A grave in Gaza

Chapter 6

The Suburban came into the wide streets of Tel el-Hawa, the neighborhood where the PLO’s top hacks had built their gaudy mansions. Uniformed men hunched in the shade of mock Greek pillars, coughing out the swirling dirt. Nasser drove fast down a long, straight street. They reached an elongated, two-story white building, just before the road disappeared into rolling cabbage fields and dunes. It was surrounded by a whitewashed wall about eight feet high. By the gate, a handful of men in leather jackets stood with their legs apart and Kalashnikovs across their chests. This was the headquarters of the Preventive Security.

Nasser pulled the UN vehicle up to the gate. One of the guards came to the window, unsmiling. “Leave the car out here and bring your passports to the entrance,” he said.

Outside the car, Omar Yussef coughed against the dirt and hunched into the hot wind. In the gatehouse, a guard examined the passports of the two foreigners. He wore a loose black leather jacket with a gray synthetic fur collar and a black T-shirt. His face was thick and his hands and stomach were bulky. It was the bullish kind of fatness that hides great strength, like the broad solidity of a Turkish wrestler. He cleared the dust from his throat and wiped his long, black mustache with the back of his hand. He took Omar Yussef’s green ID card and stared at him with blank, sadistic eyes. “What do you want?”

“We’re from the UN,” Omar Yussef said. “These gentlemen would like to talk to Colonel al-Fara about an important case.”

“You don’t look so important to me, fellow.”

Omar Yussef touched the tip of his mustache and took an impatient breath. “It’s the case of the university teacher, Eyad Masharawi. We need to see Colonel al-Fara about it.”

“He isn’t here.”

“Will he be back soon?”

The guard shrugged and dropped the ID card and the passports from enough of a height that they made a little slap on the desk.

“Is there somewhere else we could meet him?” Omar Yussef said. “Or a time when we could set an appointment?”

“You’re making a mistake, if you think I can help you with that. His secretary is much prettier than me.”

“The mistake is yours. If you don’t correct it, the colonel will screw you, instead of his pretty secretary.”

The guard’s big fists tightened. Omar Yussef estimated that together they were almost the size of his own head. The guard picked up a phone and dialed. He mumbled into the receiver, waited, and hung up, quietly. “Go to the courtyard, up the stairs and all the way to the left.”

“The colonel arrived suddenly?”

The guard took the passports and Omar Yussef’s ID and put them in a drawer of the desk. “Collect these on your way out.”

“Thank you.”

The guard grunted.

“Smile. You’d look a lot prettier,” Omar Yussef said.

He followed Cree and Wallender into a broad courtyard. Near the staircase, a few low black Audi sedans were parked, their license plates marked with single digits. Al-Fara’s motorcade, Omar Yussef thought. The cars were new and shiny, even under the dirty cloud that had come down on Gaza.

Cree was pleased. “You seem to have a way of opening doors, Abu Ramiz,” he said.

“After they get slammed in my face,” Omar Yussef replied.

They followed the guard’s directions to the end of a corridor, where a sign next to a dark wood double-door was emblazoned with the eagle crest of the government. It read: Colonel Mahmoud al-Fara, Commander, Palestinian Preventive Security Service (Gaza).

Cree tapped the sign with his forefinger and smiled. “Let’s get him,” he whispered. Omar Yussef figured he was still feeling the European coffee.

Three men in leather jackets perched against an empty desk beyond the door. The smallest led them past a series of offices, scuffing his plastic soles against the floor noisily with each step. He nodded them into an empty waiting room and set his feet wide, watching them from the door. After a few minutes, a slim secretary showed them through the connecting door into al-Fara’s office. The windows were lightly curtained to prevent anyone seeing inside and strong air-conditioning kept out the heat of the day. The walls were a blank cream, except for a single black-framed document at the far end of the room. No photo with the president, Omar Yussef noted. This man doesn’t pretend to owe allegiance to anyone. Beside the door, ring-binders were scattered across a bookshelf. A television was tuned to an Arabic news station, with the sound muted. A long conference table extended down the middle of the room. At its head sat Colonel al-Fara in a tall black leather chair.

