further medical consultation and psychiatric treatment. Which the family was about as likely to accept as conversion to Judaism.
Pathetic, thought Daniel, looking at him. Denied the things other men took for granted because of missing centimeters of tissue. Treated as something less than a man by family and culture-any culture.
Sent in with the women.
'Would you like something to eat or drink now?' he asked. 'Coffee or juice? A pastry?'
'No, nothing,' said Anwar, with bravado. 'I feel perfect.'
'Tell me, then, how you avenged Fatma's honor.'
'After one of their? meetings, I followed him. To the bus station.'
'The East Jerusalem station?'
'Yes.' There was puzzlement in the answer. As if there was any other station but the one in East Jerusalem. To him the big central depot on the west side of town-the Jewish station-didn't exist. In Jerusalem, a kilometer could stretch a universe.
'What day was this?'
'Thursday.'
'What time of day?'
'In the morning, early.'
'You were watching them?'
'Protecting her.'
'Where was their meeting?'
'Somewhere behind the walls. They came out of the New Gate.'
'Where did she go?'
'I don't know. That was the last time.'
Anwar saw Daniel's skeptical look and threw up his hands.
'It was him I was interested in! Without him she'd come back, be obedient!'
'So you followed him to the station.'
'Yes. He bought a ticket for the Hebron bus. There was some time before it left. I walked up to him, said I was Fatma's brother, that I had money and was willing to pay him to stop seeing her. He asked how much money and I told him a hundred dollars American. He demanded two hundred. We haggled and settled on a hundred and sixty. We agreed to meet the next day, in the olive grove, before the sun rose.'
'Wasn't he suspicious?'
'Very. His first reaction was that it was some kind of trick.' Anwar's face shone with pride. His glasses slid down his nose and he righted them. 'But I played him for a fool. When he said it was a trick, I said okay, shrugged, and started to walk away. He came running after me. He was a greedy dog-his greed got the better of him. We had our meeting.'
'When?'
'Friday morning, at six-thirty.'
Just shortly after Fatma's body had been discovered.
'What happened at the meeting?'
'He came ready to rob me, with the knife.'
'The knife we found you with tonight?'
'Yes. I arrived first and was waiting for him. He pulled it out the minute he saw me.'
'Did you see from which direction he'd come?'
'No.'
'What did he look like?'
'A thief.'
'His clothes were clean?'
'As clean as they'd ever be.'
'Go on.'
'He had the knife, ready to do me harm, but I'd come armed too. With a hammer. I kept it hidden behind the trunk of the tree that had fallen. I pulled out ten dollars. He grabbed it out of my hands and demanded the rest. I said the rest would come in installments. Five dollars a week for every week he stayed away from her. He started adding it up in his head. He was slow-witted-it took him a while. 'That's thirty weeks,' he said. 'Exactly,' I answered. There's no other way to deal with a thief.' That made him crazy. He started to walk toward me with the knife, saying I was dead, just like Fatma. That she was nothing to him, garbage to be dumped. That all the Rashmawis were garbage.'
'Those were his words? That she was dead? Garbage to be dumped?'
'Yes.' Anwar started crying again.
