Matt Rees - The Samaritan's secret

“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 don’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?”

“Marriage has many benefits, not only children.”

“If you had your way, I’d have given birth to a shelf full of books, instead of three sons.” Maryam examined Omar Yussef’s shirt. She brushed her hand across his chest. “Omar, is that hummus?”

Omar Yussef glanced hopelessly at Sami.

“It’s my fault, Umm Ramiz,” Sami said. “Abu Ramiz didn’t want to eat, but I was very hungry and I forced him to taste the hummus at my favorite restaurant.”

Omar Yussef touched the tips of his mustache, nervously. “It wasn’t as good as yours, my darling,” he said.

Maryam jerked her head back and opened her dark eyes wide. “Of course it wasn’t. Perhaps you want a second wife so that she can make your hummus. She can wash your underwear, too.”

Omar Yussef smiled and put his hand to his wife’s cheek. “Very well, she can wash my underwear. No one but you will make hummus for me, though.” He looked down at Maryam’s bags. “What have you bought?”