Matt Rees - A grave in Gaza

Maki was still. He smiled tentatively, then he raised his eyebrows and laughed. He slapped the tabletop with both hands and laughed harder. “Abu Ramiz, I liked you from the moment I met you.” He pointed a finger at Omar Yussef. “You’re a very, very bad man, my friend. My dear, darling friend. A very bad man.”

Maki called to the Sri Lankan for a whisky. She brought it before he’d finished laughing and he paused in his laughter only long enough to slug it down. He held out his glass. “One for you, Abu Ramiz?”

Omar Yussef shook his head. “I want twenty thousand dollars,” he said.

“That much?”

“That’s the price at which you offered the missile to the Saladin Brigades.”

“Well, I’m sure I can manage that.”

“In cash. Now.”

Maki stopped laughing and sighed. He smiled. “How do I know that you have the missile?”

“Open the door of your garage. My assistant will bring our car inside and leave the missile there for you.”

Maki took Omar Yussef through the kitchen to the side entrance of the garage. He rolled up the street door and pulled his Mercedes out into the sunlight to make room. Omar Yussef beckoned to Sami, who reversed into the garage. With Sami, he maneuvered the plywood missile crate out of the rear of the Jeep and onto the oil-stained floor. Maki came back in and pulled down the door. Sami pried open the lid of the crate.

Maki looked inside and smiled. He ran his hand along the missile, breathlessly, as though it were a naked woman. “The Saladin I. Close it up, Abu Ramiz. I’ll get you the money.”

In Maki’s living room, Omar Yussef paced the shiny marble floor. The professor returned with a black leather briefcase. He laid it on the dining table and opened it. Inside were twenty bundles of U.S. dollars. Omar Yussef riffled the end of one wad of bills. “No need to count it, Abu Ramiz,” Maki laughed. “I consider this a fine price and an excellent deal.”

“What’ll you do with the missile?”

“I’m sure that Colonel al-Fara will consider this an excellent deal, also.”

“You’ll give it to him?”

“Give it? Abu Ramiz, you and I are both engaged in the arms trade now, so let’s not be coy. Colonel al-Fara knew about the Saladin Brigades’ attempt to smuggle in a new prototype. He was concerned, because it would have given them an important weapon with which to threaten the Israelis.”

“And, therefore, a tool with which to blackmail money from the party and the government,” Omar Yussef said.

“If they weren’t paid off, they would’ve bombarded Israel with Saladin I missiles, and then the Israelis would’ve invaded Gaza.” Maki laughed.

“That would’ve embarrassed Colonel al-Fara.”

“If al-Fara lost control of security in Gaza, soon it would be all over for him.” Maki punched a fist into his hand. “I had intended for Yasser Salah to do the deal, keeping me out of it. But it will work just as well if I use my personal relationship with al-Fara to make the trade. As soon as you leave, I will call the colonel and tell him that an intermediary has offered to sell him the Saladin I.”

“At a small profit to you.”

Maki bowed, with a smile. “He won’t mind a little premium, a consulting fee, if you like. The colonel shall be quite pleased with his week’s work. First, a Military Intelligence man is killed and the Saladin Brigades are blamed for it. As a result, a Brigades man, this Bassam Odwan, is murdered by Military Intelligence and in revenge the Brigades execute General Husseini, Colonel al-Fara’s biggest rival. Now the colonel is able to purchase the missile over which everyone else was fighting. A very satisfactory outcome for him, wouldn’t you agree?”

Omar Yussef picked up the briefcase and went to the door. He was in the garden with his hand on the doe’s snout when Maki called to him from the doorstep.

“How does it feel to hold that money, Abu Ramiz?”

Omar Yussef shrugged.

“You don’t feel a bit dirty, even a little excited? You’re accustomed to holding a large amount of cash from an illegal transaction?”

“No. But I’m used to carrying school books.” Omar Yussef lifted the briefcase and tapped its side. “This is the textbook of Gazan history.”

Omar Yussef struggled up the lane, sand sifting over the tops of his loafers, and leaned his hand against the graffiti of the Dome of the Rock encased in swathes of black barbed wire. He smiled. Even if the wire were real, it couldn’t have cut his palm any worse than the glass along the wall at Salah’s house already had done. Perhaps death had tracked him through Gaza, as he had imagined, but only as a reminder of his mortality, spurring him to better actions. In any case, it hadn’t caught him. He tightened his bandages, pushed open the gate and went slowly through the lemon and olive trees to the Masharawi house, Maki’s briefcase tapping against his knee with every step.

The sandy yard outside the front door was shaded by a black canvas awning, under which the family would receive mourners. Beneath it, Naji sat on a plastic garden chair with a flask of bitter coffee and some tiny polystyrene cups, ready to greet visitors. The boy didn’t notice Omar Yussef. He was alone, miserably twiddling the ear that, by its odd angle, marked him as his father’s son, the son of a man rubbed out as a collaborator. The boy stared at the tangle of shadow beneath the olive trees. The soft trilling of his doves floated on the hot air. Omar Yussef went quietly into the house.

In the sitting room at the end of the hall, he found Salwa Masharawi and Umm Rateb. The two women sat hand in hand, Umm Rateb staring at her friend’s fingers with the desperation of a parent tending a sick child. Salwa gazed at the photo of her husband on the bookshelf. With her free hand, she touched a small, lace handkerchief to her eyes. Omar Yussef would have left them in peace, but he needed to speak to Salwa. He stepped through the door.

“Abu Ramiz, morning of joy,” Salwa said. Her voice was dreamy and slow. She seemed not to notice Omar Yussef’s dirty clothes and bandaged hands.

“Morning of light, my daughter,” Omar Yussef said. “May Allah be merciful upon your departed husband.”

“Thank you, Abu Ramiz. Welcome, welcome,” she said.

Umm Rateb stood. She lifted her palms as though she held Omar Yussef’s bandaged hands in them and looked at him with concern. He shook his head. “You must have some coffee, Abu Ramiz,” she said. “Didn’t you see Naji in the mourning tent?”

“He’s grieving for his father, Umm Rateb. He’s not a waiter. Leave him be.”

“I’ll make you coffee, ustaz. Sit down with Salwa.” Umm Rateb went to the kitchen.

Omar Yussef lowered himself onto the sofa. His thighs ached and he groaned as he came to rest. “I’m sorry that I wasn’t able to attend the funeral this morning,” he said. “I found my kidnapped Swedish friend and was able to free him. We brought him back from Rafah just now.”

“May Allah be thanked.”

“I want to tell you that, with all my heart, I worked to prevent what happened to your husband.”

“I know, Abu Ramiz.” Salwa dabbed at a tear beneath her eye with the handkerchief. “In Gaza, a man like Eyad can speak his mind and pay a terrible price, or he can ignore the wrongs in the world and his life feels no better than death. Eyad chose his way. That’s why I loved him.”

“You’re right, my daughter.” Omar Yussef lifted the briefcase and laid it on Salwa’s lap. She glanced at him and he nodded for her to open the case.

Salwa unclipped the clasps and gasped. “Abu Ramiz, what have you done?”

“I hope this will help you in difficult times.”