The Fourth Assassin

Chapter 7

The Saudi delegates in their long, white jalabiyyas would have been happier with whisky, but the consideration of the UN for their country’s Islamic proscriptions restricted them to coffee. They floated past Omar Yussef, their pure white robes falling around lumpy paunches, their cheeks seeming dark and unshaven despite the reek of expensive cologne that followed them through the overheated air. Like angels gone to seed, Omar Yussef thought. He surveyed the bright African costumes and the somber gray suits mingling in the shabby reception room. Perhaps this was a mistake. I don’t know if I can put on a sociable face and chatter with these people.

A man with a blond beard came smiling across the thin institutional carpet. He rubbed Omar Yussef’s fingers with both hands. “Abu Ramiz, you’re freezing,” he said. “As your boss, I’m responsible for your health while we’re in New York. Don’t you have a proper winter coat?”

“I left it at the hotel, Magnus.” Omar Yussef played with the zipper of his windbreaker. After his disconcerting day, he was unsure of his ability to get a lie past even this credulous Swede.

“Let’s find something to warm you up.” Magnus Wallander led him to a counter where a smiling West African woman in a colorful wrap poured him a cup of lemon tea. “To your double health,” Wallander said.

Omar Yussef sensed the raggedness of his smile. “Your Arabic is much better in New York than back in the office in Jerusalem, Magnus.”

“At least here no one suspects me of being a spy just because I speak Arabic.” Wallander’s skin became rosy beneath his trim, fair beard. He sipped his soda water. “Your president will address the conference the day before you do, Abu Ramiz. But frankly I’m looking forward much more to your talk. There’re delegates here from all over the Arab world, and I don’t believe they ever hear the real story of Palestine.”

“You think they’re ready for reality?” Omar Yussef said.

Wallander reached into his pocket and handed Omar Yussef a laminated UN identity card. “Here’s your pass for the week. You didn’t send me a photo, so I had to use the one from your personnel file. The card gives you access to all the delegate areas of the UN buildings.”

Omar Yussef regarded the photo with regret. It showed him more than a decade younger, his hair only receding a little and his mustache its original black. He detected sadness and shame in the tired eyes-the weary guilt of the habitual drinker.

“The picture’s a bit old, but it still looks like you,” Wallander said.

Omar Yussef slipped it into his pocket. “I may have some other commitments this week, Magnus.”

“You mean your son?”

Omar Yussef coughed.

“How’s Ala?” Magnus asked.

Omar Yussef sipped some tea to settle his throat. “Busy. He’s very busy.” He looked around the room for a man in a black coat. Could he follow me here?

Magnus reached out to snare the elbow of a man in his mid-thirties. “Laith, come here,” he said. The man’s black hair waved under apple pomade. His chubby face bore a three-part beard-the thick mustache dropped over a triangle forking like a black tongue beneath his bottom lip, and a full growth jutted from his chin like a brush. Magnus introduced him as the head of the Lebanese delegation to the conference.

“Abu Ramiz is from Bethlehem,” the Swede said.

“Bethlehem?” The Lebanese smiled. “One of my delegation was born there.”

“What’s his name? Perhaps I know him,” Omar Yussef said.

Before the man could reply, a tall delegate, whose collarless shirt buttoned to the top suggested that he was from Iran, hooked his hand into the crook of the Lebanese’s arm and took him away with a quick smile of apology.

The Iranian’s diplomatic leer depressed Omar Yussef. It seemed as meaningless as the statements he felt sure he’d hear at the conference. Every delegate would have to declare how much he loved the Palestinian people and supported their right to freedom. They’d call on Israel to do whatever they knew the Israelis weren’t prepared to do, and they’d congratulate themselves for protecting ordinary Palestinians whose lives would, in fact, remain untouched by their deliberations.

“Ustaz Abu Ramiz, what a pleasure to see you here.”

Omar Yussef shifted his spectacles and turned them upon Haitham Abdel Hadi. He wore a limp gray suit, a cheap cream shirt, and a brown polyester tie. When Omar Yussef grasped Abdel Hadi’s languid handshake, a spark crackled in his palm from the static electricity surrounding the man like a pricklish force field.

“And Mister Magnus, how happy I am that you brought Abu Ramiz all this way,” Abdel Hadi said, with a nasty grin. “I’m very contented that the conference will provide a showcase for his talents.”

“Of course you must have met him on one of your school inspections,” Magnus said.