His hair was black and fine, parted at the side and drooping over one eye. His mustache performed the same service for his mouth. His forehead looked damp and feverish, and he slouched his skinny, medium-height body low in the chair. He dragged on a Marlboro in his left hand, expectorated into a tissue in his right, and dropped it into a wastebasket. There was the ex-prisoner’s economy of motion about him, just as Omar Yussef had noted in Khamis Zeydan’s bodyguard at the hotel.

Cree greeted al-Fara and reminded him that they had met during the recent visit of a UN delegation from New York. Al-Fara showed no sign that he remembered. Cree introduced Wallender and Omar Yussef. When Wallender gripped al-Fara’s limp hand, the Swede followed the shake by placing his palm over his heart. It was an Arab gesture of sincerity and Omar Yussef smiled.

Al-Fara dispatched his secretary to prepare tea. He held a tissue before his mouth as he prepared another gob of sputum. The eyes that examined Omar Yussef over the top of the tissue were inflamed by the dust in the air, but they were shifty and dangerous, nonetheless. Omar Yussef squinted at the framed document on the wall. It was a law degree from al-Azhar University. Maybe that explains why it’s worth arresting a man who accuses the university of selling degrees to security agents, he thought. When he looked back at al-Fara, he saw that the colonel had watched his eyes move to the degree certificate. Al-Fara kept his gaze on Omar Yussef and spat into the tissue.

“Colonel, we would like to discuss the situation of our schoolteacher, Eyad Masharawi,” Wallender said.

Al-Fara rumbled a damp cough in his throat and spat again.

Wallender continued. “We believe there has been a simple misunderstanding. We would like to secure the release of ustaz Masharawi. We understand he’s held here.”

“There is an investigation,” al-Fara said. He took a long drag on his cigarette. “It must be completed before he can be released.”

“May I ask the substance of the investigation?”

Al-Fara clicked his tongue and lifted his chin. Negative.

“It seems that ustaz Masharawi was arrested because he made accusations of corruption,” Wallender said, “about the university selling degrees to officers in the Preventive Security.”

“We are aware of this accusation,” al-Fara said.

“But surely that can be cleared up easily. A university professor is entitled to freedom of speech. He must be allowed to question the institutions of the state, so that they are kept from corruption. Academics can be expert watchdogs on behalf of the public.”

“You are from-what country?”

“Sweden.”

Al-Fara sucked on the cigarette, then blew his nose, loudly. “Everything is peaceful in Sweden, so you can afford to have all these different rights. If your country was threatened by a wicked occupation, you would see that these freedoms about which you talk would be less useful. Later, when we have our state, we will have all these freedoms, of course. The Palestinian people deserve them.”

“It’s the position of the UN that those freedoms are a prerequisite for the foundation of a true Palestinian state. And you can help that process by allowing ustaz Masharawi to go free.”

“It’s more important to allow the security forces to investigate collaborators, because of the threat to our people from Israel.”

“Who said anything about collaborators?” Omar Yussef broke in. “We were talking about corruption at the university.”

Al-Fara spat into a tissue and stared into it with a grimace.

“At least you can explain the charges against Masharawi, so that we can begin a defense,” Wallender said. “It’s possible that all this is just a mistake.”

The secretary brought small cups of tea on floral saucers. Omar Yussef waited for al-Fara to drop a third sachet of sugar into his cup. The nail on the colonel’s right little finger was three-quarters of an inch long-a common affectation among those who wished to show that they didn’t work with their hands. The long nail was dark yellow, like the urine of a dehydrated man. “How do you answer the corruption allegation?” Omar Yussef asked.

“Corruption? This collaborator defends himself by making accusations against the very people who protect the Palestinians from men like him,” al-Fara said, watching his tea as he stirred it. “There’s no corruption. Mistakes have been made, that’s true. If no one made mistakes, Allah wouldn’t have to send prophets to show us the true way.”

“So someone sold these degrees by mistake? It wasn’t really corruption; it was just some kind of slip?” Omar Yussef said.

“I don’t know if degrees were sold. Anyway, whatever this building may be, it’s not the university. You have the wrong address.”

