A grave in Gaza oy-2

by Matt Beynon Rees

  “I should really check with him.”

  “He’s in the Council meeting, as you said.”

  Umm Rateb’s smile subsided. She glanced at the empty desk where the other secretary had sat during Omar Yussef’s last visit. “You’re lucky that my colleague Amina is not here this morning. She’s a real stickler.” She went to the outer door and closed it. “This has to do with Salwa’s husband, ustaz? With Professor Eyad Masharawi?”

  Omar Yussef nodded.

  “Whose file do you want?”

  “Fathi Salah and Yasser Salah.”

  Umm Rateb nodded gravely. She went to the tall gray filing cabinets along the wall and pulled one of them open. She wrenched a file from the crush in the drawer and handed it to Omar Yussef. “Read it at Professor Maki’s desk,” she said, “in case someone comes in. They won’t see you behind his blinds.”

  He laid the file on Maki’s desk. It held the academic record of Lieutenant Fathi Salah. Fathi’s high school grades were quite good, and Omar Yussef noted with approval that Fathi had earned top marks in history. Next was a transcript of the courses Fathi took at al-Azhar: grades from C up to A, a full transcript. He reached into his breast pocket and pulled out the Saladin Brigades leaflets. He put the newer one back and unfolded the first one. He laid it on the desk and, below where he had scrawled Sami’s cellphone number, copied out Fathi Salah’s transcript. He flipped through the file to a computer print-out from the accounts department. It listed dozens of payments, all small amounts, the last of which was shortly before Fathi’s graduation. It had the look of a poor man struggling even to meet the meager financial requirements of a local university. Omar Yussef closed Fathi’s file, went to the door of Maki’s inner office, and handed it back to Umm Rateb. She gave him another file in return.

  It was Yasser Salah’s record. The high school graduation certificate showed straight Bs. A transcript for his bachelor’s degree-more straight Bs. Then his law degree transcript. Surprise me, Omar Yussef thought. “Straight Bs,” he said aloud. The accounts department summary of Yasser’s payments was missing. He wrote on the back of the Saladin Brigades leaflet: Yasser Salah all Bs. No money. He turned the sheet over and re-read the Brigades’ demand for Odwan’s freedom in exchange for Wallender’s release. Could there really be a connection between the grades scribbled on the back of the page and this message printed on the front? He laid his notes on the desk and went to Umm Rateb, who stood next to the filing cabinets, waiting. He gave her the file and she slid the drawer shut.

  They breathed in relief. Omar Yussef patted his breast pocket and remembered the leaflet on the desk. He took a step toward Maki’s office to retrieve it. Then the door opened.

  “Abu Ramiz, what a delightful surprise,” Adnan Maki said. As he entered, the university chief bit his bottom lip and opened his eyes wide, flirtatiously. “Umm Rateb, has this cosmopolitan, glamorous West Banker lured you away from your religious morals?”

  Omar Yussef and Umm Rateb took a step away from each other, as though they had been caught in an illicit clinch.

  “Oh, don’t worry,” Maki said. “I’m quite sure you two are up to something naughty. And I thoroughly approve.” He laughed and caught Omar Yussef’s hand. He fondled the back of it with his thumb and leered, the tip of his tongue touching his upper lip. His fingers were so light Omar Yussef had the sensation of being touched by a web of fish bones.

  Maki dropped his leather briefcase on the black sofa so that he could embrace Omar Yussef. He gave him five kisses and touched the bruise on Omar Yussef’s head. “You’ve been in the wars, as they say in England.”

  Gallows humor, Omar Yussef thought. “Everyone’s quoting the British to me today.” He coughed and it became a choke.

  “Umm Rateb, bring water for our friend and then some coffee,” Maki said. “Come into my office, Abu Ramiz.”

  Omar Yussef continued coughing. He shook his head and sat on the black sofa in the outer office, holding Maki’s hand and pulling him down next to him. He glanced at Umm Rateb and flicked his watery eyes toward Maki’s office, hoping she would rescue the Brigades leaflet, but in her nervousness she was blind to his hints. “Abu Ramiz, you stay just where you are,” she said. “I’ll bring you a glass of water. Abu Nabil, what did the Revolutionary Council decide?”

