“Is it true, what Thibaut said back there?” I asked. Jean looked at me quizzically but kept walking.
“About your wife and children,” I added.
“Indeed,” Jean smiled. “I am wedded to Lady Alice, and with the grace of God we have been blessed with two children, Balian and little Jean, and my wife is presently with child.”
Brunette barked.
“Hmm,” I responded. “You definitely don’t look like a married man with kids. Nor do you look like the kind of person who says, ‘with the grace of God.’”
Jean roared with laughter. My smile was guarded, wondering what he found so funny. We were already nearing the Narrow Passage, whichappeared to be in much better shape than the worn pathway I knew. Jean softly whistled the tune Thibaut had played earlier. Halimi was nowhere to be found.
“This is unreal,” I muttered to myself in Hebrew.
Jean looked at me with intense curiosity.
By this time, the sun had sunk down almost as far as the sea. I was appalled to think I might be stuck here for the night. I couldn’t entertain the possibility of getting stuck here forever. I felt as if I were doing a connect-the-dot puzzle, half-blinded and held upside down.
“My lady is in distress again,” Jean said.
“I don’t know how to get home,” I said, and tears started running down my cheeks.
“Prithee, tell me how you arrived here,” Jean said. The way he spoke reminded me of the tone I used when trying to calm Lily in the middle of a temper tantrum. “Perhaps we might solve this mystery together.”
We began retracing our steps, and I cast a final glance at what was supposed to be Atlit but looked more like a swamp. I could almost see the greenish vapors rising up from it. Brunette ran as far as the Narrow Passage and then returned to us.
“Just tell me first,” I said, my heart pounding, terrified of the answer. “What’s the date today?”
“What do you mean?” Jean wrinkled his brow.
“What year is this?” I asked impatiently.
He gave me a hard stare, a glimmer of suspicion in his eyes. “It is the twelfth year of the reign of Conrad the Second of Jerusalem,” Jean said slowly, gauging my reaction. “The last week of April. Yesterday, we commemorated St. George’s Day.”
“But … but …” I tried to express myself, but the words shattered in my mouth. “What year is”—and suddenly, it hit me. “How long ago was Jesus born?” I almost shouted. Jean nodded his head thoughtfully and said in a serious tone, “This is the year 1240 after the birth of our Savior.”
Every single hair on my body stood up. I felt weak at the knees. I recalled the strange feeling I had had as I locked the door to the house that same morning. The date hammered the unbelievable into my brain.
“Speak, my lady,” Jean said. Without threatening or intimidating, he was nonetheless demanding answers. “From whence did you come, and how did you get here?”
“You’ll never believe me …” I said bitterly.
“Try me,” Jean answered.
“Okay, so …” I began. “This morning, we sent our daughter to go stay with her grandparents.” Jean frowned but said nothing. “We ate, showered, we watched a bit of TV, fell asleep …” I saw he was opening his mouth to ask something, but I waved my hand to cut him short. “Never mind. We fell asleep and then woke up. And then we ate magic mushrooms. Do you know what they are?”
“Are you referring to fly mushrooms? Of the fairy circles? The red ones with the white dots?” Jean asked with gravity.
“Something like that, yes.”
“Did you eat them on purpose? For the love of God, why?” He looked at me as if I were deranged.
“Sometimes, we like to extend the boundaries of our consciousness,” I said with a sense of self-importance. “Like you and your hashish.”
“Hashish affords me tranquility and blurs the edges a little,” Jean said, still wary. “Those mushrooms drive people mad.”
“But this wasn’t our first time!” I said defiantly. “And everything was fine. We’re not novices.”
“I see,” Jean said, still patient. “And then what happened?”
