The Collaborator of Bethlehem (11 page)

At the corner of the square, a voice called. “Greetings,
ustaz
.” Omar Yussef turned to see a thin priest crossing the empty road toward him with long, bouncy strides. The priest wore a black Catholic robe with a white dog collar. There were gray socks under his open sandals. His skin was olive and speckled with the kind of black whiskers that always need shaving. His black hair was thin and curly, standing above his scalp like the fuzz on a hairy man’s chest. In no more than two years, he would be completely bald. His thick glasses made his eyes seem tiny.

“Elias,” Omar Yussef said. “I’m so happy to see you. George reported that you were back from the Vatican. We spoke proudly of your achievements.”

“Yes, I’m back. Can you believe it? I just couldn’t keep a safe distance,” the priest said. “It’s wonderful to see you, Abu Ramiz. You look so well.”

“I have never trusted the word of religious men, and now I understand why. I am not in such great health, to tell the truth.”

“Perhaps I am just so delighted to see you that I feel everything must be perfect.”

“I wish it were so, Elias.” Omar Yussef looked toward the police station. “I am going to visit George in his jail cell now.”

Elias Bishara pushed his heavy glasses up his nose. “Tell me if there is anything George needs,” he said. “He could have no greater friend than you, Abu Ramiz, but perhaps he will ask for a priest. I would like to minister to him.”

Omar Yussef wondered if Elias Bishara already was thinking ahead to George’s last rites. He wasn’t ready to accept that, yet. “I will let him know.” He shook Elias’s hand.

Khamis Zeydan met Omar Yussef at the door of the police station and walked him down the rough steps to the cells. It was cold in the corridor, though Omar Yussef was sure that the chill he felt was as much because of the location as the winter morning. Khamis Zeydan glanced sideways at his friend as he unlocked a metal gate and ushered him through. They passed two cells that were empty except for old, cheap prayer mats laid out on the beds.

“This was where I kept the Hamas people, back when we actually used to arrest those types,” Khamis Zeydan said. “Then we received orders to free them. Now there’s no one here except your friend.”

At the end of the corridor, he unlocked another grille. It was George’s cell. “I’ll wait at the end of the row here,” Khamis Zeydan said. “Just call me. But don’t be too long, for Heaven’s sake.” Omar Yussef could tell the gruffness was a screen for his friend’s nervousness. He wasn’t sure if that was because the policeman didn’t want to be discovered allowing a visitor to the collaborator or because he feared that Omar Yussef’s investigation would lead to trouble and now he was implicated in it.

George Saba stood up from the sagging camp bed in the corner of the bare room. His face was puffy, unwashed. Omar Yussef saw that the stubble of George’s beard was surprisingly thick with gray, though white only touched his head around the temples. His hair was tangled and stuck out from his head at strange angles. He looked like a man who had slept for years, but without resting soundly. George Saba embraced Omar Yussef, who could not help but wrinkle his nose at the stale smell of his friend’s neglected body.

“Abu Ramiz, I’m so happy to see you.”

Omar Yussef found himself at a loss. It saddened him to the point of tears to feel George’s shirt against his face. The cotton was cold and so were the hands that now held his fingers.

“George, it’s freezing in here.”

George nodded toward the cell window, barred and glassless. He tried to smile, but it was a sad attempt.

“Take my coat,” Omar Yussef said, pulling off his short herringbone overcoat.

“I really can’t, Abu Ramiz. You’ll get cold.”

“I’ve got a jacket on underneath. See? Take it.”

“I don’t think it’ll fit.”

Omar Yussef made him try the coat. It was ridiculously tight around the bigger man’s arms and barely closed across his belly, but it was clear that George felt the overcoat was a reprieve from a terrible torture.

“May God compensate you for this,” he said.

Omar Yussef immediately shivered in his tweed jacket. He gestured to George to sit with him on the bed.

“What happened on the roof, George, after you left me at the Orthodox Club?”

“I took an antique British pistol that I was intending to sell in my shop and went onto the roof. There were two gunmen up there firing a massive machine gun. I told them to get off the roof, but they only cursed me. So I held the gun on them. They weren’t sure about it, but in the darkness it looked threatening enough, I guess. I only recognized them when they were leaving. One wore a fur hat. His name’s Jihad Awdeh. The other one carried the big gun.”

