Matt Rees - A grave in Gaza

Omar Yussef waved as the Jeep reversed out of the lane. He felt exhausted. It was all he could do to lift his arm. He let it flop to his side and watched the taillights turn out of sight.

The alley was dark. A blue fluorescence glimmered from the house beyond the olive grove. Naji’s doves were silent. The spray-painted Dome of the Rock was indistinct on the whitewashed wall. Omar Yussef rested his forehead against the rough cinderblock. He closed his eyes and saw the burned corpse of James Cree, Odwan’s tortured body, the dusty old skeleton in the morgue. He thought of Magnus’s voice, his inquisitive Scandinavian accent, his laughter. Omar Yussef’s breath was heavy. He heard someone whimper and he realized it was him. He reached a finger behind the bent frames of his glasses and wiped away a tear.

At the door of the Masharawi home, Naji greeted him with a shy smile. Salwa came from the salon at the back of the house. She looked expectantly at Omar Yussef. Then as he shambled into the light her face fell.

“Don’t worry, my daughter,” he said. “I’m not here with bad news about your husband.”

“Abu Ramiz, you look…”

“Like a donkey’s backside after too much whipping?”

Naji giggled and Salwa covered her mouth with her hand, smiling. “Welcome, Abu Ramiz. Come and sit with us.” She led him to the salon and Naji went to the kitchen to make coffee.

Umm Rateb rose from an armchair as Omar Yussef entered the room. She pointed a remote control at the television to mute the volume. “Abu Ramiz, I’m happy to see you. Please sit down.” She gestured to the armchair. “Salwa and I were watching the news to see if there’s any report of Abu Naji.”

Omar Yussef sat and the two women went to the couch. Sami’s cellphone dug into his hip. He adjusted his posture so that his weight wasn’t on it. I hate these stupid things, he thought. I’ll probably get bowel cancer from sitting on it like this. I wonder if even the phones are more lethal in Gaza.

Salwa smiled at her guest. “Who has been beating this donkey, Abu Ramiz?”

“Only other donkeys,” he said. He touched the bruise on his temple. It seemed like ages since Magnus was kidnapped. “My Swedish colleague was taken by the Saladin Brigades. As a hostage.”

Umm Rateb took Salwa’s hand. “Abu Ramiz, did they kidnap him because he wanted to free Salwa’s husband?”

Omar Yussef had no proof of a connection, but he remembered once more what Khamis Zeydan had said about each crime being linked to many others in Gaza. Even so, he didn’t want to add to the two women’s worries. “I expect it’s something else. They want one of their men released by the authorities in return for Magnus’s freedom.”

“If Allah wills it, he will be freed soon,” Umm Rateb said.

The desperation he had felt in the alley left Omar Yussef. With these two women, he experienced a little of the calm and warmth he knew at home. He missed his wife, and he felt guilty about spending time with another woman to whom he was attracted. But he needed to get out of the lonely, violent worlds of hotels and jails, and Salwa Masharawi’s living room now seemed like the most relaxed place on earth.

Naji brought coffee. Omar Yussef thanked him. The boy was about to leave the room when he stopped in front of the television. “ Ustaz, isn’t that your friend, the foreigner?”

Omar Yussef turned to the screen. The channel was broadcasting a fuzzy video clip. A man in a blue shirt sat upright in a plain room before a poster of the Dome of the Rock. His hair was a gray-blonde quiff and his chin was stubbled with a short beard. His glasses slipped down his nose and he lifted his head to slide them back into place, evidently because his hands were bound behind his back. It was Magnus Wallender.

“Turn up the volume, quickly,” Omar Yussef said.

“You have the remote control on the arm of your chair,” said Umm Rateb.

Omar Yussef picked up the remote. He stared hopelessly at the colored buttons. “Naji,” he said, thrusting it at the boy.

Naji pointed the remote at the television and Magnus’s voice burst into the room. The poor recording quality and the echoing, empty room where he sat blurred his words. Omar Yussef moved to the edge of his armchair. Only then did he notice the masked gunman in the corner of the frame. He wore camouflage fatigues and a black stocking cap pulled over his face with two holes cut for his eyes. He directed the barrel of his Kalashnikov toward Magnus.

“-the governments of the European Union to secure the release of the brother Bassam Odwan, who is a struggler for the rights and freedom of the Palestinian people.” Magnus paused and glanced sideways at the gunman. The barrel of the Kalashnikov twitched, directing the Swede’s gaze back to the camera. He spoke in a hoarse drone, squinting through his tortoise-shell spectacles to read the message, which appeared to be held by someone next to the camera. “If the brother Odwan is not released, the Saladin Brigades declare that something bad will happen to me in two days.”

Magnus stopped. His jaw fell open.

The coffee cup shook in Omar Yussef’s hand. He put it on a side table. He thought of Odwan’s tortured corpse in the morgue. When the Saladin Brigades found out about that, Magnus would be killed. Perhaps this tape was more than a few hours old. They might even know by now. Magnus might already be dead.

The gunman pushed Magnus to his knees and stood over him. He raised his rifle and shouted Allahu akbar. With his other hand, he grabbed Magnus’s hair and pulled his head back. The gesture exposed the Swede’s sunburned neck. Omar Yussef blinked hard, gasping as he imagined the gunman severing his friend’s head from that neck.

The video clip ended and a news anchor with a loud tie went into a story about delays at the border crossing between Rafah and Egypt caused by Israeli operations against smugglers’ tunnels. Salwa gave Naji a glance and he muted the television once more.

James is dead, because of this stinking place, Omar Yussef thought. I can’t let it happen to Magnus, too. He stared at his hands. He was sure the liver spots had grown. His fists shook, even when he pressed them tight together. He was too weak and old to help his friend, too frail to help anyone. He felt ashamed of his self-pity, of his tears in the alley outside Salwa’s house and the homely contentment he had experienced sitting with the two women. “I just don’t know what to do,” he said.

“Don’t worry. You’ll save him, I’m sure, Abu Ramiz,” Salwa said.

“Just as you will free Salwa’s husband.” Umm Rateb held her friend’s hands in both of hers.

Professor Masharawi, I’d forgotten about him, Omar Yussef thought. He looked at the two women. Salwa’s face was lost and stricken. He felt a wave of protective, fatherly affection for her and took a deep breath to keep from shedding a tear. “You’re right, Umm Rateb,” he said. “I won’t rest until both men are here to eat at Salwa’s table.”

Salwa looked up. “Wait, did you have dinner, Abu Ramiz?”

When she asked him, he knew it was why he had come. He wanted to sit with a family and eat food made with love, not for profit. But that had been weakness, he told himself. You don’t have time to sit here, even if it feels good. You can’t pretend you didn’t just see that video of Magnus.

“I already ate,” Omar Yussef lied. “Now I must go to my hotel. I need to speak to some UN people. Don’t worry about your husband.”

Umm Rateb followed him to the front door. In the shadows at the front step Omar Yussef smelled her rosewater soap. “These men who took your friend, Abu Ramiz, they make me sick,” she said. “They’re not Muslims.”

“I’m afraid they are, Umm Rateb.”