Salwa’s cheek twitched when he mentioned her family and Omar Yussef regretted his joke. He cleared his throat. “My daughter, I came to tell you that I’ve discovered something which will help your husband.”
The woman straightened on her stool and looked at Omar Yussef intently.
“I went to Professor Maki’s office. I examined the records of two brothers from Rafah. I discovered that the academic transcript of the one who’s an officer in Colonel al-Fara’s Preventive Security clearly had been rigged.” Omar Yussef leaned closer to Salwa. “His financial records also smelled bad.”
“How does this help Eyad?”
“Now the UN has proof of Eyad’s accusation against the security forces, we can make a strong case that Eyad was arrested because he uncovered a real conspiracy.”
Salwa nodded, slowly. Omar Yussef had thought she would be happier with his discovery. The smell of charcoal came to them strongly. Salwa gasped and pulled the burning bread from the upturned pan. She stood with her hands on the small of her back and stretched. “I apologize for this reception, Abu Ramiz. It’s difficult for me to see the good in anything at the moment,” she said.
“That’s understandable, my daughter.”
She bent to pick up the pile of flat bread she had already made. “No, it’s not. It doesn’t help Eyad for me to be depressed. That’s why I decided to make bread today. I needed to show myself that the world continues, in spite of what has happened.”
Omar Yussef followed her toward the house. “That was very wise.”
“Until I burned the bread.”
In the kitchen, she put the bread by the sink and ran water to make coffee. “It was good of you to come with this news, Abu Ramiz,” she said. “I know you’re busy. You’re working hard for my husband and your friend, the foreigner.”
Omar Yussef leaned against the refrigerator. Salwa hadn’t sent him to the sitting room, but had let him follow her into a place usually barred to male visitors. He felt the comfort of being with a woman in her kitchen and wondered that it could be such a solace even in a home turned inside out by fear like this one. He wished he were with Maryam and that he could reach out to rub his wife’s shoulder blades as she liked him to do.
Salwa poured coffee and sugar into the pot and put it on the stove. Her shoulders jolted, but only when he heard her sob did Omar Yussef realize she was crying. He pulled his handkerchief from his trouser pocket and dangled it against her hand. She wiped her face and sniffed.
“Sometimes I think the only Palestinians who aren’t crying are the dead,” Salwa said.
“I don’t think Colonel al-Fara sheds many tears,” Omar Yussef said.
“I wish he were dead.” Salwa looked up at Omar Yussef and her face went limp, as though she had horrified herself.
“In this, as in everything else, you have my complete solidarity.” Omar Yussef smiled at Salwa until she rewarded him with a small giggle behind the handkerchief.
“You’re very good to help my husband this way, Abu Ramiz,” she said.
“I know he would do the same for me. I was once unfortunate enough to be unjustly imprisoned in Bethlehem, a long time ago. I wouldn’t leave an innocent man to suffer in such a place.”
Salwa lifted her eyebrows. Omar Yussef knew she was about to ask him why he had been jailed. The last time he spoke the word murder, it had been as though the very syllables were fatal to Cree. He wouldn’t utter them to Salwa. “It was a political dispute. It’s in the past,” he said. “Your husband is all I’m concerned about now.”
She held his gaze a moment, then smiled. “I’m being very inhospitable. Please make yourself comfortable in the salon while I finish preparing the coffee, Abu Ramiz.”
Omar Yussef sat in the armchair where he had watched Magnus on television the previous night. He thought of his encounter with Professor Maki and his breath quickened. He rubbed his forehead and wondered whether Umm Rateb would recover his notes before the professor found them.
He heard a tune playing somewhere nearby. It was a thin, electronic version of a Bach cantata, accompanied by a low buzzing. Omar Yussef couldn’t place it at first, but then he felt something vibrating in the pocket of his pants and realized it was Sami’s cellphone. He clicked his tongue impatiently and frowned at the keypad of the phone. He assumed the green button was for accepting a call. He pressed it, held the phone a few inches from his ear and spoke. “Who’s this?”
“I want to talk to Abu Ramiz.” The voice on the phone was harsh and loud.
“Speaking.”
“Abu Ramiz from the UN?”
Omar Yussef nodded. He was wary of cellphones, but the voice put him doubly on guard. “Who’re you?”
“Someone wants to say hello.”
A new voice came over the line, wheezy and thick. It was Magnus Wallender. “Abu Ramiz, how’re you?”
Omar Yussef gripped the phone tight and pressed it hard to his ear. “May Allah be thanked, Magnus. You’re still alive.”
“If you say so.”
“Where are you?”
“I don’t know, Abu Ramiz.” Magnus broke off and spoke away from the phone. The harsh voice responded with an order to “read.”
“Abu Ramiz, I’m reading now: The Saladin Brigades have avenged themselves on the traitor and collaborator Husseini, the murderer of the brother Bassam Odwan. But the Brigades warn that something bad.. ” Wallender groaned and breathed deeply. “ Something bad will happen to the foreigner Wallender unless all UN personnel leave Gaza immediately. ”
“They have left.” Omar Yussef thought of his conversation with the American woman from the UN.
“Why have they left, Abu Ramiz?” Magnus sounded at once curious and lonely.
“Someone in Jerusalem decided it was too dangerous.” He thought of James Cree’s burned corpse. “Because of your kidnapping.”
“So there’s no one here except you?”
“There’re some locals. But they’re keeping their heads down.”
Magnus relayed this to the other man. There was a rattling sound and the harsh voice barked down the line once more. “You, too, must leave Gaza immediately, if you want your friend to be safe.”
“I’d need a special permit from the Israelis to pass through the checkpoint on such short notice.”
The voice hesitated, but it came back with scornful finality. “That’s crap. You’re with the UN. Get a permit and get out of here.”
“Let me speak to Magnus again.”
The line went dead.
Omar Yussef cursed. Salwa entered with his coffee. She glanced at him with a stern, expectant face. The phone sounded again. Omar Yussef thrust his forefinger at the green button. “Magnus?”
“What?” Khamis Zeydan’s voice was surrounded by the murmur of conversation.
“The kidnappers just called me. I spoke to Magnus.”
“So he’s alive.”
Omar Yussef stared into the thick blackness of his coffee. “How did they get Sami’s number? How did they know I had this phone?”
He heard Khamis Zeydan growl with impatience.
“I’ve only had this phone since last night,” Omar Yussef said. “Did they call Sami’s other phone first?”
“You’re suspicious of the wrong man, my friend,” Khamis Zeydan said.
“Just because someone calls you my friend, doesn’t mean he is.”
Another growl. “Remember what the Prophet’s son-in-law said: He who has a thousand friends has not a friend to spare,” Khamis Zeydan said. “You need Sami.”
“You’re leaving out the second part of Ali’s saying: And he who has one enemy will meet him everywhere.”
Omar Yussef heard a grating click and an inhalation, as Khamis Zeydan lit a cigarette. The police chief breathed out. “I’m on my way to our hotel. We need to talk.”
“I’m at Salwa Masharawi’s house.”
“I’ll pick you up there, then.”
Omar Yussef looked at Salwa’s eyes. They were red, but the tears were gone. He shook his head at the phone. “Not yet. I’m going to stay here a little longer.”
“No, you’re coming with me.” Khamis Zeydan was firm. “I’m taking you to a funeral.”