The Samaritan's secret

the Israelis came to the casbah recently.”

“May Allah grant that the lost years of those who are departed should lengthen your life.” Omar Yussef grunted as he bent to slip on his shoes. “Let’s get out of here before I start reciting entire verses of the Koran.”

“If Allah wills it.” Awwadi took Omar Yussef into the street. He headed away from the small plaza toward the center of the casbah. “It isn’t only in the mosque that I’ve lost friends,” he said.

“May you live long and in good health,” Omar Yussef mumbled, reciting another formulaic blessing.

Awwadi responded in kind: “May Allah preserve you.” But he worked the worry beads harder and looked sternly at the limestone slabs of pavement, worn to a shine by age. “Elsewhere in the world, Abu Ramiz, a person may go his whole life without seeing a dead body. Perhaps he will never experience grief, except to weep when his father dies. Here in Nablus we aren’t normal. We’ve finished crying. The shock of death is dead in us.”

“My shock hasn’t died yet.”

“You’ve only been in Nablus a short time, I think.” Awwadi smiled. “And you’re not so old. You have time to witness many more deaths. Me, I feel as old as these stones, even though I’m only twenty-four, and I shall soon be martyred, if Allah wills it.” He ran his fingers along the weathered wall beside the entrance to an outmoded barbershop.

“Don’t you think that what you’re describing is the same for all Palestinians?” Omar Yussef said. “We all face violence and loss.”

“Nablus is different.” Awwadi gestured to the deep cloudless blue above the confined street. “You may say that it’s the same sky over every Palestinian. But where I’m taking you, deep in the covered lanes of the casbah, there is no sky. There’s no sign that anything exists outside Nablus. It’s only faith in Allah that allows you to believe that your soul might escape this town, even when you die.”

Awwadi led Omar Yussef north into the heart of the casbah, under vaulted ceilings. Where side alleys made sharp turns, the corners were black as pitch. Omar Yussef caught the toe of his loafer on a drain and reached out to halt his fall, snatching at the wall. It was as clammy as the palm of a virgin on his wedding night and left a damp fur of moss on his fingers.

They came to an uncovered section of the alley. The sun angled into it with the fierce brightness of a beach at midday. The younger man smiled at Omar Yussef, squinting into the sudden sunlight. “It’s a special thing, this casbah of ours,” he said. “There’s nothing like this in Bethlehem, is there, ustaz?”

“Not quite. The old part of my city is smaller and fewer people live in it, so it seems a bit less complicated.”

Awwadi sighed and smiled. “Complicated, yes. Do you like our town, ustaz?”

“It has a great history, and it’s quite diverse.”

Awwadi cocked his head, questioning.

“You have the community of the casbah, the new neigh-borhoods climbing up the hillsides, the refugees in Balata Camp, who are a world unto themselves.” Omar Yussef watched as the younger man nodded his agreement. “Then there are the Samaritans.”

He noticed that Awwadi swiveled away quickly.

“I went to the Samaritan village this morning with Sami,” Omar Yussef said. He kept his eye on Awwadi’s broad back, a few yards ahead of him. “Sami went to investigate the theft of one of their ancient scrolls. He took me with him because I’m a history teacher and he knew I’d be interested in the scroll.”

“They have many scrolls,” Awwadi said. “Everyone knows that.”

“This one is more important.”

“I hope you had an interesting visit. The Samaritans aren’t so bad.”

“But their religion is false?”

Awwadi looked wary. “Of course. They should submit to Islam.”

“Should they be forced to do so?”

“How can you force a man to believe?”

“Threaten him with death.”

“That’s against Islam, unless the man is a pagan.” Awwadi’s slow steps echoed as they passed under a low vault.

“Did you ever hear of the Abisha Scroll?”

“No, what is it?” Awwadi’s voice was flat. Omar Yussef sensed it was bursting with tension.

“The oldest book in the world,” he said. “Do you know a man named Ishaq, son of the priest Jibril?”

“Why, did he write the Abisha Scroll?” Awwadi turned to Omar Yussef and smiled. “I know Ishaq. He’s the black sheep of the Samaritans. But he’s useful to them because of his association with the old president.”

“Now that the old president is dead, Ishaq’s not so useful?”

“Ishaq still has his connections, powerful connections.”

“You say he’s the black sheep? Because he failed to observe their holy days and had to pay a fine to be accepted back into the community?”

Nouri Awwadi’s smile was distant. “That’s true, but it isn’t what I meant.” He walked on past the arched doorway of an old halva factory.

Omar Yussef caught the man’s thick arm. “Ishaq is dead. He was murdered last night. We found him this morning on top of Mount Jerizim, bound and beaten.”

Awwadi’s sensuous lip dropped and he put a massive hand to his short black beard.

“I see the shock of death isn’t as dead in you as you claimed,” Omar Yussef said. “What was it that really made him the black sheep of the Samaritans?”

“His desires. They were unacceptable to the other Samaritans.”

“What desires?”

Awwadi’s face was immobile. His eyelids hung drowsily. “He was homosexual. Ishaq was gay.”

“How do you know that?”

Awwadi lowered his eyes and slouched along the alley. His sandalwood scent mingled with the smell of sesame paste from a bucket outside the halva factory. Omar Yussef felt lightheaded.

He thought of the sadness in the voice of Ishaq’s wife when she told him that the couple had no children. She knew her husband was gay, he thought. Would that woman or her family kill a man who failed to be the kind of husband they expected? One who couldn’t give her children? In our tradition, children are important, but to a community that has dwindled to only six hundred, they must be even more so. He had thought the former president’s bank accounts must have been the motivation for Ishaq’s murder, but could it have been the man’s sexual preference instead?

He wanted to return to the mosque to tell Sami what he had learned, but Awwadi led him further into the casbah. The sesame odor faded, overcome by the raw taint of ill-maintained drains.

Awwadi grinned. “This is the Yasmina neighborhood, the oldest part of the casbah,” he said. “You always know when you’ve reached this place, because it feels like you’ve stepped into a sewer.”

They passed a small spice shop. Burlap sacks circled the storefront, standing on end in the street, brims rolled back to display their contents-sandy cumin, garish yellow turmeric, cardamom ground to the color of cement. Above the entrance a dangling hand-painted sign indicated that this was the Mareh family’s establishment. A framed photo of the old president, leering like a lounge lizard beneath his checkered keffiyeh, hung askew on the wall above the sacks. A tall young man in dusty blue overalls came to the door, leaned against a stack of sumac, and sneered at Awwadi.

“Peace be upon you,” Awwadi said.

The man snorted disdainfully. “Upon you, peace,” he hissed.

Not everyone in the casbah will be dancing at the Hamas wedding, it seems, Omar Yussef thought.

Awwadi rolled his shoulders beneath the strap of his M-16 and held the young man’s glare as he led Omar Yussef into a sloping passage, open to the sky. Ornate lattices of olive wood enclosed the balconies above them, so the women of the house could watch the street in seclusion. Awwadi reached for Omar Yussef’s hand and took him through an imposing, carved gateway that extended elegantly to the height of two stories.

Thick tufts of weeds grew through uneven stone slabs in the courtyard. A fountain at the center of the yard had been converted into the base for a wire chicken coop. A few goats were penned into a corner by rotting planks.