“So Ismail did what the Israelis demanded?”
“In prison, he talked with the sheikh every day,” Ala said. “We all thought he was becoming religious too. Then suddenly the sheikh was gone. The Israelis put him on trial and sent him away for life.”
“Using Ismail’s evidence?”
Ala’s nod was reluctant, as though he were acceding to a sentence of death against his friend. “That’s why the Israelis released the four of us.”
“I can’t believe this.”
“After our release, Ismail confessed to us. He was ashamed, but he thought we’d understand. I hugged him and told him that it wasn’t his fault, that the interrogators had put him under impossible pressure. But Rashid and Nizar called him dirty names and refused ever to speak to him.”
“What happened to Ismail?”
Ala puffed out his cheeks and lifted his eyebrows. “I lost track of him when I came to New York.”
“Did Nizar and Rashid ever forgive him?”
“They never mentioned his name again. They were too busy praying five times a day.” Ala’s eyes drifted to the damp-stained ceiling, struggling against his fatigue to keep track of his story. “But after a while Nizar changed.”
“How?”
“He started dressing more fashionably. You remember the nice boots he was wearing when he-when he was killed?”
Omar Yussef recalled the luscious black of the leather on the dead body and winced.
“He stayed out late every night,” Ala said. “Rashid was often angry with him and accused him of betraying his religion for a good time.”
“A good time? What was Nizar up to?”
“He told me once, with great relish, that he was having sex with ladies.”
Khamis Zeydan grinned. “That’s more fun than praying, may Allah be praised.”
Omar Yussef scowled at his friend.
“Then suddenly Nizar’s bad behavior stopped.” Ala’s face bore a look of strain as though he had experienced the twinge of a forgotten pain.
“There’s only one thing that can stop a young man wanting to have sex with everyone in sight,” Khamis Zeydan said. “The poor slob must’ve fallen in love.”
“At the Arab social club in Bay Ridge, Nizar and I were on the same dabka team,” Ala said. “Some of the younger kids liked to inject break-dancing and other strange American stuff into the traditional Palestinian dances, but Nizar said we should keep our dabka slow, just the way we did it back home. There was a girl who liked that attitude, because she’s also relatively new to the U.S.”
Omar Yussef imagined the hunched, twitching boy behind the Plexiglas standing straight in a circle of dancers, performing the skipping, kicking, stomping motions of the dabka, lifting his hand to twirl a kerchief above his head. He wondered what it must be like to dance a traditional step in exile. I imagine it might move me to tears, he thought. Lucky I don’t have the breath for it. Ala and his friend Nizar had danced with the same girl, and Nizar had won her. “Rania?” Omar Yussef said.
Ala’s energy seemed to drain away, and his gaze was as dead as a Ramadan afternoon. “I used to visit her father’s cafe. It’s right next to our apartment building. I became friendly with her father, and he invited me to dinner. It was the beginning of our courtship.”
“So you had the father’s approval?”
Ala brightened, but his smile died quickly. “Nizar also started to go to the cafe. He knew that I was courting Rania. He told me he wasn’t interested in her. He was just glad to drink mint tea, smoke a water pipe, and talk to her father about Middle Eastern politics and the Koran and Egyptian football. I didn’t object, because it kept him from his wild ways. But then I saw how he and Rania looked at each other. I couldn’t compete with him. He’s handsome. He has that long hair. He’s so charming.”
“My son, I don’t wish to seem unfeeling, but Nizar is gone. Things have changed. You have your alibi, and perhaps you can still be with Rania after she has mourned for Nizar. Don’t lose hope. You must tell the police where you were and leave this jail so you can claim her.”
“She’ll never be mine. I saw how it was between her and Nizar. In comparison, she felt nothing for me.” Ala scratched his scalp with both hands. “When Nizar was being murdered, I was with her. But only to tell her that she should go with him. I intended to inform her father too. He was looking forward to meeting you and settling all the details of our engagement. I couldn’t bear to break it off, so I delayed until the last minute, right before you arrived. Then I went to their apartment above the cafe and I told her that there would be no arrangement between us.”
“How did she react?”
Ala sucked in a breath and was silent.
“Did Nizar ask to marry Rania?”
“I’m sure he didn’t. Rania’s father would’ve told me. I can’t put my finger on it, but I think the friendship between Rania’s father and Nizar was not entirely simple.”
“Could Rania’s father have found out about the secret relationship and killed Nizar for the sake of family honor?”
Ala shook his head. “I never heard bad words between them. With our roommate Rashid, on the other hand, Nizar argued every day, even after he stopped his bad behavior with girls and alcohol.”
“What were the fights about?”
“They always spoke in urgent whispers. When I tried to ask them what they were talking about, they told me to mind my own business.” Ala stared distantly beyond his father’s shoulder, as though he were chasing through the permutations that might lie behind the murder, tracking each sign to a point where the death would make sense. “There’s also the veil.”
The Veiled Man, Omar Yussef thought. The betrayer who must be killed by the messiah.
“Rashid was fascinated by all the Islamic mythology of the Assassins. He read and reread those stories that we first learned in your class, Dad. He might have believed Nizar had betrayed him somehow. If he killed him, he could’ve left the veil as a sign.”
“Knowing that only you would understand it.”
“Or you, Dad. He knew you were coming to visit.”
Omar Yussef’s jaw shook. A sign for me to interpret, he thought. But why? “Could Rashid really kill a man?”
Ala winced. “I think that was what he and Nizar used to fight about,” he said.
“Killing?”
“I didn’t hear enough to know any more than that for certain. But I believe they planned to kill someone.”
Chapter 11
Khamis Zeydan glowered at the Arabic signs above the shopfronts and the thick-set women bustling along the street, their round faces framed by cream polyester mendils. The rain was turning to a gelatinous gray sleet, and he spat on the slick sidewalk. “Little Palestine,” he muttered, shaking his head.
“That’s the cafe.” Omar Yussef pointed out the smoked-glass window and heavy brown drapes. In English and Arabic, the purple awning announced the Cafe al-Quds. In Arabic, it promised tea, coffee, fruit juices, pastries, and nargileh water pipes. “We have to make this girl Rania go to the police. We have to make her provide an alibi for my son.”
“Make her do it? Who’re you, the chief of secret police?” Khamis Zeydan grinned bitterly.
“All right, then we have to-persuade her.” Omar Yussef heard the sinister edge to his words. He evaded Khamis Zeydan’s smile with a guilty flicker of his eyes. “Let’s get out of the cold.”
The air in the empty cafe was stale with lingering traces of apple-scented nargileh smoke. The control panel of the stereo behind the bar pulsed lurid pink and turquoise with the driving baladi rhythm of a famous song. Omar Yussef recognized the voice of a Lebanese singer a few years older than himself.
What happened to us, my love? she sang. The love of my country still wails: Take me, take me, take me home.