Christopher Reich - Numbered Account

The gleaming black sedan passed Tyre, then Sidon, and after forty-five minutes, the village of Samurad, where it left the highway and descended a gravel road toward a sprawling settlement of whitewashed brick and mud buildings two kilometers distant: Mieh-Mieh.

As Mevlevi neared the entrance to the camp, a crowd began to form. One hundred yards from the gates, he brought the Bentley to a complete stop and the mob surged forward to examine the car. In seconds, the Bentley was awash in the probing hands and curious faces of Mieh-Mieh’s forsaken residents. Mevlevi climbed out of the automobile and told two rough-looking youths to guard his car. He gave each a crisp one-hundred-dollar bill. The two took immediate ownership of the vehicle, beating back the mob with a series of slaps, kicks, and when necessary, blows—each accompanied by a derisive glance and an obscene oath. How quickly they forgot that only seconds before they too had been peasants.

Mevlevi made his way into the camp and within minutes was at the headman’s residence. He was dressed for his outing in a flowing black dishdasha and red checkered kaffiyeh. He drew back the tattered curtain that served as the front door and crossed the home’s wooden threshold. Inside, two children stared vacantly at a black-and-white television, its screen filled more by snow and fuzz than any discernible picture.

Mevlevi knelt by the older of the two, a corpulent boy of eleven or twelve. “Hello, young warrior. Where is your father?”

The boy paid his visitor no heed and continued watching the hazy picture.

Mevlevi looked at the girl wrapped in a hand-sewn blanket. “Does your brother speak?” he asked gently.

“Yes.” She nodded dully.

Mevlevi grabbed the boy’s ear and lifted him off the floor. The boy screamed for mercy.

“Jafar!” announced Mevlevi. “I have your boy. Come out, you infernal coward. Do you think I come to this hellhole to chat with your children?”

Silently, he apologized to the prophet, explaining that such actions, while harsh, were necessary for the glory of Islam.

A smothered voice called out from a back room. “Al-Mevlevi, I beg you. Do the boy no harm. I arrive presently.”

A wooden dresser standing against the room’s far wall rattled aside. Behind it, carved out of the wall like a missing tooth, was a dark opening. Jafar Muftilli emerged into the half-light of his living room. He was a crooked figure of forty years. He carried an abacus and a well-thumbed ledger. “I did not know this day would be blessed with so august a visit to our humble residence.”

“Do you always pass your days in a cellar hidden from your friends?” asked Mevlevi.

“Please do not misunderstand, your grace. Matters financial must always be conducted with the utmost of care. Unfortunately, my fellow countrymen think nothing of robbing from their own.”

Mevlevi snorted with disgust, keeping a tight hold on the boy and his ear. What “matters financial” could bother this wastrel? Whether to keep his life’s savings in a hundred one-dollar notes or twenty-fives? “Jafar, I seek Abu Abu.”

The headman nervously stroked his wispy beard. “I have not seen him for days.”

“Jafar, today, of all the days I have passed on this wretched planet, I do not wish to be delayed. I must find Abu Abu at once.”

Jafar licked his lips and held out his hands in supplication. “Please, your grace. I speak only the truth. I have no reason to lie to you.”

“Perhaps not. Or perhaps Abu has purchased your cooperation.”

“No, your grace…” shouted Jafar.

Mevlevi gave the boy’s ear a sharp tug downward, separating it cleanly from the head. The fat child screamed and fell to the ground. Surprisingly, only a thin trickle of blood streamed through the boy’s clenched fists.

Jafar fell to his knees. He appeared torn between comforting his hysterical son and beseeching his demanding visitor. “Al-Mevlevi, I speak the truth. Abu Abu is gone. I know nothing of his whereabouts.”

Mevlevi withdrew an evil instrument from his robes and held it so Jafar could not mistake its capacity. A blade resembling a silver crescent moon extended from a stubby wooden handle. It was the knife of an opium harvester, an early gift from the Thai general Mong. Mevlevi knelt beside the whimpering youth and taking hold of his long black hair, jerked the child’s head upward so that he faced his father. “Do you wish your boy to lose his nose? His tongue?”

Jafar was immobile with rage and fear. “I will take you to his house. You must believe me. I know nothing.” He placed his forehead against the floor and cried.

Mevlevi cast down the boy. “Very well. Let us go.”

Jafar exited his home followed closely by his insistent visitor. Everywhere they walked, residents of the camp bowed deferentially and withdrew into the shadows of their shanties. The camp itself was a confusing pattern of interlacing alleys and one-way passages, covering an area of five square miles. Once within its walls, a visitor could well be lost for days before finding his way out again. Assuming he was allowed to depart.

After fifteen minutes of navigating a warren of alleys, each narrower than the last, Jafar stopped in front of a particularly foul abode. Wooden postings held aloft a patchwork roof of tin sheeting, discarded plywood, and woolen blankets. Curtains drawn over paneless windows fluttered in and out of the hovel, allowing a malodorous stench to drift into the alleyway. Mevlevi threw back the entry blanket and ventured into the one-room shanty. Clothing lay everywhere. A bottle of milk was overturned and dried on the pressed-dirt floor. A table stood upended. Above the disorder rested a ripe, overpowering smell that demanded immediate attention. He knew it well. It was the rank scent of death.

“Where is Abu’s cellar?” Mevlevi demanded.

Jafar hesitated for a moment before pointing to a rusted cast-iron stove. Mevlevi pushed him ahead and told him to hurry it up. Jafar bent over the stove and placed his arms around its back, as if greeting a long unseen relative. “I’m searching for the release,” he said, even as he pulled a lever and the stove swung away from the cinder-block wall.

A short flight of stairs descended into a black void. An inhuman smell flooded out of the unlit cavern. Mevlevi’s hands struggled over an uneven wall and found a fat wire that led to a switch. He flicked it and a weak bulb illuminated a dank, low-ceilinged hideaway.

Abu Abu was dead.

No one could have mistaken the fact. He lay before Mevlevi in two pieces. His severed head decorated a copper plate. His unclothed torso lay sprawled nearby, chest down. The earthen floor was covered with what looked like the blood of ten men. The knife utilized for the beheading sat abandoned next to Abu’s shoulder, its serrated blade coated with dried blood. Mevlevi picked it up. The handle was of black plastic, crosshatched to improve grip. A Star of David inside a circle was stamped upon its base. He knew the weapon. A K-Bar thrusting knife: standard issue of the Israeli army. He placed his foot under Abu’s bloated stomach and turned over the corpse. Both arms draped onto the ground. The thumbs of each hand were missing, and a Star of David was carved into either palm.

“Jews,” hissed Jafar Muftilli before rushing to a corner of the room and vomiting.

Mevlevi was nonplussed by the sight of the headless corpse. He had seen far worse. “What has Abu done to offend the Israelites?”

“A reprisal,” Jafar answered weakly. “He had special friends among Hamas for whom he worked.”

“The Qassam?” Mevlevi asked skeptically. “Had Abu been recruiting for the Qassam?” He referred to the extremist wing of soldiers within the Hamas from whose ranks were drawn the legions of suicide bombers.