The Samaritan's secret oy-3

by Matt Beynon Rees

  Khamis Zeydan made a hissing sound and spat a gob of phlegm over the handrail toward the pines. “So this time you set him up.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Come on, my brother, it was a nice trick. You knew there were ruthless people who wanted to be the first to get at that money, and you also knew that they were on your scent. So you set Awwadi on the trail of the secret accounts, knowing that he’d be a greater danger than you to the bad guys, whoever they are. They had to turn their attention to him. It was a nice distraction.”

  Omar Yussef blinked. “You can’t possibly think I’d do something so wicked?”

  “You’re right, I’m giving you too much credit. I was hoping you’d wised up.” Khamis Zeydan spat again, wiped his mustache with the back of his hand and stared into the crowd. “Isn’t that the American woman from the World Bank?”

  Omar Yussef squinted toward the crowd of foreigners. At first he failed to recognize Jamie King, dressed casually and with her red hair pulled under a baseball cap. He shuffled through the throng and greeted her.

  “Hey there,” King said. “I wondered if you’d be here.”

  “I wouldn’t miss it. I’m hedging my spiritual bets, in case the Samaritans are right,” Omar Yussef said.

  “If the Messiah comes to Jerizim tonight, do you think the Samaritans will put in a good word for you?”

  “I don’t like change, so I’m not interested in Paradise. I prefer to be sent straight to Hell, before all the worst punishments are taken.” Omar Yussef grinned. “I want to burn for eternity in a place that’s just as bad as Palestine.”

  “Good evening, dear lady,” Khamis Zeydan said. He bowed slightly to King with his hand over his heart.

  A nearby diplomat gestured for quiet. King whispered to Omar Yussef: “I was up here to look around a few days ago, but the caretaker wasn’t much good at explaining the history. Is that the Samaritan temple?” She pointed to the ruined walls and domed turret, bright in the moonlight beyond the group of Samaritans.

  “That’s a Byzantine fortress,” Omar Yussef said. “The heart of their temple is the flat stone beside where the Samaritans are standing. The temple would’ve been built around it, here on the peak of their holy mountain.”

  “Who destroyed it?”

  “Religious rivals. Then the Greeks built a temple of Zeus over it.”

  “When the Samaritan Messiah comes, he’ll rebuild it?”

  “That’s the idea. Although their Messiah is only a prophet, not the son of God, so I can’t say how far his powers extend. He, too, may need a permit from the Israelis.”

  “I’ll be up here again in the morning.” Jamie King pointed along the ridge. “I’ve got a meeting with the businessman Amin Kanaan at ten. One of those big houses belongs to him.”

  The voice of the priest quieted the crowd. In a nasal tenor, he chanted from Exodus, the story of the first Passover. In the darkness, the Abisha seemed nothing more than an oblong blot across his white robe. The priest led the Samaritans down from the peak of Mount Jerizim. The crowd followed.

  Omar Yussef detained King with a hand on her elbow. “Jamie, may I accompany you to your meeting with Kanaan?”

  King hesitated. “It’s World Bank business, ustaz. I can’t just turn up with a private individual.”

  “Kanaan worked with Ishaq. That means he could provide important leads in tracking the money.”

  “My discussion with Mister Kanaan may include such topics. But there’re a number of World Bank development projects that involve him, too. Anyway, I imagine he’d prefer to be interviewed about the case by the police.”

  Omar Yussef hid his frustration with a hand over his mouth. “I believe I would be able to extract certain information from him that you might not. It might be easier to question him in Arabic.”

  King looked closely at Omar Yussef and folded her arms across her chest. “I’ll think about it,” she said.

  “I’ll see you in the lobby at nine-thirty tomorrow morning.” Omar Yussef smiled. Satisfied, he allowed the crowd to separate him from the American.

  Along the ridge, the lights in the windows of the Samaritan village were an icy blue. Flames flared from the pits where the sacrificial sheep were to be cooked.

  Omar Yussef shambled along with Khamis Zeydan at the rear of the crowd, coughing on the dust it kicked up and stumbling on the rough pavement. The police chief was silent until they reached the village, and the charcoal scent of the fire pits drifted on the air. “That’s very interesting, indeed,” he said.

