The Collaborator of Bethlehem (24 page)

Omar Yussef’s forgiving feelings toward Khamis Zeydan for the loss of his hand disappeared. He felt desperate. How could he clear George Saba if the police chief wouldn’t help, particularly now that the real killer was dead and could never be made to confess? His suspicions returned. Khamis Zeydan was following the dead man’s jeep when the missile struck. Perhaps
he
was a collaborator.
The
collaborator. Maybe he’d called in the details of Hussein Tamari’s whereabouts to his handler in the Shin Bet and enabled the Israelis to strike, just as he might have done in the case of Louai Abdel Rahman’s death in the pines outside his home. But why would Khamis Zeydan have left a cartridge from a MAG behind at Louai’s murder scene? It wouldn’t benefit him to tag the murder on Hussein Tamari. He would have picked a more powerless fall guy, like George Saba. In any case when Omar Yussef had told Khamis Zeydan that Hussein was Louai’s killer, the police chief had said he should forget about it. He wasn’t eager to pin the murder on Tamari, so clearly he hadn’t tried to frame him, either.

“I called you, Abu Ramiz, to let you know that now there’s nothing more you can do for George Saba,” Khamis Zeydan said. “If it was going to be hard for you to pin the blame on Hussein Tamari when he was alive, it’s impossible now.”

“You can’t just let George die. It’s disgusting. It’s a stain on our entire town.”

“Every house has its sewers, Abu Ramiz.”

“Don’t quote proverbs at me. You have to help me.”

“I’m telling you: Hussein Tamari is untouchable. By you,
and
by me. The only thing that’s going to happen if you speak up now is that you’ll get yourself lynched. There’s already a crowd here that you can probably hear in the background and they’re very angry. If they find someone they want to accuse of collaboration, they’ll beat him to death on the spot. So I don’t advise you to speak ill of the dead tonight.”

“We only have until tomorrow at noon to prove Tamari’s guilt and to save George.”

Khamis Zeydan waited a moment, took a breath. “No,
George Saba
only has until tomorrow at noon. We don’t have such a deadline.”

“You’re right. Your time was up a long time ago.” Omar Yussef punched the button on the phone that terminated the call.

In the quiet of the night, Omar Yussef strained to hear the sound of the army helicopter. He recalled the noise of its engine, reverberating above him all week. It rained a deafening rotor thump onto the handicapped boy Nayif. It mirrored the beating of Omar Yussef’s anxious heart when he came out of the school to toss his old personnel reports into the puddle. It must be there now again, the blaze of Hussein Tamari’s destroyed vehicle a flickering spot below it in the blackness of the earth. It hovered above Bethlehem like the famous star that announced the birth of Jesus. It doomed each man it tracked, just as surely as that ancient messianic sign destined the child born in the manger to crucifixion. The sky was silent, but Omar Yussef knew the chopper was up there. Not even if George Saba could fly like a bird would he find escape and safety.

Omar Yussef couldn’t give up now. He must find someone who would refuse to let an innocent man die just for the sake of preserving the memory of this scum Tamari. No one in the police or the judiciary or the government would take that risk. He had to think of someone who might be even more powerful than the memory of Tamari. There was only one person who could possibly chance slurring the martyr’s image. It was risky. Khamis Zeydan was right: they might lynch him. Well, then he would die before George Saba’s execution and his worries would be over. He would go to Jihad Awdeh.

Chapter 23

A
t the door of Jihad Awdeh’s apartment building, there were two guards. One of them tucked his cigarette into the corner of his mouth to free his hands and, with his eye squinting against the smoke, patted down Omar Yussef. As he was searched, Omar Yussef glanced back across the street at his own house. Silhouetted in the window of the living room he recognized his granddaughter Nadia. It was the stillness of the outline that told him it was her, watchful and tense as her grandfather went into danger. A few moments before, it had seemed to him that he had nothing to lose by this desperate attempt to influence the new head of the town’s most wicked gang of killers. That silent, unmoving shadow in the window of his home gave him a pang of doubt. Perhaps he ought to make an excuse, tell the gunman searching him that he had forgotten something and head home. The search concluded. The guard took a long drag on the cigarette and told him to go up the stairs. If he turned to leave now, they would be suspicious.

