by Paul Usiskin
‘It drove out of their driveway as I was at the window; my room’s above the trees.’
‘Thank you, you’ve been very helpful.’ He started walking back to the Shehadeh house.
‘It had a yellow symbol on the front, I saw it in the streetlight,’ Jihan called out.
Nabulsi returned. ‘What did the symbol look like? Can you draw it for me?’ He gave her his notebook and pen. She drew the Chevrolet bow-tie emblem and he thanked her again and got as far as the sidewalk when she called out, ‘Farouk’s Mercedes went too.’
‘What?’ He came back once more, and she repeated it.
‘Was Farouk Shehadeh driving the Mercedes?’
‘It was too dark to tell; the driver didn’t drive with the inside light on,’ her tone implied he was being dumb.
‘Didn’t Farouk keep his Mercedes in the garage?’
‘Yes, his and Aisha’s cars were usually there but they were having their driveway blacktopped, so he parked on the street. Aisha forgot and had to leave hers in the garage until the driveway hardened.’
‘Was there anything else? Just call it out if you remember. I’ll come back when I finish, just in case.’
He crossed back to look at the Shehadeh’s driveway. He went down on hands and knees and saw tire marks clearly indented in the surface. Dark tracks went inside the garage. On the concrete floor he saw they were composed of mud and bits of asphalt. He made a note to get the Mercedes plate details. He set his cell camera to flash and took photos of the tire indentations and the tracks on the concrete, put tape across the driveway entrance and left.
Jihan had nothing more to tell him, but he gave her his cell number just in case. Abduction and kidnap vied with each other as he reviewed what Jihan had described.
At HQ he asked Faris to check vehicle registration for Farouk’s missing Mercedes, then explained how it was done, and went up to the fourth floor, sat in his corner of the cramped room that was his office writing up his notes.
The Palestine Police National Directorate occupied a large anonymous six-story rectangular apartment block, running north from the street, two Palestinian flags either side of the main doors. On seeing it each morning Hisham felt distaste for its threatening presence; it ran counter to his image of the police as a public service. Its entrance was at the bottom of an incline on Jaffa Street, one of Ramallah’s main arteries, often clogged with heavy traffic in and out to the industrial zone west of the city. In the opposite direction Jaffa Street reached Ramallah’s central Al-Manara Square. The HQ’s menace was belied, at least for Hisham, by the unsteady security spar across the access road that wobbled as it shut. The fresh-faced young policeman, wearing a Kalashnikov across his chest, always wore a polite smile, but was never sure whether to salute Hisham, so he grinned.
The HQ’s interior was sparsely furnished reflecting the chronic lack of funds. Hisham had a chair and shared his desk with another Detective Sergeant he rarely saw. His office was in the apartment’s living room with twin glass doors leading to the balcony. The place was part storage space and to get to the desk he had to maneuver between ceiling high boxes and crates. He could open the balcony doors during the summer, and did whenever the power failed, daily, but he was not allowed to open the wide plastic roller blind or go out onto the balcony. He refused to feel claustrophobic, but would find excuses not to be in that room.
Reviewing his cell phone photos, he decided he would go and talk to Dennis Allerdyce, the EUPOL COPPS CID liaison. Perhaps this was initiative-taking too far, trampling on all sorts of bureaucratic preserves, but maybe Allerdyce could help. Liaison meant talking to the Israelis on behalf of the PCP, and he could ask Allerdyce to check about traffic movements of a black Chevy SUV at the checkpoints for the date of the Shehadeh kidnaps, and Farouk’s Mercedes too. Hisham picked up the phone and pressed buttons. Nothing happened.
He decided to walk up to the EUPOL COPPS building on Tokyo Street. Faris greeted him with a triumphant smile and a slip of paper on which he’d written the Mercedes license plate. ‘Excellent work,’ Hisham said. Out at the intersection, the smell of Italian spices from Mr Pizza down towards Manara Square reached him and he toyed with grabbing a bite. He opted instead for some candy and walked by more undeveloped lots to a little supermarket where he bought a Mars bar that cost more than a pizza. On a corner, three guys who ran a car wash were cleaning a shiny black sports car with yellow Israeli license plates. He recognized the Stuttgart stallion hood badge.
