Matt Rees - A grave in Gaza

“You?”

“My family. My son Yasser will take the responsibility. As a security officer, he’s qualified. Odwan is a murderer. If the government is too weak to give us justice, then you know our customs and laws as well as anyone else and you understand what I must do.” Zaki Salah’s voice was a bloodless monotone, as though fatal revenge were an everyday event. “When Odwan killed Fathi, he killed a whole family. Fathi had a daughter who was only three months old. If Odwan is released, I will kill him, and if I can’t kill him, my son will kill him. Even if we have to wait longer, my grandson will kill someone from the Odwan family.”

Omar Yussef closed his eyes and breathed deeply. He hated the old tribal laws. They were made for a place where there was no government and where no one could be seen through the sandstorm except the man who came to menace you. Zaki Salah could have spoken these words a thousand years ago, and he might also harbor the desire for vengeance a thousand years.

“General Husseini has to weigh traditional family justice against the possibility that a foreigner could be at risk,” Omar Yussef said.

“Who cares about the foreigner? What makes him so important? If Husseini releases Odwan, he’s not a Muslim. My revenge is what Islam requires. The killer must be killed. I can’t give up on my son’s blood.” Zaki Salah brushed his hands together as though he were washing them. His voice was angry and pleading. “You have to explain that to the foreigners.”

Omar Yussef imagined Magnus Wallender dead and wondered who would avenge his blood. He closed his eyes and fought away the image. “Abu Fathi, was your son ever involved in smuggling?”

“He was never involved in crime.”

“Does that include weapons smuggling? Or do you think of that as resistance work, not crime?”

Zaki Salah looked surly. “He was always very busy fighting against the smugglers. At work, it was his duty. But then he would come home and the smuggling would be at his door, so even here he was forced to confront the criminals. We’re very close to the Egyptian border.”

“Are we? How close?”

“If it weren’t for the dust storm, you would have seen it behind the house, when you arrived. It’s a hundred paces to the border fence from where we are now at the back of the house.” Zaki went to the window and drew back the curtain. “There it is, you see?”

Omar Yussef peered into the thick dust outside. There was a garden behind the house, and a poorly built garage at the edge of the garden. Beyond the garage stood a thirty-foot fence of dark metal, rippled like the tin on a cheap roof. That was the Egyptian border.

“This area is thick with tunnels. Smugglers dig them under that fence,” Zaki Salah said.

A young man emerged from the garage and bolted the door with a padlock. He hunched across the garden in the wind. Omar Yussef heard him enter the house, coughing.

The savory smell of the foule came into the sitting room and hung around them at the window. “You had better go back out to the mourning tent, so the women can set up for lunch,” Zaki Salah said to Omar Yussef. “I would be honored if you would stay to eat with us.”

Omar Yussef’s bruised temple pulsed in protest at the mention of food. “You honor me,” he said, “but I must continue to investigate this case. My friend may not have much time, unless I can discover the truth. Perhaps your son Yasser will be able to help me, as a member of the security forces and with his knowledge of the investigation.”

“I’ll send him to sit with you.”

Omar Yussef went out to the tent. Cree sat in the same spot. He wiggled his shoulders and rolled his neck and smiled at Omar Yussef. The blackened coffee pot stood on the bricks that fringed the hot coals. Cree smiled apologetically. “I’m afraid I already emptied that little bugger there,” he said. “It took some doing with these tiny cups, but it was a case of extreme need.”

“To your double health,” Omar Yussef said.

The young man who had crossed the garden at the back of the house came to the edge of the dusty carpets on the floor of the mourning area. He stared at Omar Yussef.

“You’re Yasser?” Omar Yussef asked.

The young man nodded.

“Allah will be merciful on your brother. Please sit with me. Your father believes you can help us.”

The young man hesitated. He sat opposite Omar Yussef and settled himself forward, leaning his elbows on his knees. He looked Omar Yussef up and down with hard, tight, angry brown eyes. The angle of his head showed his prominent widow’s peak as a point so sharp that it looked like the blade of an axe. He drew his thick eyebrows down toward the bridge of his nose, where they quivered like the hair trigger of a pistol ready to be sprung. His nose was straight and pointed, and his teeth were jagged, broken and bared beneath his mustache. Every feature on his face looked like a weapon, and Yasser Salah seemed ready to use them.

“Yasser, what is the Saladin I?”

Yasser Salah’s face sharpened still further. The weapons were cocked for action. He was silent.

“Do you know about the Saladin I?” Omar Yussef said.

“What is it?”

“I asked you.”

“It sounds like you know. So why ask me?”

“It’s a prototype for a new stock of missiles to be made here in the Gaza Strip. Your brother was trying to sell it to the Saladin Brigades, when he was shot.”

Yasser Salah scratched his forehead. Omar Yussef wondered if the man might cut his finger on the point of his widow’s peak.

“He was arresting Odwan,” Yasser said.

“That’s not what Odwan says.”

“He killed my brother like a coward; now he’s making cowardly excuses.”

“Perhaps he’s telling the truth.”

Yasser Salah shook his head. Omar Yussef felt the young man’s contempt as strongly as if he’d come over and slapped his face. “You work for the United Nations?” Yasser gestured toward the Suburban, painted with the large black identifying letters of the UN.

Omar Yussef nodded.

“What do you know about the Saladin Brigades? What do you know about life in Rafah? This is the forgotten place of Palestine. Everything here is worse than anywhere else. More martyrs during the intifada than any other place. More invasions by the Israelis. You have no idea about life here, or how my brother worked for the people.” Yasser Salah prefaced every sentence with an impatient exhalation that sounded like a man stretching a stiff muscle.

“When did you first hear about your brother’s death?”

“Immediately. I was called to the scene.”

“Why?”

“I was on duty that night. I’m an officer in the Preventive Security.”

“Your brother Fathi was alone at the time of the attempted arrest?”

“No, he was with a squad of his officers.”

“Really?” Omar Yussef thought of the lonely scene Bassam Odwan had painted of his late-night meeting with Fathi Salah. “What did you see at the scene?”

“My brother’s body under a white sheet. His comrades in a cordon nearby. Tire tracks from a car that looked like it had left quickly.”

“Where was this?”

“On the edge of the refugee camp. Near the border.”

“Why did Fathi go to such a quiet place to arrest Odwan? Why didn’t he arrest him at home, as his comrades did a couple of hours later?”

“I don’t know the details of the operation. Perhaps he arranged to meet him, but really intended to arrest him.”

“He lured him to a meeting so that he could arrest him?”

“It could be.” Yasser Salah cleared his throat with a wet grumble, went to the edge of the tent and spat onto the sand. He picked up the coffee pot and clicked his tongue when he found it empty. He lit a cigarette.