Manger Square is empty. A tall tree dressed in traditional red and gold stands sentinel beside the Church of the Nativity, a solid stone fortress, buttressed and barricaded against the assaults of the ages. We duck through the low door into the chill, still basilica. Empty. Portions of the floor are folded back to expose ancient mosaics several feet below. Normally these are closed in the pilgrim season. Forty-four stout red columns are ranged on either side, fragments of 12th century mosaics decorate the walls above the colonnade.
The iconostasis is rich with silver, the chandeliers heavy, dull brass. Round the back and down two short flights of steps is the Grotto of the Nativity.
It is warmer than the church, and empty. Beneath the altar, a star set in white marble. "Hic de Virgine Maria Jesus Christus natus est." (Here, of the Virgin Mary, Jesus Christ was born).
Overhead hang dozens of gleaming, intricately worked lamps. The ringing of a bell heralds a Greek Orthodox sacristan who orders us up upstairs while a priest robed in red and swinging a censer takes possession of the grotto in accordance with the rota. A chorister in black cassock sings the service in a round, pure voice that hangs in the empty nave.
Beside the Byzantine basilica is the Latin church, St Catherine's, floors damp from the mop, pews polished, ready for the Pontifical mass at midnight. Free tickets are still available at the Christian Information Centre in Jerusalem.
At the Casa Nova, the Franciscan hospice next to the church, a Christmas tree decorates the lobby. The reception manager says, "Yes, we have rooms for Christmas Eve. Fifteen are still free, 45 booked. We are working at 1 per cent capacity." There is plenty of room at the inn this Christmas season. Twenty thousand pilgrims are absent, foreigners stay away, Palestinians from the West Bank, Gaza and Jerusalem cannot come. Of the 25,000 inhabitants of the little town half live by driving, guiding or serving guests. Two million cancelled this past year.
In the yard of the Terra Santa school below, children are walking through a drill for tonight's ceremonies. All but four of the row of shops on Milk Grotto Street are closed.
The Milk Grotto is a small Latin shrine where, according to tradition, the Virgin suckled the Christ Child, expressing a few drops of milk onto the rock and turning it white. Inside the small church we find a Christmas tree, altars decorated with flowers and Friar Lawrence. He tells us about 150 women who have conceived over the past seven years, several from Ireland, after taking a few grains of powdered rock with a little water or milk and a prayer. "The power of faith," he observes.
Bethlehem is a city built on faith. But faith is faltering. He remarks, "At least 100 Palestinian Christian families from the area have emigrated over the past 14 months. They go where they can get visas. They want a future for their children." As the brilliantly clear day shades into evening, tiny star lights on the bare branches of trees turn the municipal square into a fairy land.
Without the throngs of the faithful Bethlehem is quiet, peaceful, unlike the first Christmas when it was filled with taxpayers and business was brisk.
We hail a taxi and drive to the Israeli checkpoint at the edge of Jerusalem where we climb out to walk 100 meters to catch a car on the other side. Bethlehem vehicles and drivers cannot cross the checkpoint. As the taxi begins its turn in the empty road, an Israeli army jeep blocks the way.