Jibril smiled. “Pasha, it was you who told me what Ishaq said to Roween about the temple. I tried to force Roween to tell me even that much, but she kept her mouth shut.”
“I told you?” Omar Yussef faltered. When I was in the priest’s house, did I tell him then?
Jibril licked his upper lip. “If we’re pointing fingers, then you killed her.”
Khamis Zeydan stepped past his friend. “I’ve heard enough of your crap,” he said to the priest. “Give me the scroll.”
Jibril hurried to the head of the stairs. “I’ll lock this door before you can get to me,” he said, “and I’ll destroy the secret documents rather than give them to you. You government people allowed us Samaritans to be forced out of our ancient neighborhood. I won’t let your unclean fingers touch the Abisha Scroll or have the money.”
Omar Yussef laid his hand on Khamis Zeydan’s forearm. “Wait, Abu Adel, let’s talk to him,” he said.
Khamis Zeydan let Omar Yussef pass. The priest made to retreat once more, but Omar Yussef lifted his hands. “Your Honor, I’m younger than you, but I’m in no great shape,” he said. “If I tried to catch you, you’d be down the stairs before I’d even have my hand on the doorknob.”
Jibril touched his fingers to his beard. “You policemen don’t understand what has happened to our people.”
“I’m not a policeman. I’m a history teacher.”
The priest was confused for a moment, then his expression became pleading. “So you know our history in this town, ustaz,” he said. “Nablus was entirely ours in the days of the Byzantines. Then the Muslims came. We lived beside them for centuries in the casbah, until we found ourselves caught between them and the Israelis. First we moved out of the casbah to this neighborhood, then we had to leave Nablus completely, for our new village on the top of Mount Jerizim.”
“To be close to your holy place.”
“That’s what we tell people, but mainly it was to get away from the dangers of Nablus.” Jibril jabbed a finger toward Khamis Zeydan, as though the police chief were the embodiment of the violence his people had fled. “The money in the Old Man’s secret accounts will be recompense for the historic injustice we Samaritans have suffered. Your leaders already stole it from you. Who’ll notice if it ends up in our hands, instead?”
“The World Bank is on the trail of that money,” Omar Yussef said. “They’ll notice. You can’t just make the money disappear.”
“They haven’t traced it yet. Ishaq hid it well.”
“You talk about injustice. What about the injustice Ishaq suffered? He was your son.”
“He liked to be screwed by men. He deserved what he got.”
Omar Yussef took a step back, startled by the priest’s sudden venom. “I saw how you wept for him earlier today,” he said. “I know you didn’t hate him.”
“I raised him well.” The priest bared his teeth maliciously. “Look how he turned out.”
Omar Yussef’s cheek twitched below his left eye. “You killed him, didn’t you?” he said. “You killed Roween, but first you killed your own son.”
“He was adopted.”
Omar Yussef thought of Miral and Dahoud, whom he had adopted after their parents were killed. I feel more love for them after one year than this priest is capable of displaying for Ishaq after two decades, he thought. “Adoption is no different from blood parentage,” he said.
“My blood son wouldn’t have been a dirty little homo.” The priest brandished the Abisha Scroll. “There’s enough money in these secret bank accounts to make my people secure for decades. But there’s also some for you. What do you say?”
Omar Yussef raised his finger at the priest. His hand shook with rage. “Roween’s last words were, ‘He knew about Kanaan.’ When she said that, I thought ‘he’ was Ishaq- that Ishaq knew Kanaan was his father. I thought she was trying to tell me he had refused to hand over the secret accounts to Kanaan because he was angry with him for concealing his true paternity. But ‘he’ was you. You knew, of course, that Kanaan was Ishaq’s father, because Kanaan came to you with his illegitimate child and paid you to adopt him.”
“You said you were a history teacher,” the priest said, “but now you’re a detective, after all?”
“You tried to blackmail Ishaq into giving the bank details to you, instead of to Kanaan. You threatened to make public that he was the illegitimate son of the Kanaans.”
Jibril lifted the scroll and looked invitingly at Omar Yussef. “A million dollars. For each of you,” he said. “Two million.”
“Ishaq didn’t do quite what you wanted. He gave you the scroll, but not the money,” Omar Yussef said. “It served as a bargaining chip to keep you quiet about his scandalous birth and protect his real parents. He hid the account documents. You tortured him to make him say where he’d hidden them, but you pushed his body too far and he died.”
“Why would I have been in a hurry to get the money? If Ishaq had it, he’d have given it to me in the end.”
“You were running out of time. Ishaq intended to meet a woman from the World Bank who’s investigating the Old Man’s secret finances. Ishaq was going to hand over the account details to her, so the money could be made part of the official Palestinian budget and be used to build hospitals and schools. You had to get the documents before that happened.”
“It’s true that I loved him.” The priest choked, his eyes cast to the floor, all his malice spent. “But wasn’t my people’s future more important than Ishaq’s life?”
Khamis Zeydan stepped to Omar Yussef’s side, his gun in his hand. The priest looked up, his eyes widened, startled and scared. He turned toward the stairs, but the policeman raised his gun. Omar Yussef ducked, as the pistol went off by his ear.
His hearing returned with a hiss like escaping gas. The priest lay on the ground by the door. Khamis Zeydan walked quickly to him and rolled him onto his back with his boot. He picked up the Abisha Scroll and held it toward Omar Yussef.
“Let’s see if you’re right about the money,” he said.
Omar Yussef stared at Jibril’s face. The priest’s tarboosh rolled across the floor. His head was bald and small without the hat. Omar Yussef pointed weakly at the dead man. “Why?”
“He was getting away with the scroll,” Khamis Zeydan said. “He was going to destroy the account documents.” He shoved the calfskin case into the schoolteacher’s arms and scowled at him.
Omar Yussef felt his pulse beating in his palms, where the box rested, charged with so much knowledge and history. He looked up at Khamis Zeydan, his eyes wide with awe.
The police chief sighed impatiently and snatched the box away.
“Be careful with it,” Omar Yussef said. He followed Khamis Zeydan to the synagogue’s rear bench.
Khamis Zeydan wrenched the finials from the end of the case. He spread the Abisha Scroll along the seat.
Omar Yussef shrieked and grabbed at his friend’s arm. “You’ll damage it.”
Khamis Zeydan shook him off. “Do you want to find these account details or not?”
“Not if we destroy this ancient artifact in the process.”
Khamis Zeydan yanked the end of the scroll. It unspooled along the bench and onto the floor. “By Allah, it’s long,” he muttered.
“If you’d ever bothered to read the Bible, you’d know that already.”
“This is the entire Bible?”
“The first five books only.”
“Thank you, Father Abu Ramiz. So you’re a Bible reader now? When I first met you, you were a leftist who hated religion.”
“Not as much as I hated ignorance. Please, put it back before you damage it beyond repair.”
Khamis Zeydan rolled the scroll loosely, held it upright and shook it. The sheepskin crackled in his fingers. “Nothing in here,” he said. He dropped the scroll to the bench and sat with his back to Omar Yussef, staring at the body of the priest.
Omar Yussef gathered up the scroll. He twisted the handles until it was wound tight and slipped it back into its box. He ran his hand over the calfskin cover. “They made these boxes with the skin side on the exterior,” he said. “But the hair of the calf’s hide is still on the inside. Look.”