Daniel smiled, shook his head.
"My wife's an artist. She did a painting last summer, using photographs from a calendar. Puget Sound-big boats, silver water. A beautiful place."
"Plenty of ugliness," said Roselli, "if you know where to look." He extended his arm over the rim of the roof, pointed down at the jumble of alleys and courtyards. "That," he said, "is beauty. Sacred beauty. The core of civilization."
"True," said Daniel, but he thought the comment naive, the sweetened perception of the born-again. The core, as the monk called it, had been consecrated in blood for thirty centuries. Wave after wave of pillage and massacre, all in the name of something sacred.
Roselli looked upward and Daniel followed his gaze. The blue of the sky was beginning to deepen under a slowly descending sun. A passing cloud cast platinum shadows over the Dome of the Rock. The bells of Saint Saviour's rang but again, trailed by a muezzin's call from a nearby minaret.
Daniel pulled himself away, returned to his questions.
"Do you have any idea how Fatma ended up in the Old City?"
"No. At first I thought she may have gravitated toward The Little Sisters of Charles Foucauld-they wipe the faces of the poor, and their chapel is near where I saw her. But I went there and asked and they'd never seen her."
They'd come to the last of the casks. Roselli put down the watering can and faced Daniel.
"I've been blessed, Inspector," he said, urgently. Eager to convince. "Given the chance for a new life. I try to do as much thinking and as little talking as possible. There's really nothing more I can tell you."
But even as he said it, his face seemed to weaken, as if buckling under the weight of a burdensome thought. A troubled man. Daniel wasn't ready to let go of him just yet.
"Can you think of anything that would help me, Brother Roselli? Anything that Fatma said or did that would lead me to understand her?"
The monk rubbed his hands together. Freckled hands, the knuckles soil-browned, the fingernails yellowed and cracked. He looked at the vegetables, down at the ground, then back at the vegetables.
"I'm sorry, no."
"What kind of clothes did she wear?"
"She had only one garment. A simple shift."
"What color?"
"White, I believe, with some kind of stripe."
"What color stripe?"
"I don't remember, Inspector."
"Did she wear jewelry?"
"Not that I noticed."
"Earrings?"
"There may have been earrings."
"Can you describe them?"
"No," said the monk, emphatically. "I didn't look at her that closely. I'm not even sure if she wore any."
"There are many kinds of earrings," said Daniel. "Hoops, pendants, studs."
"They could have been hoops."
"How large?"
"Small, very simple."
"What color?"
"I have no idea."
Daniel took a step closer. The monk's robe smelled of topsoil and tomato leaves.
"Is there anything else you can tell me, Brother Roselli?"
"Nothing."
"Nothing at all?" pressed Daniel, certain there was more. "I need to understand her."
Roselli's eye twitched. He took a deep breath and let it out.
"I saw her with young men," he said, softly, as if betraying a confidence.
"How many?"
"At least two."
"At least?"
"She went out at night. I saw her with two men. There may have been others."
"Tell me about the two you saw."
"One used to meet her there." Roselli pointed east, toward the Greek Orthodox Patriarchate, with its grape arbors and fruit trees espaliered along the walls. "Thin, with long dark hair and a mustache."
"How old?"
"Older than Fatma-perhaps nineteen or twenty."
"An Arab?"
"I assume so. They talked to each other and all Fatma spoke was Arabic."
"Did they do anything other than talk?"
Roselli reddened.
"There was some kissing. When it got dark, they'd go off together."
"Where to?"
"Toward the center of the Old City."
"Did you see where?"
The monk looked out at the city, extended his hands palms-up, in a gesture of helplessness.
"It's a labyrinth, Inspector. They stepped into the shadows and were gone."
"How many of these meetings did you witness?"
The word witness made the monk wince, as if it reminded him that he'd been spying.
"Three or four."
"During what time of day -did the meetings occur?"
"I was up here, watering, so it had to be close to sunset."
"And when it got dark, they left together."
"Yes."
"Walking east."
"Yes. I really didn't watch them that closely."
"What else can you tell me about the man with the long hair?"
"Fatma seemed to like him."
"Like him?"
"She smiled when she was with him."
"What about his clothing?"
"He looked poor."
"Ragged?"
"No, just poor. I can't say exactly why I formed that impression."
"All right," said Daniel. "What about the other one?"
"Him I saw once, a few days before she left. This was at night, the same circumstances as the time we took her in. I was returning from late Mass, heard voices-crying-from the Bab el Jadid side of the monastery, took a look, and saw her sitting, talking to this fellow. He was standing over her and I could see he was short-maybe five foot five or six. With big glasses."
"How old?"
"It was hard to tell in the dark. I saw the light reflect off his head, so he must have been bald. But I don't think he was old."
"Why's that?"
"His voice-it sounded boyish. And the way he stood-his posture seemed like that of a young man." Roselli paused. "These are just impressions, Inspector. I couldn't swear to any of them."
Impressions that added up to a perfect description of Anwar Rashmawi.
"Were they doing anything other than talking?" Daniel asked.
"No. If any romance had ever existed between them, it was long over. He was talking very quickly-sounded angry, as if he were scolding her."
"How did Fatma respond to the scolding?"
"She cried."
"Did she say anything at all?"
"Maybe a few words. He was doing most of the talking. He seemed to be in charge-but that's part of their culture, isn't it?"
"What happened after he was through scolding her?"