The Amateur Spy (11 page)

“How is he changing things?”

“The royal court is fed up with the cheap politics in the ministries, so now his top people go straight to the business community. The old guard is being frozen out. Any Palestinian with vision is content to leave all the infighting to the Bedouins and just glide above it.”

“People like you, you mean?”

“Me and a few hundred others. We intend to be included when decisions are made, and we want to give back something to our people. You’ll see, Freeman. The new governor of the central bank is from Nablus. The king’s wife is a Palestinian. Everything is different now.”

I had heard similar pronouncements in other countries after a new leader had taken over. Then, almost always, the old guard worked its old magic, often with the help of the military and the secret police. I wondered if Omar was underestimating the opposition.

“Why not get the king to pay for your hospital, then?”

“He’ll chip in when the time comes. And he has already promised us a site. With the way land prices are going, that means more than you’d think. But all the real money now is in private hands. So that’s who we’re soliciting first.”

“Any names you’d care to drop?”

“Later. We’ll cover all that. But it’s fertile ground here, now more than ever.”

“The city does look wealthy. I saw all kinds of new construction on the ride from the airport.”

“Wait ’til you see Abdoun.”

“That’s where you live?”

He nodded, house-proud and happy, the man who had finally made it.

“It’s also where the new American embassy is. Looks just like a resort hotel. Abdoun is Amman’s boomtown.”

“And you’re part of it.”

“But I am still a part of places like Bakaa, too. And if it’s all right with you, that is where we will go now. To meet your clientele, the people you will be working with. If everything is to your liking, then we will celebrate in style later. So what do you say, Freeman? Shall we get rolling again, you and me, back behind the wheel?”

“Lead the way. But you never did answer my question.”

“Which one?”

“What’s in it for you?”

He burst into laughter and slapped me on the back.

“Ah, Freeman, you really
haven’t
changed. Haven’t you been listening to a word I’ve said?”

I laughed along, while wondering what I had missed.

10

B
akaa is one of those places for which the word “teeming” was invented. Its grimy lanes and alleys course with life like the tunnels of an anthill—never empty, never silent. Intruders are not cast out, they are swarmed under and disappear.

Visitors tend to take one look at the corrugated metal rooftops and hordes of barefoot boys and see only hopelessness. They hear the words “refugee camp” and sense only despair. It takes a more experienced—or jaundiced—eye to detect the almost staged aspect of its shantytown squalor. Palestinians don’t want these places looking too permanent, lest anyone think they’ve given up claims on their former land, and they have built accordingly—floor by floor, room by room. Arab host countries collaborate in this fiction for reasons of their own. Yet in Bakaa the children are mostly literate, nutrition is on a par with the rest of Jordan, and joblessness is no more endemic than in Amman’s more populous neighborhoods.

Bakaa sits at the bottom of a deep, dry valley about twenty miles northwest of the capital. It began as a few hundred tents, pitched in 1968 after refugees crossed the River Jordan to escape the Israeli Army. Its original overlords were aid vagabonds like me. But whereas most of my tent-city creations have long since been reclaimed by grassland, dunes, or forest, Bakaa kept growing. Now some 150,000 people live in or around it, making it the largest of Jordan’s thirteen camps. It bursts into view as you top a rise from the south, and this time around I was shocked to see that new communities were crawling up the surrounding hillsides. The bowl of the valley was nearly full, and the hillside homes looked modern and new. Many sported garages and picture windows.

“It’s grown,” I said.

“This part isn’t really the camp. These are the people who’ve gotten out but didn’t want to leave their relatives behind.”

“You’re telling me Bakaa now has suburbs?”

“More or less. They can get up in the morning and see where they came from.”

“So it’s still about politics.”

“Anything to do with refugees is about politics.” He pointed across the valley. “See that open tract on the opposite hill? That’s our site. Where the hospital will go!”

“As long as the government builds the roads.”

“They will.” He nodded firmly. “We have assurances.”

Omar and I often conversed in English, and that’s what we were doing now. But whenever our West Bank patrols had come up against danger or tension, he had inevitably switched to Arabic. The transition never seemed jarring or inappropriate, but despite my fluency it always gave him a subtle advantage. And now, as we eased downhill, he shifted into Arabic. It made me wonder if he was apprehensive. If so, what about? Maybe he just figured I would make a better impression if we arrived speaking the local tongue.

I rolled down my window.

“Smells better,” I said, sticking with Arabic. Fourteen years ago sewage had run in open trenches along muddy streets, and the stench clung to you like smoke.

“They’ve got sewers now. Plumbing, too. No more getting up at dawn to haul water.”

Yet Bakaa’s illusion of impermanence was intact. In all the chockablock construction there wasn’t a plumb line or a squared angle to be seen. It was as if Picasso had drawn the blueprints. Metal rebars poked from upper floors, and corrugated sheet metal was still the roofing of choice, even though some of it supported satellite dishes.

