The Collaborator of Bethlehem (21 page)

“Yes, you can go in now.”

“Look, Abu Ramiz, we shouldn’t suspect each other,” Khamis Zeydan said, quietly. “We should be calm. Why don’t you take control of the staff, of the school, and arrange the cleanup? I’m going to start investigating the scene of the explosion.”

Khamis Zeydan went into the school with half of his squad. The others stood in a semicircle around the entrance, surrounded by a dozen curious pupils who remained nearby. Omar Yussef noticed that Khadija Zubeida’s father was among the policemen who stood in the mud with their Kalashnikovs. He had come to the school that morning to ask the girl how to find her father, and here he was. He put his hand out to him in greeting.

The policeman was friendly. “Morning of joy,
ustaz
,” he said.

“Morning of light,” Omar Yussef replied. “Mahmoud, I need to talk to you.”

Omar Yussef passed along the corridor with Mahmoud Zubeida behind him. The policeman glanced blandly into the broken classroom, where his colleagues were assessing the size and source of the blast.
He’s seen this kind of destruction many times,
Omar Yussef thought.
It doesn’t even concern him that this is his own daughter’s classroom.

The two men went into Steadman’s office. Omar Yussef closed the door and gestured for Mahmoud Zubeida to sit. The man tried to rest his Kalashnikov across his lap, but the arms of the chair got in the way, so he laid it on the floor. He rubbed the back of a finger nervously across his black moustache. He swiped off his beret and gripped it in front of his chest, like a medieval peasant doffing his cap to the seigneur. Omar Yussef remained standing behind the desk.

“First, Mahmoud, thank you for allowing me to remain in the courtroom a little late the other night,” Omar Yussef said.

“It’s nothing,
ustaz
. May I ask, was that the collaborator’s father? The old gentleman who was crying?”

“Yes, he’s an old friend of mine.”

“Even if he did raise a collaborator, one must have respect for the grief of a father. God knows it isn’t necessarily the father’s fault if the child is bad.”

“Of course.” Omar Yussef leaned forward. “Mahmoud, I need you to explain for me what happened during the arrest of George Saba. Khadija told me you were there when Saba was taken in. I found her description very interesting. Would you mind telling me?”

“Why? I mean, how does it interest you,
ustaz
?”

“Mahmoud, something terrible happened here this morning, in the very classroom where Khadija studies. I hope you’ll understand that I can’t tell you everything right now, though I will share all I know with Brigadier Khamis Zeydan. But I believe there’s a possible connection between what happened to Director Steadman and the incident with Saba.”

“Why would a collaborator be involved in the death of the UNRWA school’s director?”

“It’s not as simple as that, Mahmoud. But, look, for the sake of your daughter, please tell me about the arrest.”

Mahmoud Zubeida seemed nervous. His face was puzzled.
He’s a simple man,
Omar Yussef thought,
and he doesn’t know if he’s going to get himself in trouble with Khamis Zeydan, or even Hus-sein Tamari, by talking to me. He’s also simple enough that anyone standing behind a desk intimidates and commands him.

“We went to Beit Jala early,” Mahmoud Zubeida said. “There were three jeeps. We blew in the front door. We couldn’t wait to knock, because our commander told us that George Saba was dangerous. He might attack us or kill himself with a cyanide capsule. The Israelis give poison to their collaborators in case they are caught, you know.”

“Who was the commander?”

“Major Awdeh.”

“Jihad Awdeh?”

“Major Jihad, yes.”

“He’s a major?”

“In Preventive Security. We were assigned to work with his detectives that morning.”

“What happened once you were inside?”

“We got the Christian against the wall.”

“Did he resist?”

“No, he was very cowardly and frightened.”

“Did he confess?”

“Immediately. He said, ‘I know what this is about.’”

“Did Major Jihad tell him the charges?”

“Yes, he told him he was accused of collaboration with the Occupation Forces in the death of Louai Abdel Rahman.”

“And George Saba confessed to that?”

“Yes.”

“Jihad Awdeh told him the charge and Saba said, ‘I know what this is about.’”

Mahmoud Zubeida paused. “No, he confessed even before the major told him the charge.”

“So he might have been confessing to something else?”

“I don’t understand.”

