"Myself. Quite recently." He tapped the satchel. "For a long time I carried a camera in expectation. Hard proof, Mr. Wilson, hard proof!"

The photo was certainly proof to me, although an uninformed viewer would have had difficulty interpreting what he saw.

"I have spoken of affinity," Jakubowski went on. "An image is an affinity, and here we hold it in our hand."

"Do you mean this photo can serve as," I imagined a security swipe card, "a sort of access?"He showed me another photo, a very grainy but closer? up image of the Sphinx-being.

"This is an enlargement enhanced by computer. I'm not speaking lightly when I say that greater understanding is possible, Maybe even," and he lowered his voice, "a kind of expedition. Though, in view of the fate of Miss Santos-"

Quite.

KGB, KBW ... I recalled the crazy woman on the phone.

"What does the Israeli security service know about the Black Wall?"

"We have two members high in Shabak and one in Mossad, but the organizations themselves do not know."

I told him about the woman.

"She is certainly not one of us, but I would appreciate the phone number."

So that she chould be checked out, just in case she knew anything?

"So you do have influence with this Shab, what is it?"

"Shabak. You might know of it as Shin Beth."

I shook my head.

Turned out that Shabak was internal security, and Mossad, as most people know, was external intelligence. I began to sense that discretion about the Black Wall might be enforceable, not simply a request but a requirement.

Jakubowski must have read my expression.

"I don't want to use heavy words, but this business is moment-uous, maybe of terrible importance to the world, perhaps to all human life, do you see?"

I nodded. What I wanted to see was more of the photographs, but here was too public.

"How long can you stay in Israel, Mr. Wilson?"

"I don't have any commitments till early January but my entry permit is just for a month."

"If you give me the bit of paper, that can be altered easily. I would like you to stay here as long as possible. Not, I hasten to add, at your own expense-in addition to my great-uncle's endowment, funds come from some of our members who can well afford it. Do you like to remain in a hotel or would you prefer a small apartment? We will arrange a social life for you.

And tours, visits. You will not just be twiddling your thumbs."

"Sounds fine to me."

An apartment? I wanted a break from domestic ch.o.r.es, shopping and cleaning et cetera. My hotel room had a desk, a view of the frontage, decent enough lighting. It would do. Probably more expensive than an apartment, come to think of it.

So began my life in Israel. I suppose it was not fully life in Israel since I never needed to shop for groceries, say, in the kaleidoscopic cornucopia of the Mahane Yehuda Market. A bomb went off there, killing an old woman and injuring about twenty people.

Our more senior Shabak member was tubby, bearded Avner Dotan. Speciality, electronic intelligence. He tapped into the police investigation of the disappearance of Isabella Santos, and the police were informally discouraged from proceeding any further. I suppose this also served to a.s.sure the KBW that Isabella was not a figment of my poet's imagination. We held a brief memorial service for her in the Hurva ruins, conducted by a New Yorker, Rabbi BenFeinstein. My new acquaintances comprised a broad spectrum of people; however, we numbered no one who was ordained in any Christian denomination. Rabbi Ben was so much reformed that he could embrace in his prayers a Roman Catholic granddaughter of a Mexican witch. I still felt so guilty about Isabella's hideous death. We were honoring a victim of the Wall- might there be more victims?

Cut to a meeting at the home of Avner Dotan afterward. We were considering several angles of approach-camera angles, you might almost say. Blowups of the ent.i.ties lay on the floor.

"Maybe," said Dotan, "the three beings did not wish to destroy Isabella Santos, but each wanted to possess her to gain a point in the game, whatever it is."

"Comes to the same b.l.o.o.d.y thing!" exclaimed Jock Eraser.

