“We have until eleven tonight.”
“That’s only six hours.”
“Six hours. Six days. It makes no difference. I’m afraid he’s going to be found guilty.”
Omar Yussef was angry. “I found a bullet from Hussein Tamari’s gun at the place where Louai was killed.”
Marwan Natsha lit another Rothman with a shaky hand and was silent.
“That means Tamari was there,” Omar Yussef said.
“But it doesn’t mean he shot Louai Abdel Rahman.” Mar-wan Natsha curved his spine slowly forward over the desk as though testing each vertebrae and picked a photocopied sheet of paper from the file. “This is the ballistics report on Louai Abdel Rahman’s death. The two bullets that killed him were from some kind of American sniper rifle the Israelis use. It’s called an M24, apparently. I don’t really know much about it, but you can read the report if you like. It’s rather technical. In any case, I don’t think that’s the kind of gun Tamari has.”
“No, it’s not.”
“Well, that’s that, then.”
“No, it isn’t. What motive did George have to collaborate in the death of Louai Abdel Rahman? None. But Tamari had a motive. He wanted to get Louai out of the way so that the family would no longer have anyone among the resistance factions to protect them. As soon as Louai was killed, Hussein Tamari’s brother simply took over the Abdel Rahmans’ autoshops.”
“And the Israelis didn’t have a motive to murder Louai? He killed a settler recently, I gather.”
“Of course the Israelis have a motive. But what motive did George have to be their collaborator? Hussein Tamari had a motive to collaborate, but not George.”
Marwan Natsha cleared his throat with a rattle like a snare roll. “If you think I’m going to enter the court and tell the bench that the head of the resistance in Bethlehem is an Israeli collaborator, you’d better think again, Abu . . . ?”
“Ramiz.”
“Abu Ramiz.”
Omar Yussef felt himself growing hot. “Then there is the death of Louai’s wife. She was killed after George Saba’s arrest. He couldn’t have been involved.”
“Who said he was?”
“No one. I just mean that it’s more likely that Louai and his wife were killed by the same person.”
“Why is that more likely?”
“Do you think there are two people out there who’d want to kill someone from the Abdel Rahman family? Two random, unconnected people who decide to murder someone in the same family? The two deaths are connected. If George Saba was part of the first death, he couldn’t have been involved in the second since he was in jail. Therefore, George is not the connection. Someone else is. That makes George innocent of Louai’s death.”
“As I heard, the lady in question was raped. Clearly there are many men in this town who, to put it bluntly, would have an incentive to do that, particularly to a woman with no husband to protect her. In any event, it’s not my case, and I couldn’t bring it up tonight with the judges. It wouldn’t be admissible.” Marwan Natsha shuffled through the pages before him on the desk. “Do you read Hebrew, Abu Ramiz?”
“No.”
Marwan Natsha gave Omar Yussef a pitying look. “This is a report in Yediot Aharonoth. It’s an Israeli newspaper. It’s dated two days after Louai Abdel Rahman’s death. It’s the story of how the Shin Bet used a Palestinian collaborator to guide them to Louai and to identify the victim. There’s a lot of stuff about Louai’s resistance activities in the article. It calls him one of the most dangerous terrorists in the Bethlehem area— that’s the precise wording. Then it goes on to detail the role of the collaborator in making sure that the Israelis killed the right guy. Apparently, it’s absolutely essential to these kinds of assassinations. Without a collaborator on the ground, they can’t assassinate anyone from the resistance. So, the article says, there was a collaborator up close to Louai Abdel Rahman who identified him to the Israeli sniper. You see?”
“Yes, I understand that.”
“I don’t think you do. Someone has to be guilty here. There is a collaborator. Even the Israelis admit it in their newspaper. Now, our police don’t seem to be capable of producing such strong detective work as you’ve done on this case. But I’m sure they’d tell you that if the results of an investigation led them to the most dangerous man in town, Hussein Tamari, they’d let the fall guy—take the fall.” Marwan Natsha opened his bony hands wide. “That’s George Saba.”
“You’re telling me you don’t even believe George Saba is guilty?”
“There isn’t so much evidence against him. It’s true.”
“Then your job is simple.”
“Well, that’s also true. But not in the way you mean. My job would be simple whether the case against George was weak or strong. My job is to keep my head down. In State Security Court, defense attorneys are, by definition, supposed to consider the state and its security first. If a collaborator gets away with it, the Israelis will find it easy to recruit more. If someone is seen to be punished for collaboration, it makes it harder for Israel to get others to betray their comrades.”
“Even if the man who pays the penalty isn’t really a collaborator? He just dies as a symbol of all the real collaborators who’re out there but can’t be detected by our security forces? You can’t be serious?”
Marwan Natsha shrugged.
Omar Yussef pulled off his flat cap and ran a hand across his wisps of hair. “You’re not from Bethlehem, are you, Mister Nat-sha?”
“No, I’m from Hebron.” Natsha smiled at the mention of his hometown. He seemed relieved, as though the conversation had moved on from the tiresome business of the trial to polite smalltalk.
“Then imagine how you would feel if some gang took over your town. Would you not do what George Saba did?”
“My brother Abu Ramiz, they have taken over my hometown. That’s why I don’t care what they do in Bethlehem. It’s the same everywhere in Palestine. It’s too big to fight.”
“Then we all have the same problem. It should unite us. We have a common cause, all Palestinians against these gunmen.”
“It’s only in the most superficial way that we Palestinians manage to be united even against the Israelis. Do you think we’re capable of unity at all? People aren’t like that. I ran away from what the gunmen are doing in my hometown of Hebron. Why would I make a stand against them in Bethlehem?”
Omar Yussef pitied this man. He wondered what made Nat-sha flee his home. With what outrage might the Martyrs Brigades have sucked the will out of him?
“I’m very sorry, uncle,” Marwan Natsha said, “but I have to lock up and go to an iftar now.”
“Will you pray for George Saba, before you break the fast?”
“No, I’ll be thinking of the food, because I’m hungry, and I’ll be trying to forget that I have to go before this damned court later tonight. You can pray for George Saba.”
“I’ll be praying for you.”
Marwan Natsha held Omar Yussef’s gaze a moment, as though he were weighing whether he was, after all, a more promising recipient of someone’s devotions than a condemned man. Coughing, he stood and gathered the papers from his desk. He stubbed out his cigarette and picked up his briefcase. He was down the stairs so quickly on his long legs that he left Omar Yussef behind in the dark.
In the corridor, Omar Yussef lifted one of Marwan Natsha’s legal diplomas off the wall. The frame shook in his hand. He flung it down the first flight of stairs. The glass shattered against the wall. Three flights below, Marwan Natsha’s steps halted for a moment, then he moved on.