Murder Under the Fig Tree

by Kate Jessica Raphael

It took only a few minutes to cover the short distance to Daoud’s old apartment. Rania ran inside and tore up the stairs two at a time. She heard Chloe running up behind her, huffing and puffing. She turned to tell her friend to wait outside, but the voices coming from the apartment made her turn back and quicken her pace.

  She reached the door and started to throw it open, but then stopped. Men were shouting, but it did not sound like police arresting anyone.

  “I protected you!” Elias was yelling. “I told them it was Issa who found us.”

  “And I protected you,” Yusuf screamed back. “I told Issa to make Daoud leave you alone. He told me he would take care of it. But then he said he could not do it.”

  “You killed the man I loved.” Elias again.

  “It was his fault,” Yusuf responded. “When I met him that afternoon, I gave him a choice—leave you alone or I would kill him. He said he would rather die than lose you. So, I gave him his wish.” His voice had dropped to a normal, almost reflective level. “What else could I do?” he asked. “He would have ruined your life.”

  “It was not him,” Elias said. “It is me. I am mithli.”

  “Do not say such things. You will marry Hanan and forget about this foolishness.”

  “I will not. It is not fair to Hanan. And it is not fair to me.”

  “Fair?” Rania heard a crash and someone yelped in pain. It sounded like someone was throwing furniture. If she didn’t enter now, she might find the door barricaded before she could. She flung open the door.

  “Are you being fair?” Yusuf shouted at his brother. “What will it do to our parents if you tell the world this shame?”

  The chair which had fallen over was not blocking the doorway. Rather, it lay half shattered against the wall, where it must have been thrown by Yusuf, because Elias’s hand was otherwise occupied. He held a long, serrated knife with the point only a few inches from his brother’s chest.

  Rania stood, transfixed. She had never been in this situation. They had gone over it in police training, of course, but she had never had to put that training into practice. She could not even remember, now that it was relevant, what they had said. Keep them talking, was one piece of advice that rang in her head.

  “Elias,” she said. “Put down the knife. Talk to me.”

  He rewarded her by swinging toward her, brandishing his knife in her direction. At least she had gotten him to stop threatening his brother, but that was little comfort. As if he knew her secret, he was pointing the knife directly at her belly.

  If he wouldn’t talk, maybe it would help to talk to someone else.

  “How did you get the soldier’s gun?” she asked Yusuf, careful to keep her voice conversational. He looked at her as if he had just noticed she was in the room.

  “Issa gave it to me,” he said. “He found it in the house. He threatened Daoud with it, but he could not use it. He said to give it to Abdelhakim for the fighters in Nablus. I heard the soldier had fought with Daoud over it that day in the village. I called and told him to meet me before the party and I would give it to him.”

  Rania knew she should stay focused on the danger in front of her, but her detective’s mind was trying to piece the events of the fatal day together. Daoud had been threatened three times that day and then had made a threat of his own. Yusuf had promised to kill him, yet Daoud had gone to receive a weapon from his hands? Perhaps Yusuf was right, and death really was his wish. Or, more likely, he could not believe Yusuf would harm him, just as she could not believe Elias meant to harm her now.

  “Daoud was right.” Elias said. His voice had gone down a notch, but it was still deafening in Rania’s ears. That could have been the echo in her head, though.

  “He wanted me to emigrate with him, to Europe or America. He said it would be too hard to be together here. I said no, I would not leave my country. But he was right.”

  “I do not believe that,” Rania said. “There is a place for you here. It will take time; that is all.”

  “You know nothing about it,” he said. He turned back toward his brother and took a step closer. The knife was touching Yusuf’s shirt.

  “I loved him,” Elias screamed. “You took away my happiness.”

  “You could not have been happy in an unnatural relationship,” Yusuf said.

  “Be quiet,” Rania croaked, just as Elias raised his arm. She did not think about what she was doing. She felt Chloe push past her, trying to get there first. Naturally, the American would see herself as everyone’s protector. But she wasn’t. Rania’s job was to protect her people, and these were her people.