I could not make Fraser out. The beefy, sweaty Scotsman claimed to be the Laird of some small Inner Hebridian island. He had been educated in Glasgow at a school supposedly of considerable pedigree, so he said, which had been engulfed early in the twentieth century by the spread of the Gorbals slum district-implausible, or true? A life of some adventure as an engineer for oil companies had taken him to Nigeria, Indonesia, and other hot parts of the world. He was certainly a romancer in the literal sense: while sweating in Indonesia, he had produced a couple of love novels published under a female pseudonym-and he had also published privately a history of the Freemasons, amongst whom supposedly he held high rank.

The Masons, of course, were heirs to the tradition of the Knights Templar. Three years earlier, during a stopover to visit the site of Solomon's Temple, and while a wee bit tipsy, as Fraser freely admitted-the doors, or hinges, of perception well oiled-he had witnessed the Black Wall. To investigate further, he managed to land a job at an oil refinery in Haifa. A Masonic handshake at a British Emba.s.sy reception advanced Fraser's quest, the shaker being the other Scot in our group, Hamish Mackintosh-don't the Scots get everywhere.

Tall, muscular, going on fifty, hair beginning to silver, Mackintosh was head of security at our emba.s.sy in Tel Aviv. An ex-military officer and mountaineer, his work brought him into liaison with Avner Dotan. His own epiphany as regards the Wall . . . ah, never mind that, and never mind about the life stories of my other fellow investigators: Israeli, Armenian, Arab, except to mention Tomaso Pascoli who lived in Rome. A shipping magnate, Pascoli was a Knight of the Vatican, and I gathered that he was a conduit from our group to a highly placed Cardinal who might be a future Pope.

Let us a.s.sume that the ent.i.ties had been jockeying for position for a thousand or for several thousand years-though how did they measure time? Did they just sit inertly like some toad or spider awaiting a movement or vibration or some sudden shift by one of their fellow denizens?

"It's possible," ventured Mackintosh, "that some of the beings are relatively benevolent, or at least not baneful." He gestured at the big grainy enlargements arrayed on the floor. "If we could only communicate with one of them-get on its wavelength. Maybe by using the affinity of a photograph? Like sending a signal tuned to one receiver only."

"Suppose," said Avner, "we put up one of the images as a poster somewhere in the Old City where we know the Black Wall has already appeared? I mean a very temporary poster!"

"We might release who knows what," warned Rabbi Feinstein.

Mackintosh nodded. "First we should use the general view and see if we can summon the Black Wall itself. This in itself would be a great breakthrough."Where more suitable than in the sh.e.l.l of that same synagogue? Hurva Square might be the heart of the Jewish Quarter, but it wouldn't be busy at three in the morning and access to the ruin was easily controllable. Avner let it be known to the police and the Defense Force that Shabak would be carrying out an "operation," so patrols would not interfere. He also argued that we ought to go armed in case of any eruption from the Black Wall. Drawing weapons from Shabak's armory would not be a sensible idea, but back in the days when people who killed terrorists in action were allowed to keep their Kalashnikovs, Avner's father had acquired one, while his colleague Avraham's younger brother was home on leave along with his Galil a.s.sault rifle.

A few nights later, six of us gathered in the ruin by starlight. Myself, because of my obvious affinity with this site. Ben, bearing the poster-if anything bad occurred, maybe a Rabbi could cope. Jock had volunteered to be movie cameraman, at which he apparently had some experience. Adam was ready with his still camera. Avner and Avraham brought the two automatic rifles hidden in long sports bags. Three other Israelis kept watch outside. If any pa.s.sersby became curious, we were a TV crew.

Murmuring to himself, Ben advanced and sticky-tacked to the mundane stones the blowup of the vista beyond the Black Wall. Scarcely had he stepped back than an ebon gloss began to spread out around the poster as if glossy black ink was flowing. In less than half a minute one wall of the synagogue might have consisted of smooth jet or basalt.

Cautiously Ben moved closer again and pulled the poster away.

Where it had been was a rectangular opening, upon a dark yawning gulf faintly lit by the serried planes on which the ent.i.ties perched or stood or sat. There they were: immobile, potently aglow.

