Following their lunch, Julie had taken Walid’s arm in her own and they had walked to the al-Jazzar mosque. When they reached the thirteen marble steps that lead up to the entrance, they walked up to the yard. As they reached the water fountain on the right of the courtyard, Julie let go of Walid’s arm and walked quickly toward the mosque, stopping by the door. From her bag she took out a colored silk scarf, with which she covered her head. She took off her shoes and left them outside, then crossed the threshold and went inside barefoot. As Walid approached the door, he saw her turning around, dancing like a Sufi carried by intoxication to a world beyond our own. He had watched her in silence, astonished. He heard her chanting. Where has she got all this from? he’d wondered. When she came out, she took the scarf off her head. Her face was glowing, like a flower whose petals had been opened by the first rays of the sun, and there were teardrops like dew running down her cheeks.
Now, having retraced their walk, Walid stood above the entrance steps, reflecting on what had happened yesterday without believing it. How had Julie done that? Julie, who hadn’t inherited her parents’ Christianity, and who hadn’t converted to Islam when she’d married him—he hadn’t asked her to—had come out of the mosque like a saint whose faith had soaked her in belief. And when he had asked her about what she had done, she had smiled and replied, “I liked what I did! I prayed in my own way, and I was happy with my prayers.” Walid made no comment.
He headed toward the Greek Orthodox church and stood for a moment in the square in front of it. He looked at the coffee-colored building for some time, then wandered around the port for a while. Then he headed back to the Akkotel Hotel.
When Julie came back, Walid was standing near the semicircular reception desk, next to a pillar built—like the hotel itself—from the remains of the old Crusader wall. He had rested his elbow on top of the shining wooden counter directly opposite the hotel entrance, listening to the hotel manager telling him the story of the hotel, which had opened ten years before and had been built on the remains of a building that had been a government headquarters in the Ottoman period and a boys’ school under the British Palestine Mandate.
He raised his head to catch Julie’s eye as she shut the door behind her and came down the three steps leading inside. He saw that her hands, which had been wrapped around the porcelain statue when she had left, were empty. A vague happiness spread inside him, producing an enigmatic smile. Had Fatima brought Julie back, or had she abandoned her in favor of that Swedish delegation she had spoken about? And what about the owners of the house? Had they put the porcelain statue where Ivana had instructed? Or had they just shut the door of her grandfather’s house in her face?
Julie took his hands in hers and pulled him toward her. “Come on, Walid, come on, darling. I’m dying of hunger. Abu Christo is waiting for us. I’ll fill you in later. Come on, come on!”
They left the hotel and hurried toward the harbor, which was no more than five minutes away on foot. In the Abu Christo restaurant, which rested against the city wall, protruding from it like a tongue gossiping with the sea, Julie chose a table at the end of a row, next to the water. She greeted the waiter, and the young man, whose skin was tanned like that of an Acre fisherman, greeted her like a tourist.
When they were seated, Julie gestured at the wall, and said, “You know, Walid, your mother-in-law remembered everything about Acre.”
Without pausing for him to speak, Julie went on: “Perhaps Ivana didn’t tell you much about Acre or about her past here, perhaps she didn’t tell you anything at all, but as her daughter she told me lots about her memories of the city. She told me a lot about that wall.”
She sighed, and in her breath could be heard the sound of an ancient regret. “My mother used to say, ‘Whether its men were weak or strong, only the wall protected and defended Acre.’”
She looked directly into his eyes like someone searching out old secrets, and the words she spoke to him were fragrant with hope: “I’d like that wall to protect our backs, Walid!” Walid made no comment. He sat in silence opposite her, as the sounds of Greek music reverberated, sending their rhythms along the shore.
As Julie spoke, Walid was listening to his own thoughts. He continued to mull over the questions he had brought with him from the Akkotel Hotel that he had not been able to voice until this moment. Finally, he decided to condense them into a single question: “How was your visit to your grandfather’s house?”
“Oh, you won’t believe it.”
“Did everything go okay?”
“Better than I expected.”
As she said it, she put her hand over his on the table, and then told him the story:
“After Fatima had dropped me at the house, I