“Hussein Tamari?”

“That’s him.”

“The two men at the top of the Martyrs Brigades in Bethlehem. You picked a prize pair to face off with, George.”

George smiled, bitterly. “Hussein Tamari did all the shooting. I thought I should watch Hussein Tamari more closely. He was the one with the gun after all. But there was something that drew my eyes to Jihad Awdeh. He seemed so menacing. I can’t really describe it. There was a moment just before they went down from the roof: Jihad bent to pick something up and stuff it into his jacket. It was more than one thing, in fact, metal things, I think, that were spread on the roof. He gave me such an evil look. It would chill me even now, if I weren’t already too cold to feel anything. Then the two of them went down the stairs and left.”

“Perhaps Jihad was picking up the empty cartridges from the bullets, for some reason. You see, I found only one on the roof when I went up there yesterday. He must have missed it.”

“Why were you on the roof of my house? What are you up to, Abu Ramiz?”

Omar Yussef didn’t answer the question. “Do you have any enemies who would set you up?” he said.

“Just those two, as far as I can tell. This is hardly the way some customer would avenge himself on me for overcharging on an antique chesterfield, is it? Tamari and Awdeh said they’d get me. But I figured they would just come and beat me, or even kill me on the street. I didn’t think they’d shame me like this.”

“Did either one of them threaten to kill you?”

“I think they both did. No, I believe it was only Hussein who actually said he would make me pay. But then as they left Jihad made a gesture like he was cutting a throat.”

Omar Yussef looked about at the bare walls of the cell. The mustard paint was covered in small graffiti, the scribblings of bored men venting their anger or doodling about their dreams of a good meal. The toilet bucket in the corner suffused the cell with a rank odor, despite the open window. The wall and floor beneath the window were damp where yesterday’s rain had come in. Omar Yussef sighed, and his breath made a steamy path from his mouth into the freezing air.

“Why did you go to the roof, George?”

George Saba smiled. “Abu Ramiz, I went up there because you told me to do so.”

Omar Yussef looked perplexed.

“In your class on the Arab Revolt of 1936, you said that the so-called Arab heroes were really just gangs. They went about robbing villagers of their food and killing those who resisted, and all the time no one could take them on, because these killers were portrayed as the brave men standing up against the Zionists and the army. They ended up killing more Palestinians than Jewish farmers or British soldiers. You said that if the people had stood up to them early on, the gangs would have backed down and there could have been peace.”

“But I didn’t mean . . .”

“When you’re a stimulating teacher, you had better be careful. You never know what you might inspire people to do.” George laughed and put his hand on Omar Yussef’s. “Don’t worry, Abu Ramiz. It’s not your fault. I thought about it for days, every time they came to the neighborhood to shoot across the valley. Finally I knew I had to act. You see, I thought I understood the gunmen better than you, better than my Dad. In South America, I saw thugs like them. They were cowards when they were confronted. Remember, I lived in Chile when the military dictatorship was forced to give up power. But unfortunately there is no one here to back people up, no law. The criminals have made themselves the law. They shoot at some soldiers, and it transforms them into the representatives of the national struggle. That makes them unassailable and they can abuse anyone they want, particularly Christians who are weak already. That was my mistake. I didn’t see that clearly enough. But I don’t regret it.”

“Our town has changed terribly since you first went to Chile, George.”

“I’ve lived a life of many changes. I learned that change is a good thing. But here in Palestine change is always for the worse. Christian villages are overrun by new Muslim residents, and instead of living together in tranquility, it becomes a bad place for Christians. Even to change a situation of hatred, they only make still more hatred. Love is not an option. It’s the choice of an idiot who wants to end with nothing, robbed and abused and humiliated. The result is that, in the end, everyone’s convinced that the only way to alter the bad relations between Christians and Muslims, or between Israelis and Palestinians for that matter, is to wipe out the other side. To kill them all. Like they’ll kill me, now.”

Omar Yussef had seen that coming. “No, they won’t, George. They can’t.”

George Saba inclined his head, almost as though he pitied Omar Yussef. “When they bring a collaborator to this cell, it’s all over for him. It will be a public execution, like the ones they held in Gaza.”

