The Samaritan's Secret Read online

  Omar Yussef touched a finger to the blackness. It came away dirty, with a smell of burnt plastic. “What happened?”

  “The Israeli special forces come in every night to arrest some gunmen. We’re not very deep in the casbah here, so the Israelis can enter this far and still know where they stand.” Abu Alam waved a big hand at the door. “But they don’t like to go further. They’re at a disadvantage in the alleys and the old tunnels. The streets are too twisty for their tanks, and our gunmen know their way around much better than they do.”

  “In Bethlehem the army comes at night once or twice a week,” Omar Yussef said.

  “Nablus isn’t like Bethlehem or the rest of the West Bank. It’s more like Gaza, ustaz,” Abu Alam said. “We used to run the most prosperous businesses in Palestine and produce its greatest poets. Now our casbah is a factory for gunmen and the only literature is written on posters advertising the latest martyr.”

  “Most of the gunmen in Bethlehem have been arrested by now.”

  “No matter how many the Israelis kill or capture, Nablus still has a good supply.”

  “Maybe if you gave the gunmen free eggs and hummus, they’d be too fat to run away from the Israelis and then your town could get some peace.”

  “I’m doing my best. The men of the resistance eat free here, ustaz, and you know that hummus makes you sleepy.” Abu Alam wiped the sweat from his forehead with the back of his wrist.

  “What about the police?” Omar Yussef squeezed Sami’s shoulder. “Do they eat free of charge?”

  “The brother Sami will never get fat, and my prices are affordable, even for a man on a police salary.” Abu Alam smiled. “The usual, Sami?”

  “Yes, and the same for Abu Ramiz.”

  Sami took Omar Yussef’s elbow, led him down the single row of tables, and sat facing the door. Against the opposite wall, a thin youth in baggy jeans took a few eggs from a cardboard pannier and cracked them one-handed into a charred frying pan. He turned up the heat on a row of gas burners, wiping a smear of egg yolk onto his white apron. Behind Sami, another youngster was wedged between a deep stainless steel sink and a waist-high cooking-gas canister in the violet glow of an electric fly trap. He split a baked eggplant, scraped out its pulpy innards, and tossed the skin onto a pile of trash, where it lay, bruise-black and limp, like a gutted crow. Abu Alam shouted to the boy, who went quickly to the counter and ferried a few small plates to Sami and Omar Yussef.

  Sami curled a wedge of flatbread around his forefinger and scooped some khilta into his mouth. He wiped a dribble of the yoghurt from his chin. “Try it. It’s good,” he said. “Even your dear wife wouldn’t object to this place.”

  “I think she might take issue with their cleanliness,” Omar Yussef said, glancing at the charred gobbets of egg on the gas burners.

  The yoghurt was appealing, though, dotted with the brightness of finely chopped tomatoes and red peppers. He ate, enjoying the freshness of the dish. When he tried the soft slices of avocado soaked in olive oil, he sensed himself relaxing. He was supposed to be on vacation and he hadn’t planned for dead bodies in his itinerary, so it was comfort-ing to taste hearty, traditional food prepared simply and to forget about the corpse on the mountain. It’s Sami who has to worry about the dead Samaritan, Omar Yussef thought, and his killer.

  The young man who had been working the burners laid an omelette, glistening with oil, on the table and grinned at Omar Yussef with betel-stained teeth. In the kitchen, a jagged crackle and a stutter of violet light marked the sudden demise of a fly.

  Omar Yussef took some hummus, but as he brought it to his mouth, a dollop slipped off the bread onto his shirt. He cursed quietly and held up his hands, while Sami wiped at the stain with a wet paper napkin. The men at the other tables smoked and drank tea and talked, bending low over their plates when they ate. Omar Yussef leaned close to Sami.

  “Ishaq was homosexual,” he whispered. “Awwadi told me.”

  “You’ve been interrogating Awwadi?” Sami mumbled through a mouthful of hummus. He scrubbed once more at Omar Yussef’s stained shirt, looking sharply at his friend. “You’re supposed to be in Nablus for my wedding, not to play detective.”

  “Weddings depress me. I need to focus on a murder to cheer myself up.”

