A grave in Gaza oy-2

by Matt Beynon Rees

  Umm Rateb wagged a finger. “Hamas will come and burn down your office for your bad morals, Abu Nabil.”

  Maki laughed loudly. “Umm Rateb, Mister Cree is English-”

  “Scottish,” Cree said.

  “Even better. The land of whisky. Surely, Umm Rateb, you will allow me to welcome my guests as their culture sees fit. Where are you from, Mister-”

  “Wallender. I’m from Sweden.”

  “Sweden? You are all drunk all the time in Sweden.”

  Wallender flinched.

  “Umm Rateb, you see? I know what our friends would like. And I’m sure that our brother here”-he gestured to Omar Yussef-“is no Islamist.”

  “I no longer drink alcohol,” Omar Yussef said.

  “A hellraiser in your younger days, were you, Abu Ramiz?”

  “The hell was all on the inside,” Omar Yussef replied.

  “I will have tea, please,” Wallender said.

  “Very well, tea for everyone, Umm Rateb, and for me a coffee.”

  Wallender watched the secretary go. “Is it acceptable to drink alcohol in Gaza?”

  “Not in public. The Islamists actually burn places down if alcohol is served-the old Windmill Hotel, your UN Club. But I’m only teasing Umm Rateb. She’s religious, you know, with the headscarf. She understands that I don’t open the special bottom drawer of this desk until she goes home for the day.” Maki tapped the wood playfully. “Mister Cree, last year I went to Scotland. An old professor at the University of St. Andrews invited me to lecture about the Jews and the occupation and the suffering of the people in Gaza. A very sympathetic old gentleman. He served me a fine whisky in his office. Now, when my secretaries go home at the end of the day, I imagine that I’m not in Gaza. Instead, I’m transported to the office of that jolly professor in Scotland.”

  “I’d rather be in Gaza myself,” Cree said firmly.

  That surprised Omar Yussef. He snapped his head around to look at Cree.

  “Then you will agree to swap passports with me, Mister Cree,” Maki said.

  Cree smiled, but it could just as easily have been a contortion of pain. “Only if I get your VIP card.”

  “I don’t have one. The Israelis refuse to give me one. Me, a member of the Revolutionary Council and head of the national university. No VIP card.” Maki lifted both his arms wide to indicate the astonishing and incomprehensible nature of this outrage. “Of course, I should be among the VIPs. All the top officials are issued this card by Israel under the terms of our peace agreement. The VIPs pass easily with their vehicles through the Israeli checkpoints. They don’t have to wait in long lines with the ordinary workers.”

  “That doesn’t seem fair to the workers,” Wallender said.

  Umm Rateb brought the tea, placing the glasses along the curving edge of the desk.

  “Fair, Mister Wallender?” Maki’s arms reached wider still and his voice touched falsetto. “Is it fair that someone like me, with such senior positions and such pressure on his time, should have to wait in the cattle pens with ordinary workers?”

  “Cattle pens?”

  “Surely on your arrival you passed the metal barriers and the cages? It’s crowded and there’s pushing and shoving. The smell is repulsive.” Maki laughed and slapped the desk top. “Last week, I traveled through the checkpoint. One of the Israeli soldiers, he saw my clothes.” Maki lifted the lapel of his sports coat and rubbed it between his fingers to illustrate its fine cut. “The workers wear dirty old T-shirts and trousers covered in paint and filth from their construction jobs in Israel. So the soldier asked me who I was. When I told him, he lifted his rifle and pushed a path through all the workers for me to pass.” Maki mimed the action of the soldier thrusting aside the laborers with his rifle-butt to make way for him. He laughed and clapped his hands.

  Wallender and Cree watched the professor with unsettled smiles. Omar Yussef looked down at his hands.

  “Were we processed in the VIP office this morning, Abu Ramiz?” Wallender asked.

  “Yes, we were.”

  “Ah,” said Maki, jabbing a finger at Omar Yussef, “but you are no VIP.”

  Omar Yussef looked at the tiny, wet eyes. This was no time to speak his mind. He lifted the lapel of his jacket and rubbed it between his thumb and forefinger as Maki had done.

