Matt Rees - A grave in Gaza

A bearded man came to the door holding a sheaf of papers and squeezing out a sycophantic grin at Maki’s laughter. Maki turned to greet him. When Omar Yussef went out, he closed the door behind him.

Omar Yussef bent over Umm Rateb’s desk. “When Professor Maki leaves his room, see if there’s a piece of paper with a Saladin Brigades announcement on it. It should be on the floor behind his desk. Like a fool, I made some notes on it and left it there.”

“I’ll try to get it, Abu Ramiz.” She looked nervously toward Maki’s door.

The blinds of Maki’s office window lifted with a single, swift motion. Maki smiled, holding the draw cord, waving farewell through the glass to Omar Yussef.

“How is Salwa today?” Omar Yussef asked, nodding politely toward Maki.

“May Allah be thanked,” Umm Rateb said.

“As good as that, eh?”

“She’s at home. I’m sure your company would be welcome.” Umm Rateb nodded at the files behind her desk. “If you have discovered any news for her.”

Omar Yussef smiled, went to the door and down the corridor. He stepped out into the dust and hailed a taxi.

Among the old olive trees in front of Salwa Masharawi’s house, Omar Yussef caught the homely scent of hot bread on the air. Salwa sat on a low stool in front of the clay oven in the corner of the garden. She made to stand when she saw him, but he gestured for her to continue her work.

Salwa bent double, spreading her dough over the rounded surface of an upturned frying pan. She stoked the coals beneath the blackened metal and the thin dough sizzled. She unrolled it and flipped it over. The exposed side of the bread was a buttery yellow, studded with crisp bulbs of bitter charcoal and brown smears where air trapped in the dough had burned.

Omar Yussef rested his foot on the low brick wall around the cooking area. “Lovely weather for a barbeque,” he said, gesturing toward the dusty air around them. “Let’s get the whole family out here.”

Salwa’s cheek twitched when he mentioned her family and Omar Yussef regretted his joke. He cleared his throat. “My daughter, I came to tell you that I’ve discovered something which will help your husband.”

The woman straightened on her stool and looked at Omar Yussef intently.

“I went to Professor Maki’s office. I examined the records of two brothers from Rafah. I discovered that the academic transcript of the one who’s an officer in Colonel al-Fara’s Preventive Security clearly had been rigged.” Omar Yussef leaned closer to Salwa. “His financial records also smelled bad.”

“How does this help Eyad?”

“Now the UN has proof of Eyad’s accusation against the security forces, we can make a strong case that Eyad was arrested because he uncovered a real conspiracy.”

Salwa nodded, slowly. Omar Yussef had thought she would be happier with his discovery. The smell of charcoal came to them strongly. Salwa gasped and pulled the burning bread from the upturned pan. She stood with her hands on the small of her back and stretched. “I apologize for this reception, Abu Ramiz. It’s difficult for me to see the good in anything at the moment,” she said.

“That’s understandable, my daughter.”

She bent to pick up the pile of flat bread she had already made. “No, it’s not. It doesn’t help Eyad for me to be depressed. That’s why I decided to make bread today. I needed to show myself that the world continues, in spite of what has happened.”

Omar Yussef followed her toward the house. “That was very wise.”

“Until I burned the bread.”

In the kitchen, she put the bread by the sink and ran water to make coffee. “It was good of you to come with this news, Abu Ramiz,” she said. “I know you’re busy. You’re working hard for my husband and your friend, the foreigner.”

Omar Yussef leaned against the refrigerator. Salwa hadn’t sent him to the sitting room, but had let him follow her into a place usually barred to male visitors. He felt the comfort of being with a woman in her kitchen and wondered that it could be such a solace even in a home turned inside out by fear like this one. He wished he were with Maryam and that he could reach out to rub his wife’s shoulder blades as she liked him to do.

Salwa poured coffee and sugar into the pot and put it on the stove. Her shoulders jolted, but only when he heard her sob did Omar Yussef realize she was crying. He pulled his handkerchief from his trouser pocket and dangled it against her hand. She wiped her face and sniffed.

“Sometimes I think the only Palestinians who aren’t crying are the dead,” Salwa said.

“I don’t think Colonel al-Fara sheds many tears,” Omar Yussef said.

“I wish he were dead.” Salwa looked up at Omar Yussef and her face went limp, as though she had horrified herself.

“In this, as in everything else, you have my complete solidarity.” Omar Yussef smiled at Salwa until she rewarded him with a small giggle behind the handkerchief.

“You’re very good to help my husband this way, Abu Ramiz,” she said.

“I know he would do the same for me. I was once unfortunate enough to be unjustly imprisoned in Bethlehem, a long time ago. I wouldn’t leave an innocent man to suffer in such a place.”

Salwa lifted her eyebrows. Omar Yussef knew she was about to ask him why he had been jailed. The last time he spoke the word murder, it had been as though the very syllables were fatal to Cree. He wouldn’t utter them to Salwa. “It was a political dispute. It’s in the past,” he said. “Your husband is all I’m concerned about now.”

She held his gaze a moment, then smiled. “I’m being very inhospitable. Please make yourself comfortable in the salon while I finish preparing the coffee, Abu Ramiz.”

Omar Yussef sat in the armchair where he had watched Magnus on television the previous night. He thought of his encounter with Professor Maki and his breath quickened. He rubbed his forehead and wondered whether Umm Rateb would recover his notes before the professor found them.

He heard a tune playing somewhere nearby. It was a thin, electronic version of a Bach cantata, accompanied by a low buzzing. Omar Yussef couldn’t place it at first, but then he felt something vibrating in the pocket of his pants and realized it was Sami’s cellphone. He clicked his tongue impatiently and frowned at the keypad of the phone. He assumed the green button was for accepting a call. He pressed it, held the phone a few inches from his ear and spoke. “Who’s this?”

“I want to talk to Abu Ramiz.” The voice on the phone was harsh and loud.

“Speaking.”

“Abu Ramiz from the UN?”

Omar Yussef nodded. He was wary of cellphones, but the voice put him doubly on guard. “Who’re you?”

“Someone wants to say hello.”

A new voice came over the line, wheezy and thick. It was Magnus Wallender. “Abu Ramiz, how’re you?”

Omar Yussef gripped the phone tight and pressed it hard to his ear. “May Allah be thanked, Magnus. You’re still alive.”

“If you say so.”

“Where are you?”

“I don’t know, Abu Ramiz.” Magnus broke off and spoke away from the phone. The harsh voice responded with an order to “read.”

“Abu Ramiz, I’m reading now: The Saladin Brigades have avenged themselves on the traitor and collaborator Husseini, the murderer of the brother Bassam Odwan. But the Brigades warn that something bad.. ” Wallender groaned and breathed deeply. “ Something bad will happen to the foreigner Wallender unless all UN personnel leave Gaza immediately. ”

“They have left.” Omar Yussef thought of his conversation with the American woman from the UN.

“Why have they left, Abu Ramiz?” Magnus sounded at once curious and lonely.