The Samaritan's Secret

by Matt Beynon Rees

  “Peace be upon you,” Awwadi said.

  The man snorted disdainfully. “Upon you, peace,” he hissed.

  Not everyone in the casbah will be dancing at the Hamas wedding, it seems, Omar Yussef thought.

  Awwadi rolled his shoulders beneath the strap of his M-16 and held the young man’s glare as he led Omar Yussef into a sloping passage, open to the sky. Ornate lattices of olive wood enclosed the balconies above them, so the women of the house could watch the street in seclusion. Awwadi reached for Omar Yussef’s hand and took him through an imposing, carved gateway that extended elegantly to the height of two stories.

  Thick tufts of weeds grew through uneven stone slabs in the courtyard. A fountain at the center of the yard had been converted into the base for a wire chicken coop. A few goats were penned into a corner by rotting planks. Above them, cut into the wall in slashy naskh characters, an inscription memorialized the building’s construction. Omar Yussef read that it was two centuries old. On the terrace at the top of a worn flight of steps, gray sweats and baby clothing swung on a washing line. He recognized the trademark design of the American company from the knockoff designer T-shirts he had seen piled outside the store in the souk when he passed through with Sami.

  “The Touqan Palace,” Awwadi said. “It used to be home to one of the greatest families in Nablus. But like all the other rich people they moved up the hill.”

  Omar Yussef glanced above the laundry to the grand mansions on the ridge of Mount Jerizim.

  “Now this is the home of the poorest people, a dozen families living in the space once occupied by a single rich man, his wife and children and servants.” Awwadi shook his head. “The palace has become a slum.”

  “That’s the story of our people, my son.”

  Awwadi shook his head and rubbed his beard. He looked at Omar Yussef as though he had expected better of him. “This isn’t a sentimental line from the work of our national poet, ustaz. This is where I live.”

  The imitation American clothing flapped in a gust of warm air. To Omar Yussef, it seemed as if the casbah wished to blow away this cheap, foreign fashion, so the red, white and blue logo would no longer blight its exquisite architecture. The big families which once dwelled in these palaces had fled to modern homes on the mountain. They neglected their heritage, leaving it to crumble in the penniless, desperate hands of the poor. Probably they also wear American clothes, he thought. But expensive, genuine ones, not the Chinese-made fakes on that washing line.

  A barefoot child stumbled across the courtyard in a grubby white T-shirt. Awwadi lifted her high, laughing with her. “My eyes,” he called in a playful falsetto, nuzzling the two-year-old’s cheek and rubbing her toes.

  Omar Yussef smiled. “Your girl?”

  “I wish, ustaz. She’s my brother’s child. My favorite niece.” Awwadi placed the girl on the steps and sent her tottering up them with a gentle tap on the backside and more falsetto, urging her to find her mother. “I’m not married. Not until tomorrow.”

  “You’re taking part in the big Hamas event, the joint wedding?”

  Awwadi clapped his hands. “I’m marrying a girl who’s also from here in the casbah.”

  “A thousand congratulations.” Omar Yussef knew better than to ask for details of Awwadi’s bride. The name and habits of a religious man’s wife were a secret to all but himself and his close family. To anyone else, she would be known only as the wife of Nouri Awwadi and prying questions would be treated with the same hostility as if someone had reached out to stroke her skin.

  A cockerel strutted past the chickens in the old fountain. He lifted his ugly leg and screeched before stepping forward, his red comb and gold neck flashing bright across the stone. Omar Yussef felt the rooster’s black, cruel eyes follow him to a delicately carved doorway barred by a gate of old planks. Awwadi cooed to the darkness within. Omar Yussef flinched as a massive white head emerged from the shadows.

  “He’s beautiful, isn’t he, ustaz?” Awwadi said. “The only pure Arabian stallion in the casbah. His name is Sharik. Partner. A good name for the horse I’ll ride in the wedding procession to meet my wife.”

  “Yes, a good name.” Omar Yussef stroked the horse’s muscular neck. Its hair was rough like the stubble on a man’s cheek. The horse twitched and glared down its long face at Omar Yussef. “He doesn’t seem to like me. That’s all right. He’s your partner, not mine.” He ran his hand down the horse’s neck again, this time with the grain of the hair, and it was as smooth and firm as polished wood.

