The Collaborator of Bethlehem

Chapter 27

The rain came down cold as Omar Yussef hurried across Manger Square. He halted almost exactly where George Saba had died and looked up at the faint light of the fake gaslamp. The memory of George’s humiliated body, swinging from that metal arm, drained so much energy from him that he almost turned and went back down the hill to his house. He felt the jab of the Webley’s grip against his stomach, and he knew he must enter the church.

He crossed the slippery flagstones at the side of the Armenian monastery. The rain pattered onto his flat cap with a noise so loud that he almost wondered if Jihad Awdeh, hiding in the church, might hear him coming. A dark figure ducked quickly out of the church through the Gate of Humility. The figure saw Omar Yussef and froze. The two men blinked through the darkness. The wind wafted a wave of cold rain across them. Omar Yussef moved forward. The figure by the gate backed against the wall. It couldn’t be Jihad Awdeh. He wouldn’t cower that way. Omar Yussef picked up his pace. When he was only a few yards from the man, he recognized him. It was Elias Bishara. His thin black hair clung to his scalp and the rain fogged the thick lenses of his glasses. The water was rapidly soaking his black soutane, but Omar Yussef could see that sweat had already seeped through the robe under the arms. Elias Bishara extended his hands on either side of his body along the wall, as though his terror might propel him up the stones to safety.

“Elias, it’s me, Abu Ramiz.”

The young priest appeared not to hear at first, then he wilted as his tension and fear subsided. “I thought you would kill me out here.”

“He’s in there, isn’t he.”

“Jihad Awdeh? Yes. I was waiting for him, as I promised you I would be, Abu Ramiz. I was praying for the church and for George Saba. But I was weak. My strength failed and I ran away when Awdeh held his gun on me and told me to leave the church.”

“Is he alone?”

“Just him. Oh, God, I wanted to stay there and guard the church. I’m sorry, Abu Ramiz, I didn’t have the strength.”

“You were alone in the church, Elias. You did your best.” Omar Yussef pitied the distraught man before him. “Where exactly is he hiding?”

“He was in front of the altar, but he could be anywhere now. The soldiers will come here, Abu Ramiz. The soldiers will come and invade the church to arrest him. It’ll be a disaster. It was as though I was confronted by the Devil himself.” Elias Bishara wiped his glasses on the loose sleeve of his robe. He looked up. “But what are you doing here, Abu Ramiz?”

Omar Yussef looked toward the dark gate into the church. Jihad Awdeh was in there, somewhere.

“Abu Ramiz, it’s about George, isn’t it? That’s why you came here.” Elias Bishara held the lapels of Omar Yussef’s jacket. “Don’t sacrifice yourself, Abu Ramiz. Jihad will kill you, right here in the church. You can’t take him on.”

Omar Yussef laid his hand on Elias Bishara’s arm. “I have to learn my own lessons, Elias,” he said.

The monk gave a barely audible sob. Then, he stepped back and nodded.

Omar Yussef paused at the Gate of Humility. There would be no other monks about. In his pounding heart, he knew there was only one man inside the Church of the Nativity.

Bending, he went through the low Gate. He straightened and rubbed the small of his back. The narthex of the church was pitch black and silent. He remembered what Jihad Awdeh told Leila. As soon as the soldiers came, he would flee to the Church of the Nativity. The Israelis wouldn’t dare enter the birthplace of Jesus to arrest him. The world would be outraged, if they did. Omar Yussef thought about that: why should anyone be angry on the part of that man, that murderous bloody man? In Europe they wouldn’t know the reality of Jihad Awdeh’s life. They might even think of him as a hero, or believe that the people of Bethlehem at least saw him that way. So the Israelis wouldn’t come here for him. But Omar Yussef would.