  She’s trying to make sure he doesn’t wonder what I’m doing here, Omar Yussef thought. Umm Rateb brought the glass of water. She doesn’t know about that piece of paper on Maki’s desk.

  “The meeting was much as expected, Umm Rateb,” Maki said. He opened his arms wide and, as Omar Yussef sipped the water, he slapped him on the back, making him cough again. “Sorry, Abu Ramiz, but I feel in a fine mood this morning.”

  It’s not the stinking weather that made you so breezy. It must have been a good assassination, Omar Yussef thought.

  “At the Council meeting, I spoke at length about the strong response that must be ordered,” Maki said. “Colonel al-Fara agreed with me and said that he will join with the other security forces to apprehend the murderers of General Husseini. It was all very quick, as there was complete agreement with my statement among all the members. It was a proud moment for me.”

  Omar Yussef had one last cough. “Shall we go into your office to talk privately?” he said. Perhaps he could grab his notes before Maki saw them.

  Maki picked up his briefcase and led Omar Yussef by his hand into the inner room. The leaflet, wrinkled and curling at the edges, lay on the blotter. Maki put his briefcase flat on the desk. Without noticing it, he had covered the leaflet. Omar Yussef stared. He leaned forward. The corner of the leaflet protruded from under the briefcase. If Maki left the room for a moment, he could snatch it back.

  Umm Rateb brought two coffees on a tray. “Now that you’re back early, Abu Nabil,” she said to Maki, “your postponed schedule can be resumed?”

  She’s trying to save me, to get me out of here, Omar Yussef thought. She’s going to make me leave before I get the paper from his desk. He tried to catch her eye.

  “Yes, of course, back to work.” Maki smiled broadly. “With a vengeance.”

  “I’ll inform your next appointment.” Umm Rateb winked at Omar Yussef. She leaned forward with the tray of coffees.

  Omar Yussef smelled her soap. She put the coffee on the edge of the desk. Maki dragged his briefcase away from the tray to make room and, reaching for the coffees, carelessly laid the briefcase on the floor beside him. The leaflet went with it. Which way up did it land? Omar Yussef wondered. Perhaps it fell straight into a wastepaper basket and I’m in the clear. Either way, he couldn’t retrieve the paper now.

  Umm Rateb went to locate Maki’s next appointment.

  “May there always be coffee for you,” Omar Yussef mumbled.

  “Blessings,” Maki said, acknowledging the formula of gratitude for hospitality. “I heard about the problem of your Swedish friend. It was discussed briefly at the Revolutionary Council.”

  “Briefly?”

  “So many other pressing issues. Last night, Colonel al-Fara urged General Husseini, the departed one, to release Odwan so that the Saladin Brigades would free your friend and colleague.”

  “Well, Odwan’s dead and so is General Husseini. Why doesn’t Colonel al-Fara release someone himself?”

  “Are you back on the subject of that liar, the awful Professor Masharawi?” Maki dropped the corners of his mouth and screwed up his wet, black eyes, as though he’d just accidentally sucked down the thick grounds at the bottom of his tiny coffee cup.

  “That’s why I’m here, after all.”

  “Is it?” Maki said, quietly. He put his cup down. A new voice sounded in the outer office. “My next appointment has arrived, Abu Ramiz. We shall have to continue our discussion another time. I have much to do before attending the funeral of the departed General Husseini.” He stood. “I keep a rigorous schedule here. It’s most un-Palestinian. But it’s one of a number of characteristics I picked up during my travels.” Then
he whispered: “In the civilized world.” He giggled.

  A bearded man came to the door holding a sheaf of papers and squeezing out a sycophantic grin at Maki’s laughter. Maki turned to greet him. When Omar Yussef went out, he closed the door behind him.

  Omar Yussef bent over Umm Rateb’s desk. “When Professor Maki leaves his room, see if there’s a piece of paper with a Saladin Brigades announcement on it. It should be on the floor behind his desk. Like a fool, I made some notes on it and left it there.”

  “I’ll try to get it, Abu Ramiz.” She looked nervously toward Maki’s door.

  The blinds of Maki’s office window lifted with a single, swift motion. Maki smiled, holding the draw cord, waving farewell through the glass to Omar Yussef.

