The Collaborator of Bethlehem

Omar Yussef sat, exhausted. It was 11:15 P.M. The trial had lasted no time at all. Spectators shoved along the rows of chairs to leave, chatting about the scene as though it were a sporting occasion. Most had looked forward to a resolute defense that would draw the prosecutor to reveal more shocking details of George Saba’s collaboration, in order to prove the case beyond all argument. Yet they satisfied themselves that at least the man would die.

When the crowd was gone, Omar Yussef stood and prepared to follow. He looked back toward the door. In the last row of chairs, a man wept on the arm of a priest. It was Habib Saba, whose shaking head rested against the black robe of Elias Bishara. Omar Yussef went slowly through the jumble of chairs and sat beside the old man.

“I had to wait until everyone left, Abu Ramiz,” Habib Saba said. “I had to wait, or they would have noticed who I was.”

“They should have seen you. They should have been forced to acknowledge that George has a father who weeps for him. They treated him like someone who isn’t human, Abu George.”

“It’s all over for him, Abu Ramiz. They’ll kill him now.”

“It takes some time for the president to sign the death warrant. We will clear his name in the meantime. Don’t worry.” Omar Yussef pulled a monogrammed handkerchief from his trouser pocket and gave it to Habib Saba. “Now that we know that we are working on a deadline, it will only make our efforts more forceful.”

“It can’t be done, Abu Ramiz. It just can’t. They don’t need evidence against him. How can you prove that a case is false when they didn’t even need to make a case? He was guilty automatically, because he’s Christian, because he’s not one of them.”

“I refuse to accept this.”

Habib Saba looked up. His red eyes seemed suddenly surprised and fearful. He looked pleadingly back and forth between Omar Yussef and Elias Bishara. “Abu Ramiz, are you going to make more trouble for us?”

“More trouble? I want to aid you in saving your son.” Omar Yussef would have been appalled, if the long years of their friendship hadn’t made him forgiving of Habib Saba’s desperation and helplessness.

“Don’t try. They will kill George, and then they will come and kill me and his family and destroy our house. You’ll see. If you force them to cover their tracks, they’ll obliterate everyone.”

“So you would let George die? He is to be a martyr to save your house?”

“Abu Ramiz.” Elias Bishara raised a cautionary eyebrow at his old schoolteacher. “We are all too emotional.”

Omar Yussef immediately regretted his harshness. He thought of Dima Abdel Rahman’s body, face down in the pines with her buttocks scratched. Habib Saba was right. Dima was probably a casualty of his attempt to investigate the truth behind Louai’s murder and to clear George of the charge of collaboration. He felt a flash of fear, as though the Martyrs Brigades might be waiting for him at that moment, to add his name to the list of corpses. He looked about the courtroom, but saw that it was empty, except for a single policeman stationed at the door.

Habib Saba collapsed against Omar Yussef’s sleeve. “I know you love him, Abu Ramiz. You’ve been a better guide to him than his father ever was able to be. I’ve been selfish and weak, and I still am. I don’t deserve a son like him.” He raised his voice and cried out: “I want them to shoot me instead of him. I want them to shoot me.”

Omar Yussef put his arm around Habib Saba’s back and slipped it beneath his arm. He lifted him with difficulty to his feet. Elias Bishara took most of the weight. The three men went slowly to the door.

The policeman at the exit stepped hesitantly forward. “Abu Ramiz,” he said, tentatively, as though he hardly dared speak to Omar Yussef. “I have a girl in your class. Khadija Zubeida.”

Omar Yussef thought a moment. “You are Mahmoud. Khadija told me about you.” He remembered how the girl had come into the classroom with her father’s exaggerated, hateful account of George Saba’s arrest. He wanted to tell the policeman that he was a participant in a disgusting travesty and that he was breeding the ugliest strain of his people’s wickedness into his daughter. Then he felt the heaviness of Habib Saba against his shoulder and heard the old man sob. He thought of how Habib suffered for failing his child. Omar Yussef nodded at the policeman. “Khadija is a bright girl,” he said.

The policeman smiled broadly. “Thank you, ustaz,” he said. As Omar Yussef and the priest took Habib Saba through the door, the policeman turned out the lights.

Chapter 17

The sentence of death on George Saba was five hours old when the bulldozer came to Omar Yussef’s house. He heard its approach, through the most silent hour of the night, as he sat sleepless in his salon, his blank stare fixed on the sideboard where he kept the bottle of Johnny Walker for Khamis Zeydan’s visits. He wanted a taste of the whisky now, raw and scorching in his throat. Because it was forbidden. Because it would damage him and he didn’t care. Because it would make him numb. So he sat through those five hours, alone, choked and stifled by the absolute stillness outside and the chaotic frenzy of his frustration. He looked toward the dark window and wondered why the streets weren’t full of people as angry as him, so that he could join them and cry out that an innocent man was condemned to die.

The electricity went out at 4:00 A.M., but Omar Yussef remained in his seat. He welcomed the darkness, because it let him forget the room, the town, the land in which he lived. He pulled his jacket around him as the deepest time of the night chilled the house. He touched the MAG cartridge casings in his pocket. They had been heated by the pressure of his hip. How could things that were components to an instrument of death be warmed by his body, when he felt so cold? He stood and moved toward the sideboard. He would have that drink.

In the dark, he hit his shin against the coffee table and cursed under his breath. He stepped to the sideboard, but the pain in his leg had cleansed him of the desire for the whisky. The shooting tremors from the nerves in his leg told him what was good for him. He must feel everything now, not dull it with alcohol. He had to remain aware, clearly and fully, knowing how important it was that he should not lose heart nor become distracted. He must be the opposite of Habib Saba. He could not be weak, self-centered. If he was lonely and miserable here in his dark, chilly living room, how much more sad and frozen must George Saba be in his cell, huddled in Omar Yussef’s small overcoat against the night winds blustering through the bars in the windows? How much colder still in the ground where Dima lay buried? The thought of her undignified end, her body exposed and violated, filled him with a desire