He ran over the layout of the church in his mind. He walked himself through memories of so many visits to the old Byzantine basilica, of the Christian friends who had married or baptized their babies here and invited Omar Yussef to share the occasion. He rarely came to the church now. The Christians had been driven almost underground. They went to Chile, where George Saba ought to have stayed. Or they took Holy Orders, as Elias Bishara had, and hid themselves behind the fortress walls of the church. It seemed appropriate that the church where Christianity was born should be shrouded in 5:00 A.M. darkness, cold and barren, as he found it now.

Omar Yussef moved into the main basilica. He went left to cover himself behind the red limestone pillars of the Franciscan cloister, moving carefully. He hid behind a pillar decorated by the Crusaders with a painting of St. Cathal. The Irishman glared down at him, his beard sharp, his oval face terrible and white, lined thickly with black, as though caught in the moment when the Almighty had informed him of the precise tortures that would lead to his martyrdom. Or perhaps it was the severe face of a man who knew the sordid conditions under which you would perish, poor sinner, gazing up from the cold stone floor of the church. Omar Yussef shivered and looked away from the harsh portrait. He peered toward the Greek Orthodox altar. The first gray light of a damp dawn glinted through the high windows onto the gold lamps, strung above the aisle on long chains. He had to move fast. He needed the darkness to disguise the antiquity of the Webley.

The sound of a man coughing stuttered from the direction of the altar. The cough was protracted, then the man expectorated. Omar Yussef heard the quick, impatient, repeated rasp of a cigarette lighter that wouldn’t catch. The unseen man cursed and tried the lighter again. Then the noise stopped.

Omar Yussef took the Webley from his belt and moved toward the back of the church. He came out into the open aisle, but could see no one at the altar. Then the cough came again, and he knew that Jihad Awdeh was hiding in the Nativity Cave. A dimly flickering glow illuminated the broad, fan-shaped stairs to the cave at the side of the altar. Omar Yussef listened. The cave was silent. He took the first step down, and the next. With each movement, he wondered what the hell he was doing. Jihad Awdeh might not be alone. He might call his bluff with the Webley. Omar Yussef descended further. He remembered that the cave was about six yards wide and ten yards long. The wide staircase funneled down to two entrances, both at the same end of the grotto. Tourists went down one set of stairs and came up the other, after they bent to kiss the ring of bronze beneath which, according to the monks, was the very spot where Jesus’s manger had lain. Where would Jihad Awdeh be? Probably as far as possible from the stairs, to give himself time to react in case the soldiers came.

Omar Yussef reached the bottom of the steps. He held the gun in his left hand, so that when he turned into the cave his body would keep its detail obscured from the orange glow. He stepped around the corner.

Jihad Awdeh looked up and smiled at the schoolteacher. “So they sent the special forces.” He laughed and took a pack of Marlboros out of his pocket. He flicked the cigarette lighter a few times before he got a flame. He must have been lighting a candle when Omar Yussef had heard him upstairs, not a cigarette.

Omar Yussef squinted into the dim light. Jihad Awdeh’s Kalashnikov lay on the floor in front of him. The gunman had a small rucksack, presumably loaded with food in case of a siege. Omar Yussef wondered if there were explosives in the backpack. He might intend to take the cave, or the church, or anyone who came for him to Paradise at his side. Beneath his Astrakhan hat, Jihad Awdeh’s head was bandaged from the blow it took when the tank shell hit the Saba house.

“Get up and come with me,” Omar Yussef said.

“Come where? Are you collaborating with the Israelis still? Are they waiting outside the church for you to bring me in?” Jihad Awdeh laughed, and it echoed like a hundred angry voices around the low cave.

“You’re the collaborator, Jihad.” He wasn’t himself sure if he was bluffing and he didn’t care. He spoke with the conviction of a man who had seen so much wrong that he needed now to assert what he knew was right.

Jihad Awdeh’s smile disappeared. “If I’m a collaborator, why am I hiding from the Israelis in the middle of the night?”

“You must have done something to turn them against you,” Omar Yussef said. “You must have gone too far even for them.”

