Chapter 23
At the door of Jihad Awdeh’s apartment building, there were two guards. One of them tucked his cigarette into the corner of his mouth to free his hands and, with his eye squinting against the smoke, patted down Omar Yussef. As he was searched, Omar Yussef glanced back across the street at his own house. Silhouetted in the window of the living room he recognized his granddaughter Nadia. It was the stillness of the outline that told him it was her, watchful and tense as her grandfather went into danger. A few moments before, it had seemed to him that he had nothing to lose by this desperate attempt to influence the new head of the town’s most wicked gang of killers. That silent, unmoving shadow in the window of his home gave him a pang of doubt. Perhaps he ought to make an excuse, tell the gunman searching him that he had forgotten something and head home. The search concluded. The guard took a long drag on the cigarette and told him to go up the stairs. If he turned to leave now, they would be suspicious.
On the staircase, it occurred to Omar Yussef that the Israelis might try to assassinate Jihad Awdeh tonight, just as they had killed Hussein Tamari. He wondered if the helicopter missile would blast through the window even as he sat with the new chief of the Martyrs Brigades. From the window, Nadia would see the streak of orange from the tail of the missile as it roared in to kill her grandfather, and then the puff of gray smoke from the window, the vaporized remains of the glass and concrete and of Omar Yussef’s body. He breathed deeply as the door of Jihad Awdeh’s apartment opened for him.
The boy who held the door for Omar Yussef was about Nadia’s age. He pulled the laquered cherrywood door back and stepped aside, giving Omar Yussef a brief glance of contempt and hostility. Across the living room, Jihad Awdeh sat on a sofa. He was surrounded by Martyrs Brigades men. There were at least a dozen and the room seemed very crowded. Omar Yussef was surprised and relieved that Jihad Awdeh appeared to be in good spirits. He had expected that the death of Hussein Tamari might have made Awdeh fearful or angry. Instead, he seemed to be enjoying his new status as the boss of the gang. He laughed loudly at a joke, took a small square of baklava from a tray his daughter carried around the room, and scooped a handful of sunflower seeds from a bowl on the coffee table.
Jihad Awdeh glanced across the room at the open door. His eyes darkened for a moment when he noticed his visitor, but the smile remained in place and he beckoned Omar Yussef forward.
“I’m happy that you have come, and I wish your welcome to be a good one,” Jihad Awdeh said. He moved very close to Omar Yussef, who sat on the edge of the couch.
“I’m happy to be welcomed at your home,” Omar Yussef muttered. It seemed strange to speak the formulas of politeness in these circumstances.
Jihad Awdeh picked a piece of baklava from his daughter’s tray and handed it to Omar Yussef, dripping honey and syrup. The sweetness seemed deceptive, excessive, sickly. He told himself to be on his guard against this man’s sudden charm.
Jihad Awdeh smiled and spat the empty pods of sunflower seeds into his hand. He dropped them in a crystal ashtray and stuffed another couple of seeds into his mouth. His jaw worked on the seeds, pressing their edges between his molars to open the pods, so that his sustained smile seemed to want to consume, like the threateningly bared fangs of an aggressive dog.
Omar Yussef tried to ease the memory of their confrontation at Hussein Tamari’s headquarters two days ago. “My condolences on the death of the brother Hussein,” he said. “May Allah be merciful to him.”
Jihad Awdeh nodded and let his smile fade into seriousness for a moment. Then he put his hand on Omar Yussef’s knee and leaned close. “You didn’t like him, Abu Ramiz, did you?” he whispered.
Omar Yussef stared at the powerful hand on his leg. The nails were long and yellow, like the claws of a wild animal. He said nothing.
Jihad Awdeh laughed. “Neither did I.” He nodded. “I didn’t like him at all. Now what do you want, Abu Ramiz? My time is limited, as the funeral of the martyr Hussein and his bodyguards is to be held in half an hour.”
It surprised Omar Yussef that Jihad Awdeh would admit to his dislike of Hussein Tamari, even in a hushed voice. He remembered that Khamis Zeydan had told him Hussein’s men would often scorn Jihad, even to his face, as a member of a small clan of refugees. Hussein had born the confidence of a man who belonged, whose entire village would back him against any threat. Jihad Awdeh’s clan was not powerful, even in the refugee camp on the northern edge of Bethlehem where most of his relatives lived. Omar Yussef wondered if Jihad Awdeh might not be less aggressive toward him tonight because he finally had Tamari’s clan where he wanted them. In that instant, he thought of the Abdel Rahmans, who lost their protection with the death of Louai in the pine grove. Jihad Awdeh still needed to make a show of bereavement, because most of the Martyrs Brigades men belonged to Tamari’s clan, but he had taken over the gang just as surely as Hussein Tamari had robbed the defenseless Abdel Rahmans of their autoshops.
“Perhaps we should talk privately, Jihad,” Omar Yussef said.
Jihad Awdeh nodded and, taking Omar Yussef’s hand in his, he led him onto the small balcony at the back of the living room. “I won’t turn on the light, Abu Ramiz, in case there are snipers watching for me.”
Omar Yussef looked out into the darkness, nervously. A rocky slope descended from the next houses to the base of the apartment building. The rocks, white in the moonlight, seemed to move about on the dark earth. Omar Yussef felt the stones scrutinizing him, stalking him, but he knew that the tension he sensed when he looked into the dark was all because of the man who stood beside him.
Jihad Awdeh lit a cigarette and spat the last of his sunflower seed pods over the balcony. He held his palm upward, gesturing for Omar Yussef to speak.
“Jihad, I know that Hussein was the one who collaborated with the Israelis in the death of Louai Abdel Rahman.” Omar Yussef waited for a reaction, but Jihad Awdeh took another drag on his cigarette and was silent. Omar Yussef smelled the acrid exhalation and wished he could have taken a smoke himself. “I went to Irtas after Louai was killed. I found a MAG cartridge on the ground. It was in a patch of grass that had been flattened by a man lying there. Louai’s wife Dima told me there had been someone waiting for her husband. She heard Louai say hello to someone called Abu Walid. Then something like a red laser dot appeared on him and he was shot. You know that Hussein was called Abu Walid and that he used a MAG. No one else in Bethlehem has that kind of gun.”
