“I’m surprised at your cynicism. One would almost think you prefer our people not to receive this aid money.”
“If your generation had returned to the way of Islam, perhaps you could have liberated Palestine years ago.” Zuheir struck his thigh in frustration. “At least, you could have set up a responsible government in Palestine, instead of the corrupt mess we have now.”
Omar Yussef gave a faint, apologetic smile to Jamie King. So my son thinks I’m a failure, he thought, me and my whole generation. That’s why he wears the sheikh’s costume. Perhaps I did fail by allowing society to deteriorate around me, as long as I was able to live a comfortable life. But maybe if I take the risks I avoided long ago and succeed, I can win his respect.
“Zuheir, have you ever wondered why we keep herds of goats in the Middle East, rather than sheep?”
Zuheir’s cheek twitched in annoyance.
“It’s because Middle Easterners are extremists,” Omar Yussef said. “Sheep crop the grass when they eat. It grows back, and they eat some more. But goats rip out the grass at the roots to get a little more food right away. In the end, it’s disastrous, because the grass that is ripped out doesn’t grow back and the soil on the bare hillsides is blown away. The next year, the goats find nothing but rocks to eat.”
“I’m a goat? Is that what you’re saying?”
“Don’t be childish. I mean that we Arabs dismiss gradual change. We’re only interested in all or nothing. But if I wait until I can rip corruption out by the root, or until the government announces that justice will henceforth be upheld, I’ll wait forever. If I nibble at the problem, it’s a start.” He turned to the American and spoke in English. “Miss King, I’ll see to it that the police help you find that money by Friday.”
King nodded-with more politeness than hope, Omar Yussef thought. Then her eyes darted away from him as quick footsteps entered the lounge. Omar Yussef followed her glance and saw Khamis Zeydan advancing with a grim face.
“I need you to come with me,” the policeman said brusquely.
“And a good evening to you, too,” Omar Yussef replied. He gestured toward Jamie King. “I’m in the middle of something.”
Khamis Zeydan leaned forward and extinguished his Rothmans in the empty ashtray by Omar Yussef’s coffee cup. He exhaled the smoke over Omar Yussef and looked briefly at King. “Sorry, dear lady, I have to interrupt,” he said, in English. “It’s really very important. Don’t worry, I’m not arresting him.”
Khamis Zeydan folded his arms so that the navy blue sleeve of his police uniform hid his prosthetic left hand from the American. Omar Yussef knew this chariness about his false limb for a sign of extreme agitation in his friend.
“What’s wrong?” he asked.
“I’ll tell you on the way. This is urgent,” Khamis Zeydan said. His sharp blue eyes were pleading and his nicotine-stained mustache twitched.
“If you’ll excuse me a moment, Jamie.” Omar Yussef took Khamis Zeydan a few paces away and put his arm around his friend’s back. “What’s going on?”
“Who’s the sheikh?”
“That’s Zuheir.”
Khamis Zeydan looked confused.
“My son,” Omar Yussef said. “He flew in from Britain a few days ago.”
The police chief raised his eyebrows and glanced toward the young man, who was now leaning close to Jamie King and speaking quickly. “By Allah, I’d never have recognized him. He’s changed.” He turned to Omar Yussef. “I have to go up to Amin Kanaan’s place.”
“The businessman?”
“I see you read the financial page. He lives in one of the mansions on Mount Jerizim.”
“Did something happen there? Something related to Ishaq’s death?”
“Whose death?”
“Ishaq, the son of the Samaritan priest. The Old Man’s financial adviser.”
Khamis Zeydan let his head roll back as though he’d just put together the pieces of a puzzle. “Sami, you silly boy,” he muttered.
“What?” Omar Yussef stepped back toward the couch. “Jamie, will you be staying in Nablus?”
“Until the end of the week. Unless I get any leads some-place else on-” she glanced at Khamis Zeydan and lowered her voice “-you know.”
“We’ll talk some more, I hope.”
King took a business card from her handbag. “My cell phone number is on there,” she said.
Omar Yussef slipped the card into his pocket. Its very touch felt incriminating and dangerous, as though the men who had beaten Sami would find it on him and punish him for intruding where a schoolteacher had no business. I should pass the American’s details on to Sami and be done with it, he thought. “Zuheir, I’ll see you at dinner, my son.” He waved and followed Khamis Zeydan to the lobby.
The police chief took his elbow and moved toward the door. “I arrived in Nablus an hour ago, but before I checked in here I went to police headquarters to see Sami.”
“So you saw, some thugs broke his arm.”
“Lucky for those bastards they didn’t try to break his head. They’d have wasted a lot of energy, because it’s hard as hell. He wouldn’t tell me what it was all about, but now I see.”
“You do?”
“You just told me.”
Omar Yussef first felt callow and unsophisticated, but then he was sad for his friend. Khamis Zeydan was so accustomed to the corruption of the Palestinian militias that he had immediately made the connection between Sami’s beating, his murder investigation, and Ishaq’s job managing the president’s money.
“After I left Sami,” Khamis Zeydan said, “I ran into Kanaan.”
“How do you know him?”
“From Beirut. Years ago, during the Lebanese Civil War.”
“He was a fighter like you?” Omar Yussef glanced at the prosthesis, encased in a black leather glove. It was a substitute for the hand Khamis Zeydan had lost to a grenade in Lebanon.
“That bastard never fought for anything but dirty contracts.” Khamis Zeydan looked about him as though he wanted a place to spit. “Unfortunately he saw me at the police headquarters.”
“So what?”
“He’ll tell his wife. She’ll know that I’m in town. I can’t come to Nablus and not visit her. She’d be offended.”
“Is she such a good friend?” Even as he said it, Omar Yussef knew how naive he sounded.
“Back in Beirut, she and I-” Khamis Zeydan coughed.
“But not any more?”
“It was before she married Kanaan. We were rivals for her.”
“Does he know?”
“Certainly he does, and he’s just the kind of bastard to tell her he saw me. I can hear him now: ‘Your loverboy is in Nablus and he hasn’t even come to visit you. Maybe he never cared about you at all.’ That’d be just what he’d say.”
“Do you want to go up there to prevent her from feeling hurt, or to prove your rival wrong?”
“It doesn’t make a difference. The point is I can’t go up there alone.”
“From the standpoint of morality, you mean? A man and woman alone, particularly with such a romantic history? But surely she has servants who could be present, for propriety’s sake.”
Khamis Zeydan rocked his head from side to side indecisively. “I don’t trust myself,” he said, faintly. “She’s still very beautiful.”
Omar Yussef took a backward step and his mouth dropped open. “Are you serious?”
“Don’t look at me like that, you moralizing bastard,” Khamis Zeydan said.
“You have a wife and children in Jordan.”
“I have nothing to hide. My marriage is crappy. My wife preferred to stay in Amman, when I accepted this job in Bethlehem. And my children always take their mother’s side.”
“Your son was good enough to come from Jordan to visit you last month.”
“My blood’s still boiling from all the arguments I had with him.”