On the staircase, it occurred to Omar Yussef that the Israelis might try to assassinate Jihad Awdeh tonight, just as they had killed Hussein Tamari. He wondered if the helicopter missile would blast through the window even as he sat with the new chief of the Martyrs Brigades. From the window, Nadia would see the streak of orange from the tail of the missile as it roared in to kill her grandfather, and then the puff of gray smoke from the window, the vaporized remains of the glass and concrete and of Omar Yussef’s body. He breathed deeply as the door of Jihad Awdeh’s apartment opened for him.

The boy who held the door for Omar Yussef was about Nadia’s age. He pulled the laquered cherrywood door back and stepped aside, giving Omar Yussef a brief glance of contempt and hostility. Across the living room, Jihad Awdeh sat on a sofa. He was surrounded by Martyrs Brigades men. There were at least a dozen and the room seemed very crowded. Omar Yussef was surprised and relieved that Jihad Awdeh appeared to be in good spirits. He had expected that the death of Hussein Tamari might have made Awdeh fearful or angry. Instead, he seemed to be enjoying his new status as the boss of the gang. He laughed loudly at a joke, took a small square of baklava from a tray his daughter carried around the room, and scooped a handful of sunflower seeds from a bowl on the coffee table.

Jihad Awdeh glanced across the room at the open door. His eyes darkened for a moment when he noticed his visitor, but the smile remained in place and he beckoned Omar Yussef forward.
You are my brother. I would have to kill you free of charge
. Omar Yussef wondered if that generous offer remained valid. As he approached, Jihad Awdeh whispered to the man on the couch next to him, who vacated his seat. Jihad patted the sofa and the man who had stood came to usher Omar Yussef to his place next to the chief.

“I’m happy that you have come, and I wish your welcome to be a good one,” Jihad Awdeh said. He moved very close to Omar Yussef, who sat on the edge of the couch.

“I’m happy to be welcomed at your home,” Omar Yussef muttered. It seemed strange to speak the formulas of politeness in these circumstances.

Jihad Awdeh picked a piece of baklava from his daughter’s tray and handed it to Omar Yussef, dripping honey and syrup. The sweetness seemed deceptive, excessive, sickly. He told himself to be on his guard against this man’s sudden charm.

Jihad Awdeh smiled and spat the empty pods of sunflower seeds into his hand. He dropped them in a crystal ashtray and stuffed another couple of seeds into his mouth. His jaw worked on the seeds, pressing their edges between his molars to open the pods, so that his sustained smile seemed to want to consume, like the threateningly bared fangs of an aggressive dog.

Omar Yussef tried to ease the memory of their confrontation at Hussein Tamari’s headquarters two days ago. “My condolences on the death of the brother Hussein,” he said. “May Allah be merciful to him.”

Jihad Awdeh nodded and let his smile fade into seriousness for a moment. Then he put his hand on Omar Yussef’s knee and leaned close. “You didn’t like him, Abu Ramiz, did you?” he whispered.

Omar Yussef stared at the powerful hand on his leg. The nails were long and yellow, like the claws of a wild animal. He said nothing.

Jihad Awdeh laughed. “Neither did I.” He nodded. “I didn’t like him at all. Now what do you want, Abu Ramiz? My time is limited, as the funeral of the martyr Hussein and his bodyguards is to be held in half an hour.”

It surprised Omar Yussef that Jihad Awdeh would admit to his dislike of Hussein Tamari, even in a hushed voice. He remembered that Khamis Zeydan had told him Hussein’s men would often scorn Jihad, even to his face, as a member of a small clan of refugees. Hussein had born the confidence of a man who belonged, whose entire village would back him against any threat. Jihad Awdeh’s clan was not powerful, even in the refugee camp on the northern edge of Bethlehem where most of his relatives lived. Omar Yussef wondered if Jihad Awdeh might not be less aggressive toward him tonight because he finally had Tamari’s clan where he wanted them. In that instant, he thought of the Abdel Rahmans, who lost their protection with the death of Louai in the pine grove. Jihad Awdeh still needed to make a show of bereavement, because most of the Martyrs Brigades men belonged to Tamari’s clan, but he had taken over the gang just as surely as Hussein Tamari had robbed the defenseless Abdel Rahmans of their autoshops.

“Perhaps we should talk privately, Jihad,” Omar Yussef said.

Jihad Awdeh nodded and, taking Omar Yussef’s hand in his, he led him onto the small balcony at the back of the living room. “I won’t turn on the light, Abu Ramiz, in case there are snipers watching for me.”

