The suspect cried convulsively. Daniel took a tissue out of a box, waited until the man's chest had stopped heaving, and said, "Here, Anwar."
The brother wiped his face, put his glasses back on, stared at the floor.
"You were talking about how Fatma met Issa Abdelatif," said Daniel. "Please go on."
"I " Anwar made a gagging sound, placed a hand on his throat.
Daniel waited some more.
"Are you all right?"
Anwar swallowed, then nodded.
"Would you like some water?"
A shake of the head.
"Then please go on."
Anwar wiped his mouth, avoided Daniel's eyes.
"Go on, Anwar. It's important that you tell me."
"It was a construction site," said the brother, barely audible. Daniel adjusted the volume control on the recorder. "Nabil and Qasem were working there. She was sent to bring food to them. He was working there also and he snared her."
"How did he do that?"
Anwar's face constricted with anger, the pockmarks on his pale cheeks compressing to vertical slits.
"Pretty words, snake smiles! She was a simple girl, trusting-when we were children I could always fool her into thinking anything."
More tears.
"It's all right, Anwar. You're doing the right thing by talking about it. What was the location of this site?"
"Romema."
"Where in Romema?"
"Behind the zoo I think. I was never there."
"How, then, do you know about Fatma meeting Abdelatif?"
"Nabil and Qasem saw him talking to her, warned him off, and told Father about it."
"What did your father do?"
Anwar hugged himself and rocked in the chair.
"What did he do, Anwar?"
"He beat her but it didn't stop her!"
"How do you know that?"
Anwar bit his lip and chewed on it. So hard that he broke skin.
"Here," said Daniel, handing him another tissue.
Anwar kept chewing, dabbed at the lip, looked at the crimson spots on the tissue, and smiled strangely.
"How do you know Fatma kept seeing Issa Abdelatif?"
"I saw them."
"Where did you see them?"
"Fatma stayed away too long on errands. Father grew suspicious and sent me to watch them. I saw them."
"Where?"
"Different places. Around the walls of Al Quds." Using the Arabic name for the Old City. "In the wadis, near the trees of Gethsemane, anywhere they could hide." Anwar's voice rose in pitch: "He took her to hidden places and defiled her!"
"Did you report this to your father?"
"I had to! It was my duty. But "
"But what?"
Silence.
"Tell me, Anwar."
Silence.
"But what, Anwar?"
"Nothing."
"What did you think your father would do to her once he knew?"
The brother moaned, leaned forward, hands outstretched, eyes bulging, fishlike, behind the thick lenses. He smelled feral, looked frantic, trapped. Daniel resisted the impulse to move away from him and, instead, inched closer.
"What would he do, Anwar?"
"He would kill her! I knew he would kill her, so before I told him I warned her!"
"And she ran away."
"Yes."
"You were trying to save her, Anwar."
"Yes!"
"Where did she go?"
"To a Christian place in Al Quds. The brown-robes took her in."
"Saint Saviour's Monastery?"
"Yes."
"How do you know she went there?"
"Two weeks after she ran away, I took a walk. Up to the olive grove where you found me. We used to play there, Fatma and I, throwing olives at each other, hiding and looking for each other. I still like to go there. To think. She knew that and she was waiting for me-she'd come to see me."
"Why?"
"She was lonely, crying about how much she missed the family. She wanted me to talk with Father, to persuade him to take her back. I asked her where I could reach her and she told me the brown-robes had taken her in. I told her they were infidels and would try to convert her, but she said they were kind and she had nowhere else to go."
"What was she wearing, Anwar?".
"Wearing?"
"Her clothing."
"A dress I don't know."
"What color?"
"White, I think."
"Plain white?"
"I think. What does it matter?"
"And which earrings was she wearing?"
"The only ones she had."
"Which are those?"
"Little gold rings-they put them on her at birth."
Anwar began to cry.
"Solid gold?" asked Daniel.
"Yes no I don't know. They looked gold. What does it matter!"
"I'm sorry," said Daniel. "These are questions I have to ask."
Anwar slumped in his chair, limp and defeated.
"Did you talk to your father about taking her back?" asked Daniel.
A violent shake of the head, trembling lips. Even at this point, the fear of the father remained.
"No, no! I couldn't! It was too soon, I knew what he would say! A few days later I went to the monastery to talk to her, to tell her to wait. I asked her if she was still seeing the lying dog and she said she was, that they loved each other! I ordered her to stop seeing him but she refused, said I was cruel, that all men were cruel. All men except for him. We argued and I left. It was the last time I saw her."
Anwar buried his face.
"The very last?"
"No." Muffled. "One more time."
"Did you see Abdelatif again, as well?"
The brother looked up and smiled. A wholehearted grin that made his ravaged face glow. Throwing back his shoulders | and sitting up straighter, he recited in a clear, loud voice: "He who does not take revenge from the transgressor would better be dead than to walk without pride!"
Reciting the proverb seemed to have infused new life into him. He balled one hand into a fist and recited several other Arabic sayings, all pertaining to the honor of vengeance. Took off his glasses and stared myopically into space. Smiling.
"The obligation the honor was mine," he said. "We were of the same mother."
Such a sad case, thought Daniel, watching him posture. He'd read the arrest report, seen the reports from the doctors at Hadassah who'd examined Anwar after the assault arrest, the psychiatric recommendations. The Polaroid pictures, like something out of a medical book. A fancy diagnosis-congenital micropenis with accompanying epispaedia-that did nothing but give a name to the poor guy's misery. Born with a tiny, deformed stump of a male organ, the urethra nothing more than a flat strip of mucous membrane on the upper surface of what should have been a shaft but was only a useless nub. Bladder abnormalities that made it hard for the guy to hold his water-when they'd stripped him before booking him he'd been wearing layers of cloth fashioned into a crude homemade diaper.