Omar Yussef remembered why he had spoken to her in the first place and lifted his hand to catch her attention. “For 42nd Street-?”
“Stay on this train, ustaz. Peace be upon you.”
“And upon you, peace. May Allah lengthen your life.”
He watched her slip into the crowd on the platform and lost sight of her as the train picked up speed again. The subway car had felt comforting while they spoke, but she had taken all that warmth with her and left him feeling more bereft and alien than before.
As the train carried him through the tunnel, he had the feeling that he was trapped like an African crammed below the decks of a Yemeni slave ship. Whenever he tried to divert his thoughts from the arrest of his son, he knew that he was like the slave dragging his chains over the inert bodies of those packed beside him, hoping that his efforts took him in the direction of home. But he was being stolen quicker than he could struggle toward freedom. He felt himself transported beneath a world that was outlandish and dangerous and imprisoning. You’ve been here less than a day, and already you’re so gloomy, he thought. Remember how excited you were to arrive here, to see your son.
He left the train at Times Square, squinting along the busy platform as he sought the EXIT sign. He made his way through a series of wide, low-ceilinged tunnels. Passengers passed him swiftly, dodging between those hurrying in the opposite direction until their movement made Omar Yussef dizzy. He came to a stretch of tunnel quiet enough that he could hear his own steps over the rattle of the trains, rounded a corner to a flight of stairs, and found the exit barred by a locked gate. No wonder no one was around, he thought.
As he turned back, he heard someone moving stealthily along the tunnel. His breath quickened. He held himself close to the cream tiles on the wall and peered around the corner. The footsteps halted. He saw no one. A fluorescent light flickered over the dirty concrete floor with a stuttering buzz.
He would have headed back toward the crowds, but his fear filled the empty corridor with the image of the man in the black coat he had glimpsed fleeing Ala’s apartment. He went further along the tunnel, quickening his pace.
Before he had gone twenty yards, he was panting, and tension lanced through his chest. He stopped to catch his breath and heard a single set of footsteps behind him.
“Rashid?” he said. The name of his former pupil, the boy his son believed had become a killer, echoed in the tunnel. Omar Yussef heard the quaver in his own voice. “Rashid, my dear one?”
Water dripped from a short-circuited light fixture. The steps sounded again, as though someone were moving with fast, short paces. But Omar Yussef saw nothing. He recalled his secretary’s warning about New York muggers and wondered if he were about to be robbed. It’d be preferable to a murder, he thought.
At the end of the tunnel, another exit seemed to be barred and he whimpered in self-pity. He advanced on the gate in desperation and discovered that, while the entry was blocked, a one-way turnstile allowed him access to the stairs. As he scrambled up the steps, he heard someone running along the tunnel behind him, but no one came through the turnstile. The cold on the street chilled his scalp, and he realized that he had been sweating with tension.
He hurried along 42nd Street toward his hotel, watching the crowd over his shoulder as darkness overwhelmed the blank light of the winter’s day. He tried to pick out a man in a black coat, but the dour dress of the commuters making for Grand Central melded into an indistinguishable mass. In Bethlehem, where he had lived since infancy, he recognized all the faces in the street, even when the souk was busy with market stalls and hawkers. But in New York he could be on personal terms with a million people, and there would still be seven million strangers around him. His teeth chattered, and his eyes teared in the wind.
Outside his hotel, he reached into his pocket for the conference schedule and read from the first page: 5:30 p.m. Welcome tea and coffee for conference delegates and UN staff, Room 3201, Secretariat Building. He was too nervous to be alone in his room. He folded the pages neatly, put them in his pocket, lifted his shoulders against the cold, and went east, toward the UN tower.
Chapter 7
The Saudi delegates in their long, white jalabiyyas would have been happier with whisky, but the consideration of the UN for their country’s Islamic proscriptions restricted them to coffee. They floated past Omar Yussef, their pure white robes falling around lumpy paunches, their cheeks seeming dark and unshaven despite the reek of expensive cologne that followed them through the overheated air. Like angels gone to seed, Omar Yussef thought. He surveyed the bright African costumes and the somber gray suits mingling in the shabby reception room. Perhaps this was a mistake. I don’t know if I can put on a sociable face and chatter with these people.
A man with a blond beard came smiling across the thin institutional carpet. He rubbed Omar Yussef’s fingers with both hands. “Abu Ramiz, you’re freezing,” he said. “As your boss, I’m responsible for your health while we’re in New York. Don’t you have a proper winter coat?”
“I left it at the hotel, Magnus.” Omar Yussef played with the zipper of his windbreaker. After his disconcerting day, he was unsure of his ability to get a lie past even this credulous Swede.
“Let’s find something to warm you up.” Magnus Wallander led him to a counter where a smiling West African woman in a colorful wrap poured him a cup of lemon tea. “To your double health,” Wallander said.
Omar Yussef sensed the raggedness of his smile. “Your Arabic is much better in New York than back in the office in Jerusalem, Magnus.”
“At least here no one suspects me of being a spy just because I speak Arabic.” Wallander’s skin became rosy beneath his trim, fair beard. He sipped his soda water. “Your president will address the conference the day before you do, Abu Ramiz. But frankly I’m looking forward much more to your talk. There’re delegates here from all over the Arab world, and I don’t believe they ever hear the real story of Palestine.”
“You think they’re ready for reality?” Omar Yussef said.
Wallander reached into his pocket and handed Omar Yussef a laminated UN identity card. “Here’s your pass for the week. You didn’t send me a photo, so I had to use the one from your personnel file. The card gives you access to all the delegate areas of the UN buildings.”
Omar Yussef regarded the photo with regret. It showed him more than a decade younger, his hair only receding a little and his mustache its original black. He detected sadness and shame in the tired eyes-the weary guilt of the habitual drinker.
“The picture’s a bit old, but it still looks like you,” Wallander said.
Omar Yussef slipped it into his pocket. “I may have some other commitments this week, Magnus.”
“You mean your son?”
Omar Yussef coughed.
“How’s Ala?” Magnus asked.
Omar Yussef sipped some tea to settle his throat. “Busy. He’s very busy.” He looked around the room for a man in a black coat. Could he follow me here?
Magnus reached out to snare the elbow of a man in his mid-thirties. “Laith, come here,” he said. The man’s black hair waved under apple pomade. His chubby face bore a three-part beard-the thick mustache dropped over a triangle forking like a black tongue beneath his bottom lip, and a full growth jutted from his chin like a brush. Magnus introduced him as the head of the Lebanese delegation to the conference.
“Abu Ramiz is from Bethlehem,” the Swede said.
“Bethlehem?” The Lebanese smiled. “One of my delegation was born there.”