Martyrs’ Crossing (28 page)

But it didn't matter, because Mahmoud had Ruby. Kind, good-hearted Ruby Horowitz, Mahmoud's agent within the Israeli government! He laughed to himself. What an agent, in her little leather jacket. For nothing, she had done his work for him. All he needed was an address for this guy, he told her. It was for a legal matter. She said it was easy, no problem.

“I'll do it on the computer,” she said. “I mean, after all, it's not like it's classified information.” Big smile.

And she got it, too: 21 Keren Kayemit Leumi Street. The Israelis called it by its nickname: KKL, or Kakal. “No problem!” Ruby said, as she handed him the printout.
“Ain baya!”
He took it from his pocket now, and tossed it into Adnan's garbage. He wouldn't forget that information.

A flatbed truck full of people was making slow progress through the crowd below, swathed in bunting the colors of the Palestinian flag, green, black, red, and white. That would be the Authority. Already, three hundred or four hundred people had gathered, and more were streaming in from the streets that ran into the square. Normal people not under any banner seemed to be arriving, too, as well as those who were openly affiliated. He saw them gathering in their sensible workaday clothes, the ironed trousers and knitted vests, the matrons' unsexy skirts, the puffy, quilted jackets, the tight high black pants of nonreligious girls. It was cold and all the men were smoking and drinking coffee or tea.

Four black limousines came speeding by, sirens wailing, with an escort of eight police officers on motorcycle. The Chairman, maybe, or Ahmed Amr and his retinue. Mahmoud had once seen the Chairman land in Ramallah in his helicopter, with green and red smoke bombs going off all around it, on an inconceivably small landing pad ringed by security vehicles. He couldn't tell whether the bombs were celebratory or designed to ward off attacks on the Chairman's helicopter. It was said that the Chairman never traveled without a decoy vehicle, and that he often used a personal double, though it was hard to imagine mistaking anyone else for the short little Chairman, invariably damp and unshaven, with his decoratively tied keffiyeh and his way of always looking as if gravity had some kind of moral sway over him, as if it were pulling him down more than others. You wouldn't want to be known as his double, let's put it that way, Mahmoud thought. But today, the highest official was likely to be Amr, because the Israelis did not usually allow the Chairman to come to Ramallah from his Gaza headquarters. He had to ask their permission. Intolerable. Little Palestinian flags waved from the limousines' antennae. The windows were smoked black.

•  •  •

T
HE MOTORCADE CAME
to a dramatic halt in front of The Sheikh's, sirens blaring and then all of a sudden extinguished. One of the Chairman's Ramallah bodyguards leaped out of the front limousine and opened Ahmed's door. He reached out a hand to assist Ahmed, but Ahmed declined it, springing out like a film star at an awards ceremony. Ahmed was sorry to have left the Mercedes behind, but he felt it would not look impressive at the head of a limousine motorcade. He half expected a red carpet beneath his feet, his greeting in Ramallah had been so warm—they hated the Chairman in Ramallah, and adored Ahmed. The Sheikh's was Ahmed's favorite teahouse on the West Bank. They knew him here: as if they didn't know him everywhere. Here he was favored, though, because his father's family was from Ramallah.

As Ahmed entered The Sheikh's with his cohort, three whole tables' worth of the teahouse population was displaced to accommodate the Authority and its guests. Ahmed nodded at a distant cousin, embraced “the Sheikh”—actually the last son of a Nablus shoe-factory owner—held the hands and looked deeply into the eyes of a Ramallah neighbor whose daughter had been injured in a car accident a few days earlier, and then took his place in the center of the three tables, ready to preside. He was always presiding. The world was divided into hosts and guests, Ahmed had long ago decided, and he was a natural-born host, even when he was an honored guest at someone else's table.

He sat down on one of The Sheikh's low wooden chairs, and felt it tremble beneath his weight. The crowd was buzzing around him. In the corner near the bathroom, the Chairman's bodyguard was trying to talk on his cell phone. He had one hand over his ear, but he couldn't shout for fear of being overheard. Reporting to Gaza. The Chairman would be stewing in a jealous, impotent rage. Ahmed smiled and ordered a strong pot of tea. He loved to steal the Chairman's thunder, and the Israelis—not allowing the Chairman here today, for example—made it so outrageously easy. They knew about the rivalry. They enjoyed it. They used it.