  Rania jumped in front of Yusuf just as Elias swung the knife. She heard it slice the polyester of her jilbab and felt it plunge into her right shoulder. It didn’t hurt, really. She reached out with her left hand and grabbed Elias’s wrist with all her strength. Which was waning rapidly. She felt him being pulled off of her and saw Chloe wrestling him to the side. She heard the knife clatter to the floor.

  “Relax,” she heard Chloe say in English. That was it: that’s what Rania had learned in training. Be calm. Get them to relax. She hoped Elias knew the English word.

  Yusuf bent over her, tying something around her shoulder. She was wet and cold, and, somewhere in her consciousness, she understood that it was her blood which was soaking her clothes and making her so cold.

  “Go get a taxi,” Chloe was saying to Elias in English. Rania understood that her friend’s Arabic had deserted her. “Hurry. We need to get her to the hospital.”

  That was the last Rania heard before she lost consciousness.

  “There’s someone here to see you,” the nurse said.

  Rania’s eyes fluttered open. She was pale, but her black eyes sparkled. She was not wearing her glasses, and, without the raccoonish effect they created, her face was beautiful, already a little fuller than usual. Chloe made a mental note to talk to her about contacts, or at least some more flattering glasses. She remembered hearing pregnant friends say that they could not tolerate contacts. But new glasses were a must.

  Bassam entered the bright little room, holding Khaled by the hand. They approached Rania’s bedside. She reached for her son, and Bassam lifted him up and over the guardrail so he could cuddle on his mother’s good side, the side not bandaged with bulky armor of cotton and gauze.

  “Who did this to you?” the child asked. Rania kissed his cheek and forehead, over and over.

  “Someone who was very upset,” she said.

  “Did you take him to jail?” Khaled asked.

  “No,” she said. She looked at Bassam. Rania would have no way of knowing what might have happened to Elias or Yusuf after she passed out.

  “The police questioned him,” Bassam said. “But then they let him go.”

  “He didn’t mean to hurt me,” Rania explained to Khaled. She turned her eyes back to Bassam. “What about Yusuf?”

  “Him also. They seem to have concluded that he only meant to scare Daoud, and the killing was an accident.”

  “That’s not true,” Chloe said.

  “Truth is not always the most important thing,” Bassam said.

  Chloe contemplated that. She did not believe in prisons, and it seemed unlikely that Yusuf would kill anyone else. But Daoud had died because he did think truth was important. If his killer was not punished, would that mean he had died for nothing?

  Rania motioned to her husband to come close. He obliged.

  “What about the baby?” Chloe heard her murmur.

  “Baby?” Bassam looked quizzically at his wife. Rania blushed as a big, lopsided smile spread over her husband’s face. “You’re going to be a big brother,” he said, reaching over his wife to tousle his son’s hair.

  “I’ll see you later,” Chloe said from the doorway.

  “You do not need to go,” Bassam said. He was still smiling broadly.

  “You are very polite,” Chloe said with a small laugh. “But I will leave you alone now and see you all tomorrow. Salamtik,”
to your health, she added in Rania’s direction.

  “Chloe,” Rania said as she opened the door. Chloe turned her head toward her friend. “Thank you for everything.”

  “For nothing,” Chloe said. She closed the door behind her and went to the chair where Tina sat reading. Chloe turned the book over in her hands to read the title.

  “The Da Vinci Code,” she said. “Don’t waste your time. It’s terrible.”

  “You left it lying around the apartment,” Tina said. “I was bored.”

  Bored. Does that mean you haven’t been spending all your time in heart-to-hearts with Yasmina? Chloe would not let herself say it. She was going to be the person she should be, not the person she usually was.

  “Rania’s going to be okay,” Chloe said. “She lost a lot of blood, but there is no damage to the tendons, and the knife missed her lung.”

  She couldn’t say “he missed.” She couldn’t see Elias as a killer, even though he had tried to kill. She couldn’t even see Yusuf as a killer, though he had killed. It was easier to see Ron as a killer, and, as far as she knew, he had never killed anyone. Life here was so much more complicated than it was at home. That’s why she loved it.

