The Collaborator of Bethlehem

church and for George Saba. But I was weak. My strength failed and I ran away when Awdeh held his gun on me and told me to leave the church.”

“Is he alone?”

“Just him. Oh, God, I wanted to stay there and guard the church. I’m sorry, Abu Ramiz, I didn’t have the strength.”

“You were alone in the church, Elias. You did your best.” Omar Yussef pitied the distraught man before him. “Where exactly is he hiding?”

“He was in front of the altar, but he could be anywhere now. The soldiers will come here, Abu Ramiz. The soldiers will come and invade the church to arrest him. It’ll be a disaster. It was as though I was confronted by the Devil himself.” Elias Bishara wiped his glasses on the loose sleeve of his robe. He looked up. “But what are you doing here, Abu Ramiz?”

Omar Yussef looked toward the dark gate into the church. Jihad Awdeh was in there, somewhere.

“Abu Ramiz, it’s about George, isn’t it? That’s why you came here.” Elias Bishara held the lapels of Omar Yussef’s jacket. “Don’t sacrifice yourself, Abu Ramiz. Jihad will kill you, right here in the church. You can’t take him on.”

Omar Yussef laid his hand on Elias Bishara’s arm. “I have to learn my own lessons, Elias,” he said.

The monk gave a barely audible sob. Then, he stepped back and nodded.

Omar Yussef paused at the Gate of Humility. There would be no other monks about. In his pounding heart, he knew there was only one man inside the Church of the Nativity.

Bending, he went through the low Gate. He straightened and rubbed the small of his back. The narthex of the church was pitch black and silent. He remembered what Jihad Awdeh told Leila. As soon as the soldiers came, he would flee to the Church of the Nativity. The Israelis wouldn’t dare enter the birthplace of Jesus to arrest him. The world would be outraged, if they did. Omar Yussef thought about that: why should anyone be angry on the part of that man, that murderous bloody man? In Europe they wouldn’t know the reality of Jihad Awdeh’s life. They might even think of him as a hero, or believe that the people of Bethlehem at least saw him that way. So the Israelis wouldn’t come here for him. But Omar Yussef would.

He ran over the layout of the church in his mind. He walked himself through memories of so many visits to the old Byzantine basilica, of the Christian friends who had married or baptized their babies here and invited Omar Yussef to share the occasion. He rarely came to the church now. The Christians had been driven almost underground. They went to Chile, where George Saba ought to have stayed. Or they took Holy Orders, as Elias Bishara had, and hid themselves behind the fortress walls of the church. It seemed appropriate that the church where Christianity was born should be shrouded in 5:00 A.M. darkness, cold and barren, as he found it now.

Omar Yussef moved into the main basilica. He went left to cover himself behind the red limestone pillars of the Franciscan cloister, moving carefully. He hid behind a pillar decorated by the Crusaders with a painting of St. Cathal. The Irishman glared down at him, his beard sharp, his oval face terrible and white, lined thickly with black, as though caught in the moment when the Almighty had informed him of the precise tortures that would lead to his martyrdom. Or perhaps it was the severe face of a man who knew the sordid conditions under which you would perish, poor sinner, gazing up from the cold stone floor of the church. Omar Yussef shivered and looked away from the harsh portrait. He peered toward the Greek Orthodox altar. The first gray light of a damp dawn glinted through the high windows onto the gold lamps, strung above the aisle on long chains. He had to move fast. He needed the darkness to disguise the antiquity of the Webley.

The sound of a man coughing stuttered from the direction of the altar. The cough was protracted, then the man expectorated. Omar Yussef heard the quick, impatient, repeated rasp of a cigarette lighter that wouldn’t catch. The unseen man cursed and tried the lighter again. Then the noise stopped.

Omar Yussef took the Webley from his belt and moved toward the back of the church. He came out into the open aisle, but could see no one at the altar. Then the cough came again, and he knew that Jihad Awdeh was hiding in the Nativity Cave. A dimly flickering glow illuminated the broad, fan-shaped stairs to the cave at the side of the altar. Omar Yussef listened. The cave was silent. He took the first step down, and the next. With each movement, he wondered what the hell he was doing. Jihad Awdeh might not be alone. He might call his bluff with the Webley. Omar Yussef descended further. He remembered that the cave was about six yards wide and ten yards long. The wide staircase funneled down to two entrances, both at the same end of the grotto. Tourists went down one set of stairs and came up the other, after they bent to kiss the ring of bronze beneath which, according to the monks, was the very spot where Jesus’s manger had lain. Where would Jihad Awdeh be? Probably as far as possible from the stairs, to give himself time to react in case the soldiers came.

Omar Yussef reached the bottom of the steps. He held the gun in his left hand, so that when he turned into the cave his body would keep its detail obscured from the orange glow. He stepped around the corner.

Jihad Awdeh looked up and smiled at the schoolteacher. “So they sent the special forces.” He laughed and took a pack of Marlboros out of his pocket. He flicked the cigarette lighter a few times before he got a flame. He must have been lighting a candle when Omar Yussef had heard him upstairs, not a cigarette.

Omar Yussef squinted into the dim light. Jihad Awdeh’s Kalashnikov lay on the floor in front of him. The gunman had a small rucksack, presumably loaded with food in case of a siege. Omar Yussef wondered if there were explosives in the backpack. He might intend to take the cave, or the church, or anyone who came for him to Paradise at his side. Beneath his Astrakhan hat, Jihad Awdeh’s head was bandaged from the blow it took when the tank shell hit the Saba house.

“Get up and come with me,” Omar Yussef said.

“Come where? Are you collaborating with the Israelis still? Are they waiting outside the church for you to bring me in?” Jihad Awdeh laughed, and it echoed like a hundred angry voices around the low cave.

“You’re the collaborator, Jihad.” He wasn’t himself sure if he was bluffing and he didn’t care. He spoke with the conviction of a man who had seen so much wrong that he needed now to assert what he knew was right.

Jihad Awdeh’s smile disappeared. “If I’m a collaborator, why am I hiding from the Israelis in the middle of the night?”

“You must have done something to turn them against you,” Omar Yussef said. “You must have gone too far even for them.”

The bitter grin returned to Jihad Awdeh’s face. He pushed the gray Astrakhan hat back on his head and slipped a finger under his bandage to scratch his scalp. “Fuck your mother, schoolteacher. Are you a good shot?”