Old city, coffee and ceramics

It's Monday morning, 15 April. I've already written this entry once, but someone inside my iPad - someone or something - decided what I wrote was inappropriate and ate it, so I'm writing it agai. Perhaps by some cyber quirk, you've already seen it, while to me, it is lost. So much I don't understand. There's a lot here I don't understand either, but here it's human and political, so I can make my way into most of it and emerge with a better understanding than I started with. My friend Cotton, a classmate who I reconnected with at our fiftieth and only college reunion a couple of years ago, is also here, and he is asking the question: "What do you want me to tell people back home?" He writes about the responses in his blog, the name of which I'll include next time...if I remember. I met Cotton by the Damascus Gate of the old city, Saturday morning. We sat for a while, watched people going in and out, Orthodox Jews with their wide brimmed fur hats, long black coats and black pants; Palestinian women selling herbs and vegetables; a woman begging; tourists entering and exiting in groups, led by a guide with a flag on a stick; and people hustling in and out, going about their business. We soon joined the throng. Cotton walks with a cane, purportedly to help him with balance and support when he needs it after a couple of serious operations on his spine. I soon discovered the real purpose of the cane: to prod or chastise me. I accepted it and got retribution by going to the bathroom just before the bill arrived for our long coffee chat. When you walk through the old city, you're in medieval Jerusalem, several feet above the narrow streets Christ trod centuries before. Most of the walkways are too narrow for vehicles but carts, three-wheelers and, on slightly wider "roads," cars make their way, honking if they have a horn, hollering if they don't and nudging if you don't get out of the way. Most routes are crowded with shoppers until you get close to "the sites": the Wailing Wall, Church of the Holy Sepulchre, the Via Dolorosa and others. We had no particular destination in mind, just wandering, looking and talking. Cotton looked at a small electric kettle; we looked and sniffed in a spice shop where I bought some pine nuts; and he suggested several inappropriate t-shirts and various tourist shops, also a nice dress or two! The best coffee shops, according to him, are in the Jewish Quarter - the old city is roughly divided into quarters: Jewish, Christian, Armenian - so we made our way there, as indirectly as possible: "Do you know where the Jewish Quarter is?" "No. You?" "No." "Got a map?" "Yes." "Let's look." "There is is. Where are we?" "I don't know...here?" "Maybe." And so on; eventually, we got there, after asking five or six people the way and getting some help and some contradictory directions, which happens often here, maybe everywhere. So we sat and talked and talked about what's going on here and what kind of responses he's getting to his question of what to tell people back home, responses like: "Tell them the truth. Tell them what it's like. Tell them to come over and see. Tell them to do the right thing." For a while, we were the only people in the restaurant, a nice place for lunch. People would walk by, look in, talk among themselves, then move on. Meanwhile, we ordered our second coffee and continued to talk. Whenever people paused by the entrance, I smiled and nodded, hoping to encourage them to come in. By the time we left, several tables were full and the guy who had served us was hustling. Next stop was The Armenian Art Center, where Harout Sandrouni - "Call me Harry" - sat behind the counter and greeted us. This is another ceramics shop, selling their own designs. Harry has succeeded the Karakashians who were the partners of the Balian family in the original Armenian Ceramics business that I wrote about in the last blog. Harry is a live-wire, a non-stop raconteur and a delightful guy. He's been around a long time and he's discouraged, though that's not what you get from him at first. He sat us down across the little counter from him and started to talk about the business and life in the old city. The number of Armenians in the old city was around 3,000 a few decades ago; now there are less than 100. In response to a question about communities taking care of their own, he answered, "No!" "I remember that being something that distinguished the Armenian community in Beirut, their taking care of their own," I said. "That was then," he replied. "Now it's everyone for himself, and the priests, who used to be community leaders, care only for position and women." My guess is Harry's not a devout Armenian Orthodox or Catholic! Still, this attitude of looking out for oneself while communities deteriorate is common and sad. After a long conversation, that might still be going on if it wasn't time for us to meet Khitam for late lunch, Harry gave us each a very good deal on some lovely ceramics, then moved right on to make sales to other customers who had come in during our "session." He had mastered multi-tasking in his shop, all with a smile, even if it was ironic at times. We met Khitam for lunch at the Jerusalem Hotel. When we'd finished, Cotton got up to go, then stepped over to a white haired man, olive skinned, sitting quietly behind us. He introduced himself, chatted for a minute, then said good-bye to us and motioned me to follow him outside. He told me who the man was: Vanunu Mordechai, the Israeli who revealed to the world that Israel has nuclear weapons. He is confined to Jerusalem and cannot talk with anybody about his story, which I think he hopes to write someday, when he can leave the country. Before Khitam and I left, I spoke to him, told him Cotton and I were friends and that Cotton had shared with me who he was. He wrote his name for me and told me to google it to get his story. I wished him luck, then Khitam and I left. I looked back and saw him still sitting at the table, a notebook in front of him. He was alone.