The Collaborator of Bethlehem

There was something unemotional and organized about Muhammad Abdel Rahman’s answers that disturbed Omar Yussef. He spoke up: “Did Abu Walid come to see you last night?”

Muhammad Abdel Rahman looked angrily at Omar Yussef. “You are not a detective and I’m not a schoolboy. Why should I answer a schoolteacher’s questions? Fuck you. This is not your classroom. Go and order someone else around. I’m not one of your refugee children.”

Khamis Zeydan put his hand on Muhammad Abdel Rah-man’s chest and gave it a warning tap. “Watch your mouth, Abu Louai. I brought ustaz Omar Yussef here as my friend. You had best be civil to him. But it is true that he’s not authorized to investigate.” He looked sharply at Omar Yussef.

“Then you ask him that question,” Omar Yussef said to Khamis Zeydan. “Ask him what I just asked.”

Khamis Zeydan took Omar Yussef aside. “I think he’s already answered it, quite clearly, don’t you?” he whispered, firmly. He turned back to the family. “Let’s go and see the body. There’s no need for you to go through this again Abu Louai. Please wait here.”

Under the pines, Khamis Zeydan looked at Omar Yussef, hard and questioningly. Omar Yussef nodded. The policeman lifted the white sheet.

The body lay on its side. Black hair spread around the head, as though the corpse were drifting in still water. A spray of that hair fell across the face. Khamis Zeydan lifted it and Omar Yussef recognized Dima Abdel Rahman. She was pale and her lips were the color of a bruise. Her eyes were open only slightly, as though she were rousing herself from a long sleep. Her tortuous posture reminded Omar Yussef of the Rodin statuette in George Saba’s living room. He had held that bronze of a prone woman tenderly in his two hands, fearing to let a work of art drop to the ground. He wanted to lift the body of Dima Abdel Rahman, to cradle her as he had the statuette and to discover that she was merely posing for a sculptor. Omar Yussef cursed himself. He had held her just as securely as he did that naked objet d’art. She was his pupil and her father was his friend. He encouraged her to come to this house because he believed she would find love here. Instead, it was a place of death. He had dropped something much more fragile than a bronze cast. He punched a frustrated fist into the palm of his hand.

“Her throat has been cut,” Khamis Zeydan said. “There’s something shoved in her mouth.” He pulled at the end of a piece of cloth until a few damp inches of it dangled from between her teeth. “She’s been gagged.”

Only then did Omar Yussef notice the gash across the jugular and the coagulated blood on Dima’s shoulder and outstretched arm. He experienced the choking sensation once more. The coldness of the morning left him and he was very hot. He removed his flat cap and let the wind chill the sweat on his scalp. He shivered.

Khamis Zeydan lifted the sheet further. Dima’s nightdress was ripped from the hem as far up as her shoulder blades. There were scratches on her naked buttocks.

“Has she been raped?” Omar Yussef asked.

Khamis Zeydan covered the girl with the sheet. “It looks like it, but she’ll have to be examined.”

Omar Yussef came close to Khamis Zeydan. “They are involved, aren’t they? It’s them.”

“The father and brother? Yes, I expect they are the ones who did it.”

Omar Yussef had meant the Martyrs Brigades. He frowned.

“No one could come out here and take a woman from inside the house without the family hearing,” Khamis Zeydan continued. “It had to be the father and brother. It might be an honor killing, or maybe she knew something about them that made them want to silence her.”

“But the father more or less admitted that Abu Walid had been here. That’s why he got so angry when I asked him about it. Maybe it was him. Maybe it was Abu Walid again.”

Khamis Zeydan looked hard at Omar Yussef. “We don’t know who Abu Walid is.”

“I think we do.”

“But we don’t. Not for sure.” There was a warning in Khamis Zeydan’s eyes. “Abu Walid could be any number of different people.”

“There’s only one Abu Walid who could have left behind the bullet casing I showed you.”

“That bullet casing was from a massive machine gun. It’s too bulky to bring on an ambush here.”

“You told me Abu Walid takes that machine gun with him everywhere. It’s his symbol, you said, his emblem. You said he probably even took it to the bathroom with him. So maybe he would bring it to an ambush like this.”

“The Abu Walid to whom you’re referring is a murderer, I agree. But he hasn’t killed anyone without what he, at least, would think of as a good reason.”

“Then we have to find the reason he killed Dima.”

“Then you’d also have to find the reason Muhammad and Yunis would protect him after he killed her.” Khamis Zeydan clicked his tongue. “I shouldn’t have brought you. I thought it would cure you of this obsession. I thought that once you’d seen a dead body you’d realize that you aren’t a policeman. You’re a schoolteacher. Stick with that.”

“You’re right. I’m a schoolteacher. I taught this girl, who now lies dead. I taught George Saba, who’ll be dead soon unless I help him, because nobody else will. I’ll tell you what I taught them, too. I taught them that the world is a good place and that they must use their intelligence and their hearts to contribute to its improvement. Do you see that if I let these things happen without taking any action, I’ve been lying to thousands of little children for decades? Most of all, I’ve been lying to myself.”

“Don’t make it such a big thing. It’s not all about you.”

“Listen to me, sometimes I feel like I’m not in the best of health. I feel that for a man in his mid-fifties I move slowly, my hands shake, I ache in every part of my body. I feel like death is taking me over.”

“You’re not old. This is just your morbid reaction to seeing a corpse.”