“Still the four districts?” I asked. Three of Bakaa’s neighborhoods had been named after the West Bank cities most of its residents had come from—Nablus, Hebron, and Al-Quds, the Arabic name for Jerusalem. Then there was Al-Jadeed, the New Camp.

“Yes,” Omar said. “And some of them you probably shouldn’t visit without an escort.”

I laughed.

“What do you think I’ve been doing the last few years, playing golf in Florida? If I can handle a war zone, I can survive Bakaa.”

He gave me a look.

“All the same, try sticking with someone else until you’ve got a car with our logo, or you’re known a little better. Just humor me.”

We had reached the valley floor and turned onto Bakaa’s main drag, where the heavy traffic lost all rhyme and reason. Cars and people weaved past the open fronts of streetside shops. A butcher shouted prices as he hacked a cleaver down the side of a dangling goat. A small boy rolled an iron canister of propane half as big as he was. Banners strung above us announced political slogans and sporting events. This had all been farmland once, but the only trees left standing were the occasional lonely poplar, palm, or spindly evergreen, and all were powdered with dust.

“Where are we headed?”

“Al-Quds. To Dr. Hassan’s clinic.”

Rounding a corner, a flood of black-haired schoolboys engulfed the car, spilling into the street like a sackful of onyx marbles.

“They’re out already?”

“They go in shifts. Only way to fit them all in. Damn!” A herd of goats had joined the mix. Omar laid on the horn like the other drivers, and the goats bleated in protest. A Bakaa symphony.

A few minutes later Omar parked outside a nondescript storefront.

“You are about to meet Dr. Khalil Hassan,” he said. “With any luck, Nabil Mustafa has already joined him. Nabil is on the Camp Improvement Committee, the closest thing to a town council. They are our two biggest organizers.”

“I’ll try to make a good impression.”

“I’m sure you will. On Dr. Hassan, anyway.”

I was about to ask what he meant by that, but he had already opened the door to the waiting room. It was gloomy—shades drawn, walls of dark mahogany. A woman in a head scarf sat in a red vinyl chair next to a sniffling daughter. A wheezing old man in a white skullcap sat in another chair, leaning forward on a wooden cane.

A nurse leaned across a blocky reception counter.

“Hello, Mr. al-Baroody. Dr. Hassan is expecting you. This way, please.”

I wasn’t thrilled about cutting in line, but this wasn’t the sort of clinic I was accustomed to, where an extra minute might make the difference between life and death.

When we came through the door two men looked up with an air of having been interrupted in the middle of a serious, even contentious, conversation. Their body language was all wrong. The doctor, presumably the one in a white coat, sat behind a chrome-edged desk with a drawn expression and his arms crossed. The other fellow—who I guessed was Nabil Mustafa—sat on a torn brown couch facing sideways, as if refusing to look the doctor in the eye.

The doctor stood, then stepped forward with hand outstretched. By the time I reached him he had managed a smile. Omar did the introductions.

“Dr. Khalil Hassan, please meet my American friend, Freeman Lockhart, who with any luck will soon be our new director of programs.”

“Asalaam aleykum,” the doctor said. Peace be with you.

I responded in kind. He smelled like medicine, and seemed a little stiff. Maybe he was still bristling from the argument, but my first impression was of an aloof man long accustomed to regarding himself as essential. I had seen it occur often enough in the field, among those who came to believe their welfare was more important than that of the people they served.

“The doctor now keeps his clinic open twenty-four hours, which has been a great boost to the community.” Omar beamed. Nabil didn’t seem nearly as impressed.

“It is only with Omar’s help that I have been able to accomplish this,” Dr. Hassan said. “I have hired two more doctors. Until a few months ago it was just me, working fourteen-hour days. Now the shifts are more manageable, and I can spend my spare hours building support for the hospital.”

“Dr. Hassan can tell you all the special needs that make a hospital so imperative.”

“And those are?” I asked.

“Emergency care is the greatest need, of course. Even on a good day it takes half an hour to reach the nearest hospital. In winter, when the snows come, it is much longer. Difficult childbirths are the worst. We lose far too many mothers and infants.”

An important issue for sure, although a half-hour delay was hardly catastrophic. No reason to begrudge Bakaa its hospital, however.

“And, of course, we need improvements in all manner of outpatient care. Diabetes is increasing. The food that comes from outside aid is not fresh. It is mostly in cans.”

I gathered from the wag of his finger that he knew I had once worked for the UN.

“Heart disease and high blood pressure are on the rise. Then there are liver and kidney infections, plus asthma and other allergies due to the dust and motor exhaust.”