  Maki laughed and reached his hand high. Omar Yussef held out his palm and Maki slapped it in appreciation, then repeated the lapel-rubbing gesture and clapped in delight. “Welcome, welcome,” he said.

  Omar Yussef nodded to Wallender. They could move on to business now.

  “Thank you for receiving us, Professor,” Wallender said. “Abu Ramiz and I have come to Gaza to inspect the UN schools in the refugee camps.”

  “Fine work.”

  “But our inspection begins with a troublesome note,” Wallender continued.

  “Difficulties with the Israelis at the checkpoint?” Maki flicked his hand at Omar Yussef, whom he clearly assumed would have been the source of any such problem.

  “No, one of our teachers has been arrested. He works part-time for you at the university and-”

  “This arrest was not to do with his work at the university.”

  “You know who I mean?” Wallender sat up straight.

  “Yes, yes. This terrible Masharawi fellow.” Maki’s hand flicked once more, this time dismissing the incarcerated husband of Salwa Masharawi.

  “Eyad Masharawi,” Wallender said. “He was arrested this morning.”

  “It’s nothing to do with the university, as I say.”

  “But when he was arrested, the police took away all the exam papers he set for his university students.”

  “How do you know this?” Smiling and exuberant, Maki swiveled his head back and forth between Cree and Wallender. “Did the police tell you?”

  “We went to see Masharawi’s wife,” Wallender replied.

  “How can you believe a word she says? She’s a troublemaker like her husband.” The professor’s nostrils flared, as though confronted with a smell so vile it could penetrate even the wall of cologne around him.

  “She showed us where the papers had been. Now they aren’t there.”

  “And what papers? Just university papers? Who knows? I believe the security forces are investigating more than the shocking examination questions alone.”

  Wallender looked at Cree. Cree nodded.

  “Masharawi accused the university of selling fake degrees to policemen,” Wallender said.

  “I’m not short of students who wish to pay for an education. Why should I sell fake degrees?”

  “I said it was the university that was accused of selling the degrees, not you,” Wallender said.

  “I am the university, sir. I’ve built it from nothing since 1991, when the Old Man told me to set up an institution here to rival the Islamic University.” He gestured toward the photo on the wall of himself in a clinch with the deceased president. “We have two hundred teachers. One of them makes complaints-this is Masharawi. One hundred and ninety-nine don’t complain. And we have tens of thousands of students. Are they all to understand that their degrees are devalued by the accusations of one man? It’s a scandalous attack.”

  Omar Yussef sipped the last of his tea and put the glass back on Maki’s desk. “Are there students at the university who belong to the security forces?” he asked.

  “Yes, and from all the struggling groups.”

  “Struggling groups?” Wallender said.

  “The professor means the militias that fight the Israelis,” Omar Yussef said.

  “You might know them as terrorists.” Maki laughed and shrugged.

  “Are there students who are officers in the Preventive Security?” Omar Yussef asked.

  “If you bring me a name, I can get the file on that student from the office there where Umm Rateb sits. In the file, you will find his high school certificate, to show that he’s qualified to study for a degree here. Then, when they graduate, you will see the r
ecord of all the classes they passed to earn their rightful qualification, as well as the payments they made for tuition.”

  “Did the Preventive Security contact you about Professor Masharawi?” Omar Yussef asked.

  “Please, he’s not a professor. He’s a part-time lecturer.”

  He’s no VIP, either, Omar Yussef thought. “Did they contact you?”

  “I went to them. Masharawi made dangerous allegations against the university and against me, and even the government itself. He refused to retract. So I went to the Preventive Security about this.”

  “You asked them to arrest Masharawi?” Wallender sat forward on his seat, his back stiff.

  “No, they didn’t arrest him for this offense, as I told you. But still, I believe he should be brought to account for this, too.”

  “Then why was he arrested?” Wallender asked.