  Sami dropped the damp napkin in the ashtray and exam-ined the hummus stain on Omar Yussef’s shirt with suspicion.

  “Will the stain come out?” Omar Yussef said.

  Sami shrugged. “You think Ishaq’s death is connected to his homosexuality?”

  “Ishaq may have had access to money hidden by the old president in the foreign accounts people always talk about. He also had a personal secret that could shame him before his community. Sounds like a good basis for blackmail.”

  “But he was murdered. Why kill someone you want to blackmail?” Sami swirled the hummus with his bread.

  “Blackmailers are like anyone else—they make mistakes.” Omar Yussef rooted for a sesame seed trapped between his teeth. “Even your great Sheikh Bader isn’t right all the time. Eventually someone will refuse to follow his sacred rules.”

  Sami cut a piece of omelette with the edge of his fork. He held it with a small piece of bread and rolled it in a hot dish of fava bean foule. “Mistake or not, it’s a mystery, and that’s that.” He shoved the omelette into his mouth and wiped his fingers on his combat pants.

  “It’s not just a mystery. It’s a murder case.” Omar Yussef’s eyes widened.

  Sami chewed his food. “You’re a good friend, Abu Ramiz, so I’m going to be straight with you. Nablus has many murders, but it has very few murder trials.”

  “What do you mean?”

  The young policeman sucked the last remnants of bread from his back teeth. “You know that I don’t follow the sheikh’s sacred rules, as you call them. I have my own guidelines in life, and accordingly there’s only so far I can go with this case.”

  Omar Yussef straightened in surprise. “I smell corruption on your breath.”

  “Don’t be dramatic. Abu Alam’s hummus just has too much garlic,” Sami grinned. “Corruption makes me choke just as hard as you.”

  “Then what’s the problem?”

  Sami picked at his thumbnail. “The sheikh warned me not to pursue this case.”

  “Then start your investigation with him. Why would he want the case of a dead Samaritan to be dropped? He must be involved.”

  “Abu Ramiz, I was just transferred back to the West Bank after five years in Gaza, in exile,” said Sami. “I’m about to be married to the woman I love and I want to have a family. My deportation already delayed these things and I can’t afford to take risks.”

  “Risks?” Omar Yussef’s hands shook. He gripped the edge of the table to steady them.

  “This isn’t just a case of the murder of some anonymous Samaritan.”

  “Are you saying you don’t care about his death because he was homosexual?”

  “I’m saying I care very much about his death and I certainly don’t intend to drop the case completely. But there may be limits to how far I can take my inquiries.” Sami picked up a strip of cheese and pretended to roll it in the dish of khilta. He spoke quietly, urgently. “The case isn’t simple. It’s obvious to me that it reaches far into the politics of Nablus. It’ll surely concern influential people.”

  “I agree,” Omar Yussef said. “After all, Ishaq managed the Old Man’s money.”

  “The money suggests this wasn’t just a crime of passion, even perverted passion. Someone powerful was after all that cash. If they have the money now, they won’t be happy with anyone who investigates it, and if not, they may kill again to find it.” Sami squashed the spongy finger of cheese onto his plate as though it were a cigarette. “The political leaders of Nablus are violent, ruthless men. I can’t go up against them.”

  “You fear the sheikh will kill you, if you ignore his warning?”

  “Someone might have Meisoun’s permit revoked, sending her back to Ga
za. They could even harm her, or have me posted to Gaza again.”

  “Who are they?” Omar Yussef brought his hand down on the table. The plates rattled. He looked about him, but the noise of cooking and conversation went on as before.

  Sami lit a cigarette and called to Abu Alam for two glasses of tea. He expelled twin streams of smoke from his nostrils. “You know me well enough to understand that I uphold my principles as much as possible, Abu Ramiz. But in this society, where does it get me?”

  “Am I wrong to stand up for my principles?”

  “With respect, Abu Ramiz, lecturing the little girls at the UN school isn’t as tough as confronting the corrupt polit-ical establishment of Nablus.”

  “How do you know you’d have to go up against the entire political system? What did the Sheikh tell you?”

  “You saw the photograph on Ishaq’s wall. The Old Man was kissing him.”

