Jerusalem at arm’s length

This happened the year that I was in Israel.

The man behind the counter at the hostel looked askance at the three of us: Adam, tall and balding (already–at 24), with a gentle North Carolina accent; Ryan, who had a dark tan, a crazy black beard, and an angry scowl that made him look even more like a terrorist; and me, wearing a long bright skirt and shredding flip-flops, both more and less naive than I looked. Were we…a couple? A triplet? Or just three more insouciant and impolite American tourists? When we asked for dormitory rooms (sleeping by gender rather than by party) he was relieved, I suspect.

The hostel itself was in the Armenian quarter, as best I remember, not far from the Jaffa Gate, a cross between a miniature Romanesque temple and a college dorm. Its rooms were small and crowded, but nothing out of the ordinary, and a bargain at 14 shekels (less than 4$) a night. What it could (and did) boast of was the view. Although we’d virtually had to tunnel down into the rock to get to the lobby, when we clambered up onto the roof, we saw the Old City stretched out in front of and below us, beautiful and tarnished: medieval domed churches with TV antennaes sprouting like insect feelers, the corrugated roofs of makeshift houses, minarets with their graceful crescents, and in the distance the Dome of the Rock, golden, regal, and unconcerned with the life beneath it.

“You know what we need?” said Ryan. “Wine.”

“Figs,” I put in. “I haven’t had figs in like three days.”

“Cheese and crackers,” said Adam. “Send Jerusalem out in style.”

We descended into the city.

An hour later we reconvened as the sun set over the Mount of Olives. The romance of Jerusalem that had taken irrevocable hold of my tourist’s brain was fighting a losing battle with the experience of being ripped off (yet again) by the vendor who sold us his last tired bag of figs and getting lost (yet again) on our way back to the hostel. We sat on the battered couches and toasted Jerusalem well into the night with our wine and cheese and fruit. Tomorrow I would head for Egypt with these two friends of a few weeks. “Jerusalem, the city of nostalgia,” I thought as I looked out over it. “So much more romantic from a safe distance.”