Tamari repeated the report that Omar Yussef had retired. With an ingratiating smile, he said he hoped it wasn’t so, because Palestine needed to educate its children well and good teachers were in short supply.
“It’s true that I told the American director I might retire, but I haven’t made a decision,” Omar Yussef said.
“Why did you tell him that?” Jihad Awdeh’s voice was low. He spoke without removing his hand from his face, so that the words seemed to come from the dark, hard eyes that looked out from between his fingers.
Omar Yussef realized that he could think of no good excuse for his talk of retirement. He had been carried away by the formal warmth of Hussein Tamari. Certainly he couldn’t say that it was because he wanted time to clear George Saba of the charge of collaboration in murder. “It’s not a matter of any importance,” he said. “Once you have been a teacher as long as I have, you will teach until you die.”
“In that case, if you are planning retirement from teaching, perhaps that means you are planning to die,” Jihad Awdeh said.
Hussein Tamari looked at Awdeh quickly.
“I only meant that once you begin to teach, you will always be a teacher,” Omar Yussef said. He sharpened his voice. “Just as once you have killed, you will always be a killer.”
Jihad Awdeh took the hand away from his face. He smiled, but his eyes were lidded. “You mean that they are both ways of life, teaching and killing? Things that we do for money?”
“Do you kill for money?” Omar Yussef said.
He saw Hussein Tamari sit forward as if to interrupt, but Jihad Awdeh seemed to relish the opportunity to flourish his own nastiness. “I kill for money when it’s strictly a matter of business between strangers.” Awdeh lifted himself out of his slouch and reached a finger toward Omar Yussef. “But you’re my brother, so I’d have to kill you free of charge.”
Hussein Tamari turned aside Jihad Awdeh’s finger. He gave Awdeh a glance of annoyance.
Omar Yussef realized that he couldn’t allow Awdeh to intimidate him. If they saw his weakness, they would soon come after him, in spite of the necessarily pleasant reception tradition demanded Hussein Tamari give him now. He had to punch back.
“I want you to see to it that George Saba is freed,” Omar Yussef said. “I believe you know that he is not a collaborator. He is a friend of mine and I have come to you to ask that you free him.”
“That’s a matter for the courts,” Hussein Tamari said.
“Let’s be realistic, Abu Walid,” Omar Yussef said. “George Saba confronted you and Jihad Awdeh on his roof. Two days later he was arrested. There is a connection that I prefer not to spell out. I ask only that you use the same influence with which you put him in jail to get him out of there.”
Omar Yussef was surprised that Hussein Tamari didn’t respond, nor did he seem upset at the accusation. Perhaps he considered framing George Saba a minor infraction compared to his other activities and thought it was nothing to get angry about.
“How could you know that he’s not a collaborator, unless you were working with the Israelis?” Awdeh said.
“How is it possible that you discovered he is an Israeli collaborator, unless you are working for the Israelis?” Omar Yussef said. He felt the strength that he had sensed in himself earlier when he had sat with Ramiz growing, and he pressed his hands together. “An innocent man’s life is at stake. Don’t waste my time with your cheap accusations.”
“No one’s time will be wasted any longer,” Jihad Awdeh said. “In fact, it’ll all be sorted out tonight.”
“What do you mean?”
“The trial of your friend George Saba is set for tonight at eleven o’clock.”
“When was this scheduled?”
“You’d have to ask the judge. Apparently, he became interested in moving quickly.”
Hussein Tamari rested his hand on Omar Yussef’s arm, and this time he gripped it tightly, with command. “You see that this matter is out of my hands.”
Omar Yussef rose. What use was the strength he had felt? He was powerless in the face of the world. Even if he believed he carried some inner, moral toughness, it was no use to his friend. As he walked to the door, he felt the gunmen’s eyes burning the flesh on his back.
Chapter 15
Attorney Marwan Natsha decorated the entryway to his office with gaudily framed Koranic calligraphy and copies of his diplomas. Omar Yussef stopped to cast his eye over them, welcoming the opportunity to catch his breath after three flights of stairs. The degrees were in thick, black Gothic script. They were from Hebron University and issued in the mid-eighties. The segments from the Koran were in slashy kufic characters, curling the names of the Prophet and his followers around the edges, as lush as the stitching on an embroidered cushion. The extracts from the Muslim holy book suggested to Omar Yussef that the man might be religious, perhaps even a supporter of Hamas. It gave him some hope. Omar Yussef was no believer, but he had observed that, among his compatriots, the more a man followed the way of Allah, the less likely he was to accede in the corruption of the law. Maybe this lawyer would put up a good defense for George.
The quiet anteroom was dark and cold as twilight came on. Omar Yussef flicked the light switch. There were more framed pages from the Koran and a tan leather couch so worn that it looked as though someone had passed a bad night’s sleep on it in sandpaper pajamas. A desk lamp cast a dim glow from within the back office against a frosted glass door. Omar Yussef opened the door.
A long, thin man looked up from a file of papers through a cloud of cigarette smoke. There was a guilty cast to his gray face. The religious calligraphy was decorative and nothing more, Omar Yussef realized. Hamas supporters didn’t smoke Rothmans during Ramadan. Omar Yussef left the frosted door open to create a fresh draft in the blue air, so that he might breathe a little.
Marwan Natsha lifted himself from his chair. He moved like a man with a hangover dragging himself out of bed. He gestured questioningly with his cigarette. Omar Yussef waved that it didn’t offend him. There was relief in the attorney’s sad, wet eyes. He flopped back into his seat and pushed the papers away from him across his desk with a bony hand.
“I am Omar Yussef. I am a friend of George Saba.”
Marwan Natsha dropped his thin shoulders forward. His slack chin rested on the knot of his gray tie, and his melancholy face became even more desolate.
“I understand you are to defend George at the hearing tonight. I have information that will help you.”
“Oh, dear.”
Omar Yussef paused.
Marwan Natsha looked up and sighed. His voice sounded like it ached in his throat, as your legs might on the day after a long walk. “Uncle, you don’t understand.”
“What is there to understand? This is a capital trial. I want to save George Saba.”
“Nothing can save him, sir.”
Omar Yussef pulled his chair closer to Marwan Natsha’s desk. The lawyer edged back into his chair as though he were threatened by the advance of the man across the cherrywood from him.
“I have known George since he was a boy. I was with him a few nights ago when he went to his house to confront some Martyrs Brigades people. He forced them away from his home, but they threatened to return. When they came back, it was to make allegations of collaboration. This whole case is a matter of revenge on their part.”
There was no sign in Marwan Natsha’s gray face that he found anything encouraging in what Omar Yussef said. If anything, he seemed deeply discomfited.
“I also discovered information at the site of Louai Abdel Rahman’s murder that convinces me Hussein Tamari took part in that killing. I believe he returned later to kill Louai’s wife, because he discovered that she gave me information about his role in the shooting. Tamari is also the man who has framed George Saba.” Omar Yussef waited for Marwan Natsha to ask a question. “Are you not interested? We don’t have very long.”