The Collaborator of Bethlehem

someone in the security forces about this, you might find they’re working for the Israelis. They could silence you because you threaten to expose one of their agents. Also, the people who arrested George Saba wouldn’t have just picked him up without reason. This was a good excuse to even a score with someone who must have crossed them. That’s how it works these days.”

Omar Yussef thought of the night he had watched George Saba rush into the darkness toward the gunmen firing from his house. Someone who must have crossed them. He cursed himself for walking homeward down the hill, instead of helping George. Perhaps George ran into men that night whose ghastly revenge was now under way.

Maryam put her hand on Omar Yussef’s arm. “Don’t do anything risky. You always criticize me for saying how bad these swine are. But the Israelis could come right in here and take you away, if they think you’re trying to expose one of their collaborators.”

“I haven’t done anything,” Omar Yussef said, irritated. “The Israelis aren’t coming for me.”

“Don’t even think about doing anything. Please, Dad,” Ramiz said.

Omar Yussef was about to reply, but Ramiz raised his eyebrows and gestured with his head toward the kitchen door. Nadia was leaning against the doorframe, looking concerned. She held her index and middle fingers in her mouth, nervously. Sara came past the girl from the kitchen, carrying the tea. Omar Yussef wondered if Nadia had listened for long. He cursed the weakness he had shown. Because he thought he could save George Saba and protect the legacy of his teaching, he risked bringing his family into contact with the dirty side of the intifada. If he wanted a legacy, it was standing in the doorway, looking frightened, and it was he who scared it. He was a schoolteacher. He was not a detective. He could feel the bullet casing in his jacket pocket even now. It felt like a ton of molten metal. He wondered how soon he might get rid of it.

He held up a slice of apple. Nadia came forward with a half smile and reached for it. As she did so, her eyes caught something in the frosted glass of the front door. Omar Yussef turned to follow her gaze. There was someone there, silhouetted by the streetlamp and wearing a military beret. He felt a flash of fright and dropped the apple, before Nadia could take it.

The figure reached out and knocked on the door.

Chapter 6

Keeping his eyes on the door, Omar Yussef rose slowly from his seat. He felt a little nauseous. The silhouette outside rocked from left to right, as though it were trying to keep warm in the night chill. It knocked again. Maryam stood. She gave her husband a look of concern before she went to the door and opened it.

“Ah, Abu Adel,” Maryam said, warmly. “Come in, come in.”

Omar Yussef felt his legs weaken with relief. He rested his hands on the table for support. He didn’t have the constitution for a dangerous life.

The man at the door gave a bluff laugh. “I just stopped in to say, All the year, may you be well.”

The family replied with other traditional Ramadan formulas. “May Allah accept from us and from you,” Omar Yussef said.

Nadia reached around her grandfather and took another slice of apple. She smiled at him as she bit into it, and the grin returned to him a little of his strength. He went down to the other end of the table to greet Khamis Zeydan.

“Consider yourself with your family and at home,” Omar Yussef said, in welcome.

Khamis Zeydan acknowledged the greeting and gave his friend five kisses on his cheeks. His face was scratchy with gray unshaven bristles. His eyes showed crafty amusement, relaxing from the accustomed state of high alert Omar Yussef noticed in them each time he ran into his friend about town. From the playful glint in those eyes, he figured Khamis Zeydan was already into the sauce pretty far tonight.

The Bethlehem police chief removed the blue beret that, in silhouette, had frightened Omar Yussef and smoothed his white hair, cut short and combed forward. He folded the hat and wedged it under his epaulette, which bore a white eagle, on the shoulder of his dark blue shirt.

Khamis Zeydan was the same age as Omar Yussef. They had known each other since their time as students in Damascus. In those days, they had been opponents in the bad-tempered politics of the university. Khamis Zeydan was an early devotee of Palestinian nationalism. He scorned Omar Yussef’s faith that the Arabs would unite and liberate Palestine. Well, he was right about that. In Damascus, Omar Yussef and Khamis Zey-dan had grown close, not over politics but over whisky. The two did their drinking and womanizing together, though Khamis Zeydan, taller and blessed with blue eyes as rich as lapis, was more successful with girls. Khamis Zeydan followed the PLO around the Mediterranean from Jordan to Syria, to Lebanon and Tunis. He lost touch with Omar Yussef because of the communication restrictions of the Israelis, and he lost his left hand to a grenade in Beirut. When he came to Bethlehem as chief of police their friendship was renewed.

Omar Yussef had been delighted by his friend’s coming. Khamis Zeydan seemed to have changed so little, at first. But he soon saw that his friend the Police Brigadier Khamis Zeydan was dreadfully disillusioned and, as a result, often self-destructively drunk. Sometimes, when Omar Yussef stopped in at his office in the new police station on the corner of Manger Square, the reek of scotch in the warm room had turned the air stale and urinous.

When Khamis Zeydan came through the front door at the end of the iftar, the aura of alcohol about him was thick enough that Omar Yussef wondered if his friend would treat the children to one of his angry, foul-mouthed tirades about the government and his corrupt police colleagues. The amusement in the policeman’s eyes suggested he wasn’t far enough into his drunk to have uncovered his rage, but Omar Yussef didn’t want to take the chance. With his hand on his friend’s firm shoulder, he guided Khamis Zeydan into the salon.

The two settled into the heavy gold-embroidered armchairs. Maryam looked in through the door. “Abu Adel, what would you like? Can I bring you some sweets?” she said, smiling at Khamis Zeydan.

“Maryam, our friend is diabetic,” Omar Yussef said. “Bring him a qahweh sa’ada, and the same for me.” He turned to Khamis Zeydan and shook his finger. “I won’t let her corrupt you.”

“I am corrupt to the core,” Khamis Zeydan said, laughing. “Umm Ramiz, I will eat whatever you set before me. I’m sure it will be the tastiest food with which a man may break his fast.”