The bitter grin returned to Jihad Awdeh’s face. He pushed the gray Astrakhan hat back on his head and slipped a finger under his bandage to scratch his scalp. “Fuck your mother, schoolteacher. Are you a good shot?”

“How good would I have to be to hit you down here?” Omar Yussef risked pushing the empty gun forward a little, threatening Jihad Awdeh with it. He didn’t move toward Awdeh. He wanted to keep him where he was, eight yards away, in case the younger man rushed him.

“So you’re going to take me in for what, exactly?”

“You are the collaborator. You guided the Israelis to Louai Abdel Rahman. You used a laser sight to confirm for them that they had the right man and to point out exactly where he was. Your mistake was to leave behind a MAG cartridge at the site of the assassination. At first, when I found those cartridges it led me to suspect Hussein Tamari. Dima Abdel Rahman told me that her husband spoke in the darkness to someone called Abu Walid. Hussein Tamari was Abu Walid. But only tonight did I discover that your eldest boy is Walid, too. George Saba told me he saw you bending to scoop something off the roof of his house before you left that night. But he also said that only Hussein Tamari was firing. You must have picked up the spent MAG cartridges from his gun. You put them in your pocket, because you wanted to cover your tracks in case the Israelis came to Beit Jala to find out who was shooting from the roof of George’s house. If they found the cartridges, they’d know it was Hussein, and that made it a little too close to you. You were working for them, and you didn’t want them to know that your boss had been shooting across the valley at them, because maybe they’d figure that you were in on it. But when you were lying in the long grass waiting for Louai Abdel Rahman to come to his house, one of the cartridges must have fallen out of your pocket. That’s the one I discovered. I kept the shell casing as evidence. I picked up another one that you missed on the roof of George Saba’s house. Then you found out that Dima Abdel Rahman had overheard her husband speaking to Abu Walid and you killed her, too.”

Jihad Awdeh waved his cigarette. “No, I didn’t kill that bitch.”

“So the rest is true?”

“Fuck you. You don’t know what a mistake you’re making. I’m the head of the Martyrs Brigades.”

“So was Hussein, and look what happened to him.”

“Hussein died because he was greedy. The reason the Israelis wanted to kill Louai Abdel Rahman was because his family was operating explosives factories. They were all in on it, including the old man Muhammad. Louai was the family’s connection to all the resistance groups. He used to sell bombs to Fatah, but he also supplied Hamas and Islamic Jihad and the Popular Front. He sold to criminals, too. When Louai died, Hussein decided to take over all the Abdel Rahman businesses. I told him he should only take the auto shops. If he took control of the explosives factories, I warned him, the Israelis would come down on him. But he was greedy. The explosives used by the Abdel Rahman boy to blow himself up in Jerusalem yesterday came from one of the labs Hussein took over. So, just as I warned him, the Israelis killed him.”

“Who told the Israelis the bomb was made at one of those labs?”

“Well, of course, I did, Abu Ramiz.”

“You?”

“I planned the mission. I sent the boy off with the bomb. The Israelis weren’t sure if they should kill Hussein. But after the bomb exploded in the market, I knew they’d have to get rid of him.”

“And with Hussein gone, you’d be in charge of the Martyrs Brigades in Bethlehem.”

Jihad Awdeh nodded and breathed smoke from his nostrils.

“But why did Yunis Abdel Rahman become a suicide bomber?” Omar Yussef said.

“A martyr, Abu Ramiz. You should refer to him only as a martyr.” Jihad Awdeh smiled sarcastically. “Self-disgust, I suppose you might say. It’s his father’s fault really. He’s a nasty piece of work, old Muhammad Abdel Rahman. Muhammad told the kid that Dima was fucking Hussein Tamari. He said she had wanted Louai out of the way so she could be with Hussein and that she had persuaded Hussein to help the Israelis kill her husband. Muhammad expected the boy to kill Hussein, so the family could take back their stolen auto business. Maybe the explosives workshops, too.”

