by Paul Sussman
'This Majdi . . .' He flicked through the file in front of him. 'He still lives in Al-Amari camp? Number two, Al-Din Street?'
The Palestinian stared at his feet, silent.
'Come on, no pissing around.'
The man scowled. 'I no informer.'
'I'm not asking you to inform, you fucking idiot. I've got the address here in front of me. I just need you to confirm it.'
The Palestinian looked up, eyes full of mistrust and uncertainty, then gave a feeble nod. Ben-Roi scribbled a note to himself, closed the file, and, standing, went to the door and called down the corridor to say he was finished. When he turned back into the room again the Palestinian had swivelled in his seat and was staring at him.
'Why you take them off?'
The man indicated the open handcuffs lying on the desk. Ben-Roi didn't answer, just moved back to the table and picked up his file.
'Why you do this?' Hani-Jamal insisted.
Outside, the sound of approaching feet echoed down the corridor.
'You feel sorry me?'
'No I don't fucking feel sorry for you,' grunted Ben-Roi, annoyed by the question.
'Then why you do this?'
Ben-Roi stared down at him, the file clutched in his hand, fingers digging into the cardboard. Why had he removed the handcuffs? He couldn't really explain. A voice somewhere in his head – hers, and yet his as well, an earlier Arieh, a forgotten him. An Arieh he had thought was lost for ever.
'Because if you need to crap yourself again I don't want you doing it in front of me,' he answered gruffly. 'I didn't come down here to sit sniffing your dirty Arab shit.'
He crossed to the door and, with a curt nod at the policeman who had just arrived, set off down the corridor, the Palestinian's questions troubling him more than the fact that the interview had proved a waste of time.
EGYPT, THE SINAI PENINSULA, CLOSE TO THE BORDER WITH ISRAEL
The man gazed up at the stars, twirling a tassel of his keffiyeh around one of his fingers.
'You know what my father used to tell me? That the Holy Land is a mirror of the entire world. When this land is in pain, so is the world. And when it is at peace, then, and only then, will there be hope for everywhere else.'
Beside him a second figure, older, was also gazing upwards, a cigar clenched between his teeth, the glow of its tip alternating between a dull pastelly red and a fierce orange as he slowly puffed on it.
'He's still alive, your father?'
The younger man shook his head. 'Died in eighty-four. In Ketziot. Yours?'
The cigar smoker also gave a shake of the head. 'Sixty-seven. Golan Heights. Bullet in the gut.'
They fell silent, each sinking into his own private thoughts, the desert around them shadowy and still, a rusted shutter hinge creaking behind them like the chirruping of some giant nocturnal insect. A shooting star flashed overhead, streaking the sky for a fraction of an instant before disappearing again; strange twisted rock formations loomed in the shadows, like claws stretching from a deep, dark pool. Somewhere far off a startled bird rose suddenly into the air, cawing loudly.
'You really think it's going to work?' asked the younger man eventually, raising a hand and rubbing his eyes. 'You really think we can persuade them?'
His companion shrugged, but said nothing.
'Sometimes I worry we're too late. Ten years ago, five even – then, maybe, it would have been possible. But now, after all that's happened . . .'
He sighed, his head dropping despondently onto his chest. The man with the cigar looked at him for a moment, then came forward a step and laid his hand on his shoulder.
'Selling it was always going to be the hard part. This' – he nodded towards the building behind them – 'was never more than a first step. But now we've taken that step we have to keep going. We have to. For your father. For my daughter. For both our peoples.'
The young man looked up. For a moment his face was blank, heavy; then, suddenly and unexpectedly, he smiled.
'Who would have thought it, eh? You and me, meeting out here like lovers!'
The cigar smoker smiled too.
'If we can do it, anybody can. What say we go over Jerusalem one more time, just to be sure?'
The young man nodded and, turning, the two of them stepped back into the building, arms around each other's shoulders.
JERUSALEM
'You want me to take you where?'
The taxi driver stared up at Ben-Roi suspiciously.
'Al-Amari camp. Al-Din Street.'
The driver shook his head, fingers drumming nervously on the Peugeot's steering wheel.
'This across the line. You Israeli. Dangerous.'
'I want a car, not a fucking lecture,' growled Ben-Roi, in no mood for discussion. 'Either you take me or I find someone else. Your choice. Quick.'
The driver bit his lip, torn between desire for the fare and unease at carrying an Israeli in his taxi. In the end economics won the day, and with a grudging nod he leant across and opened the passenger door.
'You want to go Al-Amari I take you Al-Amari,' he muttered. 'It's your funeral.'