‘Now that’s a really cool car,’ he said smiling. ‘You don’t see Porsches every day in Ramallah. Whose is it?’
The guy with the water spray gun thumbed at a female Hisham hadn’t seen at the wheel. He bent down. A young woman with short black hair in a bright yellow pants suit, was in an animated cell phone conversation. He gave an embarrassed wave. She didn’t react. Why should she? He was a nobody to her and as he carried on up the hill to Tokyo Street, the Porsche’s presence clicked. She was from the up scale Al Masyoun neighborhood, its expensive restaurants places he could only dream of eating in, women he could never conquer.
In addition to the EUPOL COPPS building, Tokyo Street was also the location on a hilly section of the UN’s base. A huge blue UN banner ran down the side of the building. He turned and scoured the scene down to Ramallah and beyond, across and up to the roofs of Psagot, the Israeli settlement that blotted the skyline on Tawil Hill; the Tawils were renowned, one of their daughters had married the Rais. Had the black Chevy come to the Shehadeh’s house from there?
The first impression Hisham had after passing through EUPOL COPPS security was the smell of hashish. He couldn’t believe it. He was giving his name to the Palestinian reception clerk, who wrote it down and called Allerdyce’s PA. Hisham sniffed the air again, and there it was, that familiar heady scent. The clerk looked up at and saw Hisham’s expression. ‘It’s not what you think,’ he offered.
‘Then what the hell is it?’ Hisham demanded.
‘You’re a cop, you work it out,’ the clerk said arrogantly. ‘Go to the third floor and you’ll be met.’
He handed Hisham a security badge. Hisham found the stairs and came out on a narrow white corridor, where Allerdyce’s pretty Palestinian PA met him and escorted him to an office suite.
‘Please excuse me coming here without calling first,’ he told her, ‘but the phones aren’t so good at HQ. I’d like to speak with Mr Allerdyce. It’s urgent.’
‘He’s on a call at the moment Sergeant. Can you wait?’ She offered him a seat and a coffee. The power went off and it became hot and stuffy instantly. Coffee would have to wait. He glanced at the PA; power down meant the phones were out. She read his mind. “He’s on his cell.’
EUPOL COPPS, the European Union Coordinating Office for Palestinian Police Support, was the EU’s attempt to guide the Palestinian Authority towards stable and secure governance. It was Hisham’s first visit to the building but he’d met EUPOL COPPS officers before. They were very committed to training the PCP, and promoting the respect and authority so sadly lacking. They channeled EU member funds for joined-up policing, more vehicles, radios that worked and the PCP’s vital computerization. He’d heard talk that they were even working to create the infrastructure for DNA data collection. He also knew they were trying to standardize and unify the various parts of the Palestinian judiciary. He wished them luck in overcoming the endemic fiefdoms.
The hash smell wafted up, but he pretended to ignore it. The PA had her own desk, which made him instantly envious; she was typing away on an Apple laptop - ‘I’m on battery,’ she said, shrugging - more envy.
Moments later the power came back on, so did the air conditioning and the hashish smell dissipated.
He was too polite to tell her to add Detective to his rank, but not so polite that he didn’t watch her attractive ass as she walked to a coffee machine on a table by the window, pressed a button, and after
a few moments he was handed a cup and saucer and was sipping good coffee. He noticed plants in pots either side of Allerdyce’s door. The air of quiet competence contrasted sharply with PCP HQ.
He was still sipping when Allerdyce opened his office door and ushered him in. He sat opposite the Ulsterman in the rapidly cooling room. Allerdyce appraised him from pale blue eyes beneath bushy eyebrows. He was taller and wider than Hisham, with the mien of an army officer.
Allerdyce spoke no Arabic, and the chewy vowels of his Ulster-ish were incomprehensible. Many in the Ramallah PCP suspected that Allerdyce was friendly to Israel. It was said that Ulster Protestants favored Israel. A friend who’d studied at Belfast’s Queen’s University, described the graffiti on the Falls Road to him. One side was pro-Palestinian Roman Catholic, the other pro-Israel pro-settler Protestant, this because the Protestant Irish had begun life as Scottish settlers sent by the British to Ireland. One Palestinian blogger had run headline blogs doubting Allerdyce’s impartiality.
