“Umm Ramiz asked me to come over and help,” she said. “Such a terrible mess down there.”
When she mentioned his wife, Omar Yussef felt ashamed and silly for his fantasies about Leila. He drank the coffee and breathed heavily.
“Leila, thank you for everything.”
“What are neighbors for these days, Abu Ramiz?”
The coffee had the delicious grittiness that Omar Yussef loved. He finished drinking and handed the cup to Leila on its gold-leaf saucer. “Speaking of neighbors, I hear you have a new arrival in your building,” he said.
“Not just in our building. In the apartment right next door. It makes me shiver to think that those men and all their guns are just on the other side of the wall from the room where my children sleep.”
“Is it only Jihad Awdeh and his family?”
“The family, yes. There’s his wife and two children, I think. But at all hours there are so many men, with all kinds of guns and I don’t know what. Last night I was sure the tanks that tore up the road outside had come to get him, or to destroy our entire building. I am just waiting for that night, and I’m certain it will come.”
“I’m sure it won’t happen, Leila.”
“Then you’re the only one who feels such certainty. Even the Martyrs Brigades are preparing for it.”
“What do you mean? They’re fortifying the apartment?”
“No, they’re planning where they’ll run and hide. I went to Jihad Awdeh and asked him to keep his guns inside the apartment, so that my kids don’t see them in the hall when they’re out playing. He was very nice to me. He told me he’d keep the weapons out of the way. He seemed to like me, so I asked him if he wasn’t worried that the Israelis would come for him.”
“What did he say?”
“He said, ‘I can see that you are worried I will draw the Jews down on your head, my sister. Don’t worry. If they invade our town, I will leave the apartment. My family is here, after all, and I want them to be secure, too. I plan to take refuge inside the Church of the Nativity. The Jews won’t dare enter, and so I’ll be safe.’”
“He would hide inside the church? He has no respect.”
“I don’t think it’s a matter of respect with him, Abu Ramiz. He’s fighting them to the death, by the looks of all the weaponry in his apartment. He’d do anything to get away from the Israelis, even if it means hiding in the very crypt where Jesus was born.”
“Would the monks let him in?”
“I suppose that depends whether he holds a gun on them or not, doesn’t it? Not everyone wants to be a martyr.” Leila stood and took the coffee cup away. “The monks would also have to consider whether barring the gunmen from the church would make it look like all the town’s Christians were against the resistance. Everyone calls the Christians collaborators. Here would be their proof, right?”
Omar Yussef heard Leila’s footsteps receding to the kitchen. The coffee cup tinkled as she set it down, then she descended the stairs to help with the clean up.
So Jihad Awdeh would run to the Church of the Nativity when the Israelis came for him. If he had a few minutes warning, the gunman could quickly be into the narrow streets of the
It was a plan that might save Jihad Awdeh, but it would be a disaster for Bethlehem. Perhaps the Israelis would attack the church after all. Some of the priests might be killed. Or they might kick Jihad Awdeh out of the church and the town’s Muslims would turn on the Christians. Omar Yussef wondered if he ought not to pass on the information to someone in the church hierarchy. With warning, they might be able to lock the gates and keep the gunmen out. He would go to Elias Bishara and warn him. When his back was better.
Omar Yussef wanted to lie down again, but he was stuck in the upright position in which Leila had left him. He edged a little lower in the bed, but only succeeded in sliding his back into a painful curve. With a great effort, he dropped onto his side and lay panting, his heavy breathing rasping in time with the throbbing in the small of his back.
It was in this position that Khamis Zeydan found him in the early evening. Omar Yussef heard the police chief’s hearty voice downstairs and Maryam’s answering laughter. She was enjoying the crisis, her anger at what the Israelis had done mitigated by the generosity with which her friends came to her aid. Omar Yussef knew that Khamis Zeydan would come upstairs to see him. He struggled to roll onto his back, but he couldn’t move. He was sweating thickly when the police chief entered.
“Abu Ramiz, you look terrible.” Khamis Zeydan pulled a chair to the edge of the bed. He was about to sit when he decided to shift Omar Yussef into a more comfortable position. “Let’s get you sitting straight.”
“I can manage,” Omar Yussef said.
“Even so.” Khamis Zeydan lifted his old friend and sat him with a pillow behind his back against the center of the headboard.
Omar Yussef shoved him away. “Leave me alone.”
Khamis Zeydan retained the good humor he had shared with Maryam and the crowd downstairs. He waved his black-gloved prosthetic hand, playfully. “This reminds me of the time I was shot in the back in Damascus, after I escaped from Jordan during Black September. Did I ever tell you about that? I was almost arrested by King Hussein, and I had to escape across the Jordanian border to Syria with Abu Bakr, you know, my friend from Majdal who’s now down in Gaza working for General Intelligence. But we knew someone was following us. In the end, they got to me when I was about to leave for Lebanon. The doctors said I was very lucky the bullet didn’t hit my spine, or I’d be in even worse health than you now. Of course, I imagine the only thing that
