historic core and the dignity of its old stones. His friend Khamis Zeydan, Bethlehem’s police chief, traveled to Gaza regularly, and he maintained the place was so broken that it ought to be pulled out into the Mediterranean and sunk, along with the gunmen and corrupt ministers who ran it. Yet this small strip of land-rather than Bethlehem- seemed to represent the desperate reality of the Palestinians: Gaza bellowed and struggled like an injured donkey, while its rulers played the role of the angry farmer, furiously beating the stricken beast, though they knew it couldn’t get up.
Nasser hit the brakes as he raced up behind a slow-moving military convoy, and swore. Omar Yussef glanced at the UN men. They showed no sign of comprehending the crude Arabic curse. He leaned forward and spoke to the driver.
“Shame on you,” he said. “Watch your mouth.”
The driver kicked down a gear and sent the Suburban roaring into the opposite lane to pass the military vehicles.
There were five trucks. The three at the back were small and camouflaged, each filled with so many soldiers that they had to stand. They held onto the shoulders of the men next to them and swayed with the rolling of the trucks across the torn surface of the road. They wore green and khaki camouflage, red berets, and red armbands that bore the words Military Intelligence in white.
The second truck from the front was a flatbed of medium length. At its center, a coffin was draped in the green, white, red and black of the Palestinian flag. A row of soldiers stood on each side of the casket, their legs braced against the movement of the truck, facing forward and trying to stand at attention. Omar Yussef thought they strove for a tough look, but their callow faces were bony and nervous.
The UN driver slowed as he passed the coffin. “There is no god but Allah, and Muhammad is his prophet,” he muttered, in benediction for the dead man. Omar Yussef leaned forward in his seat to get a better view of the coffin. Under the flag, there would be a simple box of unfinished planks with no lid. The dead man would be wrapped in a shroud, his legs tied at the ankles. When they buried him, they would save the coffin to use again.
“You’re on the wrong side of the bloody road, Nasser.” Cree spoke to the driver through his teeth.
Nasser stamped on the accelerator and shot past the coffin, pulling back into the right lane.
Omar Yussef wondered who was in that coffin. This was his first sight of death in Gaza, neatly packaged in a box. He was not a mile from the checkpoint and already death was riding the same road.
Chapter 2
The Masharawi home in the Tuffah neighborhood of Gaza City was stuccoed white over concrete and the doorways were framed with faded purple paint. Its two floors lay behind a shoulder-height garden wall graffitied with the Palestinian flag and a yellow Dome of the Rock. Spiky barbed-wire curlicues encircled the cartoon mosque.
Omar Yussef stepped out of the sandy lane where the Suburban was parked. The path to the house led through a tangle of lemon trees that stood twice as high as the wall. The trees gave off a warm citrus scent, as though they’d been boiled for herb tea by the strong sun. The low cooing of doves came soothingly through the heat. In a corner of the garden, there was a shady olive grove and a bulbous clay taboun, where Masharawi’s wife might have been baking on any normal day. A strange silence reached out from the open doors and windows of the house into the thick midday stillness.
A thin, gangly boy in his teens, whose left ear stuck out at ninety degrees to his head, appeared at the door. His eyes stuttered between the foreigners and the floor. Omar Yussef spoke to him first.
“Greetings,” he said.
“Double greetings, ustaz,” the boy whispered.
“Is this the home of ustaz Masharawi?”
The boy dropped his eyes to the cheap plastic thongs on his feet and nodded.
Cree stepped up to Omar Yussef’s shoulder. The boy leaned backward to look at the towering man. There was a small quiver in his jaw and his eyes were blank and fearful.
“Is Missus Masharawi at home?” Cree said.
“My mother?” the boy asked, in slow English.
“That’s the girl,” Cree said.
The boy didn’t understand. He looked at Omar Yussef, who spoke to him gently in Arabic. “These men are with the UN. They’re here to find out what has happened to your father. Can we talk to your mother?”
“Welcome,” the boy said, again in English.
They followed him inside. The dark hallway was a relief from the hot sun flashing off the white exterior walls. While his eyes adjusted, Omar Yussef blindly trailed the sound of the boy’s plastic thongs slapping against the tiles. The boy led them to the back of the ground floor and gestured to the several thick, floral couches crammed around the edge of the dim, cool room.
“Welcome,” he said again, as Wallender and Cree entered. Then he turned to Omar Yussef and spoke in Arabic: “Like the home of your family and your own home.”
Omar Yussef acknowledged the greeting. “Your family is with you.”
“Do you want tea or coffee, ustaz?”
Omar Yussef translated for Wallender and Cree.
Wallender smiled, asked for coffee and sat quietly. Cree spoke to the boy in a loud voice that was deaf to the unhappy silence of the house. “A coffee it is. Thanks, laddie.”
“I’ll have mine sa’ada,” said Omar Yussef, who always took his coffee like this, without sugar. “And ask your mother to come talk to us, please.”
The boy left the room. The three men sat unmoving on the sofas. There were low sounds from a corner of the house, as though skirts moved quickly in the hush. A cozy hint of burning gas and brewing coffee floated into the room.
In the corner between Omar Yussef and James Cree stood a cheap bookshelf of chipboard covered with a fake wood finish. A row of photographs lined its top. The shelves were bowed by the weight of volumes on education and history in Arabic, French and English, except for one shelf, which was empty. Omar Yussef stood and examined it. He saw no dust, though the lip of each of the other shelves hadn’t been cleaned for months. Something that had covered the entire shelf had been removed.
Omar Yussef assumed the center photo on top of the bookcase was of Eyad Masharawi. The man in the shot held his head slightly to the left. Omar Yussef smiled and wondered if Masharawi had a wildly protruding ear like his son and was vain enough to hide it from the photographer. The man was bald, but the hair at the sides of his head was as richly black as the bitter coffee being prepared in the kitchen. His eyes were hooded, aristocratic, and dark. The mouth was tense and resigned, as if accustomed to exasperating news.
The boy returned with a tray covered, like the bookshelves, with fake wood. He pulled out two small cherry- varnished side tables and put them beside the guests’ knees. Then he laid down the coffees, the first cup before Wallender.
“Allah bless your hands,” said Wallender, quietly using the traditional Arabic formula of gratitude. Omar Yussef smiled at him.
“Allah bless you,” the boy mumbled. He slouched into an armchair in the corner.
Wallender leaned forward and whispered to Omar Yussef. “Should we refer to Mister Masharawi as ustaz?”
“He’s an educated man, a teacher, so it would be respectful to refer to him as ustaz Masharawi,” Omar Yussef said.
He tasted the cardamom-scented coffee and put his cup on the side table. Two women entered the room with measured, silent steps.
The first woman nodded to each of them and whispered her greetings. She wore a long black housecoat with large gold buttons that hung loosely almost to the floor. Her headscarf rounded her face to a gold clasp under her chin. The scarf was cream with a brown floral print around the bottom edge, which fell across her shoulders. Her