Omar Yussef looked out into the darkness, nervously. A rocky slope descended from the next houses to the base of the apartment building. The rocks, white in the moonlight, seemed to move about on the dark earth. Omar Yussef felt the stones scrutinizing him, stalking him, but he knew that the tension he sensed when he looked into the dark was all because of the man who stood beside him.

Jihad Awdeh lit a cigarette and spat the last of his sunflower seed pods over the balcony. He held his palm upward, gesturing for Omar Yussef to speak.

“Jihad, I know that Hussein was the one who collaborated with the Israelis in the death of Louai Abdel Rahman.” Omar Yussef waited for a reaction, but Jihad Awdeh took another drag on his cigarette and was silent. Omar Yussef smelled the acrid exhalation and wished he could have taken a smoke himself. “I went to Irtas after Louai was killed. I found a MAG cartridge on the ground. It was in a patch of grass that had been flattened by a man lying there. Louai’s wife Dima told me there had been someone waiting for her husband. She heard Louai say hello to someone called Abu Walid. Then something like a red laser dot appeared on him and he was shot. You know that Hussein was called Abu Walid and that he used a MAG. No one else in Bethlehem has that kind of gun.”

Jihad Awdeh flicked his cigarette onto the slope behind the apartment building. Its orange tip rested in the darkness a moment. Omar Yussef watched it disappear. He waited again, but Jihad merely rested his elbows on the balcony rail and looked into the darkness.

“You remember how angry Hussein was when George Saba forced you both off his roof that night, when you went there to fire at the Israelis?” Omar Yussef continued. “Well, I believe that Hussein led the soldiers to Louai, and then had his revenge on George Saba by tagging him as the collaborator. That way he’d also prevent anyone from suspecting that he himself was, in fact, the collaborator. But when he found out what Dima told me, he killed her, too.”

“How did he discover that she spoke to you?”

Omar Yussef decided not to mention his suspicion that Khamis Zeydan passed on the details of that meeting to Hus-sein. “I don’t know.”

“So someone else could’ve killed her.”

“I suppose so, but I don’t know why anyone else would have done so.” Omar Yussef turned toward Jihad Awdeh. The man’s face was obscured, silhouetted against the light emanating from the room behind them. Omar Yussef didn’t want to touch him, but he needed to make some kind of contact in the darkness. He put his hand on Jihad’s shoulder. “I need your help, Jihad. George Saba is an innocent man. He’ll be executed in seventeen hours. His blood would be on my hands, if I didn’t come here and beg you to help me. The law counts for nothing in this town. You are the power. You are the one who can save a guiltless man.”

“Do you think someone who holds a gun on me and Hus-sein when we are resisting the occupation forces is a guiltless man?”

That’s a trap
, Omar Yussef thought.
Be careful.
“George was desperate. He knew that your presence on his roof would draw Israeli fire. He feared for his family. He didn’t know that it was you and Hussein on his roof.”

Jihad Awdeh lit another cigarette. “Who will be ready to listen to the notion that the martyr Hussein was really a criminal and a collaborator?”

“You said that you didn’t like him.”

“That doesn’t mean I believe he was a collaborator. Or that I believe George Saba is innocent.”

“I told you the evidence.”

“Hussein Tamari risked his life against the Jews many times. Even this morning, he organized the martyrdom mission in the Jerusalem market. These are things that outweigh your evidence.”

“Then don’t pin Louai’s murder on Hussein. Let Hussein’s name remain clean, let him be a hero. But set George Saba free, anyway.”

“Someone has to pay. If it isn’t Hussein, it’ll have to be the Christian.”

Omar Yussef moved closer. He smelled Jihad Awdeh’s sweat beneath the aura of his cigarettes. “I came to you, Jihad, because I know that you aren’t one of
them
. You haven’t become leader of the Martyrs Brigades just because you happen to be a member of the right family. You’re clever. You’ve made it to the top of the Martyrs Brigades, in spite of the fact that the others treat you as an outsider. For the rest of them,” Omar Yussef gestured beyond the glass door to the gunmen milling about the living room, “Hussein was some kind of hero and saint, because he’s their blood. But you’re able to think independently. You can see what he really was. Don’t let George die for the sake of someone else’s image. This is flesh and blood that will be destroyed tomorrow, not someone’s reputation.”

Jihad Awdeh was silent.