  “The other grooms will ride horses provided by Hamas. Arabians, like Sharik. But from villages outside Nablus. I’ll be the only one on a true Nablus mount.” Awwadi bent to pull a handful of grass from between the floor slabs and fed it to the horse from his open hand.

  The horse stamped and shifted to the side. Omar Yussef glanced beyond him to the back of the stable. A low doorway appeared to lead to a cellar, the dull light of a single bulb glimmering up through its old stone arch. As Omar Yussef peered toward the light, Awwadi stepped in front of him, yanking the bridle so that his movement might seem to have been dictated by a toss of the horse’s head. What does he have down there that’s so secret that he doesn’t want me to see? Omar Yussef thought.

  Awwadi gave Sharik a slap on the back, made his assault rifle comfortable across his shoulders, and guided Omar Yussef toward the entrance of the Touqan Palace. “We should go back to the mosque,” he said. “Sami will think you’ve been kidnapped by Hamas.”

  Chapter 6

  Omar Yussef found Sami in a corner of the mosque, leaning close to a sheikh who stood stiff and straight in his camel-colored robe and tarboosh. As Omar Yussef crossed the green carpet in his stockinged feet, the sheikh turned an imperiously immobile face toward him. He had a frown like a thousand fatal fatwas.

  “Let me introduce you to Sheikh Bader,” Sami said. “Abu Ramiz is a schoolteacher in Dehaisha Camp and a neighbor of my family. He’s in Nablus for my wedding.”

  Omar Yussef greeted the sheikh, who briefly dipped the point of his gray beard in acknowledgement. His black eyebrows pulled toward each other like baleful rainclouds. When this man frowns and those two clouds meet, Omar Yussef thought, there’ll be thunder.

  Nouri Awwadi bowed his head and whispered respect-fully to the sheikh. He stuffed his worry beads into the pocket of his jeans and smiled at Sami. “Did you finalize all the arrangements for your wedding?”

  “Our Honored Sheikh has been very accommodating,” Sami said, “despite the much bigger wedding he’s organizing for tomorrow.”

  Awwadi lifted a finger. “In two days, Sami, I invite you to join me at the baths. I’ll relax after my wedding and you can get a massage to prepare yourself for your own happy day.” He turned to Omar Yussef. “You, too, ustaz. After all, you’re a history teacher. What better way to relax than to enjoy the steam in a historic bathhouse.”

  “Where is it?” Omar Yussef asked. “It’s been years since I went to a good Turkish bath.”

  “Just along the street. The Hammam as-Sumara.”

  “The Samaritan bathhouse? Do they run it?”

  “No, but it’s in what used to be their ancient quarter of the casbah. The neighborhood still bears the old name, even though everyone who lives there today is Muslim.” Awwadi smiled. “I’m going to the baths now to relax before my wedding tomorrow. But I’ll meet you there in the morning two days from now.”

  “Thank you, Nouri. I have a lot of work and the preoccupation of my own wedding, so I won’t have time,” Sami said. He raised one eyebrow at Omar Yussef. “But I’m sure Abu Ramiz would be delighted to meet you at the baths. He seems to be very interested in the Samaritans, and he’s not busy.”

  Omar Yussef held Sami’s gaze a moment before he put his hand over his heart and smiled his assent. “If Allah wills it,” he said.

  Awwadi headed for the door, shaking hands with two brawny men as they removed their muddy boots. They wore black and carried M-16s at t
he ready across their chests. Once inside the mosque, they slumped in a corner with their heads against the wall and closed their eyes. Tired from a nighttime operation, Omar Yussef thought. The house of prayer is the safest place for them to rest.

  After Awwadi left, Omar Yussef smiled at the sheikh. “Nouri showed me the horse he’ll ride in the wedding procession tomorrow,” he said. “A beautiful Arabian stallion.”

  The sheikh inclined his head with deliberate graciousness. “All the grooms will ride like this.”

  “The event must be expensive,” Omar Yussef said.

  “The Chastity Committee takes care of it all.” Sheikh Bader snapped his fingers.

  “That’s a Hamas institution?”

  “It’s an important occasion for the whole city. The money isn’t significant and neither is the group that organizes it. Marriage is the most important thing in life, ustaz.” The sheikh’s speech was slow and grave. “It keeps men away from illegal sex and bad influences and perversions.”