Ben-Roi climbed in and they set off, driving in silence, following Derekh Ha-Shalom up onto the main Jerusalem– Ramallah highway and then speeding north out of the city, the new Jewish suburb of Pisgat Ze'ev fanning out to their right, ranks of uniform yellow-stone houses marching across the landscape like the vanguard of some huge army. Ben-Roi stared at them through the open window, hair ruffling in the breeze, his blank, impassive face belying the unease he felt deep in the pit of his stomach.
The driver was right. It was dangerous for someone like him to cross the line. An Israeli policeman, alone, in an area under PA control, in the current political climate – fucking dangerous. The alternative was either to get the Palestinian authorities involved, or else call in a full military operation with armoured cars and God knows what else, both of which could delay him for days. And the bellyaches were too strong for that. He wanted to know what was going on with that arson attack. Needed to know. With a bit of luck he could be in and out without anyone noticing him. And if not . . . He reached up a hand and touched his jacket, feeling the reassuring metallic knot of his Jericho pistol beneath the material.
They came to the Kalandia checkpoint and pulled in at the back of the waiting queue of traffic, idling for twenty minutes before eventually being waved through and picking up speed again, the road on this, the Palestinian side, pitted and uneven, the buildings shabby and cheap and run-down, as if they hadn't just crossed a barrier between two areas of the same country but rather a border into a wholly different, more impoverished land. Three kilometres on they passed through a second checkpoint, Palestinian this time – just a couple of oil drums arranged haphazardly across the road, manned by a single, bored-looking police guard in a red beret – before eventually turning left off the main highway onto a sloping side road that ran down towards a bleak, grey mass of concrete and cinder-block buildings, all piled up on top of one another like a mound of sun-bleached bones.
The driver slowed and stopped.
'Welcome Al-Amari,' he grunted.
They lingered a moment, taking in the scene, then continued downwards, stopping briefly to ask directions from a dusty-haired boy before moving on into the camp proper, its crumbling grey buildings closing in around them, its inhabitants – old men in checked keffiyehs, groups of shebab hanging around on street corners – throwing suspicious glances at them as they motored past, the car bucking and juddering on the pot-holed road. Festoons of electricity cables sagged overhead; multi-coloured spaghettis of Arabic graffiti covered every available inch of wall space – Hamas, al-Mulatham, Death to Israel, Victory to the Intifada – with here and there rows of posters bearing the images of local suicide martyrs.
'What the fuck am I doing in this shithole?' Ben-Roi thought to himself, fighting the urge to tell the driver to turn round and get them the hell out of there. 'I must be fucking mad.'
Furt
her and further they went, deeper and deeper, the streets becoming ever narrower and harder to negotiate, Ben-Roi feeling ever more uneasy, until eventually, after what seemed like an age but was actually no more than a couple of minutes, they rounded a tight corner and pulled up in front of an alleyway choked with rubbish and discarded building materials.
'Al-Din,' said the driver. 'What number you want?'
'Two.'
The man leant out of the window and stared up the alley. 'That.' He pointed to a heavy steel door, the first on the left, above which was whitewashed a large Arabic numeral. 'You want me wait?'
'Fucking right I do,' muttered Ben-Roi, getting out of the car.
He glanced around, nervous, imagining eyes staring, voices whispering. Then, giving the Jericho another reassuring pat and checking his mobile was switched on, he started up the alleyway, weaving through heaps of discarded paint cans and sacks of refuse. The door the driver had indicated was slightly ajar, the sound of a television echoing from within. He went up to it and knocked.
'Aiwa, idchol, al-bab maftouh.'
A woman's voice echoed from inside, elderly by the sound of it. He hesitated, not understanding what was being said.
'Idchol!'
Still he hesitated, suspecting he was being told to come in, but not sure. There was a pause, then another voice spoke, male this time, younger.
'La, la, istanee hinnaak, ya omi. Ana rai'h.'
There was a faint squeaking hiss, as of a bicycle being ridden across a concrete floor, and the door swung open. A young man – late twenties or early thirties, stick-thin, in jeans and a red Manchester United T-shirt – was sitting in front of him, his lower body strapped into a wheelchair. Over his shoulder Ben-Roi could see a large, bare room with a tiled floor, a couple of framed pictures on the wall – photographs, quotes from the Koran – and, through a doorway at the back, a cramped kitchen area. The old woman was out of sight somewhere to the right.
'Mi-in hinaak? she called.
'Yehudi,' replied the young man, staring up at Ben-Roi.
'Yehudi! Shoo bidoo?'
'Ma-ba'rif; he replied. Then, to Ben-Roi, "What do you want?'
The detective removed his ID and held it out.
'Jerusalem Police. I'm looking for someone called Majdi.'
The man's eyes narrowed suspiciously.
'I'm Majdi.'
'Majdi al-Sufi, cousin of Hani Hani-Jamal?'
'Shoo bidoo?' came the old woman's voice again, concerned, insistent. The young man waved a hand impatiently, signalling her to be quiet.