He cleared his throat to drive home the point. Then Omar turned toward the other man and, in a determinedly cheerful tone, announced, “This is Nabil Mustafa, our eyes and ears in the community. Nabil has been in Bakaa from the year of the camp’s founding, when he was only nine, so he knows just about everyone. He is responsible for getting the community leadership behind us in full, while making sure that no one feels slighted or overlooked.”

“Tough job.”

Nabil nodded as if it were all in a day’s work, although he made a more favorable impression than the doctor. Misleading or not, his lean face and alert eyes projected a quiet, humble competence. I thought I knew his type from the field, too—the sort who fumed in silence during interminable meetings and discussions, always preferring action to words. Someone a bit like me, in other words. He seemed young for his age, which must have been about forty-six, based on what Omar had said. A youthful appearance was rare in places like this, and that told me something about his hardiness and energy. I wondered if he had political skills to match, because at the moment he wasn’t exactly oozing with charm.

“Nabil and I were just speaking of one of those community leaders,” Dr. Hassan said, drawing a sharp look from Nabil.

“Not Mumtaz again?” Omar asked.

The doctor nodded grimly. Omar sighed.

“What is it this time? No, don’t tell me. No sense in spoiling Freeman’s first day on the job. Does it need immediate attention?”

“He’ll get over it,” Nabil said.

“No. He won’t,” Dr. Hassan said. “We should see him immediately.”

“This morning?” Omar asked.

“That would be best. If you can just wait a moment while I see my next patients, I will accompany you.”

“Very well, then. Freeman, I am afraid I will have to leave you for a while, but you will be in good hands with Nabil. He will show you our field office, maybe introduce you to some of the community volunteers. As for me”—Omar sighed theatrically—“I will spend the rest of the morning applying tourniquets. Or maybe performing a little CPR. Metaphorically speaking, of course. And you thought all of our emergencies would be medical.”

“Big contributor?”

“Potentially. In one of those nice houses up on the hill. It’s like everywhere else, I’m afraid. Egos are more fragile than bodies.”

“Do what you have to. I’ll let Nabil show me the ropes.”

Nabil said almost nothing for the first few blocks. I drew the usual curious stares that a Westerner attracts in places like this, especially from children. Because of Ramadan, the usual street smells of coffeehouses and
shawarma
vendors were absent, although a few curbside cooks were pouring batter for pancakes on open-air griddles. They stuffed the cakes into plastic bags, which would be snapped up by housewives for the nightly feast, and later served with syrup and sugared walnuts. It seemed almost unfair to have to watch them cooking now, when you knew you couldn’t eat them for hours.

“Is it making you hungry?” Nabil said, with the hint of a smile.

“Yes. Sometimes I don’t know how you stand it.”

“Many years of practice.”

We were interrupted by an older man who stopped Nabil to complain about one of the banners. To me the slogan seemed harmless, a benign exhortation for everyone to work together for a better future. Maybe it was the name of the organization printed in the corner, the “Popular League of Bakaa,” that upset him. The old fellow glanced warily at me and continued on his way.

“You speak Arabic,” Nabil said. “That is unusual for an American.”

He sounded almost disappointed, as if I had robbed him of an advantage.

“It’s a little rusty, but it usually comes back pretty fast. So, tell me, who is this Mumtaz that Omar and the doctor went to visit? I take it you don’t think he’s worth the trouble.”

“You need not concern yourself with him.”

“Omar tells me I need to know all the major players, if I’m going to be director of programs.”

“And what does that mean, this title? What programs are you directing?”

“You tell me. A little of everything, I guess. Jack-of-all-trades, master of none.”

“So you will participate in all aspects of our effort?” Now he sounded wary.

“Omar has known me a long time.”

“You are very skilled at not answering questions.” He softened the remark with another slight smile.

“Maybe I’m taking my cues from the questioner. I’m not really sure what to say to anyone at this point. Once I’ve seen how everything works I can give you better answers.”

We passed the rest of the walk in silence, dodging cars and children until we reached a narrow alley where every rooftop was anchored with cinder blocks. We approached a two-story building that looked like it had grown not only floor by floor but room by room. Nabil entered without knocking and I followed. Two young men were speaking on telephones, and a third was stacking flyers on a small table in the corner. Propped against a wall nearby was an automatic weapon, some sort of Kalashnikov knockoff.

I raised my eyebrows, but Nabil acted as if nothing were out of the ordinary. The fellow closest to the door eyed me with daggers until he took his cue from Nabil and lowered his eyes back to his work.

The flyers, at least from where I stood, looked like political tracts, although a large poster on the wall was all about the proposed new hospital. Next to it was a map showing the current routes to the nearest hospitals.

The second fellow on the phone was consulting a list of names and numbers. Figuring it might be potential donors, I moved closer for a better look. He responded by hanging up and folding the paper. Then he stood, and left without a word.