“Why are you staring at me so sternly?” Omar Yussef said. “Look, tell me about Tamari. All I know is what circulates by gossip about town.”
“You’ve been in Bethlehem longer than I have, so you know his tribe,” Khamis Zeydan said.
“The Ta’amra.”
“Right. Until fifty years ago, these Ta’amra were desert nomads. They settled in villages east of town, but they still follow the old tribal codes. All the top Martyrs Brigades guys are Ta’amra. They’re thugs and they run the place as a family racket.”
“All of the gunmen are relatives of Hussein Tamari?”
“All except one other guy, Jihad Awdeh,” said Khamis Zey-dan. “His family is from the Aida Camp, refugees of 1948 from a village on the plain toward Ramla, a small clan. Among the Ta’amra, he’s an outsider, and they never let him forget it. So he’s almost as much of a nasty piece of work as Hussein—he always feels the need to prove that he’s more ruthless than the Ta’amra. It’s the brutal zeal of the newly converted.”
“In the Bethlehem area, who has a gun that would use those cartridges?”
“A hundred or so Israeli soldiers.” Khamis Zeydan sounded angry. “And Hussein Tamari. It’s his symbol, as you know. He carries it on his hip everywhere, even when it’d be more convenient to use a pistol. He probably takes it to the bathroom with him. Now, Abu Ramiz, my old friend, tell me where you got this bullet.”
Omar Yussef recounted Dima’s recollection of the murder and his discovery of the bullet casing in the flattened grass. “Who would want to kill Louai Abdel Rahman?” Omar Yussef said. “Because the one who did that is the real collaborator, not George Saba. George doesn’t own a MAG heavy machine gun. I don’t think he could even lift one. Before the shots that killed Louai, his wife heard him speak to someone out in the darkness. He called him Abu Walid. Who could Abu Walid be?”
Khamis Zeydan lit another Rothman’s. “Abu Ramiz, a detective is a little like a psychiatrist. When you treat a mental illness, you had better know the workings of your own mind, or you risk becoming sicker than your patients. The disease can spread from one mind to another. That’s how it is for a policeman. To catch a villain, you have to think like a villain, and when you think like a villain, perhaps you already are a villain. The problem is that if a psychiatrist makes the wrong diagnosis, it’s the patient who pays. When a detective commits an error, the villain makes him pay for it.”
“Abu Adel, I want to find the real collaborator.”
“Are you listening to me? I’m trying to warn you that this is dangerous.”
“I don’t need to be a detective to understand that.”
“I may be a police officer now, but I was, for many years, what the world chooses to call a terrorist. In Beirut, in Rome, Paris. Wherever the Old Man sent me. You know that. We were all terrorists, the people who now govern you. That gives me an advantage over you. I know what it is to face danger.”
Omar Yussef sat forward. “You were all terrorists, you and your PLO buddies in exile. Now what? Now you are terrorized. By people like Hussein Tamari. I was never a terrorist, and I won’t be terrorized, either.”
Khamis Zeydan grimaced, as though it was hard to swallow what he had to say. “Get me another drink.”
Omar Yussef got the bottle of Black Label and put it on the table before his friend. The policeman poured a large shot as he spoke. “Louai Abdel Rahman worked for me, supposedly. He was a sergeant at the Irtas police station. But you know how things are now. Everybody is a general. Everybody is a military genius. Everybody has to have a crack at the Israelis. No one gets to be a hero writing parking tickets and solving domestic disputes, but if you fire off a few shots at an Israeli car you’re an instant resistance champion. Louai Abdel Rahman was not a bad guy. But he wasn’t prepared to be a policeman. He was another fucking immature outlaw of the type that we’re so good at breeding.”
“Why would anyone want him dead?”
“The Israelis would want to kill him because he shot a settler on the tunnel road last month.”
“He killed someone?”
“There’s a lot of it about. Don’t sound so surprised.”
“But who else would want him dead? A Palestinian, maybe?”
Khamis Zeydan was silent. His face was blank and cold. He drank the rest of the whisky in a single pull and crushed his cigarette in the crystal ashtray on the coffee table. “I really must go, Abu Ramiz.”
“Wait, there’s something you aren’t telling me.”
