The Samaritan's secret

“What do you want?”

“I see that you have the Abisha Scroll.”

“You’ve come for our most priceless treasure?” The priest retreated toward the stairs. “You’ve come to steal it once again?”

Omar Yussef sneered. “We’re not thieves and you didn’t come here to protect the scroll.”

“Don’t you hear the gunfire? You Palestinians are having a civil war. Anything could happen in Nablus tonight. I came to take our precious relic back to the village on Mount Jerizim, where those swine won’t be able to rob us of it.”

“You came to search inside the scroll for three hundred million dollars,” Omar Yussef said.

“What’re you talking about?”

“Roween told you that Ishaq said he’d hidden those documents ‘behind the temple,’ didn’t she. Perhaps at first you thought, as I did, that they were hidden on Mount Jerizim.” Omar Yussef put his hands on his hips and leaned toward the priest. “You took Roween to the temple up there, because you thought she could show you the exact spot where Ishaq hid them.”

“This is just empty talk.”

“But she knew no more. You beat her and now she’s dead, yet you learned nothing.”

“She’s dead?”

“Then, you remembered the silver decoration on the scroll’s calfskin box, the image of the temple on the cover. You concluded that Ishaq hid the account details somewhere in the box or inside the scroll, when Nouri Awwadi returned the Abisha Scroll to him. You left Roween to die and came here to get the scroll.”

The priest glanced at the Abisha, cradled in his arm. He ran his fingers over the raised depiction of the temple; his eyes closed and his face became enraptured, like a man exploring his lover’s features in the dark. “I don’t believe you,” he said. “Roween isn’t dead. You’re trying to trick me.”

Khamis Zeydan took a step toward the priest. “I don’t care if you’ve killed all six hundred Samaritans, old man. I came for that scroll.”

Jibril hugged the Abisha. “And I don’t care if the entire world has to die, no one shall possess this scroll but my people.”

“You admit it, then. You killed Roween.” Omar Yussef stared angrily at the oblong box in the priest’s arms. “After she told you what Ishaq had said, you continued to beat her, until you realized that was all she knew. But by then she was beyond saving.”

Jibril smiled. “Pasha, it was you who told me what Ishaq said to Roween about the temple. I tried to force Roween to tell me even that much, but she kept her mouth shut.”

“I told you?” Omar Yussef faltered. When I was in the priest’s house, did I tell him then?

Jibril licked his upper lip. “If we’re pointing fingers, then you killed her.”

Khamis Zeydan stepped past his friend. “I’ve heard enough of your crap,” he said to the priest. “Give me the scroll.”

Jibril hurried to the head of the stairs. “I’ll lock this door before you can get to me,” he said, “and I’ll destroy the secret documents rather than give them to you. You government people allowed us Samaritans to be forced out of our ancient neighborhood. I won’t let your unclean fingers touch the Abisha Scroll or have the money.”

Omar Yussef laid his hand on Khamis Zeydan’s forearm. “Wait, Abu Adel, let’s talk to him,” he said.

Khamis Zeydan let Omar Yussef pass. The priest made to retreat once more, but Omar Yussef lifted his hands. “Your Honor, I’m younger than you, but I’m in no great shape,” he said. “If I tried to catch you, you’d be down the stairs before I’d even have my hand on the doorknob.”

Jibril touched his fingers to his beard. “You policemen don’t understand what has happened to our people.”

“I’m not a policeman. I’m a history teacher.”

The priest was confused for a moment, then his expression became pleading. “So you know our history in this town, ustaz,” he said. “Nablus was entirely ours in the days of the Byzantines. Then the Muslims came. We lived beside them for centuries in the casbah, until we found ourselves caught between them and the Israelis. First we moved out of the casbah to this neighborhood, then we had to leave Nablus completely, for our new village on the top of Mount Jerizim.”

“To be close to your holy place.”

“That’s what we tell people, but mainly it was to get away from the dangers of Nablus.” Jibril jabbed a finger toward Khamis Zeydan, as though the police chief were the embodiment of the violence his people had fled. “The money in the Old Man’s secret accounts will be recompense for the historic injustice we Samaritans have suffered. Your leaders already stole it from you. Who’ll notice if it ends up in our hands, instead?”

“The World Bank is on the trail of that money,” Omar Yussef said. “They’ll notice. You can’t just make the money disappear.”

“They haven’t traced it yet. Ishaq hid it well.”

“You talk about injustice. What about the injustice Ishaq suffered? He was your son.”

“He liked to be screwed by men. He deserved what he got.”

Omar Yussef took a step back, startled by the priest’s sudden venom. “I saw how you wept for him earlier today,” he said. “I know you didn’t hate him.”

“I raised him well.” The priest bared his teeth maliciously. “Look how he turned out.”

Omar Yussef’s cheek twitched below his left eye. “You killed him, didn’t you?” he said. “You killed Roween, but first you killed your own son.”

“He was adopted.”

Omar Yussef thought of Miral and Dahoud, whom he had adopted after their parents were killed. I feel more love for them after one year than this priest is capable of displaying for Ishaq after two decades, he thought. “Adoption is no different from blood parentage,” he said.

“My blood son wouldn’t have been a dirty little homo.” The priest brandished the Abisha Scroll. “There’s enough money in these secret bank accounts to make my people secure for decades. But there’s also some for you. What do you say?”

Omar Yussef raised his finger at the priest. His hand shook with rage. “Roween’s last words were, ‘He knew about Kanaan.’ When she said that, I thought ‘he’ was Ishaq- that Ishaq knew Kanaan was his father. I thought she was trying to tell me he had refused to hand over the secret accounts to Kanaan because he was angry with him for concealing his true paternity. But ‘he’ was you. You knew, of course, that Kanaan was Ishaq’s father, because Kanaan came to you with his illegitimate child and paid you to adopt him.”

“You said you were a history teacher,” the priest said, “but now you’re a detective, after all?”

“You tried to blackmail Ishaq into giving the bank details to you, instead of to Kanaan. You threatened to make public that he was the illegitimate son of the Kanaans.”

Jibril lifted the scroll and looked invitingly at Omar Yussef. “A million dollars. For each of you,” he said. “Two million.”

“Ishaq didn’t do quite what you wanted. He gave you the scroll, but not the money,” Omar Yussef said. “It served as a bargaining chip to keep you quiet about his scandalous birth and protect his real parents. He hid the account documents. You tortured him to make him say where he’d hidden them, but you pushed his body too far and he died.”

“Why would I have been in a hurry to get the money? If Ishaq had it, he’d have given it to me in the end.”

“You were running out of time. Ishaq intended to meet a woman from the World Bank who’s investigating the Old Man’s secret finances. Ishaq was going to hand over the account details to her, so the money could be made part of the official Palestinian budget and be used to build hospitals and schools. You had to get the documents before that happened.”

“It’s true that I loved him.” The priest choked, his eyes cast to the floor, all his malice spent. “But wasn’t my people’s future more important than Ishaq’s life?”

Khamis Zeydan stepped to Omar Yussef’s side, his gun in his hand. The priest looked up, his eyes widened, startled and scared. He turned toward the stairs, but the policeman raised his gun. Omar Yussef ducked, as the pistol went off by his ear.