
She didn’t reply for a moment. When she did, I could tell she had seen something horrific.
She struggled to find the right words. “We just stopped again; this man is holding up a cup; he wants me to give him something.”
“What kind of man?” I asked.
“I … I, uh, I’m not sure.”
She finally collected herself enough to give me a rough description.
Hardened spherical nodules, several larger than a quarter, covered his face and neck. Live insects crawled through the remnants of a gray, scraggly beard. Compounding the dreadfulness of his appearance, a strip of cloth fell away as the man edged closer, revealing a huge open red sore.
Except for the insects, I had seen this once, years ago, in central Africa.
I had hoped never to see it again.
“Look at his hands,” I said.
She did so, and gasped.
As I suspected, the fingers had degenerated into stumps, the flesh eaten away.
“It’s leprosy, Sharon; an advanced case. Try not to touch him.”
I needn’t have worried. Sharon’s captor didn’t want him around either. He called out to one of the litter bearers, who stepped up and kicked the man square in the chest. The rest of their crew laughed as the beggar scrambled away, crawling on all fours.
She didn’t say anything else for a moment. Leprosy was not an ailment that twenty-first century Americans thought much about. Like togas and spears, the disease belonged to a long-vanished age.
If only.
“A boyfriend in college once told me that the armadillo could be a carrier and that I should avoid handling them for that reason. I didn’t believe him, though. He was always telling these ridiculous stories.”
“He was right about that one,” I replied, “although from what I’ve read, modern research has found that it’s not quite as contagious as people once thought.”
“Is it curable?”
“Antibiotics are effective if you catch it early enough.”
She went quiet for a moment.
“What if we’re …?”
“Stuck here past Sunday?” I replied.
“Yeah. Could we get it? I mean, an advanced case, like that one?”
“I don’t think it spreads that fast.”
Still, it was to our advantage to avoid the disease, if we could.
A pause.
“I, uh … you know, kicking that man …”
“Don’t worry about it,” I said.
“The laughing … the cruelty … that was wrong.”
“Yes,” I replied.
She didn’t respond.
“Look, it’s OK,” I said.
I knew it wasn’t, but at the moment, we’d gain nothing by dwelling on the subject.
Lavon told me earlier that Sharon had spent the last five Thanksgiving holidays dishing out meals at a homeless shelter. Now, this kind spirit had to confront, first-hand, why people of the ancient world held the disease in such abject terror, and admit that they had a legitimate reason for responding the way they did.
She would just have to work through it in her own mind.
“Do you have any idea where you are?” I asked, as much to take her thoughts off that particular struggle as to obtain a geographical coordinate.
She hesitated for a moment while she poked her head through the curtain once more. “We’re outside the city,” she said. “I think we passed through the Damascus Gate a minute ago. Now we’re heading south, toward the palace.”
“OK.”
“Azariah is eyeing at me kind of strangely, too. He has to be wondering why I keep talking to myself. I think he’s worried I’ll bolt.”
“Hang in there. I’ll call you again when I find the others.”