  “Those are the pits where they’ll cook the sheep,” Omar Yussef said. “They slaughtered them in the afternoon, fleeced them with scalding water, gutted them and salted them. Now they’ll roast them and in a few hours they’ll eat them to mark the feast Moussa commanded of the Israelites before they left Egypt.”

  Khamis Zeydan stared at him. “What?”

  “They put the sheep upright on spits in those fire pits.” He pointed to the small park where the white-clad Samaritans at the head of the procession were spread out.

  “I’m talking about the deal Awwadi did with this dead Samaritan,” Khamis Zeydan said. “Have you forgotten about that? You’re usually not led by your stomach.”

  Embarrassed, Omar Yussef stroked his mustache. “I thought you-”

  “I didn’t come here to eat. I came here to investigate a crime scene.”

  “Only the Samaritans are allowed to eat, anyway. Their bible says that no one outside their community may take part in the Passover feast.”

  “May Allah curse your father, schoolmaster. I’m not one of your foreign friends here as a tourist. Stop lecturing and let me think.”

  The crowd jostled Omar Yussef, as the foreigners pressed to get a view of the skewers going down into the flames, four sheep speared on each. His shoulder bumped against Khamis Zeydan and he pushed resentfully against his friend. Despite the dangers, he was more compelled to uncover the murderers of Ishaq and Awwadi than anyone else. Yet here was an ancient tradition he would probably witness only once in his life. It’s not my fault if there’s room in my brain for more than just murder, he thought.

  Beside the fire pits, the door to Ishaq’s house stood open. Omar Yussef turned to Khamis Zeydan, his lips pursed and angry. “You want to investigate? The dead man’s wife seems to be at home. Let’s talk to her again.”

  “There’s no hurry. Really, I don’t want you to miss this cultural experience.” Khamis Zeydan averted his eyes. It was as close to an apology as Omar Yussef was likely to receive.

  “I’m not lecturing, but I can tell you it takes four hours for the sheep to cook. We have time.”

  The Samaritan men tipped their heads back and sang a rough harmonized chant, monotonous and sad. Roween stood in her doorway, silhouetted by the light from her living room, listening. When the singers paused for breath, the quiet was punctuated by the spitting of fat from the carcasses in the flame pits.

  Chapter 21

  Inside Roween’s house, Omar Yussef asked to use the bathroom. He puffed in annoyance as he undid his belt, frustrated by the effects of age on his bodily functions. He was accustomed to waking frequently at night to urinate, but lately he seemed always to be in need of a toilet. Penis in hand, he rolled his eyes and waited.

  The room was clean and tiled sky blue. Every fifth tile was hand-painted with a navy blue design and lemon high-lights. Omar Yussef squeezed out a few drops of urine with a grunt and a dry cough, washed his hands with soap from a neat ceramic dispenser and returned to the living room, feeling unsatisfied.

  Khamis Zeydan stood close to the wall before the enlarged photo of the old president kissing Ishaq. His face twisted in disgust, as if he were recalling those wet lips puckered against his own brow, the poorly trimmed mustache brushing his skin, oily and damp. He flicked his eyes toward Ishaq’s face and Omar Yussef saw him frown. Did he feel the same strange moment of recognition I experienced when I looked into those eyes? he wondered.

/>   The police chief cleared his throat. “My turn,” he said, unzipping his fly as he stepped toward the bathroom.

  In the kitchen, Roween boiled coffee in a small tin pot. She wore the same blue cotton robe as when Omar Yussef had first seen her. The acne below her mouth and the darkness about her eyes gave her the look of a gawky teenager. She isn’t so much older than that, he thought. He felt his chin twitching with sudden emotion and he lifted a finger to wipe a tear, disguising the motion as a casual scratch of his nose.

  Omar Yussef was accustomed to consoling girls who came into his classroom upset by a gun battle in the refugee camp where he taught or by the death of a neighbor in a fight with Israeli soldiers. But he sensed in Roween conflicting emotions toward her husband, perhaps love and resentment, which made him unsure of how to comfort her. “My compliments on the beautiful tiles in your bathroom,” he said. It’s not the most insightful consolation I’ve ever offered, but it’ll have to do, he thought. “You picked them out with a great sensitivity to art and design.”

