The Collaborator of Bethlehem

When Nadia stepped away from the window, Omar Yussef wanted to hold her, comfort her, strangle the worry that kept her on watch for him the entire time he was with Jihad Awdeh. He felt that urge almost as a physical force, lifting his feet toward home and raising his arms to clasp her. But he knew he must make one last attempt to free George Saba from jail. He wondered if his granddaughter might have a better grasp on reality and the dangers he faced than he did himself.

Omar Yussef turned right along the main road, cut up toward the souk, and headed for Manger Square. The streets were empty, except for occasional jeeps filled with Martyrs Brigades men heading toward the funeral. They poked their rifles out of the windows and fired into the air. Each report from the guns made Omar Yussef jump. It was as though they wished to be certain that their celebration of Hussein’s martyrdom should jar him to his very soul. He breathed heavily as he labored up the hill to the souk and down through the empty alleys of the old town toward the church.

At Manger Square, there was silence. The broad piazza, resurfaced with a pattern of pink and white bricks a few years before for a visit from the pope, glowed faintly in the moonlight and the dim aura of the faux-Parisian gaslamps erected during the renovation. The firing continued in the distance. They would be burying Hussein now at his village, a few miles to the east, near the conical hill of Herodion. Omar Yussef was glad to be in the quietness, instead of the fury that would eat through everyone at the funeral, biting into their core with the irresistibility of pure, communal hatred and vengefulness. He crossed the northern edge of the empty square toward the police station. He glanced over at the Church of the Nativity. Two priests in brown Franciscan surplices bowed their way through the Gate of Humility. They passed along the front of the church, keeping close to the foot of the wall, where it curved inward like the base of a massive fortress.

The guard at the entrance to the police station greeted Omar Yussef. The policeman’s face was bony and undernourished. His eyes were jumpy.

“Is Abu Adel here?”

“Yes, go up to the top of the stairs. His office is there.”

“I know.”

Omar Yussef needed to make one last appeal to Khamis Zey-dan. Perhaps his friend did pass information about Dima Abdel Rahman to Hussein Tamari. Maybe he had caused her death. He might even be an Israeli collaborator who had engineered the killing of Tamari, as Jihad Awdeh suggested. But he was the only contact Omar Yussef had. He was the sole person he knew who held the key to the jail in his hand. There must be some way to persuade him to turn that key in the lock and look the other way while Omar Yussef smuggled George out of Bethlehem.

Khamis Zeydan’s office was dark, except for the light from a single desk lamp. The pool of yellow light illuminated the police chief’s gloved prosthesis. It lay so still on the desktop when Omar Yussef came to the door that he wondered if Khamis Zeydan had detached the hand and left it there out of forgetfulness. The police chief’s pistol lay in the light next to the hand. When he saw the gun, the scene immediately made Omar Yussef think of suicide, the quiet drunken moment of self-contempt in the darkness that would precede death at one’s own hand. He spoke, doubtfully: “Abu Adel?”

The glove lifted and turned the lamp toward Omar Yussef. He raised his hand to block the glare.

“Abu Adel, I’ve come to ask you to forgive me.”

There was silence from the desk. The lamp turned downward, deflecting the light away from Omar Yussef’s face. Its beam guided him to a chair on the other side of the desk. He sat on the edge of the seat.

“I apologize for my earlier anger. I should not have accused you when you called to tell me about Hussein Tamari’s death. I’ve been desperate with worry about George Saba.”

“You ought to think about someone other than George for a change.” Khamis Zeydan’s voice was thick and slurred and self-pitying. Omar Yussef knew that the darkness in the office was intended to prevent any subordinate who might blunder in from witnessing the boss with his whisky bottle.

“You’re right. Abu Adel, you’ve been a good friend to me. I mean that. Right up to this very moment, you’ve been a great friend, and I haven’t always responded. But please understand that it’s only because I’m not used to dealing with the dangers and deceits of these kinds of events. I’m just a schoolteacher.”

“Stick to teaching, I told you.”

“Yes, you did, and you were right.”

“Yeah, I told you, all right. Stick to—”

“I just spoke with Jihad Awdeh.” Even through the darkness of the room, Omar Yussef sensed a change in Khamis Zeydan’s alertness. The mumbling stopped. He was waiting.

Omar Yussef went around the desk. “Jihad believed me when I told him how Hussein Tamari killed Louai and Dima, and how he framed George.”

The shades snapped open. The cloudy moonlight cast strips across Khamis Zeydan’s face. He was upright in his seat with his hand on the cord of the shades. His eyes were intense, narrow, vicious where the light caught them. The shadows looked like tattoos or camouflage.

“You listen to me, Abu Ramiz,” Khamis Zeydan said. He coughed and gathered himself. Omar Yussef saw that the policeman was still drunk, but desperately trying to control himself. “Don’t trust a word Jihad said to you. He’s a crook and a liar. Don’t trust a word. Not a word.”

“He’s the only hope I have.”

“Then you’re lost.”

“I would have preferred to rely on you.”

“There’s nothing I can do.”

“So don’t tell me not to appeal to Jihad, if you won’t help. You have the key to the jail. Let’s go and free George now. We can hide him somewhere until we convince the court that he’s innocent. Maybe Jihad will help us.”

“I don’t know which part of what you just said is the most idiotic. First, I’m still a policeman, so I won’t release a convicted man from his cell. Second, you won’t get into the courtroom, let alone convince them that Hussein Tamari was really the collaborator and killer. Do you think the judges are as eager to get themselves killed as you