Ahmed was doing something here at The Sheikh's that would torment the Chairman further. He was arranging the details of Hajimi's release, and when it happened, all of the praise would go to Ahmed. It was going to be beautiful, with street celebrations, rounds of congratulations, interviews with the international media. It would happen soon, maybe even today. Ramadan began in two days. It was his least favorite time of year. He hated its disruption of life's regular cycle of pleasures, and his was not a particularly spiritual nature. It would be good to go into the fast month on the crest of Hajimi's release. Give him something to savor during the long dull days. Not that anyone wanted the man out of prison. If everyone even faintly allied to Hamas could be stuck into an Israeli jail and shut up tight, the world would not be a worse place, Ahmed thought.

He happened to know that he looked particularly good this morning. He'd had a good sleep, and only last week, he had shaved off his now white beard and moustache, and with it a decade of aging. His eyes, often bloodshot from fatigue, were clear, and their hazel color was set off by golden flecks in an otherwise somber, conservative, world-leader-style necktie. Ahmed looked forward to the moment when the crowd's eyes would be upon him. Even sitting down, he towered over other men.

Ahmed smiled broadly at a tall foreigner who was already ensconced at the table. Ted, the American consular officer, had agreed to meet Ahmed here to discuss the final details of Hajimi's release in The Sheikh's back room. Hajimi released in time for Ramadan. What a coup.

“Would you order a nargileh for me, please?” Ted said, leaning over the table to pick a sweet off a silverized plastic tray.

Ted was ready to finish up their talks: what day, what time, where. He smoked a nargileh like an Arab—as if it were a normal thing to do, without too much bullshit, although you could always trust Arab custom to attach some bullshit to every ritual. Ted treated the nargileh as if it were a half a pack of Marlboros. Ahmed could do business efficiently with Ted: if only the two of them could run Palestine together and alone. You couldn't smoke during the days of Ramadan, Ahmed reminded himself with a wince.

“Oh, Ted,” said Ahmed. “I nearly forgot to mention it. I was talking to the Chairman yesterday, and he told me what a wonderful job he thinks you've been doing.”

Ted nodded. Even the toughest man secretly enjoys flattery, Ahmed knew, and will believe any compliment to some degree or another. Tell a fat man he looks slim—even if at that very moment he is looking in the mirror—and he will think that possibly he's lost a few ounces, or that, possibly, to you, he does seem slim, for some reason. The praise will gladden him even if he knows at some not very deep level that it's untrue. And that you don't mean it. As you watch him take pleasure in your insincerity you feel a small surge of power. Ahmed also knew that a compliment is more likely to be believed if it's secondhand, and that the good feeling generated by secondhand flattery extends even more to the bearer of the praise than to the flatterer himself. At first, Ahmed had been merely an assiduous relater of secondhand compliments, but soon, running low on material, he began fabricating the compliments themselves. It was highly unlikely that he would ever be found out. Would Ted dare go to the Chairman and ask: “Oh, by the way, Mr. Chairman, did you tell Ahmed Amr the other day that I've been doing a wonderful job?” Never.

It was no Versailles, but as far as Ahmed was concerned, The Sheikh's back room—with its red wallpaper and hard-backed, beat-up, vinyl-covered chairs—was almost as good for treaty-making as the reception room at Orient House, or the checkpoint at Erez. Maybe better. This was the kind of place where Ahmed liked to do business: not a boardroom or an office or a dais or the antechamber of a conference room or that ugly little fluorescent-lit, soundproofed, debugged hole in the back of the Chairman's Gaza apartment that was used for supposedly important meetings. For Ahmed, the place where a deal was done always remained a part of the deal, a part of history. The Sheikh's had a stale, authentic West Bank atmosphere.

Things were looking up. Now if only George could remain calm during the rally. And not go spluttering off and ruin all Ahmed's fun. The students who helped organize the thing had wanted the old writer, and so George would be there, and speaking. Dah! George hated Find the Soldier—that was what had made him walk out of Orient House in a fit of babyish pique. Still, Ahmed was hoping that in public, George would stick with them. He straightened his tie. Let's expect the best . . . after all, George was a gentleman.