Jock inched forward, filming. At his side, Adam captured the astonishing sight with the avidity of a paparazzo who has sneaked up upon a secret gathering of celebrities-although where was his motorbike for a quick escape? Our two defenders pointed their guns. Eight hundred and fifty years ago, sweating despite the nocturnal chill, might Sourdeval have unsheathed his broadsword ?

In the domain beyond, came a stirring as of attention aroused.

"That's enough for now!" cried Ben. Like some firefighter with a protective shield, he held the poster reversed now. Hands spread wide, he covered the opening. How tensely he stood, as if something might stab through the flimsy barrier-but the ebon gloss swiftly shrank like oil draining away into a sump. When he lifted the poster aside, all was ordinary stonework.

Adam's flat, this time. A videotape ran on his TV. Many more enlarged photos lay on the floor.

Avner said, "I think what we see are not the ent.i.ties themselves but representations of them-each a sort of icon standing in for them. When something occurs, each animates its icons.

The ent.i.ties take over and move and function."

"If that's so," said Ben, "and the real ent.i.ties are someplace else, a blowup photo of the icon might give access, the way a computer icon launches a program."

Definitely we were moving closer to mounting an expedition.

Which of the icons suggested, if not benevolence, at least tolerance and wisdom? Which ofus would become the astralnaut who would venture into such a region?

I had watched Isabella being ripped apart in that other zone. Might such dismemberment perhaps be symbolic? Could the bits be brought back together again? I thought of Orpheus. He ventured into an underworld to rescue his wife, but alas he glanced back. G.o.d-possessed women later tore Orpheus to pieces and the Muses gathered up his parts, but sadly could not rejoin them. What if they had succeeded? Orpheus in Jerusalem, a poem by Philip Wilson . . .

d.a.m.n this artistic egotism that reared its head. d.a.m.n, too, the idea of affinity-of myself linked to Isabella who had already been sucked into that other region, propelled by me.

Might my new acquaintances regard me as expendable, a Johnny-come-lately who had indeed brought them an invaluable key, though purely by accident? Or were they honoring me with a great trust and responsibility?

Yes, I would volunteer. Yes, I would accept. How could an Orpheus refuse? Would Billy Blake have pa.s.sed up a chance to visit the terrain of his visions? "Mighty was the draught of Void-ness to draw Existence in!" he had written. I had no family ties. A full-length photo of me would be taken and enlarged so that by affinity I could be summoned back subsequently through my image to Jerusalem and normality-perhaps!-and to the extent that Jerusalem was any normal place. A Palestinian armed with a knife had gone beserk in the Christian Quarter, slashing some nuns. I would carry a camera and a pistol fitted with a silencer-I would receive a quick course in the use of a gun-and high-calorie food and bottled water in my knapsack and a tiny tape recorder and a notebook in case the energy of our target ent.i.ty might harm anything electronic. I would be well equipped, although we were improvising wildly.

We settled upon the being whom Isabella had named the Centaur-Angel. A burly-chested figure with a craggy, serious face. His b.u.t.tocks swelled out into a secondary, shorter, hairy set of rear legs. From his shoulders sprouted diaphanous fairy wings-a sign of sensitivity at odds with the rest of his frame? He seemed like a knight in chess-affinity, therefore, with a Knight of the Black Wall?

Tomaso Pascoli flew in from Rome, a short, trim, dapper man with thinning dark hair, observer on behalf of the Vatican, doubtless. Together with him and the three As, Adam, Avner, and Avraham, and Jock and Ben and two lookouts, I went to the Hurva ruins again by night. A gibbous moon hung in the sky.

"You are a brave man," Signor Pascoli said to me, mopping his brow with an elegant handkerchief, cool though the night was. "And you even have an imagination-a Dante of today!

Imaginative people do not always run such risks."

"Not quite in Dante's league."

"Ah, modesty, too."