“The only thing I have to tell you, Abu Ramiz, is this: whoever fired this bullet whose casing you found is sure to have many more bullets, and he probably doesn’t care who he has to shoot to get what he wants. Do you understand?” Khamis Zeydan stood.
Omar Yussef rose, too. “Give me that bullet. I want to keep it anyway.”
Khamis Zeydan pressed the cartridge casing into Omar Yussef’s palm. “You’re a determined man, and I know you can be stubborn. But I’m your friend, and I really must tell you that this is not a matter for a schoolteacher to get involved in.”
“A schoolteacher? You said I’d be a good detective.”
Khamis Zeydan stopped in the doorway. “In Palestine, there’s no such thing as a good detective.”
Chapter 7
Hurrying along Dehaisha’s main street, Omar Yussef headed for the UN school. The cold dawn wind lanced sharply through the valley, north toward Jerusalem, carrying the taint of diesel fumes. Omar Yussef had woken with a headache that grew worse now as he walked. He didn’t doubt that it was the result of the stress brought on by Khamis Zey-dan’s warnings. He had barely slept that night after the policeman left his home.
Omar Yussef considered himself an independent thinker, a man who challenged the way most people in his community saw the world. But that night he had doubted himself. He lay awake thinking, You’re all talk, Omar. When it comes time for action, you’re paralysed by worry, bullied by the thought that someone will hurt you. When he did fall asleep, he jolted upright in fear. He thought Hussein Tamari was in the room. His heart was thundering, even as he told himself that there was no one there, no sound except Maryam’s wheezy, light snoring. Did he really think Hussein Tamari had been present when Louai was killed, just because of the cartridges he had found? Why would the leader of the resistance in Bethlehem collaborate with the Israelis? Why would he want Louai dead? Khamis Zeydan had told him that Israeli soldiers used that big machine gun, too. Perhaps Louai Abdel Rahman was mistaken when he spoke to a man he believed was named Abu Walid. Maybe Louai only thought he recognized the person lying in wait for him. It had been dark already, according to Dima. It could just as easily have been a soldier from some Israeli hit squad, lying in wait between the pines.
When the first light came and Omar Yussef got out of bed, he returned to that thought. If I get close to finding out who Abu Walid is, there’s a danger he might try to stop me, even to hurt me, no matter how much protection I have from my clan and its connections with tough guys in Hamas and Fatah. But if there’s no Abu Walid, if Louai Abdel Rahman simply made a mistake, then there’s no one out there who’ll feel threatened by me. I could be placing myself in danger, but only if I’m on the trail of the man who truly has framed George Saba, in which case I’m doing the right thing and this man deserves to be unmasked.
That moment clarified for Omar Yussef what he must do. He tried to keep those thoughts foremost in his mind as he walked to the school.
A Blackhawk chopped southward above Omar Yussef’s head. The Israeli helicopter flew in and out of the low, dark clouds on a reconnaissance mission over the camp. The resonant thudding spooked a mentally handicapped boy in his early twenties whom Omar Yussef often saw when he was on his way to the school. Usually the boy, whose name was Nayif, bounded along the street with exaggeratedly long strides, talking animatedly to himself and wagging an admonitory finger at approaching taxis. When he heard the baritone flutter of the helicopter, the boy panicked. He put his hands
on his elongated, egg-shaped head and wailed incoherently. Omar Yussef approached him. He smiled at the boy and held out his hand with the palm upwards, as if testing for rain. The boy did the same, looking up at the clouds. After a moment he grinned and, in his slurred speech, said, “It’s only raining, uncle.”
Omar Yussef nodded and put his hand on Nayif’s shoulder reassuringly before he walked on.
It was true that it would rain soon from the clouds that licked the Blackhawk. It would come hard. The streets would be mud where the tanks had cut them up. The dusty topsoil would tinge the rain the color of urine and, where it gushed down the slopes, it would ride over the top of Omar Yussef’s wing tips and leave them sprinkled with grit that would take him careful hours to polish away. Omar Yussef was not a believer, he usually had trouble remembering Koranic quotations, but the words of that book on the subject of rain came to him as he left the handicapped boy: “Know that Allah restores the earth to life after its death.” Allah, of course, claimed that he would perform the same restoration to the believers on the Day of Judgment. Omar Yussef looked about him as he approached the UN school. The dirty alleys of the camp seemed most desolate in the first, flat light of a winter’s day. Allah didn’t restore life to earth. He multiplied the number of lives on earth, but allowed their quality to diminish and their essence to drain away. Omar Yussef had never thought that life was a waste—what true educator could think that way? He wondered when it would be that Allah would restore life to him. Hell, he would have to do it for himself, and the case of George Saba would be his vehicle.
