The Samaritan's secret

Omar Yussef felt moisture chill his face. He wiped the back of his hand across his cheek and it came away dark. Roween had coughed a spray of blood over him.

“Where are the account details?” Khamis Zeydan knelt beside the battered woman. His voice was harsh and clear. “Where are they?”

They’re in the Abisha Scroll, Omar Yussef thought. She knows we came here to find the secret bank documents. She’s telling us Ishaq hid them inside the scroll’s box. That’s what he meant by ‘behind the temple.’ It has nothing to do with the location of the ancient temple. He meant the silver image of the temple decorating the Abisha’s box. He lifted a hand to restrain Khamis Zeydan. “Let her rest,” he whispered. “She’s nearly gone.”

Khamis Zeydan shook his head and leaned closer to Roween’s face. “Where?” he said.

“Synagogue.” Roween’s voice was barely more than a breath. Her glassy eye fought to focus on Omar Yussef’s face. He came closer, took his handkerchief from his pocket and wiped the blood from her cheek and mouth. “He knew,” she said. “Kanaan.”

“What? Kanaan knew what? That Ishaq was his son?” Omar Yussef whispered gently.

“He knew about Kanaan,” she said.

“Ishaq knew he was the son of Kanaan?”

“Ask her about that other guy.” Khamis Zeydan nudged Omar Yussef. “What’s his name?”

“Roween, do you know who Suleiman al-Teef is?” Omar Yussef asked.

The woman’s lip twitched, as though she wished to smile. “My brother,” she murmured.

Omar Yussef thought of the handicapped boy bouncing his basketball alone and of the kind brother-in-law he had lost. Now he was to be robbed of the sister who had loved him.

Roween’s eye closed. Her body convulsed and she grasped Omar Yussef’s hand until he felt the bones in his fingers might shatter.

He looked helplessly at Khamis Zeydan and grabbed his friend’s collar and pushed him close to the dying woman’s face. “Can’t we do something? You’re always bragging about assassinations and battles,” he wailed. “Haven’t you ever tried to save someone’s life? Can’t you stop her bleeding?”

The police chief removed Omar Yussef’s hand from his shirt and held it softly in his own. He stayed close to Roween’s face, waiting for one final word.

The word didn’t come. Khamis Zeydan closed his lips, as if to avoid inhaling Roween’s dying breath. Omar Yussef traced his fingertips tenderly over the woman’s scabby acne. A cloud shaded the moon and the bruises and cuts on her face became no more than shadows. She looked like a girl merely asleep.

He sobbed and laid Roween’s hand at her side. The stone was still warm from the sunshine of the day, as he touched her fingers to it. He brought his handkerchief to his face, finding a segment not damp with Roween’s blood, and rubbed at the tears of desperate tenderness in his eyes.

Down in Nablus, a machine gun rattled.

The schoolteacher gritted his teeth and screwed his burning eyes shut.

“Maybe the documents aren’t hidden up here at all. Maybe they’re at the synagogue,” Khamis Zeydan said.

“I think that’s what she wanted to tell us, yes,” Omar Yussef sniffled. “Temple. Isn’t that what the Jews call their synagogues? It could be the Samaritans use the same word for it. That might be what Ishaq meant. It’s also where they keep the Abisha Scroll, remember. I think the documents could be hidden in the scroll, at the synagogue.”

“She must have told someone else what Ishaq said, and they beat her to death because they thought she knew more.”

“Maybe she’s dead because she wouldn’t tell them anything.” Omar Yussef thought of the love there had been between Roween and Ishaq. It wasn’t the usual attachment between a husband and wife. Omar Yussef wondered if Roween had actually been repulsed by the prospect of a husband’s rough, scrambling attentions and had been happier with her sensitive partner, even if he wasn’t what her family would’ve wanted for her.

“My brother,” Khamis Zeydan said, with a gentle caress of Omar Yussef’s shoulder.

Omar Yussef looked out from the mountaintop. The valley was unlit, as though Nablus was in hiding. But the guns ensured that it wasn’t quiet.

He came to his feet. “Let’s go,” he said.

“To the synagogue? Down to Nablus?” Khamis Zeydan looked into the dark valley, listening to the gunfire.

“We can’t wait until light. Whoever killed Roween may have the same information as us. They’re probably on their way to the synagogue now. If we don’t get there first, hundreds of millions of dollars that were supposed to improve the lives of our people will fall into the hands of the bastards who killed this woman.”

Omar Yussef closed his eyes. In the wind along the ridge, he could still hear Roween’s final breath.

Chapter 30

They knew they had missed the narrow road into Nablus, when the jeep hit deep tank tracks, throwing dust into the cab. “This must be the trail the Israelis use for their night raids,” Khamis Zeydan said. “Turn off the headlights.”

The jeep pitched on its squawking suspension over the scarred dirt road. Omar Yussef took the steep sections leaning back into his seat, his elbows locked and his foot shaking with strain on the brake. “I hope your diabetes isn’t still acting up tomorrow,” he said, “because I’ve done all the driving I can stand.”

“If you get us through Nablus without running into an Israeli tank or a jeep full of Hamas gunmen, you won’t have to drive any more, because I’ll carry you around on my back all day out of gratitude,” Khamis Zeydan said.

They came to the first silent white apartment blocks at the upper reaches of the town and soon were on a paved section of road. The driving was easier and Omar Yussef relaxed, until the shooting in the valley reminded him that he was heading into danger and operating on a tight deadline. He imagined the members of the World Bank board would be heading to dinner parties in Georgetown at that moment. When they reached their office in the morning, they’d cut his people’s financial lifeline. He thought of Sami and Zuheir and Ramiz, of Nadia, of the better Palestine he wanted them to live in someday. I won’t fail them, he thought.

Outside the Samaritan synagogue, Omar Yussef switched off the engine and listened. A car alarm wailed and a machine gun stammered in the casbah. Under the discordant sounds, he detected a breathless silence, like the energetic anticipation of a child behind a sofa in a game of hide and seek. The night was waiting for him. He narrowed his eyes. I’m ready.

Khamis Zeydan hobbled up the first flight of steps to the synagogue. Omar Yussef went beside him. He felt alert, youthful, determined.

The doorway of the synagogue was dark. Khamis Zeydan pulled his gun to shoot out the lock. Omar Yussef grabbed his wrist. The police chief hesitated, then holstered the pistol. Omar Yussef eased down on the door handle, felt the lock slip and drew the door back carefully. Was it left unlocked by accident, Omar Yussef wondered, or is there someone inside? Khamis Zeydan peered into the darkness within, frowning. He nodded and the two men entered.

The main hall was quiet and murky. The door to the staircase at the back of the room emitted a flickering light. Hurried footsteps ascended the stairs and a man came into the hall, his long robe and tarboosh silhouetted by the pale blue of the stairwell.

Omar Yussef snapped on the lights.

In the door to the stairway, Jibril Ben-Tabia blinked as the fluorescent tubes shuddered to life. He clutched something to his chest, rolled in the folds of his robe, like a mother protecting her child. The shock of discovery registered for a moment, then the priest’s old, lined face hardened into outrage.

“How dare you enter this building?” he shouted, raising a leathery finger toward Khamis Zeydan. “The security forces aren’t allowed in here without a warrant.”

“I’m not wearing a uniform, your honor,” Omar Yussef said. “Do I need a warrant, too?”