  “I asked Colonel al-Fara about Masharawi this morning and he told me there are far more serious allegations against him than the responsibility for distributing scandalous exam papers.” Maki lowered his voice to a whisper. “There’s evidence of a connection between Masharawi and the CIA. I’m as

  astonished as you. Yes, perhaps even the CIA.”

  Cree blew air through his pursed lips and clicked his tongue. Omar Yussef gripped the arms of his chair. Wallender cleared his throat.

  “You understand, Professor Maki, that we must pursue this case, because Masharawi is also an employee of the UN,” Wallender said. “He’s our responsibility.”

  “Surely it’s an internal Palestinian matter. You needn’t concern yourselves.”

  “The international community will view this very seriously.” Wallender’s voice betrayed some impatience. “For a university administrator to request police intervention in a matter of academic freedom is a shocking development.”

  “Academic freedom? It was a slander.”

  “You believe the allegations were a slander aimed at you personally?” Wallender said.

  “Me and the university. It’s the same thing.” Maki made himself smaller, calmer. He put a hand to his forehead and lowered his voice. “It’s upsetting for me, too, gentlemen. As a gesture of my good faith, let me suggest that I make contact with the people conducting the investigation and report to you tomorrow. Perhaps if the brother Abu Ramiz would consent to come to my house tomorrow night for dinner, I will give him good news about this case. At least, I will be able to impart details of which you are currently ignorant, about the depths of Masharawi’s crimes.”

  Omar Yussef knew why Maki wanted to split him away from the foreigners. There would be appeals to him in the name of the Palestinian struggle. There might even be a payoff to persuade him to throw the UN men off the scent. Still, Omar Yussef considered that, just as Maki thought he could better persuade his fellow Palestinian alone, he also might be able to manipulate the university president through the subtleties of their native language. “I would be very happy to come, Abu Nabil.”

  “Welcome, welcome,” Maki said, turning up his volume again.

  Chapter 5

  The cold air sounded a single, long, deathly exhalation. Omar Yussef lay awake, freezing in his hotel bed because he couldn’t fathom how to turn off the air-conditioning. He wished its drone were the low, rattling snore of his wife. Whenever he dropped off to sleep, a key would turn loudly in a lock down the corridor or a voice would call goodnight to a friend. The noises seemed so close that at one point he thought someone had entered his room, and he sat up half-awake with a racing heart and sweaty pajamas, despite the chill. He went to the bathroom for a glass of water just before dawn, wrapped himself in the thin towels for warmth, and drank the water at the window. Peering past the edge of the curtain, he watched the detachment of soldiers outside the home of the head of Military Intelligence across the street. Through the dimness of the dust storm that had whipped up in the night, he counted the tips of their cigarettes, glowing orange each time they inhaled, until he felt sleepy.

  When Omar Yussef came downstairs in the morning, Magnus Wallender was at the reception desk, laughing with the pretty young clerk.

  “Abu Ramiz, morning of joy,” he said.

  “Morning of light, Magnus.”

  “Meisoun here tells me they don’t have the English-language newspapers in Gaza, as they do in Jerusalem.”

  “Do you want me to translate the headlines for you from the Arabic newspapers? I’ll tell you if there’s an article about our friend Masharawi or if Sweden has invaded Norway. Any other news, believe me, you can live a few days without knowing it.”

  Wallender laughed. “You’re right. Hungry?”

  Omar Yussef took one of the Arabic newspapers from the reception counter. The main story was about the Military Intelligence officer’s funeral. He noticed a small item at the bottom of the page. He tapped it with his forefinger and waved the newspaper at Wallender. “Gaza is full of the most cheerful news, Magnus. Look: Body exhumed from grave, dumped near Deir el-Balah,” he read. “That’s the headline. Here’s the story: A farmer discovered the remains of a man near the town of Deir el-Balah yesterday. The farmer reported to police that he discovered the bones in a corner of his cabbage field near the Saladin Road.”

  “Where’s Deir el-Balah?”