A tall black stone cut to the shape of the map of Palestine stood on a plinth outside the school. Its dimensions marked the complete area of Palestine, from the squiggle of the Lebanese border down to the long V of the Naqab Desert, the scope of the state to which the camp’s leaders insisted its refugees would return. The statue was intended to make those aspirations firm and real and enduring, like stone. Every time Omar Yussef passed it, he felt as though the block might topple onto him, crushing him with the hopeless rigidity of his people’s politics. His eye picked out the spot on the smooth stone map where his village once stood. His father’s village, he corrected himself. Omar Yussef had no village.
Omar Yussef heard the light rap of rain on the cashmere of his flat cap. He looked up and a drop landed on his lips. He remembered the hand he held out for rain before the handicapped boy. I made it rain, he thought, mocking himself.
Omar Yussef entered the UN school. He walked down the corridor, greeting the other teachers as he passed them. He went to Christopher Steadman’s office, knocked and entered.
The UN director didn’t stand and Omar Yussef didn’t sit. The smell of body odor was gone. Someone must have found a way to tell Steadman that the history teacher had played a trick on him, or perhaps the American simply decided that he must wash, even if it violated Ramadan. Omar Yussef stood before the desk and said, “I’m ready to consider retirement.”
Omar Yussef detected the barely disguised smile that nibbled at the edges of Steadman’s lips before the American made a serious face. “I think that’s a wise decision, Abu Ramiz.”
“I will make a final decision at the end of the month. In the meantime, I want to take a leave of absence. Perhaps if I don’t come to work for a couple of weeks, I’ll realize that I enjoy not working and I will decide definitively to retire. You won’t object to that, I’m sure,” Omar Yussef said.
“I guess it’ll be hard for us to manage without you.” Stead-man made a sucking noise between his teeth, as though he were wrestling with an awkward dilemma, but Omar Yussef thought it sounded like the hiss of a serpent. “I’ll have to teach some of your classes, and we’ll also hire a part-timer. But we’ll get by.”
Omar Yussef felt contempt for this man. He could see the relief on his face now that his problem with Omar Yussef appeared almost to be resolved. The American would be rid of a teacher who talked back. He would not have to explain to his own superiors why the government complained about his school, just because of the teaching methods of one ageing curmudgeon. Sometimes Omar Yussef wondered if he was too hard on his own people. Look at this American, he thought. He grew up with all the advantages of freedom and democracy and money and education, yet he’s exactly the same as our bureaucrats who bow to the government, even when the rules are scandalously violated. Certainly, Steadman didn’t care about the children at the school. His salary wasn’t dependent on the quality of their education. In a couple of years, he would be drawing his UN stipend for handing out condoms to truckdrivers in Mozambique or running a carpet-weaving workshop in a women’s prison in Kabul.
As Steadman spoke approvingly about retirement, Omar Yussef almost changed his mind. He couldn’t leave the children to be taught the government’s odious version of history by second-rate hacks or, worse, by Steadman. But he needed the time to find the truth, to save George Saba. He turned and left Steadman’s office.
Chapter 8
Omar Yussef pulled his car out of the old, sandstone shed in the olive grove behind his home. As he drove around to the front of the house, Maryam looked out of the kitchen window. Her face registered the shock of finding him away from the school, but he pretended not to see her and curved out onto the wide main road toward Bethlehem and Beit Jala.
Omar Yussef was a poor driver and he took the slick roads slowly. It didn’t worry him that other cars passed him in a frenzied stream, or that frustrated taxi drivers would ride their horns until they finally found an opportunity to overtake him. At the junction where he would make a left for the climb to Beit Jala, a slim-waisted policeman ran half-heartedly back and forth, vainly trying to direct the flow of vehicles. Omar Yussef turned slowly across the oncoming traffic, which slid to a halt with a chorus of beeps.