'Yes, that's me.'
Ben-Roi was staring at the wheelchair.
'How long . . . ?'
The young man's eyes flared. 'Two years. Ever since I got my back broken by a rubber bullet. An Israeli rubber bullet. Now, what do you want here?'
Ben-Roi shifted uneasily.
'I need to ask you some questions.'
The young man snorted. 'This is a Palestinian area. You have no authority here.'
'Then I'll get the army in and drag you back to Jerusalem. That what you want?' He looked down at the man. 'I just thought it would be easier this way. For both of us. Keep it informal. You tell me what I need to know, I go away, you never hear from me again. Your choice.'
The young man held his gaze, face full of antipathy and mistrust, then, with a resigned grunt, he wheeled himself backwards into the room. Ben-Roi followed, pushing the door closed behind him, relieved to be off the street.
'Shoo bidoo, Majdi? Shoo aam bi-mil?'
The old woman was sitting on a couch to his right, dressed in a mendil and intricately embroidered thobe, her hands clasping and unclasping in her lap. Majdi wheeled himself over to her and touched her arm, speaking rapidly in Arabic, explaining what was going on, reassuring her.
'She's had bad experiences with Israelis,' he said, swivelling his chair so that he was facing Ben-Roi. 'We've all had bad experiences with Israelis.'
The three of them stared at one another, the only sound the chatter of voices from the television. Then, grudgingly, the young man nodded towards a cot-bed pushed up against the wall beside the door, indicating that Ben-Roi should sit. He did so, glancing first at the old woman, then, finding the intensity of her gaze uncomfortable, at the wall above her head, where a pair of old Arabic legal documents were hanging in a frame. Property deeds, he guessed. He'd seen them before, in other Palestinian homes – a pathetic, defiant reminder of lands they'd once owned and still vainly hoped to recover.
'This about Hani?' asked the young man, removing a packet of Marlboro cigarettes from a pouch hanging beside his chair and dragging one out with his teeth. 'About the drug charges?'
Ben-Roi shook his head.
'What then?'
'It's about something you did back in 1990. A flat you burnt out. In the Old City.'
The young man let out a surprised snort. 'That was fifteen years ago! I served my time.'
'I know you did.'
'So?'
'I want you to tell me why you did it,' said Ben-Roi. 'Why you torched the flat.'
The young man let out another snort and, lighting his cigarette, propelled himself across the room and picked up an ashtray from the top of the television, balancing it on his knee and wheeling himself back to the old woman's side.
'You've had a wasted trip, man. I told them all this at the time.'
'So tell me again.'
'I was a kid. It was a bit of fun. No big deal.'
'If you wanted to fire an Israeli property there are easier targets than one right in the middle of the Jewish Quarter.'
Majdi waved a hand dismissively. 'It was a dare. That was the whole point. You're wasting your time, man.'
'Why that particular flat?'
No reply.
'Why that particular flat?' repeated Ben-Roi, pushing.
'I don't fucking know! It was the one we chose. There was no reason. I told them all this.'
'You know the woman who owned the flat was murdered the same day.'
The man muttered something.
'What?'
'We found out later. At the station. We didn't know at the time.'
He looked over at the television, then, as if struck by a sudden thought, jerked his head back towards Ben-Roi again.
'Hey! If you're trying to accuse—'
'I'm not accusing you of anything.'
'Because I know you fucking people—'
'I'm not accusing you of anything! The woman was murdered in Egypt. There's no way you could have been involved.'
The young man grumbled something and pulled angrily on his cigarette, tapping it into the ashtray on his knee.
'You're lying to me about the fire, though,' added Ben-Roi after a brief pause. 'I know it, you know it. A woman's murdered and two hours later someone burns out her flat. It's too much of a coincidence, Majdi. There's something else. Some other reason. Now, I want to know why you did it.'
The old woman jabbered something, asking what was going on. The young man muttered a reply, then looked up at the detective.
'It's like I told them at the time, and it's like I'm telling you now: we did it for a dare. You understand? That's all. There's nothing else. If you don't believe me, take me in and fucking charge me.'
He stared at the detective, defiant, then switched his gaze back to the television screen, where two men were fighting, rolling over and over in what looked like a large pool of black oil. Ben-Roi stared down at his notes, then at the old woman, then up at the dog-eared land-deeds above her head. He knew he was being bullshitted, could see it in the tightness of the man's shoulders, the short, nervous drags he was taking on his cigarette. He'd called the detective's bluff, though, knew full well he was shooting in the dark and had no proof he was lying. He could take him into custody, interrogate him properly, interrogate him till the fucking cows came home; it wouldn't do any good. He'd stuck to his story back in 1990, and he was sticking to it now. He wasn't going to get anything else out o
f him. Unless . . .