‘Sew wutt ken aye dooyew fer yooyew?’ asked Allerdyce. Hisham paused to translate what he thought he’d heard. He passed Allerdyce his phone with the photos of the tire tracks, and gave him the background.
‘Watts yer conclooyewshun ‘Tective Sarn’t?’
‘I think Israelis abducted the Shehadehs and took their Mercedes. A witness described the SUV carrying the abducted Shehadeh family. It would help if we could arrange to take better photos and plaster cast moldings from the driveway.’
‘Whooyeew wud wan ter abdoct thus familee?’
‘I think it was Israelis, settlers or their supporters, but I don’t know their motive. Getting the casts would be a start. Accessing CCTV cameras at the border crossing points would be next, though there are other ways of getting in and out from Israel. It would be good to tell them about it and see how they react.’
‘Rate.’
‘I’m sorry, but I don’t .…’
‘Aye’ll huv a werd. Yewse dooyew the plester. Gev the gell yer noates ter copy an yer phoyne fer the photos.’ Allerdyce picked up his phone. Hisham waited.
‘Whale wutter yewse weytin fer?’
Hisham understood the question.‘It’s just that, there was an odd smell downstairs, I’m not sure, but it was like ...’
Allerdyce gave him a one second look and said, ‘Gut me Ovi Mazaal’ into his phone to his PA. He covered the mouthpiece and said with a wink, ‘We took hash uff uv a norty PCP ufficer, an’ wee’re burnin’ et sew’s no wun else ken smoke et,’ and winked again
Hisham told the girl he’d type up his notes and get the photos downloaded. He wasn’t going to leave his phone, but he didn’t tell her that.
Back at the HQ he found the Chief of Police pacing up and down outside his door, marching really, the way he’d learned on the Jordanian parade ground during his paratrooper training. He wasn’t as tall as Hisham and was completely bald; he ran his hand quickly over its pool-ball smooth surface as if sharing the tension he projected. He spoke out of the corner of his mouth as Hisham entered.
‘The Shehadeh family is one of the most prominent in Al-Bireh. Amer’s been on the phone to me today, about his missing son Farouk, daughter-in-law and two grandchildren.’
The Chief’s feet kept up the beat, derision in his voice. ‘What did that man from Ulster say?’
Hisham saw genuine concern on the Chief’s face.
‘That I...we should make plaster casts of tire tracks I found.’
‘What of?’ Hisham explained about the indentations in the blacktop .
‘The vehicle that was probably used to abduct the Shehadehs. It was a Chevrolet SUV. And they stole Farouk’s Mercedes. Probably opportunistic.’
‘So?’
‘I think they were Israelis, but not from their security services, they’re too disciplined to steal a car. These people were careless. Israeli professionals would have seen asphalt mixed with mud on the concrete. They’d have hosed down the concrete garage floor and re-rolled the asphalt.’
‘Did Allerdyce say he’d speak to them?’
‘He was calling Avi Mazal, their police liaison at Judea and Samaria HQ, as I left.’
The Chief of Police allowed his eyes to meet Nabulsi’s. ‘I’ll talk to Amer Shehadeh and get someone to talk to the family, and you follow up with the plaster casts,’ then he marched away, his bald head up, his back ramrod straight.
‘They’ll cover it up and that man from Ulster will help them,’ Hisham heard him say. He wanted to ask about a PCP officer caught with hashish, but decided he’d used up enough initiatives for one day.
9
They loved the gifts he’d bought them from America, Yakub especially. He sat staring at page after page of the Columbus book. Lana uncharacteristically went and changed into the silk blouse and showed it off to him. Good Yukub was there, Dov thought, otherwise I’d have taken it off her one button at a time and screw her red lines.
It was a Friday night, Shabbat, and Dov wanted to make the blessings over wine and khallah bread and Yakub. Ahead of coming to Lana’s, he’d called and asked tentatively if she’d mind.
‘You’re going to eat with us, so why not? Yakub is the child of two faiths, it’s time he got an insight into his father’s,’ she said unexpectedly. It was early evening when he parked near her place in a narrow side street, tires on the even narrower sidewalk, and closed his side mirrors before locking up. There were fragments of the waxing moon through scurrying clouds.