And guilt. And ambition.

Jock set down the video camera and produced a hip flask.

"Ten-year-old single malt-liquor of the G.o.ds."

"I don't think I ought to imbibe just now." I would have dearly loved to."I think I will." Jock uncapped and took a swig, then he thrust the flask at me. "Maybe a wee gift for the G.o.ds wouldn't come amiss."

Who could say? I added the flask to my knapsack.

Jock gripped me by the elbow in an awkward show of wordless male affection.

Two of the As pointed Kalashnikov and Galil while the third stuck a poster of the Centaur-Angel to the stone wall. In two hours' time, earthly time at least, he would use the reversed poster of me to call me home, perhaps. On either side shiny darkness began to spread.

Was I utterly insane? As Adam pulled the poster from the Wall like a bandage, light shone forth-oh, that's just our floodlight for the doc.u.mentary!

Mighty was the draught that pulled me, and I was squinting at a sun-drenched stony desert landscape all about me, sand and pebbles underfoot. I had pa.s.sed through involuntarily. Behind me was no sign of a doorway leading back. Could the others still see me? I raised my hand in a salute, then I shaded my eyes-we had not thought to include sungla.s.ses. The region of the icons was gloomy, and I had departed by night, yet here was the full blaze of day. Not too far away a mesa thrust upward, its broken precipitous sides wearing long skirts of scree. On its tabletop was an edifice white as snow, twin tall towers rising from a dome, the base hidden from sight.

But for the presence of that building, I might have been transported to Masada, the rock-fortress in the Judean desert where the Romans besieged the Zealots. All else in this wilderness was tawny, dirty yellow, brown, or gray in the shadows cast by the blinding sun.

Whence the white marble of the building upon the mesa? Materials must have been transported from far away and carried laboriously upward. Such an undertaking, such ostentation. I recalled that King Herod had built a luxurious palace on an upper side of Masada with a view over stricken, contorted desolation, to prove that he could do so, showing off.

Herod's three-tiered palace had been tucked in, cantilevered almost.

My sweat was drying as soon as it was produced. If only I had brought a sun hat. Such protection never entered our calculations. Delving in my knapsack for one of the bottles of water, I swigged. In the shimmery distance I spotted a cl.u.s.ter of white shapes. An encampment?

Sharp eyes must have spied me, too. Scarcely had I begun to foot-slog through the stony desert than a movement resolved itself into several creatures heading my way.

Those must be horses or camels, white-clad riders on their backs-three or four of them.

Yes, four.

As the mounts drew nearer, they proved to be neither horses nor camels but other beasts entirely. Quadrupeds, with long heads and silky hair and a lolloping gait and scaly tails like those of giant rats. These were no members of the animal kingdom that I knew.

The four riders' robes were all-enveloping-only hands and eyes showed. Three dismounted. Their hands were brown. Creamy eyes, light brown pupils. And the pupils of the mounts themselves were rectangular, goatish. Orange rheum leaked from the beasts' tear ducts. Translucent membrances blinked dust away.

The mounted leader addressed me and I couldn't understand a word. Hopefully, I said, "Shalom," and "Salaam," and I pointed up the mesa at the gleaming building, my goal, I supposed.

"I am an Englishman," I added, and felt absurd. "I came here because of the Centaur-Angel."Incomprehensible discussion followed, then two of the people gripped me loosely while their companion relieved me of my knapsack and emptied it upon the ground. Kneeling, he sorted. The pistol, he turned this way and that, ending by peering down the barrel with no apparent understanding; thankfully the safety was on. He opened a bottle and raised a flap of cloth to sniff, exposing beardless brown chin, slim mouth, thin nose. After some fumble he unscrewed Jock's hip flask. This time his nostrils flared. s.c.r.e.w.i.n.g tight, he spoke rapidly.

Next he picked my pockets, then off came my wrist.w.a.tch for the leader to inspect. Like a bangle, it went on to that man's wrist. I was being robbed-next thing, out would come a knife.