“It would reflect on your own force, though,” Wallender said, “if your agents were buying degrees so they could be promoted and get a bigger salary out of the government.”

“We aren’t short of money. We could pay higher salaries if we wanted. We have two thousand officers. That’s not a big number. It’s not such a costly thing to increase their pay.” Al-Fara slurped his tea and wiped his mustache with a tissue. “There are foreign influences in Gaza. Spies. This is what we’re investigating.”

Al-Fara stared past his guests, along the table to the television at the end of the room. The news station repeated footage of the mass military funeral of the previous day. With the vaguest of sneers, al-Fara watched the crowd jostle the coffin, draped in the Palestinian flag. He extended his pinkie and picked his teeth with the long, yellow fingernail.

“You’re investigating Masharawi for spying on behalf of the CIA?” Omar Yussef said.

“Perhaps.” Al-Fara didn’t look away from the television.

Omar Yussef switched to Arabic. “You also work with the CIA.”

Al-Fara didn’t move, but a long breath like the sound of a distant jet engine sighed out of his throat.

“What would he be spying on, precisely?” Omar Yussef asked. “The nuclear reactor in Gaza? The tactics of the Palestinian soccer team?”

Al-Fara turned his dark eyes slowly toward Omar Yussef. “You think there are no spies in Gaza?”

“I think it’s easy to call someone a spy and make it stick these days.”

“That’s because there are so many of them.”

“I admire your logic,” Omar Yussef said. He paused. “Mister Wallender and Mister Cree would like to visit Masharawi on behalf of the UN, which employs him on days when he’s not at the university.”

Al-Fara turned fully away from the television to Omar Yussef. His eyes tightened. When they arrested Masharawi, this guy didn’t know the teacher was a UN worker as well, Omar Yussef thought. Professor Maki didn’t tell him. Now he’s angry, because the foreigners are going to blame him. A domestic matter might suddenly turn into an international incident. He doesn’t want that kind of scrutiny.

“It’s not possible for you to see him,” al-Fara said.

“The United Nations must insist that its representatives be allowed to see Masharawi,” Omar Yussef said, raising his voice, “to examine his condition and to discuss his case.” He saw Wallender twitch his head toward him, wanting to know what these Arabic words meant, sensing the tension that glowed around al-Fara like a flame, but not wanting to interrupt.

Al-Fara watched the stub of his cigarette burn. “As a humanitarian gesture, I will allow his wife to visit him. But I cannot allow anyone else to see him until the investigation is complete.”

“When can she see him?” Omar Yussef asked.

Al-Fara dropped the cigarette into a glass ashtray and held his hands wide. “Today, of course.”

“Thank you. Will it be possible for us to discuss the case with you in more detail, once she has reported to us on his condition?”

“I won’t be here.”

“Perhaps this evening, then?”

“It’s not possible. I won’t be in Gaza.”

“Where will you be?”

Al-Fara smiled and looked hard at Omar Yussef. “I’ll be in Tel Aviv. I have a meeting with the American ambassador.”

“The meeting will keep you away from Gaza all afternoon and evening?”

“All night. It’s not just a meeting to say hello. I’m visiting the American ambassador, not my auntie. I’ll be discussing serious issues and the talks are sure to go on into the night.” He switched back to English and looked at Cree. “I’m sure the United Nations is aware of these security talks.”

Omar Yussef glanced at Cree. Does he know about them? he wondered.

“But, of course, those contacts are at the top level, far above your heads.” Al-Fara looked from Omar Yussef to Wallender.

In the courtyard, Omar Yussef stopped to blow the dirt from his nose. Above the line of Audis there were small, barred windows in the wall. Cells. He felt a flash of abandonment, cold across his chest, and he knew it for the way Masharawi must have been feeling, confined up there. He thought of calling the prisoner’s name, but Wallender and Cree already were on their way to the gate, happy they had arranged a meeting for Salwa Masharawi with her husband.

Omar Yussef looked back at the windows. Behind the bars, there appeared to be no glass in the frames. The dirt that hung in the air would fill those rooms as well.