  “Illegal sex?” Omar Yussef jerked his head as though contemplating something inconceivable. “You don’t mean that there are prostitutes in Nablus?”

  “Of course not.”

  “Then you must mean homosexuality?” Ishaq could have told you that marriage doesn’t put an end to forbidden desires, Omar Yussef thought. Only death can stop those urges, and Ishaq would know about that, too.

  The sheikh frowned. “The cost of a dowry is very high. Men have been putting off their weddings for lack of funds, due to the economic problems of our town during the intifada.” He hesitated. “Their physical needs were satisfied in desperate moments, instead of being fulfilled by their family life. Many of them made mistakes.”

  “Our Honored Sheikh, wouldn’t it be better if we allowed young men to be intimate with women, instead of forcing them to seek release with other youths?”

  “Woman is seduction itself and must be hidden. You know our saying, ‘Women are the devil,’ ” the sheikh said. “Yet keeping them hidden is a delicate balance. Men must have women to protect them from immoral acts with each other. Still, failure to keep women separate leads to other transgressions of our religious commandments. There have been weddings in Nablus where men and women danced together and drank alcohol.”

  “So the Chastity Committee isn’t just there to make marriage affordable,” Omar Yussef said. “It’s to prevent people celebrating.”

  “If the style of the celebration is against Islam.” The sheikh lifted his chin. Omar Yussef saw the hairs in his broad nostrils quiver.

  Omar Yussef gestured around the mosque. “From the poster on the door, it’s clear this is a Hamas mosque. The joint wedding is a big Hamas rally, isn’t it?”

  Sheikh Bader smiled, but his eyes maintained their superior, fierce cast. “My charitable work is in the cause of Islam. If it’s funded by Hamas, it’s still for Islam.”

  “The wedding will bring political gain, though.”

  “I will make a speech at the wedding about morality. But the morality I speak of won’t rest solely on the responsibility of young men to follow a healthy, family path with their wives.” The sheikh’s brows squeezed down above his dark eyes. Here comes the thunder, Omar Yussef thought. “I shall make an important disclosure during my address— hitherto secret information about a failure of morality that will have tremendous political significance for Nablus and for the future of all the Palestinian people.”

  I was waiting for thunder and he gives me lightning, Omar Yussef thought. “If that speech makes people support Hamas, then it’s all in the cause of Islam?”

  Sami cleared his throat. “Abu Ramiz—”

  Sheikh Bader raised his hand. “It’s all right, Sami. Your friend is a modern teacher. He demands logical reasoning.”

  “But I also don’t condemn some of the illogical things people do when their bodies demand it of them,” Omar Yussef said. “For them to do otherwise is to court depression and suicide, and that’s certainly against Islamic law.”

  “You can’t mean you see nothing wrong in homosexuality? The holy Koran condemns homosexuals as Loutis, the people of Lot from Sodom.”

  “Homosexuals suffer enough in our society without me hating them, too.”

  “What if you learned that one of your sons was such a pervert?”

  Omar Yussef gave a rasping laugh. “I’d blame his mother. But he’d still be my son.”

  The sheikh looked him up and down with disdain. His eyes left Omar Yussef self-conscious about his physical frailty. I’m paying the price now for what my body demanded of me over the years, for all the drinking and smoking, Omar Yussef thought. He’s older than me, but he’s dignified and strong. He wants society to look like him, not like me. “A society is an accumulation of experience, Our Honored Sheikh,” he said. “Life can’t be parroted the way you teach children to memorize the Koran. When the experience of a society is broad, everyone’s happiness can be taken into account in a spirit of tolerance.”

  “That’s a dangerous path, ustaz.” The contempt in Sheikh Bader’s black eyes reminded Omar Yussef of the arrogant cockerel in the Touqan Palace.

  “Danger lies in denial. As a teacher I can tell you that when you order children to learn by rote, it’s soon forgotten, because they don’t understand why it should be remembered. They grow up not knowing how to think for themselves and then they’re easy to manipulate.”

  “In the sura of The Poets, the holy Koran says, ‘Will you fornicate with males and eschew the wives whom Allah has created for you? Surely you are great transgressors.’ My pupils are obedient to Allah and to the holy Koran.”

  “Obedient to you, above all.” Omar Yussef’s finger shot out, pointing shakily at Bader.