  “How is Salwa today?” Omar Yussef asked, nodding politely toward Maki.

  “May Allah be thanked,” Umm Rateb said.

  “As good as that, eh?”

  “She’s at home. I’m sure your company would be welcome.” Umm Rateb nodded at the files behind her desk. “If you have discovered any news for her.”

  Omar Yussef smiled, went to the door and down the corridor. He stepped out into the dust and hailed a taxi.

  Chapter 22

  Among the old olive trees in front of Salwa Masharawi’s house, Omar Yussef caught the homely scent of hot bread on the air. Salwa sat on a low stool in front of the clay oven in the corner of the garden. She made to stand when she saw him, but he gestured for her to continue her work.

  Salwa bent double, spreading her dough over the rounded surface of an upturned frying pan. She stoked the coals beneath the blackened metal and the thin dough sizzled. She unrolled it and flipped it over. The exposed side of the bread was a buttery yellow, studded with crisp bulbs of bitter charcoal and brown smears where air trapped in the dough had burned.

  Omar Yussef rested his foot on the low brick wall around the cooking area. “Lovely weather for a barbeque,” he said, gesturing toward the dusty air around them. “Let’s get the whole family out here.”

  Salwa’s cheek twitched when he mentioned her family and Omar Yussef regretted his joke. He cleared his throat. “My daughter, I came to tell you that I’ve discovered something which will help your husband.”

  The woman straightened on her stool and looked at Omar Yussef intently.

  “I went to Professor Maki’s office. I examined the records of two brothers from Rafah. I discovered that the academic transcript of the one who’s an officer in Colonel al-Fara’s Preventive Security clearly had been rigged.” Omar Yussef leaned closer to Salwa. “His financial records also smelled bad.”

  “How does this help Eyad?”

  “Now the UN has proof of Eyad’s accusation against the security forces, we can make a strong case that Eyad was arrested because he uncovered a real conspiracy.”

  Salwa nodded, slowly. Omar Yussef had thought she would be happier with his discovery. The smell of charcoal came to them strongly. Salwa gasped and pulled the burning bread from the upturned pan. She stood with her hands on the small of her back and stretched. “I apologize for this reception, Abu Ramiz. It’s difficult for me to see the good in anything at the moment,” she said.

  “That’s understandable, my daughter.”

  She bent to pick up the pile of flat bread she had already made. “No, it’s not. It doesn’t help Eyad for me to be depressed. That’s why I decided to make bread today. I needed to show myself that the world continues, in spite of what has happened.”

  Omar Yussef followed her toward the house. “That was very wise.”

  “Until I burned the bread.”

  In the kitchen, she put the bread by the sink and ran water to make coffee. “It was good of you to come with this news, Abu Ramiz,” she said. “I know you’re busy. You’re working hard for my husband and your friend, the foreigner.”

  Omar Yussef leaned against the refrigerator. Salwa hadn’t sent him to the sitting room, but had let him follow her into a place usually barred to male visitors. He felt the comfort of being with a woman in her kitchen and wondered that it could be such a solace even in a home turned inside out by fear like this one. He wished he were with Maryam and that he could reach out to rub his wife’s shoulder blades as she liked him to do.

  Salwa poured coffee and sugar into the pot and put it on the stove. Her shoulders jolted, but only when he heard her sob did Omar Yussef realize she was crying. He pulled his handkerchief from his trouser pocket and dangled it against her hand. She wiped her face and sniffed.

  “Sometimes I think the only Palestinians who aren’t crying are the dead,” Salwa said.

  “I don’t think Colonel al-Fara sheds many tears,” Omar Yussef said.

  “I wish he were dead.” Salwa looked up at Omar Yussef and her face went limp, as though she had horrified herself.

  “In this, as in everything else, you have my complete solidarity.” Omar Yussef smiled at Salwa until she rewarded him with a small giggle behind the handkerchief.

  “You’re very good to help my husband this way, Abu Ramiz,” she said.

  “I know he would do the same for me. I was once unfortunate enough to be unjustly imprisoned in Bethlehem, a long time ago. I wouldn’t leave an innocent man to suffer in such a place.”

