“Yes, I heard.”
“It was carried out by the Martyrs Brigades. The operation was organized from Bethlehem. I fear the Israelis will come tonight to capture or kill the leaders of the group. They will need to exact some kind of revenge for the deaths in their marketplace.”
“How does this involve the church?”
“Jihad Awdeh, who is a leader of the Martyrs Brigades, has become a neighbor of mine. He told someone that if the Israelis came to take him, he would flee to the church.”
Elias gasped.
“You understand, of course, that if he enters the church, it could draw the Israeli soldiers inside, too. There might be a gunfight in the church. Who knows how it would end? But it would be bad for the town, and bad for the Christians, either way. Your shrine could be damaged, even destroyed, if the gunmen enter. If they are denied sanctuary by the priests, the Muslims of the town will rise up against the Christians for abandoning the so-called resistance heroes to the Israeli army.”
Elias glanced toward the watching Greek priest, who dodged behind the stone lintel of the door, out of sight. “Abu Ramiz, I can’t believe it has come to this,” he said.
“Why do you think the Martyrs Brigades has its headquarters right around the corner? They could be out of their hideaway and inside the church in a minute. You must close the doors early tonight.”
“I can’t, Abu Ramiz. It isn’t my decision. Even if I can persuade the Latin patriarch to shut the church, the Greeks won’t allow it. They’ll be suspicious. They’ll think we’re trying to change the operating arrangements of the church. Nothing has been done differently here for hundreds of years. You’re a history teacher, so you know all about it. Remember how the French empire ended up at war against Russia a hundred and fifty years ago because the priests here argued about a new decorative plaque on the spot where Jesus was born? Even today, a Catholic priest sweeps some steps that are supposed to be cleaned by the Greek Orthodox and he gets a punch in the face. It’s hopeless even to ask about locking up early.”
“Surely they’ll understand the threat?”
“It doesn’t matter. There’s such stubbornness in this church, there are priests who’d rather see the place destroyed by Muslims and Jews than concede a point to another Christian denomination.”
“Then there’s nothing you can do?”
“Maybe there’s something.” Elias looked down the aisle toward the figure of the crucified Christ on the altar. “I’ll be here. I’ll stop them.”
“Elias, they’ll just kill you. How will you stand up to them alone?”
“Abu Ramiz, I’m not a hero, of course. I fear these gunmen. But I hope that I fear them less than I love this church. This building is the history of Christianity in the Holy Land. You always taught me that history was the essence of life, that its study gave us the key to a better future. Even if these stones were to be destroyed, the spirit of their history must be protected. This place represents a past when Muslims and Christians lived together peacefully and the chance that it could be so again, when all of this madness is over. I will be here tonight, and I will pray for the church. I will stay here even when the Martyrs Brigades come, and I will pray for them too.” Elias laid a warm hand on Omar Yussef’s leg. “Thank you for the warning, Abu Ramiz. Now I will be ready for them when they come. But you must go home and change into dry clothes, before you catch your death of a cold.”
“I’m beginning to think that would be a blessing.”
“Do you want to be an influenza martyr?” Elias Bishara laughed. “They will give you seventy-two cups of hot cider in Paradise.”
Omar Yussef laughed, too. But as he left the church, he noticed that Elias Bishara was back on his knees. The priest’s gaze was stern, fixed on the cross.
Chapter 22
Omar Yussef lay flat on his bed, waiting for Maryam to call him to the table for the iftar. The throbbing in his back that began when he bailed the floodwater from his basement had returned. The trek from the school to the church and then home had tired him, but the fear that the young priest would put himself in danger truly exhausted him. After sitting down to drink a cup of coffee, the chill crept into his lower spine and his muscles seized up, clenching him like the familiar fist of an awful, recurring nightmare. It seemed curiously appropriate to Omar Yussef that on an evening when he should have been rushing around Bethlehem, unearthing clues and persuading people of George Saba’s innocence, he instead passed a fruitless five hours prone in his bedroom. The silence of the broody, featureless sky outside his window taunted him like the blank stare of a sadist. He would lie here the remaining eighteen hours until George Saba’s execution, gaping hopelessly at the heavy clouds. Then it would rain, and he would know that George was dead.
Omar Yussef wondered if he were depressed. Perhaps he was in some state of traumatic stress. He had read about such things happening to those who were close to a bomb when it went off, as he had been. He put his hand to his breastbone and felt that it was a little bruised from the impact of the shockwave that had knocked him onto his backside that morning at the school. Traumatized he certainly was by the sight of Christopher Stead-man’s body. He hadn’t thought of it while he sat at Steadman’s desk or as he walked home. There had been other things to ponder. Once he was home, though, the American’s lifeless limb came back to him. All afternoon, he had examined his own hand, holding it before his face in the same position in which he’d seen Steadman’s, seeming to scratch itself along the floor tiles, like a scorpion, scuttling to catch up with the director’s charred body. Omar Yussef wondered how often Khamis Zeydan thought about his lost hand. Would that not turn anyone to drink? The loss of the hand, the horrors of soldiering, the loneliness of a man whose closest companionship was with the dead of his old battles. Omar Yussef had barely managed to conquer his own compulsive drinking and smoking, and he struggled against nothing more than the frustrations of life under occupation. How much harder must it be for his friend? Yes, he still thought of Khamis Zeydan as his friend. He felt suddenly very forgiving, as he pictured him lying on his back in Lebanon, fainting, searching desperately about him for his severed hand in the dirt, oblivious to the bullets flying around him, hoping he could simply slot the limb back into place and flee forever from the battlefield. Omar Yussef imagined that might have been the very moment when the idealistic young man he had known at university had turned into the bitter, melancholy, apathetic drunk who now headed Bethlehem’s police force. But he wondered if the darkness that had shrouded Khamis Zeydan’s life for many decades was deep enough that it might also obscure the police chief’s judgement of right and wrong. Could his friend be so contaminated that he would have tipped off Tamari about Dima? Omar Yussef hated to think it, but he couldn’t see how else Tamari would have known that he needed to kill the girl.
Nadia entered her grandfather’s bedroom carrying a cup of coffee. Darkness ringed the twelve-year-old’s eyes and her diaphanous skin was blued by the veins beneath. Omar Yussef understood that she had barely slept since the flood descended on her family’s apartment in the basement. The guest room on the ground floor was crammed with Ramiz’s entire family, and it was fearfully cold at night. Everyone around her, her parents and her grandmother and the relatives and neighbors who came to help clear out the basement, they all spent the day wailing or bitching about the occupation, the destruction, the mess of everything. Nadia was quiet. Omar Yussef looked across at her from where he lay on the bed. If she put on a little weight, it would be almost like looking at his mother, he thought. Her eyes sloped down, giving them a melancholy cast. Her hair was a black frame to the pale, unblemished face. Omar Yussef’s father always said his wife looked and walked like a Turkish princess, the old pure Turks of the Caucasus, from before the Ottoman conquests. Nadia carried herself with the same slender authority as Omar Yussef’s mother had. She had the same sensitive personality. She was withdrawn, as though something made her feel the world couldn’t be trusted. She was knowing, too, as only an unhappy child can be.