Matt Rees - A grave in Gaza

“As an officer in the security forces, did you hear about a new weapon being smuggled into Rafah?” Omar Yussef said.

“The Israelis have all the weapons. We have nothing. The Israelis have sonic booms that make Palestinian women miscarry. When they abandoned their settlements near here, they filled them with radiation to make all of Rafah sick. They have tanks that fire sound rays to turn your bowels to liquid.”

“We have the Qassam rockets.”

“They’re nothing. They have to land on your head to kill you, more or less.”

“So they need to be improved?”

“Yes, but it would be difficult to do.”

“Why?”

Yasser Salah held Omar Yussef’s gaze and was silent.

“Difficult, because you would need to bring a new prototype into the Gaza Strip, under the eyes of the Israelis,” Omar Yussef said. “Isn’t that right?”

“There’re lots of tunnels under the Egyptian border, but most of them are too small to bring in a missile,” Yasser said. “That’s why it would be difficult.”

“Anyone who possessed that new missile, though, would be able to demand a high price from a group like the Saladin Brigades, which could use it to manufacture improved missiles. Right?”

Salah’s eyes were narrow, but he relaxed them and raised his eyebrows with a shrug.

“The Saladin Brigades want Odwan released,” Omar Yussef said. “They kidnapped one of our foreign staff as a hostage.”

“They’re criminals.”

“If Odwan is innocent, our friend could be released.”

Yasser lifted his chin and sneered. “If Odwan is freed, I’ll kill him, anyway.”

“You don’t worry about angering the Saladin Brigades by killing him?”

“I’m not afraid to die. It’s my duty to avenge my brother. This is tribal justice and it’s what I believe in.”

Omar Yussef watched Yasser Salah closely. He had seen this certainty in the eyes of his students over the years, violent and absolute. He held convictions of his own with equal depth, but he hoped he hadn’t arrived at them through blind faith in tradition or at the expense of others.

Cree cleared his throat. “Abu Ramiz, we have to be heading to the checkpoint to pick up the hostage negotiators. They’re arriving at four-thirty.”

Omar Yussef nodded and stood.

“I warn you not to trust the Saladin Brigades,” Yasser Salah said. “They’re killers and criminals.” He picked up the coffee pot once more, remembered that it was empty and dropped it angrily beside the fire.

Omar Yussef struggled to the Suburban, his shoes filling with sand once more.

Cree started the engine. “It’s almost three o’clock. Why don’t I drop you back in Gaza City and head on to the checkpoint to pick up the negotiators? I’ll take them to the hotel afterward, so you can brief them. You can wait for me there and rest your aching head.”

Omar Yussef nodded. The Suburban labored slowly through the deep sand and past the side of the Salah house. He looked at the flimsy cinderblock garage at the back of the walled garden. It was wide and deep enough for four cars, two abreast. There ought to have been tire tracks leading through the sand from the garage to the road that ran parallel to the border, but there were none. Perhaps the dust storm filled them in, Omar Yussef thought. But even in a storm like this, that would take days. Maybe it’s not used for cars.

The Saladin Road carried them back to Gaza City. Hunched in the passenger seat, Omar Yussef contemplated the events of the last twenty-four hours. He swung out of his reverie only when Cree swerved to avoid a pedestrian drifting heedlessly into the traffic. Cree cursed, and Omar Yussef smiled, patted the Scot’s long forearm and went back to his thoughts.

Saladin came along this road to liberate Palestine from the Crusaders. No liberators rode it now. Just brutal gunmen and corrupt policemen and government functionaries who cared only for their status as VIPs. No liberators, unless you counted Omar Yussef and James Cree.

A donkey cart laden with watermelons pulled out of a dirt road and Cree swerved once more. “For Christ’s sake,” he said, rubbing his forehead.

Omar Yussef traveled the same road as the great warrior Saladin. He would free Magnus Wallender and Eyad Masharawi. He closed his eyes and tried to visualize the moment when he would shake their hands to celebrate their release.

He felt a sudden panic. The men’s hands were mutilated by the Husseini Manicure and their blood poured over him. He forced open his eyes. Both of them could be under torture at this very moment and he was sitting in a car, helpless. He groaned.

“You all right?” Cree asked.

Omar Yussef hadn’t realized that his groan was audible. “Just my head.”

“Still a bit of a bump, isn’t there?”

“I feel like I’ve been kicked by a donkey.” Omar Yussef thought about the British cemetery and the way Cree had talked to him there about his past. “James, your link to all these things happening in Gaza is your great-grandfather,” he said. “I, too, have a reason for taking this more personally than you might expect.”

Cree kept his eyes on the road, but lifted his chin. “Yeah?”

“Like Eyad Masharawi, I was once jailed for political reasons.”

Cree grinned. “You bad old boy. When was that?”

“It was when I was very young, during the 1960s.”

“The Israelis?”

“No, the Jordanians.” It was years since he had talked about that time and Omar Yussef was surprised that it brought a feeling of relief. “I used to be involved in Bethlehem politics, quite a radical in fact. Some of my opponents framed me.”

“Framed you for what?”

Omar Yussef hesitated. “Murder.”

“Bloody hell.”

“Very few people who’re still alive know this. I’ve never told anyone about it, except my wife. And now, you. After it happened, I went to Damascus University and took a leading part in student politics. But when I came back to Bethlehem, I admit I was scared. So I laid low. I taught at my school and lived quietly. Jail was so awful, I knew I couldn’t let them send me there again.” Omar Yussef dropped his voice. He seemed to be speaking to himself. “Just recently, though, my anger at the way our people are governed began to outweigh my fear. That’s why I won’t rest until Masharawi and Magnus are free.”

“I know you won’t.” Cree put his big hand on Omar Yussef’s shoulder and smiled.

The Scotsman dropped Omar Yussef at the Sands Hotel and pulled away, north toward the crossing with Israel. It was almost four o’clock. Before the UN team arrived, Omar Yussef would have time to drink a cup of tea and clean away the muck that had laid itself over him in the Salah family’s mourning tent.

Omar Yussef closed the smoked glass door of the hotel behind him. He rubbed his eyes and coughed. The coughing took hold and he bent forward.

From the reception desk, the pretty clerk beckoned. “ Ustaz, come here and drink some water,” she said.

He emptied the glass. “Thank you, Miss Meisoun.”

“Were you out stealing a camel to bring to my father?”

Omar Yussef thought it was good of her to flirt with him when he was covered in dust, bruised all over one side of his head, and purple in the face from coughing. “I plan to liberate all Gaza, like the Emir Saladin, and I shall make you my Emira to sit beside me at great banquets,” he said.

She pretended to pout. “If you were an emir, you wouldn’t need a small woman like me. You could pay the dowry for a wife with big hips who would bring you many children.”

“Perhaps I would have the traditional four wives: three with big hips, and you to be my favorite.” Omar Yussef laughed in his guttural way. He coughed again and, as he did so, he tapped his hand against his chest. He felt the papers in his shirt’s breast pocket and pulled out the notepaper on which he had written the address of the website Nadia had made for him. “Meisoun, is it possible for you to type these letters into your computer, please?”