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Show 208 of the Old City. At the end of the street I waited for the steamy traffic, then crossed with the turbaned and yamikahed and indeterminate crowd. Together we made our way up the steps and through Damascus Gate and into the early-morning carnival: the barker at the newspaper kiosk calling out the headlines in a dozen languages, deals being struck over watches and razor blades and travelers' checks, cripples and beggars and policemen watching it all from the walls. The further I traveled into the Old City the noisier and more congested it became. The narrow cobbled streets constricted and became covered, smells replaced signs, and across the Via Dolorosa I waited in line with veiled women and Israeli soldiers to buy hot bread. A little further on, at the fruit market, I would fight to pay for a banana. Everywhere the air was thick with smoke. My last stop was a confectionary on "The Street of the Chain." Unlike the other shops this one was never crowded (who buys candy at a quarter to seven in the morning?), and a bell tinkled when I opened the door; out of the back came a small weary man to hold up his hand above the counter and say in careful Yiddish-accented English, "I know, you wish to buy from me a Hershey bar." It cost more than the bread and the banana together but there was no bargaining here; I paid the old man's price and left without Shalom, the bell softly tinkling, the sun filtering through the cracks between the buildings. One last turn and I was on the steps leading down to the vast open courtyard cleared by Israeli bulldozers. At the bottom I |