  “I didn’t choose them, ustaz. Ishaq had the eye for design in this house. He would have been much happier in a creative field like architecture or fashion. He always dressed so well.” Roween took in Omar Yussef’s neat French shirt with the gold clip of his Montblanc over the breast pocket, his heavy watch, and his polished shoes. “His style was a little like yours, classical and elegant-although more youthful, if you’ll excuse me, ustaz.”

  Omar Yussef waved a hand.

  “He had an aptitude for finance, so he went into that field,” she said. “But financial types here in Palestine so often end up drawn into dirty stuff. He was sullied by them, when he should’ve been picking out nice Armenian tiles for ladies to decorate their bathrooms.”

  “Them?”

  Roween shrugged. She poured the coffee into small cups, took up the tray, and came toward Omar Yussef in the doorway. She smiled at him, but her thick eyebrows were low over her dark eyes. Omar Yussef sensed her devastation and felt it as his own.

  “Who were Ishaq’s connections in Nablus?” he asked. He forced the words out quickly, so that his voice wouldn’t quaver and betray his emotion.

  The woman recoiled. Perhaps his effort to exert control over himself had made him sound angry. “Drink your coffee first, please, ustaz. Let me welcome you to my home.”

  Omar Yussef heard a flush from the bathroom. “Forgive me,” he said. “There are some things I need to ask you about which I wouldn’t want others to hear.”

  “Even your colleague?”

  “Not until I’m sure that these issues are relevant to the case. Personal things about Ishaq. Please, his connections? Why did Ishaq come back from France? For you?”

  Roween cut short a harsh laugh. She made a show of not wanting to spill the coffee, but Omar Yussef could tell that she had heard the bitterness in her own laughter. “No, he didn’t come back for me,” she said. “He came back for Kanaan.”

  Omar Yussef took the tray from her. It shook in his hands and he put it on the kitchen table.

  “Kanaan ruled Ishaq,” Roween said.

  “You had no children,” Omar Yussef said. “Why?”

  “I told you. Because Ishaq was so often away, working for the Old Man.”

  Omar Yussef raised an eyebrow, as he did in his classroom when a girl told him a lie-reproachful but not threatening.

  Roween shook her head and her eyes became glassy. “Ustaz, you know what you’re asking me.”

  “I’m trying to confirm what someone told me about Ishaq.”

  “I can’t confirm anything, ustaz. What difference does it make that I thought Kanaan was my husband’s lover?” Roween coughed as though her words choked her.

  “But when you asked him to come back to Nablus, he didn’t? He returned from Paris only when Kanaan requested that he do so?”

  “Kanaan begged Ishaq to return. He was at Kanaan’s mansion all the time after he came back, although he was there less in the last few weeks.” Roween sniffled, pushed her dry hair away from her eyebrows, and picked up the coffee tray.

  Khamis Zeydan crossed the living room to the sofa. He caught Omar Yussef’s eye. His look was a warning, friendly but suspicious. Omar Yussef touched Roween’s sleeve as she passed him with the tray. “My daughter, things weren’t perfect in your marriage, but I’m sure that Ishaq valued a woman like you,” he said. “I always say that a married man’s eye may wander, but his heart does not.”

  “You believe that? Anyway, who said I ever had his heart?” Roween took the coffee to the low table in the living room and set it before the police chief.

  Khamis Zeydan ran through the same questions with Roween that Omar Yussef had covered on his first visit. He won’t get at the truth about Roween and Ishaq, Omar Yussef thought. His own marriage is a mess and he refuses to address it. He could never understand what was happening in someone else’s relationship.

  Omar Yussef thought that if Ishaq hadn’t been killed, he might have been content to live out his fake marriage, because it provided cover for his secret sex life. Could that have been satisfactory for Roween? Surely the needs of an intelligent woman would extend beyond a husband who decorated the bathroom in good taste, he thought.

  They were outside Roween’s door, when Omar Yussef blurted over the noise of the crowd at the flame pits in the park: “Do you think Sami really wants to get married?”

