“Thank you, Mahmoud.” Omar Yussef sat in Steadman’s chair. “Perhaps you had better return to your guard duty before Brigadier Zeydan gets annoyed that you’re gone.”
“You’re right,
When Mahmoud Zubeida left the room, the school secretary came to the doorway.
“Greetings, Abu Ramiz,” she said.
“Double greetings, Wafa.”
“Are you here to help clean up the school?”
Omar Yussef put his palms flat on the rough wooden desktop. He couldn’t spare the time to organize workmen and teachers. In twenty-eight hours, George Saba’s execution was scheduled to be carried out. But he couldn’t see how to proceed. He needed the police to help him, yet Khamis Zeydan was either dismissive of his concern with the matter or even involved in the cover-up. There was no use in rushing all over town talking to lesser officials. They would simply refer him to Khamis Zeydan or tell him to keep his head down for fear of incurring the wrath of the Martyrs Brigades. Well, that wrath was already thoroughly incurred. There was a charred schoolroom and a dead American to prove it. It might be better to remain close to the policemen for a while as they sifted through the bombsite. Though he thought Khamis Zeydan was in touch with the killers, no one would try to murder him while the school was full of investigators, workmen and teachers. Perhaps he should stay here and think things through.
“Wafa, tell all the other teachers to check their classrooms for damage. I’ll call the Jerusalem office and arrange for them to send workmen to repair everything.”
Wafa nodded. “Do you think they will send another American to be in charge of the school, Abu Ramiz?”
“I haven’t thought about it, Wafa.”
The secretary smiled. “I suppose you don’t have to retire now, anyway.”
“Wafa, you’re terrible.”
Wafa laughed and closed the door.
Omar Yussef sat in the quiet room, listening to the dim sounds of the policemen in the destroyed classroom. Wafa was right: he no longer faced a boss who wanted to get rid of him. The hateful government schools inspector would have to start working on the new director all over again, and this time Omar Yussef would prepare to defend himself more thoroughly. Suddenly his career prospects were brighter than they had been for months. For the first time since Steadman began to push for him to leave the school, he once again had something to lose. He considered for an instant that his attempt to clear George Saba risked that new security. He was immediately ashamed of the selfish thought, but he acknowledged that it was there.
He turned on the small stereo Steadman kept on a shelf behind his desk. He tuned the radio to the government’s local news channel. Perhaps there would be an announcement of clemency or some other change in the case of George Saba. Even if there were some news for the worse, he would want to hear it as he sat in the office wondering what to do next. There might even be a report about the bomb in the school. He picked up the phone and dialed the UN office in Jerusalem.
Chapter 20
Bethlehem Radio broke into its morning discussion program with news of a martyrdom. This martyr sacrificed himself, the radio announcer intoned, when he detonated a bomb he carried to Jerusalem. He died in a street by a market called Mahaneh Yehuda. There was no more detail, but the announcer said he would be back with news of the martyr’s identity and the number of dead as soon as it was available. The gravity in his voice couldn’t quite disguise the excitement.
Omar Yussef waited in Christopher Steadman’s office for the UN’s Jerusalem headquarters to call him back and tell him when the workers would arrive to fix the classroom damaged in their own bombing that morning. The police finished rummaging through the destroyed schoolroom and, with all the students sent home, the place was quiet.
The discussion program switched to speculation about the likely origin of the bomber. One of the commentators believed that presently it was easiest to enter Jerusalem from Ramallah, so the bomber had probably come from there. Bethlehem, on the other hand, seemed to him unlikely, because so many soldiers were watching the edge of the town, where the gunmen fired across the valley from Beit Jala, and it would be impossible to sneak past them. The announcer came back with a death toll. He said eight occupiers were reported killed. Omar Yussef snorted. Occupation bargain shoppers. On military operations to buy fresh fish and a bunch of cilantro and two-dollar underpants.
Omar Yussef remembered his one visit to the market where the bomber had died. He had found it unpleasant, dirty and noisy, crowded with people who seemed to have a greater than usual dislike of Arabs. That was years ago, but the people there when the bomber came would have had the same faces, lives identical in their ordinariness. He couldn’t categorize them as occupiers, no matter what their government did to him and his own people. He hated these phrases. They made it so simple for his compatriots to ignore the horror of what one of their own had done to someone’s wife or grandfather. He knew that when the bomber’s name was announced, the dead man’s family would be expected to celebrate. The people who sent the kid to die would mob the family house and shoot their Kalash-nikovs in the air. What was there for the family to cheer? The loss of a son? The imminent destruction of their home in an army reprisal?
The wall in front of Omar Yussef was obscured by four filing cabinets. Government gray, they were almost as tall as he was. When he had come to see the director in the past, he had always sat with his back to the cabinets and hadn’t much noticed them. Now he thought they must loom uncomfortably over the director. The cabinets seemed to threaten to spit out years of worthless paperwork, deluging the desk.
Omar Yussef ran his finger down the titles taped to the front of each drawer. The first two were the educational records of the students. The third was filled with the school’s financial accounts. Omar Yussef stopped at the last one. It was marked: “Personnel.” He bent his knees with a small groan and opened the bottom drawer. He flipped his fingers along the top of the files. Typed along the pink edge, he read his name: SIRHAN, OMAR YUSSEF SUBHI. He wondered what he would do if Wafa entered and saw him looking through confidential personnel files. It wouldn’t matter. Wafa didn’t seem so sad to see Steadman out of the picture, and if someone else came in, they wouldn’t know immediately what was in this drawer.
Omar Yussef lifted his file. It was four inches thick and he needed two hands to wrench it from the crowded
