The stairs led to a cheaply decorated dining area. The walls and floor were tiled in pink. The tables were black metal frames topped with fake squares of marble, peeling at the corners. The chairs were of chrome tubing with puffy cushions. The plastic packaging hadn’t been removed from the cushions, but in places it was gashed and peeling.
A series of portraits and photographs along both walls depicted a young man in his early twenties with neat hair combed to the left and a thick beard, softly slick because it had never been shaved. Some of the photos showed a montage of the youth backed by the Dome of the Rock in Jerusalem and another had him in front of the Aqsa Mosque. A local artist had copied the photo in childishly clumsy oils. On the opposite wall, the same photo had been weaved into a cheap prayer mat.
Sami sat at a table by the window and studied the busy street below. He lit a cigarette.
Omar Yussef stood by the table and pulled out his handkerchief to mop the sweat and dust from his forehead and neck. Sami pointed to the seat opposite him. Omar Yussef shook his head. “Before I sit down, tell me what’s going on?” he said.
Sami looked at him and exhaled smoke slowly. “I’m sorry I dragged you away from the funeral in such a hurry. But there’s an order out to kill you,” he said.
Omar Yussef wondered fleetingly if Sami would be the one; there was something newly dark about the young man’s eyes. But he doubted he would bring him to a place so public for the execution.
“I had to get you away from there. It’s one of the men in the Revolutionary Council who issued the order,” Sami said. He took another drag and looked at his wristwatch. “We might be here a while. Sit down and we’ll eat something.”
Omar Yussef lowered himself onto the uncomfortable chair. His knees ached. The warm wind rattled the windows of the restaurant. “Who is it? Who wants me killed?”
“I don’t know yet. But it’s dangerous for you to be around any of those party men.” Sami crushed his cigarette into a tinfoil ashtray. “Let’s eat something.”
A thin youth came to their table. His white T-shirt was stained around the belly where he had wiped his hands after chopping peppers. The shirt hung lank from his narrow shoulders and his face was bony and raddled. He reminded Omar Yussef of Husseini’s dead coffee boy.
They ordered falafel, hummus, and a plate of pickles and olives. The youth had turned to go when Omar Yussef asked him the identity of the young man in the portraits on the wall.
“It’s the owner’s son,” the boy said. “He was martyred in the operation at the pizza restaurant.”
Omar Yussef remembered hearing about that bomb. It went off in a pizzeria in Tel Aviv or one of the featureless towns nearby. A dozen people in the restaurant died.
“You’re safe from such an attack here,” the waiter said. “It’s the only advantage of dining in Gaza.”
“You should wait for me to taste the food before telling me that.” Omar Yussef rasped a laugh.
The youth sniggered and went away with their order.
“You’re remarkably cheerful,” Sami said.
“You think I don’t take seriously the idea that there’s an order to kill me? I’m in your hands. Tell me how to handle this.”
“You’re onto something, Abu Ramiz. That’s all I can tell you. Somehow the business with Eyad Masharawi touches on things much bigger than the freedom of one professor. I don’t know how, but I’m trying to find out.”
“Let me come with you, as you track down the truth.”
Sami smiled and opened his arms wide. “I already did.”
Omar Yussef looked around the empty restaurant. “Who’s meeting us here?”
“I found out who killed James.”
“By Allah!”
“They’ll be here any moment now.”
Omar Yussef rose from his chair and slammed his hands on the tabletop. “The bastards are coming here?”
“Cool it, Abu Ramiz. I don’t think they’re really the people you’re after.”
“They killed a UN official. They killed James.”
“Because someone told them to. Or paid them. It’s the one who gave the order that you want, not these guys. But you need to tease it out of them, carefully.”
“Bastards.” Omar Yussef brought his hands down on the table again.
“True. But bastards who realize that perhaps they got in too deep and now believe they might be able to cover their asses by helping me.” Sami reached out and gently pulled Omar Yussef down into his seat. “And helping you.”
“Who are they?”
“Saladin Brigades men. From here in Gaza City. Remember, the Saladin Brigades are divided. The most powerful branch is down in Rafah, where the group was founded on the profits from smuggling arms and contraband under the Egyptian border. The Rafah gang needed an operation up in Gaza City, because it’s the biggest market for goods and weapons. So they recruited some guys here to set up a wing of the Saladin Brigades.”
“The Rafah gang smuggles the stuff in; the Gaza City people sell it, right?”
“Yes, and everyone’s happy. Except, after a while, the Rafah gang started to think the Gaza City bunch were keeping more than their fair share of the profits. The quarrel got nasty. They’ve patched things up, but there’s still bad blood between the different wings of the group,” Sami said. “More importantly, no one in the Gaza City gang is ever sure that Rafah isn’t about to sell them out to the security forces. That makes them easy to manipulate.”
“By whom? Who’s manipulating them?”
“That’s what I hope they’ll tell us. I’m expecting two of them to meet us here. They chose this restaurant. They know the owner.” Sami smiled sourly and gestured to the photos and pictures on the wall. “The Saladin Brigades sent his son to blow himself up.”
“I suppose they get some kind of discount on their meal for that?” Omar Yussef said, with a laugh that was full of scorn.
Sami was silent, smoking, staring through the dusty air to the street below. Omar Yussef watched him. He was a good boy, a hard man, and he was all that stood between Omar Yussef and a lonely death in Gaza. Back in Bethlehem, Omar Yussef’s clan was big, with ties to all the different security forces and militias. The gunmen would hesitate before killing him there. In Gaza, he was an alien and yet not a foreigner, so he could be made to disappear with fewer problems than Wallender or Cree, and no one with the power to do anything about it would care that he had vanished.
The waiter brought a small plate of olives and pickled slices of radish that had been dyed purple with beetroot juice. Omar Yussef looked at his watch. They had waited twenty minutes. He realized he was hungrier than he had thought. “Where’s our food?”
“It’s coming,” the waiter mumbled.
It was another ten minutes before a plate of cold falafel and mediocre hummus arrived at the table. Omar Yussef asked for a bottle of water and stared at the disappointing food. Sami picked up a falafel, rolled it in the hummus and took a bite. He put the second half back on his plate and lit another cigarette.
Omar Yussef ripped a corner of flat bread and tasted the hummus with it. The nausea of the previous day returned. Every tiny chip of chickpea in the puree seemed to cut into the roof of his mouth and the back of his throat like the crystal that had choked Odwan. He swigged a glass of water and rinsed it about his mouth until the nutty taste was gone. He covered his lips with his hand, so that Sami wouldn’t see the quivering tension that tightened his lower face.
They had been at their post by the window an hour. Downstairs the noise of customers in the restaurant grew louder, but no one ascended to the dining room. The owner of the restaurant stamped up the stairs just before one o’clock. He was a sad-looking man with a drooping mustache and a spare frame that suggested he thought little more of his establishment’s food than Omar Yussef did. He nodded to Sami, who snapped upright in his chair. The owner lifted a catch on a metal door in the back of the dining room. He took a step up the unlit staircase of bare concrete outside and whispered.
Two men came down the steps and into the restaurant. The first was tall, gaunt and mournful, with graying