“I will stop it, George,” Omar Yussef said. “I know that you’ve been set up by Hussein. I just need to prove it, and I will.”

“Abu Ramiz, don’t get into trouble.”

“I already have some proof. I will get more, and I will save you.”

“I have no desire to join the ranks of the martyrs, and of course as a collaborator I won’t get such a title. There will be no Paradise for me. But if there were, I wouldn’t expect to see you there for a long time yet. I warn you not to place yourself in danger. It will only result in two deaths, where these bastards would be satisfied with one.” George laughed. “Maybe I should rethink. If I’m going to die, it might be better to think of myself as a martyr, after all. I’m dying because of my religion, aren’t I?”

“You’re a Christian. You don’t believe in martyrdom.”

“Abu Ramiz, that isn’t true. All right, so we don’t believe like the Muslims do that anyone who’s killed just now goes up to claim his bliss with seventy-two beautiful black-eyed virgins
.
But even if we don’t believe in those lovely
houris
, we Christians have our martyrs, nonetheless. I traveled in Europe. The cathedrals there are full of paintings of Christian martyrs. My namesake, Saint George, you know, was a martyr, not just a dragonslayer. I suppose the difference is that we Christians accept martyrdom, but we don’t seek it.” George Saba paused. He continued, slowly. “I want you to go to my family. Tell them to leave. Even now, while I’m still in jail. I don’t want them to live here as outcasts, and I’m worried that someone will try to harm them, too. Tell them to go to Sofia’s family in Chile.” He put his hand on Omar Yussef’s arm and turned away to hide his tears. “Make sure that my father goes with them. He listens to your advice.”

“I don’t think he’ll go. Not without you.”

“Abu Ramiz, for Heaven’s sake, they’re all in danger, too. You don’t know what those men will do.”

They heard quick footsteps along the corridor. Khamis Zey-dan came to the door and unlocked it.

“I’m not finished,” Omar Yussef said.

Khamis Zeydan concentrated on the final key. “I must leave the station now, so I’ll have to lock him up. Unless you want to spend the next twenty-four hours shivering in here with George, I suggest you get out of the cell now. Come on. I have to hurry.”

George stood up. He kissed Omar Yussef’s cheeks. “Tell my family what I said, uncle.”

“Allah lengthen your life,” Omar Yussef said. He touched George Saba’s face. The beard was prickly.

Khamis Zeydan called from the doorway and Omar Yussef went out. As the policeman locked the door, Omar Yussef looked through the bars at George. The coat he had left behind seemed pathetic, inadequate, stretching across the broad shoulders of his friend. He wished he had brought food or a book to leave with the prisoner. Then he followed Khamis Zeydan slowly along the corridor.

“Hurry up, Abu Ramiz, please. I have to go.”

“What’s the rush?” Omar Yussef was irritated to have his time with George cut short. The emotion of his meeting burst out of him now. “Can’t you have any decency?” he yelled at Khamis Zeydan. “Can’t you let me be with that boy a little longer, that innocent fucking victim?” He lowered his voice in case George could still hear, but he spat out the words angrily. “You bastards are going to kill the best student I ever had.”

Khamis Zeydan stepped close. He was about to speak. A police officer came to the head of the stairs. “Abu Adel,” the policeman said, “the squad is ready.”

Khamis Zeydan called back that he was on his way and the junior officer rushed out of sight. “It’s an emergency, as you can see,” he said to Omar Yussef.

“What is it? The Israelis have invaded Bethlehem once more and you have to run away?” Omar Yussef’s voice was bitter.

Khamis Zeydan looked grim. “No, Abu Ramiz. Someone has killed Dima Abdel Rahman.”

Omar Yussef couldn’t speak. He looked with disbelief at Khamis Zeydan.

“None of us will survive except Allah,” the policeman said. “Let’s go.”

Chapter 11

T
he wind drove cold through the open sides of the jeep. The policemen hunched their shoulders inside their parkas. One of them made his teeth chatter loudly to amuse the others. From the front seat, Khamis Zeydan turned and silenced his men with a disapproving click of his tongue. Omar Yussef shivered in his tweed jacket. He almost regretted the coat he had left with George, but he could stand a little chill for a short time if it made his friend more comfortable in that bare cell.