  Salwa lifted her eyebrows. Omar Yussef knew she was about to ask him why he had been jailed. The last time he spoke the word murder, it had been as though the very syllables were fatal to Cree. He wouldn’t utter them to Salwa. “It was a political dispute. It’s in the past,” he said. “Your husband is all I’m concerned about now.”

  She held his gaze a moment, then smiled. “I’m being very inhospitable. Please make yourself comfortable in the salon while I finish preparing the coffee, Abu Ramiz.”

  Omar Yussef sat in the armchair where he had watched Magnus on television the previous night. He thought of his encounter with Professor Maki and his breath quickened. He rubbed his forehead and wondered whether Umm Rateb would recover his notes before the professor found them.

  He heard a tune playing somewhere nearby. It was a thin, electronic version of a Bach cantata, accompanied by a low buzzing. Omar Yussef couldn’t place it at first, but then he felt something vibrating in the pocket of his pants and realized it was Sami’s cellphone. He clicked his tongue impatiently and frowned at the keypad of the phone. He assumed the green button was for accepting a call. He pressed it, held the phone a few inches from his ear and spoke. “Who’s this?”

  “I want to talk to Abu Ramiz.” The voice on the phone was harsh and loud.

  “Speaking.”

  “Abu Ramiz from the UN?”

  Omar Yussef nodded. He was wary of cellphones, but the voice put him doubly on guard. “Who’re you?”

  “Someone wants to say hello.”

  A new voice came over the line, wheezy and thick. It was Magnus Wallender. “Abu Ramiz, how’re you?”

  Omar Yussef gripped the phone tight and pressed it hard to his ear. “May Allah be thanked, Magnus. You’re still alive.”

  “If you say so.”

  “Where are you?”

  “I don’t know, Abu Ramiz.” Magnus broke off and spoke away from the phone. The harsh voice responded with an order to “read.”

  “Abu Ramiz, I’m reading now: The Saladin Brigades have avenged themselves on the traitor and collaborator Husseini, the murderer of the brother Bassam Odwan. But the Brigades warn that something bad.. ” Wallender groaned and breathed deeply. “ Something bad will happen to the foreigner Wallender unless all UN personnel leave Gaza immediately. ”

  “They have left.” Omar Yussef thought of his conversation with the American woman from the UN.

  “Why have they left, Abu Ramiz?” Magnus sounded at once curious and lonely.

  “Someone in Jerusalem decided it was too dangerous.” He thought of James Cree’s burned corpse. “Because of your kidnapping.”

  “So there’s no one here except you?”

  “There’re some locals. But t
hey’re keeping their heads down.”

  Magnus relayed this to the other man. There was a rattling sound and the harsh voice barked down the line once more. “You, too, must leave Gaza immediately, if you want your friend to be safe.”

  “I’d need a special permit from the Israelis to pass through the checkpoint on such short notice.”

  The voice hesitated, but it came back with scornful finality. “That’s crap. You’re with the UN. Get a permit and get out of here.”

  “Let me speak to Magnus again.”

  The line went dead.

  Omar Yussef cursed. Salwa entered with his coffee. She glanced at him with a stern, expectant face. The phone sounded again. Omar Yussef thrust his forefinger at the green button. “Magnus?”

  “What?” Khamis Zeydan’s voice was surrounded by the murmur of conversation.

  “The kidnappers just called me. I spoke to Magnus.”

  “So he’s alive.”

  Omar Yussef stared into the thick blackness of his coffee. “How did they get Sami’s number? How did they know I had this phone?”

  He heard Khamis Zeydan growl with impatience.

  “I’ve only had this phone since last night,” Omar Yussef said. “Did they call Sami’s other phone first?”

  “You’re suspicious of the wrong man, my friend,” Khamis Zeydan said.

  “Just because someone calls you my friend, doesn’t mean he is.”

  Another growl. “Remember what the Prophet’s son-in-law said: He who has a thousand friends has not a friend to spare,” Khamis Zeydan said. “You need Sami.”

  “You’re leaving out the second part of Ali’s saying: And he who has one enemy will meet him everywhere.”

  Omar Yussef heard a grating click and an inhalation, as Khamis Zeydan lit a cigarette. The police chief breathed out. “I’m on my way to our hotel. We need to talk.”

  “I’m at Salwa Masharawi’s house.”

  “I’ll pick you up there, then.”