smoke-filled rooms, the dirty maneuvers, and the violence. In Gaza, I drink because it’s part of the biggest buzz imaginable. Even this incident this morning gives me a kick.”
Omar Yussef pushed the police chief’s hand away.
“It’s true,” Khamis Zeydan said. “Here I am, the man you call your friend. I’m not proud of it and I wouldn’t tell anyone else, but Gaza feels like the good old days, back in Lebanon with the Old Man, before we messed everything up.”
“By Allah, what could be more messed up than Gaza?” Omar Yussef said.
“The truth is, we should’ve stayed underground forever. We can’t govern.”
“This place is governed according to the rules of the Middle Ages.”
“Come on, history teacher. No lectures.”
There were footsteps on the staircase.
“Feuding emirs, unnamable fear you can taste in every particle of dust in this storm, and death,” Omar Yussef said. “Death even for those like Husseini who’re accustomed to wielding it.” Omar Yussef grabbed his friend’s shoulders so that their faces were close. “That’s not history. That’s the present.”
One of the policemen arrived in the doorway, panting. He leveled his Kalashnikov. Omar Yussef laughed with a rasping exhalation. He walked toward the door.
“Identify yourself,” the policeman said. He was slim and young and his thin mustache twitched.
Omar Yussef glared at him. “I’m the Emir Saladin, that’s who I am. Now get out of my way, I’m going to eat breakfast. There’s a boy in that room who’s dead because you were too busy eating your breakfast to do your job.”
The policeman stepped back and dropped the barrel of his rifle to his knees. A second policeman came up the stairs, breathing heavily. He looked with confusion at Omar Yussef and leaned against the banister to let him pass.
Chapter 21
Omar Yussef was into his second serving of scrambled eggs when Khamis Zeydan weaved across the breakfast room, his grim face fixed on the floor to avoid conversation with the Revolutionary Council delegates at the other tables. Though the politicians and their aides occupied almost every chair, the room was subdued in the wake of Husseini’s execution. They fiddled with their napkins, nervous and darkly expectant, staring into their coffees with hunted expressions.
Omar Yussef drained his cup and wiped his lips on his napkin as the Bethlehem police chief reached his table.
“To your double health,” Khamis Zeydan said.
“I may have finally found my appetite, but I can’t associate anything in Gaza, even the food, with health.” Omar Yussef cleared his throat and looked at his plate. “I’m sorry for my outburst back there. After seeing the bodies of Husseini and the guards and the coffee boy, well, it was all too much for me.”
Khamis Zeydan waved his hand and chose to ignore the heart of Omar Yussef’s earlier accusations. “No, you were right. I ought to smoke less.” He sat next to Omar Yussef, though he perched on the seat restlessly. He unfolded a sheet of paper from the inside pocket of his jacket. “This is the Saladin Brigades leaflet about Husseini’s death,” he whispered.
Omar Yussef raised his eyebrows and buttered his toast. “They type fast, don’t they?”
“It says that Husseini was killed by the Brigades, because he was a collaborator who killed ‘the struggler and brother Bassam Odwan after first administering tortures that were cruel and characteristic.’ That means the Husseini Manicure, doesn’t it? How did they know about that?”
“I told Sami about it,” Omar Yussef said. “He said they have spies in the prisons.”
“The leaflet accuses Husseini of working to undermine the resistance and arresting its most important fighters.” Khamis Zeydan placed the single sheet of paper on the table.
Omar Yussef glanced at the leaflet and ate a triangle of toast in three bites. As he chewed, he peeled a boiled egg with his fingers, cut it in two, salted it and ate one half. After a day and a night without food, he was ravenous.
“You’re eating like a condemned man with his last meal,” Khamis Zeydan said. He waited for Omar Yussef to meet his eye. “There’s an emergency session of the Revolutionary Council in twenty minutes. To discuss the Husseini assassination and to see how the security forces should respond.” Khamis Zeydan looked about the breakfast room. At the other tables, delegates were rising, brushing crumbs from their elegant suits and issuing murmured orders to their aides. “What’re you going to do?”
Omar Yussef swallowed. “What does a condemned man usually do after his last meal?” He ate the second half of the egg.
“Don’t be ridiculous,” Khamis Zeydan said. “Ignore that remark. It was a joke. The British call it gallows humor. ”
“Fortunately there’s no hanging in Gaza. I expect to be beheaded when the time comes.” Omar Yussef tapped a forefinger against the two crossed scimitars of the Saladin Brigades’ crest. He looked more closely at the leaflet.
“My point is this: after the Revolutionary Council meeting, there’ll be some kind of response against the Saladin Brigades,” Khamis Zeydan said. “A military response. Arrests. Maybe the Brigades’ll fight back. It could get nasty on the streets today. We can’t let it look like they’re getting away with the assassination of one of our own, no matter that we all thought Husseini was a son of a bitch. Don’t get caught in the crossfire, okay.”
Omar Yussef popped the top off a miniature pot of honey and drizzled it over a croissant. “If self-protection was my main priority, I wouldn’t even be in Gaza.”
Khamis Zeydan drew an impatient breath. “The atmosphere today is very, very dangerous. You need to be careful.”
“You told me you love this dirt, this intrigue and deceit, this violence,” Omar Yussef said. “But those pleasures are reserved for members of your select club? I want to join in the fun.”
“Don’t be ridiculous. You know you hate all this. You damn near broke down yesterday when you couldn’t keep the different security forces and the various gunmen straight in your head.”
“I took the advice you gave me then: I’m not trying to keep track of their organizations, only their intentions.” Omar Yussef bit into the croissant. “They want to eat me alive.”
“That was only a turn of phrase.” Khamis Zeydan leaned close. “They don’t really care if you’re alive.”
Omar Yussef smiled and waved the croissant. “How long will this meeting of the Revolutionary Council go on?”
“Everyone will say how shocked they are and pretend that Husseini wasn’t a bastard. That should take about two hours, I’d say. Then add a little time for someone, probably al-Fara, to say that such things can’t be allowed in Gaza and to order the arrest of those responsible. Two hours fifteen.”
Omar Yussef nodded and bit the croissant. The honey ran into his mustache. He sucked it away with his lower lip.
“I have to go,” Khamis Zeydan said. “Why don’t you just walk on the beach and keep out of trouble?”
Omar Yussef looked out of the breakfast room window at the dust in the wind along the narrow strand. “It’s a lovely day for it,” he said.
Khamis Zeydan sighed, rapped the table in exasperation with his gloved prosthesis and went to the door.
On the beach, a boy with his head and face hidden by a red and white keffiyeh laid out a net. The hot wind ruffled his ripped T-shirt. The first time Omar Yussef sat in this breakfast room, three boys had been fighting on that beach. He wondered if this was one of them and where the other two boys were. He hoped they were only keeping out of the dust storm.
He could go no further with his investigation of the Saladin Brigades and the fate of Odwan’s stolen missile until he heard from Sami. If Sami arranged a meeting for him with the Saladin Brigades men, he would need to have something to give them in return for Wallender’s freedom. The Brigades had wanted to exchange Odwan for
