You know perfectly well that I know him. I’m sure he’s shown you his file on me, Omar Yussef thought. He remained silent.
“Well, I must tell you that Mr. Abdel Hadi has received some complaints about your teaching. This is why I’ve called you in here today.” Steadman stroked his thin, blond hair back from a sunburned forehead. He brought his hand down with the palm open, giving the floor to the government inspector.
The government inspector read from a series of letters he claimed parents had written to his department. The letters quoted Omar Yussef criticizing the president and the government, lambasting the Aqsa Martyrs Brigades as gangsters, condemning suicide bombings and talking disrespectfully about the sheikhs in some of the local mosques. “Last month,” the inspector said, “some of the students were hurt in a demonstration against Occupation soldiers at Rachel’s Tomb. The next day, teacher Omar Yussef told them that instead of throwing stones at soldiers, children should throw stones at their parents and their government for making a mess of their lives. This is a precise quote: for making a mess of their lives, throw stones at their parents and their government.”
“Is that what you said, Abu Ramiz?” Steadman asked.
Omar Yussef looked at the dark, sly eyes of the government inspector. He held his hand over his mouth, trying to make the gesture look casual. He hoped it would hide the angry twitching in his lip. He felt adrenaline filling him with rage. Steadman repeated his question. His innocent tone infuriated Omar Yussef.
“I don’t expect you to be absolutely politically correct, Abu Ramiz. You’re too old for that,” Steadman said. “But I cannot accept this kind of thing. We work in cooperation with the local administration and we’re not supposed to be breeding revolutionaries, or encouraging acts of violence.”
This stupid man really thought I wanted the children to attack their parents. “The children were already violent. They attacked the soldiers. I hope it’s not revolutionary to point out that this is still an act of violence, whatever their reasons for doing so. I was suggesting to the children that the guiltiest target is not always the most obvious one,” he said.
“That is outrageous,” the government inspector said. “To place parents and the government before the Occupation Forces as criminals against the Palestinian people.”
“It’s politically correct these days to blow yourself up in a crowd of civilians. It’s politically correct to praise those who detonate themselves and to laud them in the newspapers and in the mosques.” Omar Yussef banged the edge of his hand on the desk. “But you say that it’s outrageous for me to encourage intellectual inquiry?”
“You have a bad record, Abu Ramiz,” the government man said. “Your file is a lengthy one. I will have to institute official proceedings against you, if you do not agree to Mr. Stead-man’s proposals.”
Omar Yussef looked at Steadman. The square American jaw was firm. The lips were tight. Steadman adjusted his small round spectacles. He squinted and watched Omar Yussef calmly with his little, blue eyes.
So this bastard already told Abdel Hadi he wants me out of here. Who knows if they didn’t cook this up between them? He decided he wouldn’t make it easy for them. He would never retire. They could put him in a jail cell with George Saba before he’d accede to Steadman’s weakness and pandering. “This would never have happened when the school was run by Mister Fer-gus or Miss Pilar. They would never threaten me. Yes, I consider this a threat, not just from the government but from you, too, Christopher. I end this conversation.” He went to the door.
“Abu Ramiz, you may not leave yet,” Steadman said. “We need to clear this up.”
“I am happy that you listened to my lecture about ‘Abu’ meaning ‘father of,’” Omar Yussef said. “Would you like me to refer to you as Abu Scott, as you suggested, after all?”
Steadman seemed taken aback by Omar Yussef’s change in direction, and he answered warily. “Yes. Like I told you, I always figured I’d call my son Scott, if I had one. So that makes me the father of Scott. Sure, you can call me Abu Scott.”
“It is a most appropriate name. In Arabic, Scott means shut up.” Omar Yussef stared at the confused American and the furious government inspector. “Excuse me, but I have a condolence call to pay in Irtas. The husband of one of my former pupils has been killed by political correctness.”
Chapter 4
The path through the valley was marked by a languid stream of mourners for the martyr. They sauntered along the track to the Abdel Rahman house, chatting idly. Omar Yussef cursed himself for wearing only a jacket that morning, as the wind rushed down the valley of Irtas and through his tweed. He decided to put on a coat every day until April, no matter how bright the weather looked from his bedroom window when he awoke. He moved as fast as he could, but was passed by almost everyone, though they seemed to be in no hurry. He was thankful at least that he wore a beige flat cap of soft cashmere to warm his bald head and to keep his strands of hair under control in the stiff breeze.
Omar Yussef came to the end of the path. There were two oil drums with the palm fronds and black flags of mourning bending in the wind. The flags were mounted on bamboo poles and their ends clicked and scratched around inside the barrel as the wind whipped them, as though they thought they could escape. Omar Yussef wound through the rows of men sitting on white plastic garden chairs under the fluttery black tarpaulin of the condolence tent. He joined the queue of men who passed along the family receiving line, limply shaking hands and muttering that Allah would be merciful to Louai Abdel Rahman. At the end of the receiving line was a thin young man with a bony resentful face. Omar Yussef assumed this was the dead fighter’s brother. The kid alternated his fierce glare between the edge of the woods beyond the vegetable patch and the entrance to the family’s house. Omar Yussef held the youth’s hand and asked him where to find Dima Abdel Rahman. He detected a flash of hostility before the young man told him she was inside with the women.
“Please go and get her. Tell her it’s her old schoolteacher.”
The young man hesitated, while Omar Yussef kept his hand in his grip. Then he pulled his hand away and went into the house.
Omar Yussef would have liked to accept a small cup of qahweh sa’ada. Any other time of the year there would have been a teenager circulating with a plastic flask of the unsweetened coffee at a funeral. But it was Ramadan now, and there would be neither coffee nor anything else served until darkness fell. Omar Yussef didn’t need Ramadan to remind him that there were things from which he ought to refrain. He remembered that when he was a student an old woman once slapped his face because he smoked a cigarette on a Damascus street during Ramadan. He ought to have kept her around to batter him every time he did something forbidden. How long, he wondered, would it have taken him to quit alcohol if he’d received a sharp jab to the head every time he sank a scotch on the rocks? Instead, he hadn’t sobered up until his late forties. By that time, the spectacular relish of his early drinking days had vanished. Even he could see that he was pathetic. He had stopped because it embarrassed him to notice men twenty years younger look with pity at his bleary eyes and shaky hands.
From behind the mourning tent, there were three sharp, loud shots, but only Omar Yussef ducked. He turned quickly to follow the gaze of the other mourners. Along the path came a troop of Aqsa Martyrs Brigades gunmen. A big man who wore a bandoleer across his chest led them. Omar Yussef pushed his gold-rimmed glasses up along his nose and saw that it was Hussein Tamari, the leader of the Martyrs Brigades in Bethlehem. He carried the big gun everyone talked about. Tamari’s head was widest at the bottom, bulky and jowly. He had a thick, black moustache and trim, black hair that seemed of necessity to be short, as there wasn’t much real estate for it to cover. The top of Tamari’s head narrowed to a third of the width of his neck. The tapering, in-bred head seemed to Omar Yussef to be a declaration that his brain wasn’t the source of his swagger.