Omar Yussef felt grimly determined after his meeting with Steadman. He ran the facts of the Abdel Rahman case through his mind repeatedly. If he found the connection with George Saba, he would be able to identify the real collaborator. He would have to prove it, but to uncover the identity of the man who had, in fact, led the Israelis to Louai Abdel Rahman would at least be the first step. If the Israelis killed Louai without a collaborator to help them, though, it would make Omar Yussef’s task much harder. Everyone wanted a scapegoat for the assassination, and it would be easier for him to persuade them to substitute another guilty party than to face the possibility that there was no one to blame except the untouchable soldiers. But there was certainly someone in the bushes when Louai Abdel Rahman died, and it was that person whom Omar Yussef needed to find.
It was hard for Omar Yussef to see as he drove. He leaned forward and rubbed the inside of the windshield with his handkerchief. His view remained obscured by a light rain. After driving even more slowly for a period, he remembered to turn on the windshield wipers. The summer dust still lay on the plastic blades and muddied his view with wet, brown smudges, until the rain cleared the window. He gripped the wheel tightly as he snaked up to Beit Jala. A truck came down the hill too fast and Omar Yussef, swerving, almost came to a halt. The cars behind him gave out a chorus of protest, as though their brakes were attached to their horns. He moved on again. The wipers made a moaning sound. The rain had stopped. Omar Yussef pulled over so that he could turn off the stammering wipers, then drove to the top of the hill. He passed the Greek Orthodox Club and recalled his dinner with George Saba. The damp gray stone of the Club looked desolate, like the asperous face of a lost, old man.
A single gunman guarded the final stretch of road before George Saba’s house. He signaled dismissively for Omar Yussef to pull over and jumped out of the way as the car came to a halt with less control than he had evidently expected. Omar Yussef enjoyed making the gunman skip onto the sidewalk. He hated these types, barely more than boys, who stared down their elders with cold faces and contemptuous gestures. Respect for older people was one quality he always instilled in his pupils, and these gunmen certainly lacked it.
“What’s the
matter with you? Are you trying to kill me?” the gunman yelled.
Omar Yussef turned off his engine and took his time getting out of his car .
“You can’t park here. This area is reserved for my roadblock.”
Omar Yussef turned a full circle demonstratively in the street. “There’s plenty of room,” he said. “Even a tank could pass through here, and I expect that if the Israelis did drive a tank down here you wouldn’t be around to stop them.”
“Where are you going?”
The gunman’s rudeness made Omar Yussef angry and a little reckless. He returned to his car and turned the key in the door. “I had better lock it. I know that you people are involved in car theft. My car might be a target for thieves, because, thanks to you,” he said, looking along the street, “it’s the only car in the village that doesn’t have a bullet hole in it.”
The gunman looked at once furious and cowed. After all, thought Omar Yussef, he can’t deny that my accusations are true. Perhaps, for a moment, the young man wrestled with the vestiges of respect for his elders that gradually was draining from him, as from everyone else. Maybe he hadn’t been in the Martyrs Brigades long enough to override that tradition with their new arrogance.
“I said, where are you going?” the young gunman called. His voice was irritable but hesitant.
Omar Yussef sensed that the youth was already in retreat in the face of the older man’s confidence. “I’m a detective and I’m conducting an investigation of importance to national security. Now keep an eye on my car or Hussein Tamari will have your head.”
The gunman kicked a stone along the gutter and looked down. It was the gesture of a resentful, beaten, little boy. Omar Yussef smiled.
The street was empty. Even without the dull spread of the rain clouds, it would have been a sorry place. The windows of the houses on the left were shattered by bullet holes and filled with sandbags. The houses on the right must have been worse. Their backs faced across the valley to the Israeli positions and took the full impact of the gunfire. From the shelter of the street, though, Omar Yussef could enjoy the lovely old Turkish arches and the pleasing squareness of the houses and the clear air left by the rain. Though the clouds had threatened for days, this was the first downpour. He breathed the rising scent of the wet dirt with pleasure as he approached George Saba’s house. He climbed the stairs and saw that the disrespectful gunman still watched him from the curb by his car. He knocked on the door. There were black blast marks around the jamb and the wood was splintered.
The Collaborator of Bethlehem Page 6
