The Samaritan's secret

His hearing returned with a hiss like escaping gas. The priest lay on the ground by the door. Khamis Zeydan walked quickly to him and rolled him onto his back with his boot. He picked up the Abisha Scroll and held it toward Omar Yussef.

“Let’s see if you’re right about the money,” he said.

Omar Yussef stared at Jibril’s face. The priest’s tarboosh rolled across the floor. His head was bald and small without the hat. Omar Yussef pointed weakly at the dead man. “Why?”

“He was getting away with the scroll,” Khamis Zeydan said. “He was going to destroy the account documents.” He shoved the calfskin case into the schoolteacher’s arms and scowled at him.

Omar Yussef felt his pulse beating in his palms, where the box rested, charged with so much knowledge and history. He looked up at Khamis Zeydan, his eyes wide with awe.

The police chief sighed impatiently and snatched the box away.

“Be careful with it,” Omar Yussef said. He followed Khamis Zeydan to the synagogue’s rear bench.

Khamis Zeydan wrenched the finials from the end of the case. He spread the Abisha Scroll along the seat.

Omar Yussef shrieked and grabbed at his friend’s arm. “You’ll damage it.”

Khamis Zeydan shook him off. “Do you want to find these account details or not?”

“Not if we destroy this ancient artifact in the process.”

Khamis Zeydan yanked the end of the scroll. It unspooled along the bench and onto the floor. “By Allah, it’s long,” he muttered.

“If you’d ever bothered to read the Bible, you’d know that already.”

“This is the entire Bible?”

“The first five books only.”

“Thank you, Father Abu Ramiz. So you’re a Bible reader now? When I first met you, you were a leftist who hated religion.”

“Not as much as I hated ignorance. Please, put it back before you damage it beyond repair.”

Khamis Zeydan rolled the scroll loosely, held it upright and shook it. The sheepskin crackled in his fingers. “Nothing in here,” he said. He dropped the scroll to the bench and sat with his back to Omar Yussef, staring at the body of the priest.

Omar Yussef gathered up the scroll. He twisted the handles until it was wound tight and slipped it back into its box. He ran his hand over the calfskin cover. “They made these boxes with the skin side on the exterior,” he said. “But the hair of the calf’s hide is still on the inside. Look.”

Khamis Zeydan grunted.

Omar Yussef fingered the edges of the silver plate on the front of the box with the raised image of the temple. Could this be what Ishaq meant by ‘behind the temple’? Not in the scroll, but behind this piece of silver? He slipped a fingernail beneath the rim of the plate. A shred of black gum came up. This hasn’t been opened in a while, he thought. He worked at the edge of the silver panel until he could push a finger behind it. He pressed down on the calfskin and slipped his hand inside. He came out with nothing but a rancid film of four-hundred-year-old calf’s grease on his palm.

“Well, that’s it,” Khamis Zeydan said. “Ishaq’s secret died with him.”

Omar Yussef dropped the Abisha Scroll to the bench and came swiftly to his feet.

Khamis Zeydan glared at him.

“That’s what Ishaq told Roween,” Omar Yussef said. He stared toward the front of the synagogue.

Khamis Zeydan followed his gaze. “O peace, what’s up with you now?”

“Ishaq told her that the thing he was working on was a secret between him and the old president and Allah. The president’s dead, and Ishaq said that when he died, too, it would be ‘a secret known only to Allah.’” Omar Yussef stumbled into the aisle and hurried to the front of the synagogue.

“So you’ve somehow figured out Allah’s secret?”

“Exactly.” Omar Yussef nodded. “Allah’s secret.”

“Really, the god of the Samaritans decided to share it with you?”

“No, but the priest did.” Omar Yussef climbed onto the dais. “When I came here with Sami, the priest told me the Samaritans never destroy old religious documents, even after they become unusable. They put them inside this trunk.”

He lifted the long lid of the pine bench. The sharp scent of aging parchment rose from the yellowed rolls inside. He turned to Khamis Zeydan.

“The priest said they call them ‘Allah’s secrets.’” Omar Yussef kneeled, dug his hands into the pile of parchment and pulled out an armful.

“The secret Ishaq shared with his god?”

Omar Yussef nodded. “In here.”

Khamis Zeydan reached into the trunk and tossed out a heavy scroll. He coughed at the dust rising from the recesses of the cabinet.

Scrolls and books in frayed bindings piled on the floor around them and the air grew dusty and sour. Khamis Zeydan coughed so hard he retched.

Omar Yussef slid his fingers to the bottom of the long trunk. He felt the seam of the old dry wood. The parchments at the bottom were brittle as baklava pastry.

Then he touched it. Plastic. He pulled against the weight of the documents on top and brought out a manila folder encased in a freezer bag. The folder was thick with spreadsheets and columns of numbers, all headed with the eagle of the Palestinian Authority and the address of the president’s office in Ramallah.

Khamis Zeydan whistled quietly.

“Banks in Switzerland, companies registered in the Caribbean,” Omar Yussef said, leafing through the file. “This is it.”

“By Allah,” Khamis Zeydan whispered.

Omar Yussef returned the folder to the freezer bag and held it to his chest with both hands. He noticed that the pulse of excitement he experienced when he set foot on the temple stone and when he touched the Abisha Scroll was absent. The file felt heavy with death.

Khamis Zeydan pulled out his cell phone. “I’m calling Sami,” he said. “I want him to take care of this. I don’t want any other officer asking me questions about that dead Samaritan over there, and I certainly don’t want anyone else to know that you have three hundred million dollars in your shaky little paws.”

Omar Yussef knelt by Jibril. The dead man’s skin was as bloodless and dry as the parchments piled on the floor around the ark. He must have had help when he took Ishaq and Roween to their deaths on the hilltop. He would have been too frail to overpower either of his victims alone. But Omar Yussef would never find out who had aided the old priest, now that Jibril lay dead.

Khamis Zeydan muttered to Sami on the phone. When he hung up, Omar Yussef turned to him. “Did you really shoot the priest to prevent him destroying the account documents?” he asked. “Or was it to protect the reputation of your old lover? With Jibril dead, no one knows about Liana’s illegitimate son, except her husband.”

Khamis Zeydan lit a Rothmans and shot the match over the synagogue benches with his thumb. He stared toward the ark. “That’s another of Allah’s secrets,” he said.

Chapter 31

Night receded to a mauve fringe on the ridge of Jerizim. Omar Yussef watched it slink away and breathed the unsullied cool of dawn. He kept his eyes on the mountain until the blue sky overcame its final taint, and still he stared. He twisted his mouth into a sour smile. He didn’t trust the darkness to be gone. If he turned down the hill toward the casbah, he was sure he’d see its somber essence lurking there. The sun might simmer Nablus in the heat at the valley’s bottom, but it would never burn off the shadows. In the alleys of the old town, it was always an ominous midnight.

Sami came down the steps outside the synagogue. Omar Yussef rolled the account documents and stuffed