  “Let’s go home,” Tina said. She stood up and put the book in her backpack.

  “Can we get a bottle of wine on the way?” Chloe said.

  “I already got one,” Tina said, twining her fingers with Chloe’s. A current of warmth ran up Chloe’s arm and down through her throat to fill her rib cage.

  “Adloyada after dinner?”

  “Maybe tomorrow,” Tina said. “I had some other ideas for tonight.”

  Chapter 53

  Abu Suleiman wore a long, billowing white robe and sandals. Sweat glistened on his bronze face as he knocked on Jamal al-Khader’s door.

  “That’s the guy?” Chloe whispered to Tina. “He looks so…regular.”

  They stood a short distance away from the procession of twenty men and one woman arranging themselves in a line along the driveway.

  “Abu Suleiman is the best sulha mediator in Palestine,” Tina replied. “He did a workshop for the Women’s Center. He seemed very sharp.”

  “I hope it works,” Chloe said. Jamal emerged from the house, followed by Issa and his two younger brothers. Um Issa and her daughters were nowhere to be seen, but, at the last minute, Hanan strode out and took her place next to Issa. He turned and said something to her and she shook her head, her uncovered ringlets bobbing around her shoulders. Issa shrugged and followed his father down the line of men, shaking hands with each. He and his father shook Rania’s hand too. Hanan offered each man her hand as well. Most shook it; a few did not.

  The man at the head of the reception line stepped forward and presented Jamal with a long pole from which a white sheet fluttered.

  “That’s Abu Ziyad, the DCL,” Chloe whispered to Tina. “Rania hates him.”

  Abu Suleiman stood next to Jamal and guided his hands as he tied the fabric into a knot. Issa then copied his father. When Hanan tried to move forward, Rania shook her head almost imperceptibly, and the girl stepped back. Rania had an intuitive understanding of how far she could push things that Hanan was going to need to learn.

  “Poor Hanan,” Chloe said. “She’s lost two finacés in three weeks.”

  “From what I can see, she will be okay,” Tina whispered back.

  The men were piling into waiting cars now. Chloe and Tina climbed into the back of the BMW where Bassam waited behind the wheel. Khaled sat in the back, playing a handheld video game. Chloe took him on her lap so Hanan could squeeze in next to them, as Rania settled herself in front.

  “What game are you playing?” Chloe asked Khaled in Arabic.

  He tilted the screen so she could see. Gears of War. Two heavily armed hulks were locked in mortal combat against a fiery backdrop.

  “His grandmother gave it to him,” Rania said, twisting around to face them. “He loves to kill.”

  Proving her point, Khaled pressed a button and set off a burst of machine gun fire.

  “What happens now?” Chloe asked, as they jounced over the rocky road.

  “They will take the truce flag to Yusuf and his family, so that they can travel under its protection,” Bassam explained. “Then, we will come back here to the town hall and the Jaha—the sulha committee—will hear from all the parties. At the end, the truce agreement will be signed, and the blood money will be presented to Daoud’s family.”

  “So, the family will receive compensation for the loss of their son after all,” Chloe said. “How much will they pay?”

  “I am not sure of the exact sum that has been agreed on, but it is often around two hundred and fifty thousand shekels.”

  “But that’s more than fifty thousand dollars!” Chloe exclaimed. “Yusuf ’s family is not that wealthy, are they? How can they ever pay that much?”

  “It needs to be a significant amount,” Rania said. They were passing the quarry now, almost to their destination. “But I believe the al-Khaders plan to return some of the money.”

  Bassam pulled up behind the line of parked cars. He and Khaled stayed in the car while the others clambered out to join the small crowd from the village who had gathered to watch the proceedings.

  Yusuf and his brothers exited the house. Abdelhakim and Kareem were with him, Chloe noted. Elias was not. Then, she noticed a figure approaching from the opposite direction. Elias. He did not join the men from his family. Instead, he came to stand with her and Tina.

  “How are you?” Chloe asked him.

  “I am not sure,” he said with a little laugh.

  “You are not going to participate in the sulha?”

  “I would not know where to stand,” he said. “My brother and I will have to make our own sulha.”