“But Yunis killed Dima instead.” The boy had spoiled his father’s plan by directing his anger not at Hussein, but at the woman he considered the most unconscionable of his brother’s betrayers.

“That’s right. He killed her for betraying his brother. It must have seemed easier than killing Hussein—he didn’t know the Israelis were going to do the job for him. He killed her and tried to make it look like a random rape. Or maybe he got a kick out of seeing what she looked like in the dirt with her ass up in the air. By the way, you were there too. Did you like her ass? I hear she was a special little pet of yours. How special was she? The police had covered her body by the time I got there, but the guards let me have a look. A lot of the guys got an eyeful.”

Omar Yussef swallowed hard. “Why were you there?”

“To tell Yunis Abdel Rahman that his dear Dad had made him a killer for nothing. I told him Dima was innocent and that Hussein didn’t even know who she was. The boy was quite upset at the news, you can imagine. Disgusted with himself and his father. Guilty. No family business, no future. I told him he could redeem himself by carrying out an operation. He agreed immediately.”

“Why did the Israelis come to your apartment tonight, if you’re their collaborator?”

“They wanted to warn me not to keep the explosives factories operating. Or perhaps they just wanted to give me some cover. No one’s going to think they’d raid a collaborator’s home.”

Omar Yussef pointed at the second staircase out of the cave. “Let’s go. I’m taking you to the police.”

Jihad Awdeh rose and stretched. “Fine. They will, of course, let me go. And I’ll start building another bomb.” He moved along the cave. “This time it won’t be your American boss who gets blown up by it. I’ll make sure it takes you out, and your family, too.”

Omar Yussef gestured to Awdeh to keep to the opposite side of the cavern. He followed the gunman up the short flight of stairs, slowly. When his prisoner reached the top, Omar Yussef said: “Keep going. Not too fast.”

The darkness in the church seemed to have lifted. As Omar Yussef reached the top of the stairs, he pulled the Webley closer to his side, hiding it in the folds of his jacket.

Jihad Awdeh turned. He stared at the old gun.

“Keep going,” Omar Yussef said. His eyes were adjusting. It was too light in the church. He had spent too much time down in the cave. The killer would see the old pistol was useless. “Come on, move it.”

Jihad Awdeh pointed at the Webley and laughed. “What are you going to do? Beat me to death with that old thing?”

Omar Yussef felt his mouth dry up. He looked down and saw that the hand holding the pistol shook. “This gun is an old one. But it works.”

But Jihad Awdeh was already upon him. He punched Omar Yussef in the temple, shoved him backward, and tripped him so that he fell to the floor. From the back of his boot, Jihad slowly drew a six-inch hunting knife. He twirled its jagged blade, smiling. Omar Yussef saw the light glint off the shaft of the knife. How could he have been so stupid as to stay below in the cave until there was this much daylight in the church?

Jihad Awdeh kicked him in the side, just below the ribs. The impact stabbed through his kidneys as surely as if it were a thrust of the knife. He groaned. Then Jihad kicked again and Omar Yussef screamed, a deep bellow.

He grabbed Jihad Awdeh’s leg, but the gunman shook free. Omar Yussef looked up. Jihad crouched above him with the knife held to his own throat. He grinned, as though he would bite the schoolteacher and drink his blood. He drew the knife lightly across his throat, sighing with pleasure. It was the same murderous gesture George Saba had described, when Omar Yussef saw him in the jail. Omar Yussef would die now, like George.

The knife was at Omar Yussef’s throat. It felt warm from having been stashed inside Jihad Awdeh’s boot. He gasped. There was a moment of pressure against the flesh of his neck. Then there was a massive blast, and another. Omar Yussef thought it was the sound of his carotid ripping under the sharp metal, the tearing of the cartilage thundering through his head. But then Jihad Awdeh toppled over onto his victim’s chest. He held his head directly before Omar Yussef’s face and gave a ghostly moan that was heavy with the stale reek of cigarettes. Then he dropped his head. His brow struck Omar Yussef on the chin. The murderer was dead.