The Collaborator of Bethlehem

Omar Yussef looked up. Abu Walid.

“I was in the jail in Jericho for a week,” Halloun said. “I didn’t eat the whole time. They gave me a little water, but the bastards urinated in it and I was so desperate I drank it. They shaved one side of my head and made me wear a dress. In the end, they gave me a phone and I called Nasra. I told her to get the money from the bank and hand it over. Even then, Abu Walid gave me another beating before he sent me home.”

“Who is Abu Walid?”

“Hussein Tamari. The bastard father of a bastard son. Did you never meet Walid, his eldest boy? He’s a bullying swine, too. Ask any teenager around town. They’ve all got their lumps from that nasty scum. Just like his father.”

Omar Yussef felt the weight of the Webley and the two spent cartridges in his pocket. Here was the information he needed. Abu Walid. Was Hussein Tamari the man in the bushes to whom Louai Abdel Rahman spoke before he died? How many men would there be among those gunmen who were known as “the father of Walid”? With Louai dead, Abu Walid took over the Abdel Rahmans’ business. He had a motive, something to gain from Louai’s death. But was he also the killer?

Omar Yussef said farewell to Charles Halloun and Nasra. He drove down the hill to Dehaisha. He had always been sure that George Saba was innocent, but now he believed he knew the identity of the real collaborator. He felt his pulse rise and his knuckles whitened as he gripped the steering wheel tightly. How was he going to prove that George Saba had been set up by the head of the resistance in Bethlehem? He knew that he must carry on, for the sake of George and for the sake of his town, which was quickly becoming a place where these gangsters could do whatever they wanted. Khamis Zeydan had told him this was a dangerous path to take. It wasn’t getting any less risky.

Omar Yussef parked his car in the sandstone garage behind his house. He came in through the basement door and went up to his bedroom. He opened the drawer beneath his closet. His socks filled the drawer, bulbed in matching pairs. He took the Webley from his pocket and shoved it into the back of the pile. He looked about guiltily and closed the drawer.

What did I bring this gun here for? I’m behaving like a detective, he thought. I’m gathering evidence. This gun is evidence, so I have to keep it. But I’m scared. Things could become dangerous, if a man like Hus-sein Tamari is involved. How will I react if Tamari confronts me? Already I’m frightened by the presence of a useless, antique gun amongst my socks. He rolled the two MAG cartridges in his palm, thick and stubby. He imagined them filled with gunpowder and tipped with a lead slug.

Omar Yussef went into the salon. He picked up the phone and dialed Khamis Zeydan.

“I need to talk to George Saba,” he said.

There was a pause. “Come and see me in the morning. At eight A.M. At my office.” Khamis Zeydan hung up.

Omar Yussef sat in silence. He listened to the blood pumping hard through his temple. He thought of what Charles Hal-loun had told him about his income. It wasn’t retirement he was planning for. He wanted to be sure that Maryam would be comfortable if he came to some harm. He felt determined. Nothing would happen to him, so long as George Saba needed his help. If he didn’t stick to his path, George wouldn’t be the last victim of Hussein Tamari.

I’m not a victim, Omar Yussef thought. He held his hand out before him and laughed. For the first time in years, it wasn’t shaking.

Chapter 10

The bells in the Church of the Nativity resounded about Manger Square as Omar Yussef crossed to the police station. The tourist shops on the south side would open later, though few pilgrims braved Bethlehem now. There were no buyers for the cherubic newborn Christs, which lay in silent rows along the shelves in the windows of the Giacomman family’s store, gazing blandly at the equally numerous Virgin Mothers. The earthy scent of yesterday’s foule drifted from the shuttered restaurant next door. Omar Yussef never ate breakfast, but the smell of the fava bean mash made him crave a plate. His hunger made him cold and he pulled his coat up at the collar.

Omar Yussef traversed the carefully laid-out expanse of stone paving and tree planters in the square. In the thin light, the dark buttresses of the Armenian monastery that fronted the church were as foreboding as the tolling bells. The liveliness that he remembered of the church in his youth was gone, swamped by the Muslims of the surrounding camps and villages, who came like him as refugees and with swelling numbers soon felt entitled to treat the once-Christian town as their own. The symbol of Bethlehem, the basilica of the birthplace of Christianity, was beleaguered, its massive stone walls a futile bastion against a hostile religion and a declining congregation. It seemed like a place for burial, not birth. George Saba’s cell was in the police station at the corner of the square closest to the church. Omar Yussef imagined George assaulted by the ominous pealing of the bells that reckoned his slow minutes of imprisonment, just as they chimed a doleful countdown to the extinction of the Christians in his town.

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