Shots came from the west, distant, their reverberations threading between the raindrops.
“They are firing up at Beit Jala,” Muhammad Abdel Rahman said. “They are destroying this Christian’s house. In revenge.”
“For the death of your son?”
Muhammad Abdel Rahman shook his head. He looked no more alive than the corpse at their feet. “No, my son wasn’t their concern, truly. They are taking revenge for Hussein Tamari, the martyr.”
Omar Yussef felt angry, despite the frailty of the old man who had lost his sons. Hussein Tamari was a murderer and gangster. He was no martyr. Omar Yussef pointed at George’s body. “There is your martyr,” he said. “There. There is your martyr.”
A police jeep squealed around the corner, throwing up spray from the rain that rushed down the slope. Six policemen jumped out at the entrance to the station. Omar Yussef saw a staggering Khamis Zeydan step among them. They rushed across the square toward George Saba’s body. Four of them picked up the corpse roughly by the legs and arms, and hauled it toward the police station. The others shoved the few onlookers who remained and told them to clear the square.
One of the policemen pushed Omar Yussef with his rifle butt and told him to go home.
“Fuck you,” Omar Yussef shouted. He pushed the policeman back. “Where were you ten minutes ago, when they were killing your prisoner? Don’t touch me.”
Khamis Zeydan came to Omar Yussef. He thrust the police- man aside and took his old friend by the arm. The police chief’s upper lip swelled beneath his nicotine-stained moustache, and his teeth were bloody from Jihad Awdeh’s blow. The two men stared at each other. Omar Yussef wondered if Khamis Zeydan felt shame, or simply confusion after the impact of the rifle-butt on his head and all the whisky.
Khamis Zeydan looked up when a shot sounded through the rain. There were more percussions, spattering randomly through the air like the first raindrops of a storm. “What the fuck is that?”
“The Martyrs Brigades went to Beit Jala. They’ve gone to destroy George’s house,” Omar Yussef said.
“He has a wife and family, doesn’t he?”
“Yes.”
Khamis Zeydan took Omar Yussef by the arm and pulled him toward his jeep. “Let’s go.”
Chapter 25
Omar Yussef climbed stiffly from the back of Khamis Zey-dan’s jeep. The rain penetrated his coat and seeped through his flat cap. It washed over the tops of his loafers. His bare fingers were icy and swollen. He shook himself to get the blood moving through his arms and legs, as he looked toward George Saba’s home.
The Martyrs Brigades surrounded the house. A half dozen of them kneeled on the roof. With their assault rifles, they aimed at the Israelis across the valley. It was hopeless to expect that they would hit anyone except by the most random of chances at this distance and with their view obscured by low rainclouds. Omar Yussef followed the Israeli tracer as it came toward the gunmen on the roof, striping the stormy valley, slapping into the side of the Saba home or overshooting it and striking the house across the street. Between Omar Yussef and the Saba house there were a dozen Martyrs Brigades men. Some of them watched the arrival of Khamis Zeydan’s police jeep, but most were intent on the doorway and windows of the house. From where they milled about, they must be able to see inside, Omar Yussef figured. Sheltered from the gunfire by the walls of the house, the gunmen seemed to find something highly amusing about whatever was happening in the bedroom that fronted the street.
The policemen advanced toward the house with Khamis Zey-dan at their head. They dashed across the exposed gaps between buildings. When they reached the cordon of gunmen, Khamis Zeydan ordered them to let him through. Someone called out an insult about the police chief’s sister. The police and the gunmen shoved each other. As they jostled, Omar Yussef passed along the edge of the street. In the darkness, he sidled past the gunmen on the steps by the entrance. To his surprise, the sound of gunfire was louder within the house.
The lights in the living room had been extinguished. From the entrance, Omar Yussef saw that the gunmen had removed the sandbags from the windows. They clustered around the shattered frames, shooting toward the Israelis. The noise was terrifying. It echoed about the high ceilings and off the thick walls. One of the men at the window turned toward the door. His face was manic with the ecstacy of the fight. Omar Yussef recognized him. It was Mahmoud Zubeida, the policeman whose daughter had brought him the news of George’s arrest. His eyes were as dark as his betel-stained teeth, but they radiated a chilling energy. When he saw Omar Yussef, his grin faded. He looked embarrassed and ashamed, but also angry. The presence of the schoolteacher broke the anonymity that allowed him to free the ugliness he would otherwise have hidden deep within himself.
Omar Yussef looked away from Mahmoud Zubeida. He took a step forward and turned to his left. George Saba’s family cowered against the wall. Here was the evidence that George had taken the wrong path, if you wanted to see it that way. George was dead, because he’d tried to defend his family, but here they were, unprotected, because of his death. Then Omar Yussef decided that if his former pupil had acted differently, George Saba too would be shivering with fear on the floor, and maybe he hadn’t been wrong to do as he did. The wrong was done against him, not by him.
Sofia looked up. Tears laid crooked fingers of mascara across her cheeks. She held her two children under her arms. Habib Saba sat next to them. The old man was quiet and motionless. He cradled something black in his lap, perhaps a book. Its square edge jutted from beneath his arms like the tail of a stricken ocean liner going down. Omar Yussef was about to speak to Sofia, when he noticed a movement on the other side of the bedroom.
Jihad Awdeh sat in an old Damascened armchair next to the big vanity by the bed. He uncrossed his legs and stood, flicking his cigarette out of the open window. He smiled at Omar Yussef and lifted his gun.
Omar Yussef thought of jumping back toward the entrance, but he couldn’t do it. Something held him in place there, despite the gun trained on him. He thought it might be the memory of George Saba, who had refused to buckle before wickedness, that now kept his old teacher steady. So he stayed where he was, turning to face Jihad Awdeh.
“We’re taking care of the traitor’s family, as you can see, Abu Ramiz,” Jihad Awdeh said. “But I’m happy to see you here, too.”
“Jihad, you know that if you harm me, you’ll be starting a fight with the biggest clan in Dehaisha. Even you should think twice before taking on all my people,” Omar Yussef said.
“There are bullets flying as wildly here as those accusations of murder and collaboration you made about the martyr Hus-sein. Who knows if one of those bullets might happen to strike you? I believe your clan would agree that an Israeli bullet killed you. Most people are happy with an excuse to avoid trouble.”
“But not you.”
“Nor you, evidently.”
Jihad Awdeh walked across the room with his gun on Omar Yussef.
“You don’t think you’re really protecting the reputation of Hussein Tamari by what you’re doing here,” Omar Yussef said. “This is evil. You shoot from inside this house, because you know the Israelis will destroy it in return.”
Jihad Awdeh lifted a concurring eyebrow. He fed a bullet into the chamber of his Kalashnikov and raised it to his chest.
This is it, Omar Yussef thought. At least I didn’t have to be hung upside down in the square. The image of Nadia, her face sad and eyes lowered, flickered through his mind, but he fought it away. He felt proud that his last moment would be defiant, and he stared into Jihad Awdeh’s black eyes.
The blast came with a whoosh like a jet plane passing low. Jihad Awdeh looked up momentarily. Then Omar Yussef’s ears went dead, as though he was underwater, and the wall of the bedroom came down. Omar Yussef felt himself tumble out of the doorway and down the steps. He hit his head against the railing, then struck something soft.