Matt Rees - The Fourth Assassin

“Progress has no place in the Committee on Palestine.”

The Swede slapped Omar Yussef’s shoulder as the chairman brought the meeting to order. He was a thick-featured Egyptian diplomat in an expensive gray suit with the lazily watchful eyes of a bazaar trader. He rested his forefinger across his mouth even as he spoke into his microphone, as though he might later deny his words and challenge anyone to claim they had seen his lips move.

Omar Yussef blocked out the Egyptian’s hard consonants and procedural ramblings. Focusing on his next steps to help Ala, he thought through his conversation with Hantash at the mosque. At first, it had been hard for him to accept that Nizar had been dealing drugs, but as he ran over his memories of the boy, he realized the revelation made sense. Nizar had always been intelligent, but not solely in an academic way. There had been something of the raffish con man about him. His sharpness had led him to understand that New York held no place for anyone who wasn’t on the way up, on the make. So he had gone for fast, illegal money. Like the girl Rania, drugs were forbidden to Nizar, and Omar Yussef recalled the mischievous student who had always wanted what he wasn’t allowed to have.

He came out of his reverie when he heard the chairman call on Abdel Hadi. He glanced at Wallander in surprise. The Swede fiddled sheepishly with the dial on the arm of his chair that controlled the choice of language for the simultaneous translation. “He is part of the Palestinian delegation, Abu Ramiz. I couldn’t really stop him speaking,” he said.

Abdel Hadi stammered through his introductory remarks. Omar Yussef swore he could hear static from the man’s cheap suit crackle over the microphone. Some of the delegates left the room. A smoke break and a chat about the fun at the belly-dancing club last night, no doubt, Omar Yussef thought. He almost felt pity for the stuttering functionary at the podium.

“Our new Palestinian Curriculum Plan at the Palestinian Authority’s Ministry of Education is the result of five years of brainstorming, the collection of much data, reviewing of the data, and the exploration of experiences with curricula in other countries in the region,” Abdel Hadi read from his notes.

With material like this, I’ll soon be the only one in the room, Omar Yussef thought.

In a monotone, Abdel Hadi recited the details of the education plan he had designed. Omar Yussef had read the curriculum and hadn’t been enthused. He was even less impressed now that he knew it had been Abdel Hadi’s work.

“The pressure of the international community is constantly applied to the Palestinian curriculum, through the activism of sinister Jewish groups which accuse our schools of inciting children to hatred of Israel and Jews,” Abdel Hadi said. “We ask, why is this pressure applied only to the Palestinian side, and why is an examination not made of what is taught in Israeli schools?”

Omar Yussef shook his head. Take care of your own responsibilities, he thought. Let the Israelis teach what they like.

Abdel Hadi’s reading grew more fluent as his subject became harsher. “But it isn’t only these shadowy Zionist groups that threaten our children. Within our schools, there are dangerous agents who pervert our children’s minds with divisive propaganda.” He cast his eyes over the delegates until they rested on Omar Yussef. “Later this week, you will hear from one such man. I will be present to rebut his accusations against the honor of the Palestinian people. I hope you will join me in rejecting his ideas.”

Abdel Hadi descended from the podium to lackluster applause. Omar Yussef felt a loop of tension squeeze his skull. At least I know now what I’ll be talking about when I address this august body in three days’ time, he thought.

“In UN-speak, we would say we ‘appreciate Mister Abdel Hadi’s involvement,’ but those comments were ‘not productive,’” Wallander said.

Omar Yussef gave a bitter laugh that rolled in his throat. I came six thousand miles to discuss our children’s future, he thought, and this bastard Abdel Hadi brings the same petty quarrels and grudges that occupy him at home. I can’t escape this stupidity. No Palestinian can.

It was time he headed for Brooklyn. With a low curse for Abdel Hadi he rose and moved through a crowd of delegates who were eager to escape before the next speech. At first he carried his coat folded over his arm, but it puffed into the flow of oncoming diplomats, catching their arms in its hood and sleeves as they pushed past. He clutched it to his belly with both hands and made for the exit.

Beside the door, a group of men in dark suits chatted at a bench that bore a small Lebanese flag. When one of them turned, Omar Yussef recognized the same face he had seen fleetingly illuminated by headlights in Little Palestine the previous evening. Ismail is with the Lebanese delegation , he thought, sighing with relief. He’s here as a diplomat. May Allah be thanked, I was wrong even to suspect a connection to the murder.

Edging sideways through the crowd, he clutched his coat tightly, but its volume still hampered his progress. Each time he looked up, he feared Ismail would be gone. The young man had aged badly-Omar Yussef would have said he was two decades older than his twenty-four years. His hair was thin and graying, and his olive skin had a sickly yellow undertone. But it was unmistakably Ismail.

When Omar Yussef was almost free of the crowd, he caught Ismail’s eye. He detected a moment of panic in the face of his former pupil. Then Ismail’s gaze narrowed. Omar Yussef raised his hand to wave, but the boy turned and went through the door.

Shivering and hugging his coat to his midriff, Omar Yussef slithered across the plaza outside the UN building as the snowfall lightened. With a shake of his head to free himself of the strange trance that had come over him since he had left the conference hall, he remembered to put the coat on. He was preoccupied with Ismail. Was the boy so ashamed of his betrayal in the Israeli detention camp that he would twice avoid his beloved former teacher? Or could he have some other reason for his flight? Maybe I’m not so beloved after all, Omar Yussef thought.

He meandered away from the conference, from the banal chatter of the delegates and the overheated rooms that made his head feel fuzzy. He tried to find innocent excuses for Ismail, but with reluctance he acknowledged that the boy had acted suspiciously. Omar Yussef’s loafers slipped in the slush, and he had to throw his arms up to regain his balance. He stood still, breathing hard, sensing the aversion of the passing New Yorkers to a stranger who couldn’t walk on the snow. The UN building disappeared into the low cloud. Surely Ismail’s here on official business, to talk and talk and talk, nothing more than that.

Omar Yussef made his way across First Avenue. The involvement in this affair of The Assassins, his favorite pupils, bewildered him. It upset the contentment with which he was accustomed to recalling his years as a teacher. How many other pupils whom he had thought innocent had since grown into criminals, gunmen, wife-beaters? Could any of them now be killers? Ala had told him his roommates, two of Omar Yussef’s dearest students, might have been planning to kill. Where had they learned even to consider such things? His classroom was a place of warmth and intellectual inquiry, but when his students emerged into the world, they became infected by its wickedness. It was a corruption that could no more be avoided than the flakes alighting quietly on his coat.

What good are my teachings? he thought. History was supposed to give his pupils insights into the damage violence had inflicted upon the Arab people through the centuries. He always hoped this knowledge would lead them to reject the ugliness of present Palestinian politics. In spite of himself, he returned to his suspicions about The Assassins and found he was angry that the learning he had passed on in his classroom seemed to be the basis for a conspiracy, perhaps even a murder.