  The tension in Sami’s jaw betrayed his shame to Omar Yussef. He’s a fine boy and a good policeman, he thought. He has sacrificed so much for a rotten system. He only wants to do something for himself now.

  Omar Yussef wondered whose side his friend, Bethlehem’s police chief, would take, when he arrived for the wedding. Probably he’d defer to Sami, he thought. He’d tell me that Sami has an instinct for danger, knowing when to charge the guns and when to take cover. My instincts, on the other hand, are less practical.

  “If I help you identify the killer, will you arrest him?” he said.

  Sami puffed out his cheeks. “If Allah wills it, of course. I’ll even pay for your tombstone.”

  “My sons can cover that.”

  Omar Yussef knew that Ramiz, his eldest, would agree with Sami. He always avoided trouble. Zuheir, however, was principled and combative, like Omar Yussef. He would want his father to seek justice, even when the law failed. Omar Yussef noticed that Zuheir’s approval was important to him.

  “A good tombstone is expensive,” Sami said.

  “I’ll tell my boys to start saving.”

  “For some things, you never finish paying.”

  Sami’s mobile phone vibrated on the tabletop. Abu Alam set their tea beside it. Sami put his finger on the phone to stop it wandering across the Formica. His tired, yellowy eyes stared hard at Omar Yussef and his lips were tight with irritation. He picked up the phone.

  Chapter 8

  Sami whispered into his cellular and the muscles of his face relaxed. With the tiny silver phone pressed to his ear, he rose, dropped some coins on the counter and gave Abu Alam a light handshake. He crooked a finger for Omar Yussef to follow and moved into the flow of people through the souk.

  Omar Yussef sipped at his tea, but the glass was too hot for him to hold and the mint stuck to his teeth. He put it down before it burned his fingers and picked a flaccid leaf from his lip. The hummus felt heavy in his stomach.

  “Did you enjoy the food, ustaz?” Abu Alam shouted above the sizzling of falafel in a blackened frier. He flattened a green ball of mashed fava beans between his palms and slid it into the hot oil.

  “Your plan to bring peace to the town by making the gunmen sleepy with hummus may work. It has succeeded with me,” Omar Yussef said. “Leave a big plate outside your door at night and in the morning you’ll find a group of contented Israeli soldiers snoozing in the street.”

  “I could poison the hummus, but I doubt the soldiers would notice the difference. Have you ever tasted Israeli hummus, ustaz? You can tell it’s made industrially. There’s not enough lemon and the chickpeas are ground too fine, as though it was meant to be eaten by little babies.”

  “Whereas your hummus merely makes me want to sleep like a baby.” Omar Yussef turned to the street. Sami was edging away through the crowd, waving to someone over the heads of the shoppers. “Thank you for your food. The avocado was very good.”

  “To your double health, ustaz. Thank you.” Abu Alam smiled. “May Allah grant you good health.”

  Omar Yussef peered along the passage, looking for Sami. Dusty pillars of sunlight from ventilation grates in the ceiling illuminated the crowd, but all the men had identical short, black hair and every woman covered her head in a cream scarf.

  A stocky tradesman with gray stubble and a dark mustache leaned over his handcart and lifted a quartered watermelon. “Come on, watermelon, watermelon, it’s almost free,” he bellowed. Omar Yussef flinched at the volume of the man’s sudden call and glared at him. The vendor caught Omar Yussef’s indignant eye, but only raised his chin and his volume: “O Allah, it’s free.”

  A hand reached up out of the crowd, and another next to it. Someone was waving to him. Then he saw Sami’s face below the raised hands, and he started through the throng.

  His wife emerged from the crowd of Nablus women in their long gowns and headscarfs. Maryam’s head was uncovered and she wore black slacks and a thin black sweater. On her shoulder, she carried a dark blue handbag with gold clasps that Omar Yussef had bought for her in Morocco. She lifted her arms and hugged Omar Yussef, her plastic shopping bags slapping his back.

  Sami guided him out of the flow of the crowd and into the entrance of a shop selling gaudy housecoats for women. He opened his palm to present a slight young woman. “Abu Ramiz, you remember Meisoun?”