  “Mwaffak,” good luck, Chloe said.

  Tina and Chloe did not stay for the communal meal following the signing of the truce. They were not part of the community, after all. Instead, they celebrated the resolution with their own meal at Enrico’s. It seemed appropriate to Chloe, to be back at the place where she had met Daoud and Elias.

  “I still don’t get why Benny got Rania out of prison,” Tina said, twirling long strands of fettuccine con gorgonzola around her fork. “Or why the military guys agreed.”

  “I think Benny knew all along what had happened,” Chloe said, nibbling her calzone slowly. “Daoud was pretty open, after all. I’m sure the Israeli police have spies at Adloyada. And Palestinians who go out of the country are investigated quite thoroughly.”

  “So, you think he wanted Rania to expose Daoud and Elias?”

  “The Israelis want as much division in Palestinian communities as possible right now. Benny knew Rania wouldn’t stop searching for the truth even when it was clear that everyone would prefer it to remain hidden. I think he hoped she would reveal the truth and that would intensify the conflict between the Islamist and secular factions.”

  “But she said she wouldn’t help with the investigation.” Tina sopped up the last of her cream sauce with a crust of garlic bread.

  “He knows her,” Chloe said. “Probably, he spread enough rumors to make sure she couldn’t go back to work. She wouldn’t sit around and make embroidered crafts. It was the only investigation she could take on, so he knew she would do it.”

  Tina shivered a little, though the night was warm. “It gives me the creeps,” she said. “Like one of those John LeCarre novels where everyone’s a triple agent.”

  “Or The Da Vinci Code,” Chloe said. They both laughed. Tina had read the book in two days. Chloe had never finished it, but she got Tina to tell her how it ended.

  “Why would the army guys agree?” Tina asked.

  “They would’ve had to let her out eventually,” Chloe said. She wiped her mouth with the cloth napkin and frowned at the tomato stain it left. “Probably, Benny convinced them that this would undermine her credibility, and that would neutralize her more effectively than locking her up.”


  “You think it will work?” Tina stopped abruptly as the waiter came to offer them dessert menus.

  “No. Rania’s smarter than they are. She’ll come out of this stronger; you’ll see. Want to split a piece of cheesecake?”

  “Cheesecake and cannoli. We’re celebrating.”

  The bus driver checked the road twice before pulling over at the intersection of Emek Refaim and Bethlehem Road.

  “Hurry, hurry,” he said. “I cannot be seen stopping here.”

  Samia scrambled down the stairs of the bus. When the bus had pulled away, she looked both ways three times to make sure that no border police were hanging about. She stepped into the crowd of shoppers and people hurrying home from work. She paid no attention to which direction she was going but just walked for a block or two to get used to being in West Jerusalem. She had not been there since before her arrest in 1991. Eventually, she stopped and checked a street number, then turned and walked back the other way.

  She remembered the address, because she had looked at it twelve times since this morning, but she extracted the piece of paper Rania had given her once again. This was the building, but the door was locked and no one answered her ring. She was early. She walked down the street and found a café. She did not see any soldiers drinking coffee inside, so she went in. She felt like everyone in the café turned to look at her while she ordered a cappuccino. She caught snatches of Hebrew conversation as she moved to a table in the back, far away from the plate-glass windows. She had not spoken Hebrew since prison, but she understood what she heard perfectly. She did not think anyone was talking about her.

  She had not brought anything to read, so she thought about what she was doing while she nursed her coffee. Was it a huge mistake? She could not imagine what these women would be like. But it seemed worth finding out. If they were weird, she would not come back again. She checked her watch. Five twenty-five. Maybe they would be a few minutes early too. She left the coffee shop and made her way back to the nondescript office building. She rang the buzzer again and again; nothing happened. But, when she turned to walk back down the stairs, two women were coming up. One had short, brown hair that stood up in jagged spikes and a tattoo showing on her bare left arm. Samia peered closely at the image. Handala, the little cartoon character representing the refugees’ right to return. This Handala carried a little flag in all the colors of the rainbow. She wondered what that meant.