The Samaritan's secret

his friend. Despite the dangers, he was more compelled to uncover the murderers of Ishaq and Awwadi than anyone else. Yet here was an ancient tradition he would probably witness only once in his life. It’s not my fault if there’s room in my brain for more than just murder, he thought.

Beside the fire pits, the door to Ishaq’s house stood open. Omar Yussef turned to Khamis Zeydan, his lips pursed and angry. “You want to investigate? The dead man’s wife seems to be at home. Let’s talk to her again.”

“There’s no hurry. Really, I don’t want you to miss this cultural experience.” Khamis Zeydan averted his eyes. It was as close to an apology as Omar Yussef was likely to receive.

“I’m not lecturing, but I can tell you it takes four hours for the sheep to cook. We have time.”

The Samaritan men tipped their heads back and sang a rough harmonized chant, monotonous and sad. Roween stood in her doorway, silhouetted by the light from her living room, listening. When the singers paused for breath, the quiet was punctuated by the spitting of fat from the carcasses in the flame pits.

Chapter 21

Inside Roween’s house, Omar Yussef asked to use the bathroom. He puffed in annoyance as he undid his belt, frustrated by the effects of age on his bodily functions. He was accustomed to waking frequently at night to urinate, but lately he seemed always to be in need of a toilet. Penis in hand, he rolled his eyes and waited.

The room was clean and tiled sky blue. Every fifth tile was hand-painted with a navy blue design and lemon high-lights. Omar Yussef squeezed out a few drops of urine with a grunt and a dry cough, washed his hands with soap from a neat ceramic dispenser and returned to the living room, feeling unsatisfied.

Khamis Zeydan stood close to the wall before the enlarged photo of the old president kissing Ishaq. His face twisted in disgust, as if he were recalling those wet lips puckered against his own brow, the poorly trimmed mustache brushing his skin, oily and damp. He flicked his eyes toward Ishaq’s face and Omar Yussef saw him frown. Did he feel the same strange moment of recognition I experienced when I looked into those eyes? he wondered.

The police chief cleared his throat. “My turn,” he said, unzipping his fly as he stepped toward the bathroom.

In the kitchen, Roween boiled coffee in a small tin pot. She wore the same blue cotton robe as when Omar Yussef had first seen her. The acne below her mouth and the darkness about her eyes gave her the look of a gawky teenager. She isn’t so much older than that, he thought. He felt his chin twitching with sudden emotion and he lifted a finger to wipe a tear, disguising the motion as a casual scratch of his nose.

Omar Yussef was accustomed to consoling girls who came into his classroom upset by a gun battle in the refugee camp where he taught or by the death of a neighbor in a fight with Israeli soldiers. But he sensed in Roween conflicting emotions toward her husband, perhaps love and resentment, which made him unsure of how to comfort her. “My compliments on the beautiful tiles in your bathroom,” he said. It’s not the most insightful consolation I’ve ever offered, but it’ll have to do, he thought. “You picked them out with a great sensitivity to art and design.”

“I didn’t choose them, ustaz. Ishaq had the eye for design in this house. He would have been much happier in a creative field like architecture or fashion. He always dressed so well.” Roween took in Omar Yussef’s neat French shirt with the gold clip of his Montblanc over the breast pocket, his heavy watch, and his polished shoes. “His style was a little like yours, classical and elegant-although more youthful, if you’ll excuse me, ustaz.”

Omar Yussef waved a hand.

“He had an aptitude for finance, so he went into that field,” she said. “But financial types here in Palestine so often end up drawn into dirty stuff. He was sullied by them, when he should’ve been picking out nice Armenian tiles for ladies to decorate their bathrooms.”

“Them?”

Roween shrugged. She poured the coffee into small cups, took up the tray, and came toward Omar Yussef in the doorway. She smiled at him, but her thick eyebrows were low over her dark eyes. Omar Yussef sensed her devastation and felt it as his own.

“Who were Ishaq’s connections in Nablus?” he asked. He forced the words out quickly, so that his voice wouldn’t quaver and betray his emotion.

The woman recoiled. Perhaps his effort to exert control over himself had made him sound angry. “Drink your coffee first, please, ustaz. Let me welcome you to my home.”

Omar Yussef heard a flush from the bathroom. “Forgive me,” he said. “There are some things I need to ask you about which I wouldn’t want others to hear.”

“Even your colleague?”

“Not until I’m sure that these issues are relevant to the case. Personal things about Ishaq. Please, his connections? Why did Ishaq come back from France? For you?”

Roween cut short a harsh laugh. She made a show of not wanting to spill the coffee, but Omar Yussef could tell that she had heard the bitterness in her own laughter. “No, he didn’t come back for me,” she said. “He came back for Kanaan.”

Omar Yussef took the tray from her. It shook in his hands and he put it on the kitchen table.

“Kanaan ruled Ishaq,” Roween said.

“You had no children,” Omar Yussef said. “Why?”

“I told you. Because Ishaq was so often away, working for the Old Man.”

Omar Yussef raised an eyebrow, as he did in his classroom when a girl told him a lie-reproachful but not threatening.

Roween shook her head and her eyes became glassy. “Ustaz, you know what you’re asking me.”

“I’m trying to confirm what someone told me about Ishaq.”

“I can’t confirm anything, ustaz. What difference does it make that I thought Kanaan was my husband’s lover?” Roween coughed as though her words choked her.

“But when you asked him to come back to Nablus, he didn’t? He returned from Paris only when Kanaan requested that he do so?”

“Kanaan begged Ishaq to return. He was at Kanaan’s mansion all the time after he came back, although he was there less in the last few weeks.” Roween sniffled, pushed her dry hair away from her eyebrows, and picked up the coffee tray.

Khamis Zeydan crossed the living room to the sofa. He caught Omar Yussef’s eye. His look was a warning, friendly but suspicious. Omar Yussef touched Roween’s sleeve as she passed him with the tray. “My daughter, things weren’t perfect in your marriage, but I’m sure that Ishaq valued a woman like you,” he said. “I always say that a married man’s eye may wander, but his heart does not.”

“You believe that? Anyway, who said I ever had his heart?” Roween took the coffee to the low table in the living room and set it before the police chief.

Khamis Zeydan ran through the same questions with Roween that Omar Yussef had covered on his first visit. He won’t get at the truth about Roween and Ishaq, Omar Yussef thought. His own marriage is a mess and he refuses to address it. He could never understand what was happening in someone else’s relationship.

Omar Yussef thought that if Ishaq hadn’t been killed, he might have been content to live out his fake marriage, because it provided cover for his secret sex life. Could that have been satisfactory for Roween? Surely the needs of an intelligent woman would extend beyond a husband who decorated the bathroom in good taste, he thought.

They were outside Roween’s door, when Omar Yussef blurted over the noise of the crowd at the flame pits in the park: “Do you think Sami really wants to get married?”

Khamis Zeydan grinned. “I’ve told him repeatedly what a nightmare it is to have a wife and kids. Do you know some other filthy secret about marriage that will bring him to his senses?”