  Though her head was draped with the scarf of a religious woman, Meisoun dropped her chin to one side coquettishly and fluttered her long, delicate lashes at Omar Yussef. When they had first met, Meisoun had been working at a hotel in Gaza and was kind enough to respond with good humor to Omar Yussef’s innocent flirting. I’m sure she considered me just a harmless old man, Omar Yussef thought, and she probably still does. He felt more regret than he would have expected for the passing of the days when women might have described him as charming, handsome and even dangerous. Now I’m only charming—provided I’m in a good mood.

  “Miss Meisoun, I came to Nablus solely to see you,” Omar Yussef said. “The West Bank needs Gazan beauties like you to make life more bearable here. But you betrayed me and agreed to marry another man.”

  “I have several unmarried sisters in Gaza, ustaz.” Meisoun smiled at Sami to show that she enjoyed teasing Omar Yussef. “They would be glad to meet an accom-plished man of intelligence like you.”

  “He’s not so smart.” Maryam slapped Omar Yussef’s wrist and wagged a finger at her husband. “Omar, it’s only peasant men in the villages who take more than one wife these days. Anyway, why would you want a second wife? You always complain that one is too many.”

  “The political power of the Islamists is growing, Maryam,” Omar Yussef said. “It’s important to stay in their good books. If I take a second wife, they’ll assume that I’m religious, and I won’t even have to pray to prove it.”

  “Would you agree to let Sheikh Bader officiate at the wedding?” Sami smiled, but Omar Yussef detected a hardness in his friend’s eyes.

  “All the grooms at the big Hamas wedding will be mounted on white stallions.” Omar Yussef laughed. “Given the condition of my health, if I tried to ride such a horse, Sheikh Bader might have to arrange a white ambulance to bring me to my new bride.”

  “And they’d take you away in a coffin,” Maryam said.

  Meisoun laughed. “I certainly wouldn’t want my wedding to be like the big one Hamas is planning,” she said. “You know I’m religious, ustaz, but Sheikh Bader has planned more of a political event than a wedding, from what Sami tells me. Men and women should be separated for the sake of decency, but they shouldn’t be celebrating on different planets, like they will at the Hamas event. The women will be at one end of the casbah and the men at the other.”

  “My wedding to Meisoun and our married life together—these are the most important things to me.” Sami spoke to Maryam, but Omar Yussef knew this was aimed at him. “I suffered a long time in Gaza away from my family, but perhaps it was Allah’s will that I be sent there to meet this perfect wife and mother.”

  Maryam laid a hand on Meisoun’s arm and smiled. “I d
on’t think we’ll have to wait long,” she said.

  Omar Yussef sighed. After the marriage, people would refer to the couple as Abu Hassan and Umm Hassan—the father of Hassan and the mother of Hassan—because most Palestinians considered Sami obliged to name his first child after his father, Hassan. Of course, it had better be a son, Omar Yussef thought, or there’ll be commiserations all around.

  At times like this, Omar Yussef found Maryam utterly conventional, but he was never able to maintain his discontent with her for long. That either means I’m also rather conventional, he thought, or I must love her. He recalled the taxi ride from Bethlehem to Nablus. Maryam had chattered all the way about the lace on the bridal gown, how tall the wedding cake might be, and how many children she expected Sami to sire. As the hot breeze had buffeted Omar Yussef through the taxi window, his irritation at her babble had grown and he had wondered what had ever made him marry her. When the taxi finally approached the Hawara checkpoint at the edge of Nablus, she had tidied the few strands of white hair crossing his bald head and touched his cheek with her palm. With that gesture, his resentment had ceased and he had remembered that there was little enough in her life to bring her joy. His eyes tearing, he had taken her hand and kissed it. Sometimes she seemed like the most average woman alive, but it was too late to wonder why he loved her.

  “No, we’re not going to have to wait very long at all for a little one to arrive.” Maryam leaned close to Sami and spoke with an excited quaver. “Are we, Abu Hassan?”

  Omar Yussef threw his arms wide and let them slap down against his thighs. “Maryam, allow them to enjoy their marriage. Don’t pressure them.”

  “Who’s pressuring them? You don’t think children are the greatest pleasure of marriage?”