Matt Rees - A grave in Gaza

“We shall discuss that, of course, but you must give me a little help, so that I can persuade Wallender.”

“We understand each other?”

Omar Yussef nodded. He looked at his watch and rose to say goodbye.

“Shall I call a car for you?” Maki asked.

“No, thanks. I must walk off some of this excellent food you’ve presented to me tonight. It’s not far to my hotel.”

When Maki saw Omar Yussef to the door, he held his hand and kissed him. The dust blew in and Omar Yussef stifled a cough. Maki looked at him closely and all the softness of the evening was gone from his face. His eyes were hard in the half-light. He doesn’t believe me, Omar Yussef thought.

He went down the steps. At the fountain, the plastic doe nuzzled his hand again. He came to the gate. Maki was in the doorway, silhouetted against the gleam of the big chandelier. The professor buzzed the gate and it swung open in the wind, faster than Omar Yussef expected. It caught him painfully on the wrist as he reached for it. Out on the street, the dust storm had picked up.

The darkness stalked Omar Yussef, watchful and predatory. With each indistinct movement he perceived in the blackness, he halted and squinted into the dusty wind until he was sure he was alone. And he was. The streets were as empty as at the loneliest hour of night, though it was not quite eleven.

At the corner of Maki’s street, he looked along the beach road in the direction of his hotel. The dust cloud shivered in the ocher glow of the streetlights, as though all those who passed this way during the day surrounded Omar Yussef now, raising the dirt into the air with their silent tread. The wind sounded in Omar Yussef’s ears with the same heavy rush as the waves of the Mediterranean, a hundred yards beyond the road. It was humid and his shirt stuck to his back. He wondered if he had been sweating throughout dinner, or only since he began to walk. The tension he had felt with Maki had exhausted him. It seemed to have turned his knees to ice, and he swayed like a child standing for the first time. He had to keep moving.

Omar Yussef started along to his hotel. He walked on the roadway, rather than the sidewalk, because there was at least some light down the middle of the street. Gaza City was already an hour in bed, and lights were out on all but the most important thoroughfares so as to deprive Israeli raiders of geographical reference points-whether they lurked above in a helicopter or sped through town in the car of an undercover squad. A few windows glimmered with fluorescent light, but most were blank and shuttered against the hot wind.

He reached the first streetlamp and found himself out of breath. He sat on the high curb of the narrow median and coughed into his handkerchief. He knew this dust storm might not break for another day or two; he cursed it and wished desperately for its end. He wanted to breathe and to see clearly. He wanted the atmospheric pressure to lift and the pain in his temples to stop. He wanted to hear silence and calm, not the hot rumbling pant of the khamsin. He spat gritty phlegm onto the road.

Under the hum of the storm, Omar Yussef heard the sound of engines. Two jeeps came around the corner from Emile Zola Street. Their motors growled so loudly that it seemed as though they might be the source of the moaning wind. Omar Yussef wondered if the center of the storm was about to suck him up and toss him into the skies above Gaza. That would be a turbulent ride, but if it dropped him somewhere outside Gaza, he wouldn’t object.

The jeeps rolled to a halt in front of Omar Yussef. They were dark green and unmarked and their headlights were off. He made out the shapes of four gunmen inside each one, their assault rifles upright between their legs.

The front window of the first jeep slid down to reveal a man wearing a stocking cap over his face, with holes cut for his eyes and mouth. Around his brow, he had tied a black strip of cloth with white writing across it: The Saladin Brigades. Below the stocking cap, there was a camouflage jacket. The arm of the camouflage jacket led to a big hand that trained an automatic pistol on Omar Yussef. The schoolteacher stood, stiffly, and took the handkerchief away from his face. He wanted them to see him.

“Peace be upon you,” he said.

“And upon you, peace,” the man with the pistol said. “Where are you from, uncle?”

“Bethlehem.”

“You’re a long way from home.”

“I’m visiting Gaza. I was walking back to my hotel. I didn’t think the weather would slow me down so much, but I had to sit down. I can’t catch my breath.”

“Which hotel?”

“The Sands. Will you put down the gun, please? It doesn’t help me to breathe any easier.”

The gunman withdrew the pistol. “Sorry, uncle. There are Israeli undercover units on the streets.”

“If I’m one of them, then the rest of my squad left me behind because I was slowing them down. Don’t worry, I imagine I’m a lot less deadly than they are.”

The gunman looked at the man in the seat next to him, who also wore a stocking cap and Saladin Brigades headband, and whispered. He turned back to Omar Yussef. “We would take you to the hotel, uncle, but we’re on a mission.”

“That’s okay. I’ll walk. I’m getting used to the dust now. I’ll be fine.”

“It’s only a five minute walk to your hotel, uncle. But you shouldn’t be in a hurry. Take longer than that.”

“What do you mean?”

“Our mission is close to the hotel. I don’t want you to be caught in the middle of anything. So don’t rush.”

“Your mission?”

“Allah grant you grace, uncle.” The jeeps howled into motion.

Omar Yussef watched them fade into the dust cloud. Their mission was near the Sands Hotel? It must have had something to do with General Husseini. Perhaps he had boosted his guard for the night because he knew these gunmen were coming for him. But why? And what were the Saladin Brigades?

He waited in the orange glow. There could be a shootout in front of his hotel. He knew he ought to remain at a distance, but he wanted to see what was going to happen. He noticed that he was firm on his feet, his exhaustion erased by adrenaline. He moved along the beach road toward the hotel.

With each step, he expected to hear gunfire. There were only eight men in the two jeeps; they would be outnumbered by the guard at General Husseini’s house. But they might not be the only gunmen heading for the battle, if indeed it was to be a battle. He laughed to think that, if they hadn’t been on an operation, they might have given him a ride to his hotel. I don’t have change for a tip, he thought.

He came to the end of the row of hotels along the beach. Perhaps it would be safest to wait where he was. If there was to be a gun battle, he wouldn’t want to be in the open when the two sides started to fire. He looked along the strip of hotels. Each was set back from the road, down its own short drive. Bright neon lights flickered over the driveways, smoldering in ugly pink and green through the dirty air. Where were the gunmen and their jeeps? Perhaps their mission was inside the Sands Hotel. They might be in there already. The Revolutionary Council was at the hotel. The delegates might be the gunmen’s target, rather than General Husseini. He moved forward.

Omar Yussef was less than two hundred yards from the hotel when at last he made out the set-up through the dirt and wind. The two jeeps were outside the entrance to the drive of the Sands Hotel. One idled in front of the gate and the other sat in the middle of the road. As he approached, he saw the guards outside General Husseini’s house, quiet and still. He moved more quickly. Perhaps he could get past them before anything started, whatever it might be. If he stopped where he was, they’d be suspicious. He didn’t want a gun held on him twice in one night.