But no. My gear went into a saddlebag, and as soon as my searcher remounted I was invited, prodded, hoisted on to the beast behind him. I clung to a backward-jutting bit of saddle, myself bareback, thighs and knees splayed, feet dangling. How I hoped these people had some code of hospitality.

At the encampment I saw some unveiled thin brown faces, undoubtedly human yet at the same time subtly other. A different side shoot of the evolutionary tree? How else to account for the mounts, and for a pack of sinewy feline creatures the size of lurchers that wandered around the camp?

Lurching, myself, after that ride, I was led into the largest tent. Open flaps admitted light and air. Richly woven carpets lay upon dirt. Dominating the main room of the tent was a formidable idol in white marble of the Centaur-Angel. Strapped upon its rump was a leather saddle, almost as if the statue was a plaything for the young tribal prince who sat cross-legged beside it on a tas-seled cushion-presumably the slight person was a princeling since a coronet of gold or bra.s.s held his head veil in place. The princ.i.p.al difference between statue and icon was that the head of the statue was like that of the mount I had ridden on. Another cushion was occupied by a veiled figure dressed in black and seemingly elderly-the hands and the skin around the eyes were deeply wrinkled.

Wooden cabinets, carved chests, low tables. Drapes divided off areas I couldn't peer into.

I heard the whispers and giggles of women.

My escort reported, then my possessions were presented to Blackrobe, who pa.s.sed items to the young prince, including my gun. This ended up between the forefeet of the statue, as did Jock's flask of single malt and my watch and camera and flashlight. Offerings to the idol?

The moment the young prince addressed me, I knew from the voice that this was no lad but a la.s.s. So: a priestess of the Centaur cult, perhaps? I smiled, I shrugged, I gestured. She pointed at me, then she jerked her finger toward the hindquarters of the statue. Speedily I was hustled, and maneuvered onto the saddle. Hands pulled my own hands around the torso, lacing my fingers at the front. I was astride the marble effigy, clinging on. Bizarre, bizarre. Was this a way of judging me, or honoring me, or what?

Blackrobe produced a little silver flute from within his or her garment and proceeded to blow a series of notes, quite like the dialing tones of a phone- Upon my artificial mount I was instantly elsewhere. Sunlight poured through gla.s.sless windows into a hall floored with amber slabs each prominently incised in silver with a symbol. Letters of an unknown alphabet, signs of an unfamiliar zodiac? My gun and other kit had tumbled on to an adjacent slab.Ponderous movement! Fifteen meters or so away, the Centaur-Angel was in the room as if it had come into existence at this very moment. An alert presence, it was bigger than the statue by half again. Huge, horselike head, metallic and angular-was that a mask covering a more humanlike countenance? The eyes were black gla.s.sy pools. Silver chain mail covered its quadruped body. Black boots on its four feet, black gloves on its two hands. Its wings were spread. I cowered behind the marble torso as it advanced slowly, snorting. I felt I was confronting a mighty alien.

The muzzle moved and the lips-of that flexible mask!- stretched without parting. A rumbly voice emerged.

I cried, "I don't understand you!"

"Understand," it echoed. The lips moved as if it were chewing the word, digesting it. By now the ent.i.ty was looming over me. Wings wafted, the draft ruffling my hair. An arm stretched down-as limbs had elongated to grip Isabella Santos-and it picked up my gun, inspected it, discarded it. My camera received similar casual scrutiny.

"I understand now," it announced. "How did you come here?"

It spoke English as though it had just accessed some great depository of languages.

I suppose I gaped.

Impatiently, "Is this your tongue?"

"Yes, yes."

"How did you come here?"

I told of Isabella and the Wall, of affinities and photographs- and the Centaur? Angel retrieved my camera for a closer look. It asked questions, which I answered. Finally, I begged to know, "What are you? Where is this?"