  One of the armed men in black came out of his snooze and rose slowly in the corner of the mosque. The shoulder strap of his assault rifle clicked against the darkened metal barrel. Sheikh Bader lifted his hand and the man sat down, but his eyes remained open, watching Omar Yussef. “Evidently obedience was not part of your education,” the sheikh said.

  “My dear father taught me to think for myself.” Omar Yussef had a sudden remembrance of the stern sheikhs who used to come to his father’s house when he was a boy, urging the old man to join the new political groups campaigning for Palestinian rights. They always entered the room purposefully, hurrying as though their political cause might spoil in the sun. At the time, Omar had thought his father weak for refusing them. Now he saw how wise he had been.

  He withdrew his finger and looked at Sami. The policeman raised an eyebrow, glanced at the two gunmen in the corner and dipped his head toward the door of the mosque. Time to go, Omar Yussef thought. “My dear father also taught me to show respect. I hope you don’t mistake my bluntness for disrespect, Our Honored Sheikh.”

  “May Allah forbid it,” Sheikh Bader said. “If you’ll excuse me, I have to finish the arrangements for tomorrow’s wedding. We must be sure that Nouri Awwadi isn’t the only one riding a horse. I have to get fourteen more such mounts into the casbah by the end of the day. May Allah grant you grace.”

  In the small plaza outside the mosque, Sami gave Omar Yussef a smile. “Are you so opposed to marriage, Abu Ramiz, that you want to insult the sheikh until he refuses to carry out the ceremony for me?”

  “As a matter of fact, I think you and Meisoun are a perfect pair. But men like him make me angry.” He jerked his thumb in the direction of the mosque. “Many years ago, when I was still a drinker, I once told a particularly self-important sheikh to go screw himself. Evidently he took my advice, because he has given birth to many others like him and now we’re inundated with arrogant, self-righteous religious leaders.”

  Sami grinned. They turned toward the shops along the casbah’s main street.

  Chapter 7

  At the entrance to the souk, Omar Yussef detected something savory in the air. He twitched his nostrils, searching beyond the aroma of walnuts and dates from the ma’amoul shortbread pyramided on wide t
rays outside a sweetshop. Sami pointed into the half-light of the market. “You’ve picked up the scent of Abu Alam’s restaurant,” he said. “Now I’ll prove to you that I’m not marrying Meisoun just so that I’ll have someone to fry my eggs in the morning.”

  They weaved between the women in the souk. The presence of the crowd calmed Omar Yussef. In the empty casbah, there always seemed to be some man, menacing and solitary, sloping along close to the wall on the shadowed side of the alley. As the women milled past the small stores, the brush of their shoulders against Omar Yussef felt like a soothing caress. I could almost forget that I saw a dead man today, he thought.

  Just past a toy shop selling bright plastic machine guns and tricycles, Sami dodged into a storefront, its door and window the width of a man’s arm span and open to the street. The sizzling of oil in a frying pan drew Omar Yussef inside. He could rarely stomach food that wasn’t prepared by his wife, but his exertions at the summit of Mount Jerizim and his walk around the casbah had made him hungry. He noticed that he was salivating.

  Sami reached over the counter to slap hands with the owner, who was making hummus in a bucket-sized mixer. Abu Alam squeezed two large lemons over the chickpeas, tehina and garlic. He wiped the juice from his fingers on his soiled shirt, before reaching out a thick forearm to grasp Sami’s hand. His fat face glistened with perspiration.

  “So you’re a pal of Sami’s from Bethlehem?” Abu Alam’s voice was hoarse from shouting orders to his cook over the din of the busy souk. “Welcome, ustaz. Things down there aren’t violent enough for you, so you decided to come and see what life is like in a real war zone?”

  “Thanks for your welcome.” Omar Yussef raised a finger and smiled. “How do you know I’m not on the run from the Israelis? Maybe I decided to take refuge here where they can’t get at me.”

  “You may see gunmen walking freely around our casbah in the afternoon, it’s true, ustaz. But believe me they’re not out of reach of the Israelis, even here. Only last night, the Israelis came right to the door of my restaurant.” Abu Alam pointed toward a metal concertina shutter folded back from the entrance. The light green paint was smeared a cloudy black. “That’s from a grenade or some other explosive, and it wasn’t like that when I locked up yesterday.”