"What's that?" I asked.

"This is the Holy Tomb, sir. Called the Edicule, or lit¬tle house. Because Jesus was very important man, Byzantines and Crusaders spent a lot of money to make this tomb for him. It is fourteenth and final station of the cross. By the customs of Jews, always they buried the people outside the city. The present marble exterior is disintegrating and must be held together by iron bands. Come, sir? Get in the line? Madam?"

Ibrahim continued his unrelenting recitation, but I was too disoriented to process it. I'd expected the tomb of Jesus to be a cave of some kind, situated in an open place, not this mausoleum in a dungeonlike medieval church.

"The line's moving," Rachel said, helping me forward.

Soon we were standing before the door of the Edicule. Here Ibrahim spoke with the respect I had expected from the beginning.

"Inside the tomb we will see two rooms. Let us go in now."

In the first room I saw a podium with a glass case atop it. Inside the case lay a piece of stone.

"This we call the room of the angel," said Ibrahim. "Where the dead person wait until they prepare place to bury him. Here is kept a piece of the rolling stone where angels opened the tomb and Jesus raised up from the dead."

I noticed two holes in the wall to my right. Ibrahim said, "When the people have no fire for their Easter can¬dles, the priest he stand here and give them from the Holy Fire, gives light from his big candle to theirs."

My attention had been drawn to a low door in the thick marble wall of the inner tomb. I stooped and moved through the door into a small inner chamber. A man and woman knelt in prayer before what appeared to be a marble altar slab. They had placed crucifixes on the stone, as though the objects would be blessed by contact. Above them hung ornate silver lamps on chains, and everywhere burning candles threw flickering light around the room. Vases of white roses scented the air, their odor cloying in the small space.

"David?" Rachel whispered. "Is this what you came to see?"

I leaned down and touched the marble stone before the praying couple. I didn't know what I'd expected, but something. I'd felt more at Stonehenge when I climbed over the barrier and touched the sarsen stones. "This isn't the place."

"What?"

"Nothing happened here."

The kneeling man and woman looked up at me, their eyes wide.

"Sir, you must not say this," Ibrahim said from behind me. "This is most holy place."

"This isn't the place," I repeated. I ducked down and hurried back onto the floor of the rotunda.

Rachel came after me. The people waiting in line stared at us, sensing trouble. I didn't care. A wild feeling of panic had gripped me. Soon it would be dark outside, and I had not found what I'd come for.

"Tell me what's happening," Rachel whispered.

"Nothing happened in there. That's not the place."

Someone in the line gasped.

"What place?" asked Rachel.

I turned to Ibrahim, who now had a walkie-talkie in his hand and seemed to be debating whether to call for help. "Is that the original stone in the tomb?"

"No, sir. Marble stone was put there to cover the actual stone where Jesus' body lay."

"You can't see the actual stone?"

Our guide's face brightened. "Yes, you can see this. Touch also. Follow me."

He led us to the rear of the Edicule. There stood another chapel, much less ostentatious and open to the rotunda. It was far more colorful than the marble tomb we'd left, with bright wall hangings, wrought iron, and a casually dressed young man with a five-o'clock shadow tending it.

"This is the holy tomb from the other side, sir," Ibrahim said in a whisper. "Part of the Coptic chapel. Coptics are Christians from Egypt. Very devout."

The queue here was much shorter. It disappeared into the shallow chapel and stopped where a small curtain shielded something.

"Sir, beyond that point lies exposed part of the actual stone where Jesus lay. Here the sick come to be cured, people to be blessed."

As I waited for the line to move, my skin began to itch as though from hives. At last my turn came. I went through the curtain, knelt, and laid my right palm on the bare stone.

"David?" Rachel whispered from behind me.

I shook my head. "Nothing." For the first time in six months, I began to truly doubt my sanity.

"I think we should go back to the hotel," Rachel said. "Ibrahim is close to calling for help."

I scrambled up and left the chapel, my mind racing. Ibrahim was staring at me as though I might start shout¬ing blasphemy, which the old guide had probably seen in his day. The walkie-talkie was still in his hand.

"Nothing happened there either," I told him. "That's not the place."

"But, sir, this is the holy tomb."

"There's no doubt of that?"

"Well… some Protestant Christians believe the gar¬den tomb outside the city is the site of Jesus' tomb. But no archaeologist believes this. You have seen the actual tomb, sir."

A tall, plain woman carrying a King James Bible stepped out of the line before the chapel and said in English, "Does it really matter where the tomb is, brother? ‘He is not there. He is risen.'"

"Does it matter?" I asked her. "Of course it matters. What if you found the actual tomb with Jesus' bones still in it? It's the difference between a legitimate religion and mass hysteria."

The woman almost jumped backward.

Ibrahim looked stricken. "Sir! You must not say these things!"

"You're a Muslim, Ibrahim. You don't believe any of this."

"Please, sir-"

I walked away from the Edicule, not knowing where to turn or what to do.

Rachel appeared at my shoulder. "David, what is it you're looking for?"

"The place where Jesus was resurrected."

"But you don't believe in God. How can you find the place where Jesus was resurrected when you don't believe that he was?"

Ibrahim had caught up to us. "Sir? Some people believe Jesus rose from the death at another place. I will show you."

He led us across the rotunda to the door of a large church wholly contained within the bounds of the greater one.

"This is the Catholicon." He pointed toward a chan¬delier. "Below the cupola of this church is a marble basin called the Omphalos. The navel of the world. Some Greeks believe Jesus was resurrected here, and will return here to judge the world one day."

"Can we see it?"

"This church is usually closed, but I can take you to it."

He led us past a chain toward a stone chalice stand¬ing on an inlaid floor. High above stood a dome with an ethereal image of Christ painted in pastel hues. I looked down at the stone hemisphere, essentially a large bowl. Then I leaned down and touched it. I felt no more than I would had I touched a birdbath in someone's backyard.

Rachel instantly read my reaction. "What are you hoping for? An electric shock? A voice from heaven?"

I turned to our guide, who was shaking his head. "What have I not seen, Ibrahim?"

"Many things. Most important is Golgotha. In Latin called Calvary. The place where Jesus was crucified."

"It's inside the church?"

"Of course, sir. Follow me."

He led us out of the Catholicon and over to a steep staircase. I counted eighteen steps as I plodded upward, my spirits sinking lower the higher I climbed.

The moment I reached the top of the stairs, I felt a quickening in my blood. The room was crowded, but to my left, above the heads of the people, I saw a life-size sculpture of Jesus hanging on a cross. He wore a silver cloth around his waist and a crown of silver on his head. It wasn't the sculpture that moved me, but something in the room itself. I felt as if I were standing close to a high-voltage cable, with static electricity raising every hair on my body.

"What?" Rachel asked. "What is it?"