  “South of Gaza City, halfway to the Egyptian border.” Omar Yussef read on: “ At first the farmer thought he had found animal bones, but then he discovered the skull, which was clearly human. Police transported the remains to Gaza City’s Shifa Hospital, where doctors were puzzled by the age of the bones. Doctor Maher Najjar, Shifa’s pathologist, said it was hard to identify the precise age of the remains, but added that it could be as much as a century since the body was buried. There have been no reports of a grave being disturbed, but police are investigating in the hope that the bones can be returned to their original resting place. Do you have an appetite for breakfast now?” Omar Yussef chuckled and folded the newspaper.

  They entered the breakfast room, sat by the window overlooking the sea and ordered toast and a basket of croissants.

  Wallender peered out of the window into the impenetrable dust storm. “Hell.”

  “We call it a khamsin, which means fifty,” Omar Yussef said. “That’s supposed to be the number of days each year in which clouds of dust like this descend upon us from the desert. But who’s counting?”

  “How long will this one go on?”

  “A few days, a week. Until it rains a little or until the wind dies down. Did you sleep well?”

  “I kept waking. It felt as though someone was smothering me.”

  “That’s the air pressure from the dust storm. It gives me a headache right here.” Omar Yussef drew a line from his right eyebrow to his ear.

  “I have a bottle of aspirin. Do you want some?”

  “No, I’ll simply add this one to my collection of headaches here, here, and here.” Omar Yussef tapped his head all around and smiled.

  James Cree arrived at the same time as their breakfast. “What’ve you got for me, son?” he called to the waiter.

  “Coffee, sir?”

  “That’s right,” Cree said, lifting a croissant from the basket on the table. “Coffee it is, laddie.”

  “American coffee or Arabic coffee, sir?”

  Cree grinned aggressively at Omar Yussef. “What a polarized world we live in, eh, Mister Yussef? American or Arabic, that’s all the choice there is. East or West. Capitalism or fundamentalism.” He leaned toward the waiter. “I’ll have a European coffee, son. Make of that what you will. Run along.”

  The waiter smiled and turned toward the kitchen.

  Cree stuffed the croissant into his mouth. “Makes me bloody starving, this weather.”

  “Here, have mine, too,” Omar Yussef said.

  “You sure? All right.” Cree took the second pastry and bit, before he had swallowed the first. He wiped a buttery flake from his mustache and lowered his voice. “I’m thinking the Masharawi arrest could be a real problem fo
r the UN.”

  “It’s a bigger problem for Masharawi, though,” Omar Yussef said.

  The waiter returned with a cup of drip coffee. “European coffee, sir.”

  Cree sniffed. “Is that what I think it is, son?”

  “Your double health, sir.” The waiter smiled and walked to his station by the swing doors.

  Cree stared at the back of the waiter’s white shirt. He sipped the coffee. “Bloody hell, there is a drop of the hard stuff in here.”

  Wallender leaned over the cup and inhaled. “Not European coffee. I’d call it Scottish coffee.”

  Cree clapped his hands and gave a thumbs-up to the waiter. “I can see I’m going to become a caffeine addict,” he said. He drank, with a sigh.

  Omar Yussef smelled the alcohol across the table. The raw scent of something he had forbidden himself made him resentful of Cree. “We have to see Masharawi as soon as possible. The longer he’s kept in jail, the harder it will be for us to persuade the security people that this is all just a misunderstanding,” he said.

  “We?” Cree tilted his head. “You’re here to inspect the schools, Mister Yussef. I didn’t intend to involve Magnus in this issue in the first place, and this morning I want to discuss with him whether he shouldn’t simply withdraw from it now. Leave it to those of us who are trained professionals in our dealings with the security forces. Certainly, I think it’d be inappropriate for you to continue taking part in our enquiries.”

  “I believe I can help. There may be subtleties that you would miss, because you are foreigners.”

  “I speak a bit of Arabic, you know, and I’ve been here long enough to understand how to talk to these buggers.”

  “Perhaps you know the security people,” Omar Yussef said. “But Masharawi? I think you would treat him as a troublemaker, if you were allowed to speak to him.”

  “Seems like he’s made some trouble, doesn’t it?”

  “He merely spoke his mind.”

  “Like I say, he does seem to be a troublemaker.”