“He said that he knew why you came to arrest him. But he could have been wrong about the reason. Did he look surprised when Major Jihad told him the charges?”

“I don’t remember,
ustaz
. I’m sorry.”

“Did Major Jihad say anything else?”

“Not that I remember.”

“You took Saba out to the jeep?”

“Yes. I rode with him back to the jail.”

“Did he go quietly?”

“Yes, he was very cowardly and scared, like I said.” Mahmoud Zubeida smiled. His teeth were the color of old ivory, from chewing betel. “Major Jihad really frightened him.”

“How?”

“On the way out of the door, he did like this.” The policeman mimed the act of slitting a throat. His laugh came through his stained teeth slow and deep, like a cartoon cretin. “The Christian went quite white.”

Omar Yussef remembered the gesture George Saba had described in the cell. Jihad Awdeh had drawn his finger across his throat when George drove him and Hussein Tamari from his roof late at night. So he had repeated the gesture when Tamari sent him to arrest George for collaboration. Omar Yussef remembered how disquieting it was to talk to Jihad Awdeh at the gunmen’s headquarters two days ago. He couldn’t imagine the terror George must have felt as Awdeh gloated over the gunmen’s revenge.

“Thank you, Mahmoud.” Omar Yussef sat in Steadman’s chair. “Perhaps you had better return to your guard duty before Brigadier Zeydan gets annoyed that you’re gone.”

“You’re right,
ustaz
.” The policeman stood, pulling his beret down to his eyes. “Thank you.”

When Mahmoud Zubeida left the room, the school secretary came to the doorway.

“Greetings, Abu Ramiz,” she said.

“Double greetings, Wafa.”

“Are you here to help clean up the school?”

Omar Yussef put his palms flat on the rough wooden desktop. He couldn’t spare the time to organize workmen and teachers. In twenty-eight hours, George Saba’s execution was scheduled to be carried out. But he couldn’t see how to proceed. He needed the police to help him, yet Khamis Zeydan was either dismissive of his concern with the matter or even involved in the cover-up. There was no use in rushing all over town talking to lesser officials. They would simply refer him to Khamis Zeydan or tell him to keep his head down for fear of incurring the wrath of the Martyrs Brigades. Well, that wrath was already thoroughly incurred. There was a charred schoolroom and a dead American to prove it. It might be better to remain close to the policemen for a while as they sifted through the bombsite. Though he thought Khamis Zeydan was in touch with the killers, no one would try to murder him while the school was full of investigators, workmen and teachers. Perhaps he should stay here and think things through.

“Wafa, tell all the other teachers to check their classrooms for damage. I’ll call the Jerusalem office and arrange for them to send workmen to repair everything.”

Wafa nodded. “Do you think they will send another American to be in charge of the school, Abu Ramiz?”

“I haven’t thought about it, Wafa.”

The secretary smiled. “I suppose you don’t have to retire now, anyway.”

“Wafa, you’re terrible.”

Wafa laughed and closed the door.

Omar Yussef sat in the quiet room, listening to the dim sounds of the policemen in the destroyed classroom. Wafa was right: he no longer faced a boss who wanted to get rid of him. The hateful government schools inspector would have to start working on the new director all over again, and this time Omar Yussef would prepare to defend himself more thoroughly. Suddenly his career prospects were brighter than they had been for months. For the first time since Steadman began to push for him to leave the school, he once again had something to lose. He considered for an instant that his attempt to clear George Saba risked that new security. He was immediately ashamed of the selfish thought, but he acknowledged that it was there.

He turned on the small stereo Steadman kept on a shelf behind his desk. He tuned the radio to the government’s local news channel. Perhaps there would be an announcement of clemency or some other change in the case of George Saba. Even if there were some news for the worse, he would want to hear it as he sat in the office wondering what to do next. There might even be a report about the bomb in the school. He picked up the phone and dialed the UN office in Jerusalem.

Chapter 20

B
ethlehem Radio broke into its morning discussion program with news of a martyrdom. This martyr sacrificed himself, the radio announcer intoned, when he detonated a bomb he carried to Jerusalem. He died in a street by a market called Mahaneh Yehuda. There was no more detail, but the announcer said he would be back with news of the martyr’s identity and the number of dead as soon as it was available. The gravity in his voice couldn’t quite disguise the excitement.