•  •  •

A
ND THERE HE WAS,
a little late but gorgeous as ever. It was a wonder how a sick man could look so glamorous. Ahmed stared at his old friend through the bobbing heads of the crowd. George looked like no one else there, Ahmed thought. He seemed not larger than life but more intense: slightly taller, somewhat darker, his eyes brighter, his hair thicker, his clothes in some indescribable way better, his whole being poised on the brink of something ineffable, like flight. He is more like me than I am, Ahmed thought.

With his chin tilted up and his whole leonine face raised toward the sky, George seemed to be judging the direction of the wind in preparation for something grandiose and remarkable. The unconquerable arrogance of his character was readable in his every movement and gesture. He looked like a man who feared nothing. As if something had caught his eye and displeased him, George turned his head brusquely away from the clouds, downward, and next to him Ahmed saw a covered woman standing as quiet and unmoving as if she had been alone in a big room. Ahmed's little niece Marina, gazing with deep empty eyes over toward the square where an enormous digital clock sat perched on a pedestal. Around the magnificent, absurd timepiece, the Authority's limousines were parked near a temporary stage where today's speakers were to gather. George said something to his daughter and they began to move toward the clock.

•  •  •

S
HE WAS EVEN
more impressive in traditional clothes. The white
hijab
covered the thick hair that distracted you from her eyes, and so you saw those eyes in a new way: they were profound and empty and they sucked up light. She rarely blinked, Doron noticed. She stood a good distance from her father, but seemed attached to him, moved when he moved, went where he went, without looking at him, without seeming to think. She held her left wrist with her right hand in what looked like a symbolic gesture from a medieval Christian painting. Her stillness chilled Doron, and excited him. He had moved down to the front of the crowd and he could see every detail, even to the single lashes. She wore so much clothing, like a proper Palestinian lady. No jeans today. He remembered her bare foot, and the rain rattling down. The night so black outside, the closeness of the trailer so hot and damp and bright, and all his men breathing their hot nervous breath down his back. Her wild hair. And here now, distant, correct. It was too much. It unleashed in him an unbridled pack of emotions that he chose not to examine. At least, she would never know what he was feeling. And her father would never know. And her husband.

•  •  •

U
NCLE AHMED
was going to introduce them. This was an unbelievable scene in a life that had become unbelievable. The bereft mother stands before the crowd. What was she doing here? She felt a terrible physical feeling of heartache, as if there were pressure against her heart, remembering the photographs in the newspaper. The crowd was solemn and still as Ahmed approached the microphone. Marina looked out at the people, and saw the tops of their heads, their dark hair, their white, beige, blue collars. Their shoulders were hunched against the wind. The glinting rims of sunglasses. White and dark
hijabs
dotted the scene. She saw television cameras. She closed her eyes, listening to Ahmed's low voice, letting it rumble in the back of her consciousness without paying attention to the words.

She heard the name of her son, her husband, her father. She looked down at the plain plywood planks of the stage. Humble, she thought, composed, grief-stricken. They were all looking at her. She felt her father move closer, protectively. It was as protective as he got. He must feel the same shame I do, she thought, standing here, being talked about in front of people. But at least he has a mission. I just want to go home and be alone in Ibrahim's room. He wants to speak to the people. Teach them something. Clear things up, as he said. Okay, let's get it over with.

She looked at her father. He drew his eyebrows down into a violent V, and pulled his scarf tighter around his neck. She could see he was preparing to speak, and that when he did, Uncle Ahmed would not be happy. Never underestimate Dad, she thought. She looked out over the heads of the crowd at the reflection of the moving sky in the windows of a dirty building across the street.

The crowd was full of people she didn't know. Why are they here, she kept thinking. Why aren't my father and I at home, going through picture albums? Why aren't all of these people at home? She looked at the front rows, trying to pierce through to each individual's motivation, his need. It was important for her right now to understand why events happened, if you ever could understand. That old lady, for example, she should be home in her rocker, Marina thought to herself. Those two young men with their neat attachés? Back to the office, on the double. Get out of here. And you, how can you hear on your cell phone in this crowd, stupid man? Miss, your skirt's too short. And this one is bizarre. She felt the tiniest twinge of amusement. Handsome, but doesn't know how to wear a scarf, even, she thought. Then she saw who it was. Her heart turned over. She stared in disbelief. Fear tightened her chest, fear that he would see her looking. Fear of contact. She averted her gaze.