  Khamis Zeydan grinned. “I’ve told him repeatedly what a nightmare it is to have a wife and kids. Do you know some other filthy secret about marriage that will bring him to his senses?”

  Omar Yussef glanced back toward Roween’s house. He saw that Khamis Zeydan noticed his look. “My secrets,” he said, “are of a different kind.”

  Chapter 22

  Omar Yussef left breakfast the next morning with a fervent promise to Nadia that he would accompany her to eat qanafi later that day. “Even if I have to run through a volley of rifle fire to bring you a plate,” he said. In the lobby of the hotel, he called Jamie King’s room on the house phone and got no answer. He went over to the reception desk and found the manager picking his teeth with the green plastic cover of an official identity card.

  “Have you seen the American lady this morning?” Omar Yussef asked.

  The manager flinched and tried to slip the identity card into one of the pigeonholes behind him without Omar Yussef noticing. “She went out a few minutes ago, ustaz.”

  Omar Yussef glanced at his watch. It was nine-thirty. If I move now, I can be at Kanaan’s place in time to join Jamie for her ten o’clock appointment, he thought, whether she likes it or not.

  He hailed a taxi outside the hotel and ordered the driver to take him to the home of Amin Kanaan. The driver wiggled his hand, palm upward, to signal that he didn’t understand.

  “Up there,” Omar Yussef said, pointing out of the window toward the mansions on the ridge.

  “That Amin Kanaan?” The taxi driver looked Omar Yussef up and down, doubtfully.

  “You can stop on the way and buy me an expensive suit, if you’re anxious for me to impress him.” Omar Yussef grated out a scoffing laugh. “But I won’t give you a bigger tip.”

  “Even so, ustaz. There’s an Israeli base up there, and Kanaan has his own guards, too. It’s a long way from the town.”

  “You’re right. He lives in a very exclusive neighborhood. So you won’t have to worry about traffic.”

  The driver pulled off with a sullen glance at Omar Yussef in his rearview mirror.

  The guards at Kanaan’s elaborate iron gates sent the taxi driver to wait out of sight behind a stand of pines. One of them remembered that Omar Yussef had been to the mansion before and ushered him through.

  As Omar Yussef panted along the arcade of cypresses to the house, a liveried servant came to the front door and waited for him with his hands behind his back, his blue tunic a small blot on the tan surface of Kanaan’s enormous home. The sun glinted into his eyes from the windows of three big jeeps on t
he gravel lot beside the house. He assumed the boxy, black Mercedes G500 was Kanaan’s. A dusty Cherokee with signs on each side that said TV was parked beside Jamie King’s white Suburban.

  “Madame isn’t at home this morning, ustaz,” the servant said, giving his mistress’s title a French pronunciation.

  “I’m not here to see madame this time,” Omar Yussef said. He took a handkerchief from his trouser pocket and wiped the sweat from his brow. “Tell your boss to get the garden air-conditioned. I expect he can afford it.”

  He went into the hall. The morning sun dazzled at the far end of the foyer. A handful of silhouettes moved beyond the glass, but Omar Yussef couldn’t make them out, even when he shaded his eyes.

  “Shall I tell my boss you’re here to sell him air-conditioning?”

  “I’m with the lady from the World Bank,” Omar Yussef said.

  The servant grinned and opened the gilt door to the salon where Omar Yussef had met Liana. “Your colleague is in here, ustaz.”

  Jamie King sat on the sofa in her chalk-striped suit. She looked at Omar Yussef with mild reproach. “Usually when I set a meeting with Palestinians, they either arrive late or forget altogether,” she said. “This is the first time a Palestinian has kept an appointment I didn’t even make with him.”

  “I promise this won’t be the last time I surprise you.” Omar Yussef smiled.

  “I don’t know if I like the sound of that.”

  “Where’s the great man?”

  “Mister Kanaan is outside. He has company.”

  Omar Yussef walked to the window, feeling the quiet air-conditioning cool him. From the shade of the brocaded curtains, he peered at the group he had seen from the foyer. A burly man with messy gray hair held a heavy video camera on his shoulder. A sticker on the side of the camera identified the foreigners as a news team from an American cable channel. A small blonde with a fluffy microphone on a short boom fiddled with the dials on a recorder strapped to her waist.