Omar Yussef waited in Christopher Steadman’s office for the UN’s Jerusalem headquarters to call him back and tell him when the workers would arrive to fix the classroom damaged in their own bombing that morning. The police finished rummaging through the destroyed schoolroom and, with all the students sent home, the place was quiet.

The discussion program switched to speculation about the likely origin of the bomber. One of the commentators believed that presently it was easiest to enter Jerusalem from Ramallah, so the bomber had probably come from there. Bethlehem, on the other hand, seemed to him unlikely, because so many soldiers were watching the edge of the town, where the gunmen fired across the valley from Beit Jala, and it would be impossible to sneak past them. The announcer came back with a death toll. He said eight occupiers were reported killed. Omar Yussef snorted. Occupation bargain shoppers. On military operations to buy fresh fish and a bunch of cilantro and two-dollar underpants.

Omar Yussef remembered his one visit to the market where the bomber had died. He had found it unpleasant, dirty and noisy, crowded with people who seemed to have a greater than usual dislike of Arabs. That was years ago, but the people there when the bomber came would have had the same faces, lives identical in their ordinariness. He couldn’t categorize them as occupiers, no matter what their government did to him and his own people. He hated these phrases. They made it so simple for his compatriots to ignore the horror of what one of their own had done to someone’s wife or grandfather. He knew that when the bomber’s name was announced, the dead man’s family would be expected to celebrate. The people who sent the kid to die would mob the family house and shoot their Kalash-nikovs in the air. What was there for the family to cheer? The loss of a son? The imminent destruction of their home in an army reprisal?

The wall in front of Omar Yussef was obscured by four filing cabinets. Government gray, they were almost as tall as he was. When he had come to see the director in the past, he had always sat with his back to the cabinets and hadn’t much noticed them. Now he thought they must loom uncomfortably over the director. The cabinets seemed to threaten to spit out years of worthless paperwork, deluging the desk.

Omar Yussef ran his finger down the titles taped to the front of each drawer. The first two were the educational records of the students. The third was filled with the school’s financial accounts. Omar Yussef stopped at the last one. It was marked: “Personnel.” He bent his knees with a small groan and opened the bottom drawer. He flipped his fingers along the top of the files. Typed along the pink edge, he read his name: SIRHAN, OMAR YUSSEF SUBHI. He wondered what he would do if Wafa entered and saw him looking through confidential personnel files. It wouldn’t matter. Wafa didn’t seem so sad to see Steadman out of the picture, and if someone else came in, they wouldn’t know immediately what was in this drawer.

Omar Yussef lifted his file. It was four inches thick and he needed two hands to wrench it from the crowded tray. The edges of the file were blackened by the dirt of many fingers, more soiled, he thought, than the rest of the staff files next to it. He shoved the drawer shut with his foot, took the grubby file to the desk and dropped it with a deep thud.

The first few pages contained Omar Yussef’s application for the job at the UNRWA Girls School and his references from the Frères School. There was a black-and-white passport– sized photo attached to the corner of the application with a rusting paperclip. Omar Yussef noticed that his moustache had not quite been fully white back then. It was only ten years ago. He stroked the moustache in the photograph and then ran his finger through the bristly hair on his upper lip. Perhaps he ought to shave it. It surely made him look older than he really was, particularly as the remaining hair on his head was white, too. Steadman might have had the idea for him to retire simply because he looked old enough to be a pensioner. If he shaved the moustache and dyed his hair, the next director wouldn’t think of him as an old codger who ought to make way for younger blood. With a pencil he filled in the moustache in the photograph to the gray color of the skin. He took a pen and stroked in dark hair. He looked at the man in the photo. With the new hair and clean lip, he could pass for forty-five years of age, just about. Then he remembered that the man in the old photo was, in fact, only forty-five, and he was thankful that he had cleaned up his lifestyle since then. He put a finger beneath his eye and felt the slack skin there, then he leaned close to the photo and decided that his eyes were baggier a decade before, when he was always up late and sometimes couldn’t sleep at all, so charged up had he been with whisky. He would ask Maryam to buy some hair dye and he would get rid of the moustache.