Centuries before it was threatened by the encroaching glades of Tel Aviv tower blocks, Jaffa was called Joppa and invaded by a Pharaoh. Reel forwards to the late nineteenth century when the first waves of Zionist immigrants arrived at their promised land, the Arab port town was the first place they saw as they were rowed from their ships through the rocks to the quay. During the twentieth century, settlement, wars and conquest eroded the Palestinian Arab majority and many of its cultural landmarks. Its population mix varied from rich to poor just like any other town, but this one was different, one of the few in which Arabs and Jews lived side by side, though not always happily.
Until he’d rediscovered Lana, Yafo as it was called in Hebrew, had conflicting associations. He’d known its obvious tourist and artists’ attractions. It had excellent fish restaurants, a market and a wine shop that specialized in Israeli boutique wines, one of them a red he prized. As a police investigator Dov had experienced invisibly drawn turf lines between neighborhood Arab drug gangs. Constant urban redevelopment hadn’t eroded pockets of poverty from which young Arabs with no apparent future preyed on tourists, Jews, or each other.
Dov was always drawn to Andromeda’s Rock. As a child he’d read the mythical story of a dragon that lived in the waters off the port. The dragon would rein in the storms that caused ships to sink and fishermen to drown, only when the town offered it the most beautiful girl. Andromeda, daughter of King Cepheus was offered, chained to a rock, rescued by her lover Perseus who naturally slew the dragon. The rock was named for her. Dov walked down to the port. A crisp wind blew across the choppy sea and the Israeli flag someone had installed on Andromeda’s rock was almost obscured by the spray.
Aircraft engines carried on the wind from the south reached him, a twin prop he knew, getting closer and lower, a test flight for a new pilot practicing night landing at the small Sde Dov airport north of the city’s Reading power station. The mournful voice of an old Umm Kel Thum recording came from a street level window, mourning a lost love. He’d grown up with the Egyptian diva’s voice beamed in on radio and TV films from surrounding Arab countries, mostly from Cairo. Through a window on an upper floor came laughter and the clinking of glasses, and out of a scruffy corner cafe, the clack of backgammon pieces and the waft of pungent tobacco smoke from a narghilah. He sidestepped some dog crap and a group of stringy cats scrapping over a spilled wheelie-bin. Friday night in old Yaffa or Yafo, depending on who you w
ere
Entering Lana’s apartment, the air was redolent with the spicy aroma of Makluba, the traditional Palestinian upside down chicken and noodle dish she’d introduced him to during their affair. He produced the khallah bread and a bottle of over sweet Kiddush wine, and Lana put two candles in little dishes and went to warm the khallah. He realized he’d forgotten to bring kippot, but Lana produced an embroidered Bukharian one, ‘I bought it for Yakub in the flea market because he loved the color patterns,’ and Dov placed it on his son’s head and took the napkin Lana gave him for himself. She put on a keffiyah and recited the blessings over the candles. He loved her for that, and held back tears for what might have been, as she lit them. His little voice reminded him of the blindness of love; he’d assumed Lana wanted marriage, so their break up had had an added barb.
After Dov blessed and broke the khallah and sprinkled salt over the pieces, Yakub demanded another piece once Dov dunked his in the wine, as his father and grandfather had done when he was a child. Yakub wanted more of the wine than was good for him, its sugariness exciting his young tastebuds before his parents could stop him. Then, a little tipsy, Yakub stood still as his father placed his hands on his head and recited the son’s blessing. Dov took Lana’s hands in his and recited from memory the Woman of Valor prayer, adding his thanks for the meal she’d prepared. She didn’t pull back her hands when he kissed them, though he was sure that was for their son’s benefit.
Sitting down to eat, Dov tried to calculate how many times God was uttered in the prayers, and lost count. That interfering little voice asked, so what’s God got to do with it? Dov ate for the next minutes in silence. He was torn between saying ‘everything’ and ‘nothing’. After all, God left so much to conscience. He caught a look of contentment on Yakub’s face beneath his kippa and began to think ahead, to army then university, then a career as ... army? How could Yakub with a Palestinian mother ever serve in the IDF? Would he want to? He banished those thoughts, enjoying being in this place with these two precious people.