Omar Yussef looked sourly at the dandruff on Abdel Hadi’s lapels. “This gentleman and I have often had cause to discuss the future of our schools together,” he said to Wallander.

Since Abdel Hadi had forced Omar Yussef out of his job at the Freres School for refusing to teach government propaganda, the schools inspector had risen in the Education Ministry in Ramallah. Even though Omar Yussef had been consigned to a school for the poorest of refugees, Abdel Hadi still seemed to want to punish him for his independent thought.

He bowed toward Omar Yussef. “I trust that you will recognize the importance of this conference for the Palestinian people, ustaz,” he said.

“Is it so very important? I’m worried it’ll be just talk.”

“Then why did you come? For a free flight? So you can visit your little son in Brooklyn?”

Omar Yussef sensed his face coloring. His anger confused him. He was unsure if he had been provoked by Abdel Hadi, or if it was just that his bewildering day had left him eager for a fight. He switched from English to Arabic, lowered his voice, and felt the bile burn off the end of his tongue. “Listen to me, Honored Deputy Director-General Abdel Hadi. I’ve had a difficult arrival in New York already. Don’t try to embarrass me in front of this foreigner.”

Abdel Hadi grinned coldly at Wallander. “Excuse me,” he said to him in English. Then, in Arabic, he spoke with a deceptive smoothness to Omar Yussef: “This week you’ll appear on the biggest stage you’ll ever have. I’m going to make sure everyone’s ready to see you fail. When you get back to Bethlehem, you’ll pervert no more children with your dangerous ideas.”

Omar Yussef’s teacup rattled in its saucer. “I’m proud that the children in my class would see you for the hateful fool you are.”

Abdel Hadi took a quick step toward Omar Yussef.

Magnus laid a hand on Abdel Hadi’s shoulder and edged himself between the two men. Omar Yussef heard the static from Abdel Hadi’s cheap suit crackle against the Swede’s fingers.

Omar Yussef let Wallander guide him back to the counter, where he deposited his teacup. “I apologize, Magnus. It’s been a hard day,” he said.

“It’s all right, Abu Ramiz. I’ve had a couple of meetings in the past with Doctor Abdel Hadi, and I must admit he’s a disagreeable fellow. I expect you’re also tired after your journey.”

His angry interaction with Abdel Hadi had convinced Omar Yussef that he ought not to have come to the reception. Ala was too much on his mind. “Perhaps I should rest. Good evening, Magnus.”

In his hotel room, Omar Yussef double-locked the door and dropped heavily onto the edge of his bed. Dry, warm air rumbled out of the heating duct, and sweat stood on his scalp. The image of Nizar’s headless corpse returned to him, and he remembered the boy’s family. He took out his diary and turned to the neat page of phone numbers at the back. Reaching for the telephone, he read the dialing instructions encased in a plastic stand beside the phone and tried to obtain an outside line. His call went through to room service, which only reminded him that he didn’t want dinner. He read the instructions once more and this time heard a dial tone. While the phone rang at the other end of the line, he checked his watch and calculated that it would be 2 A.M. in Bethlehem.

A sleepy, irritable voice answered.

“Greetings, Abu Khaled,” Omar Yussef said. “I’m sorry to call you so late. This is Abu Ramiz. I’m calling from New York.”

The voice brightened. “Double greetings, Abu Ramiz. Don’t worry about the time. It’s always a blessing to hear from you. How’s your health, my dear sir? How’s the health of your family?”

“May Allah be thanked, everyone’s well.”

“We must thank Allah. May Allah bless you, my dear one.”

Omar Yussef coughed lightly. “But, Abu Khaled, I have bad news for you.”

The man on the line seemed once more to grow sleepy. He grunted a low, wary syllable of acknowledgement.

“I went to visit my son today at the apartment where he lives with your nephew Nizar.” Omar Yussef’s mouth was dry. “I’m sorry to say that I found your nephew dead, may Allah be merciful upon him.”

“There is no god but Allah, and Muhammad is his messenger,” Abu Khaled whispered.

“The New York police are investigating.”

“What is there to investigate? Do you mean it was a murder?”

“It would appear to be-suspicious.”

“Did they arrest anyone?”

Omar Yussef felt his pulse shooting faster as he thought of his son in a cell in Brooklyn. “They have no suspects yet.” His untruth came out strangled and stumbling.

“How was he killed?”

The schoolteacher was silent. I should have waited to make this call until my own shock had abated, he thought. He took a breath. “I can’t say exactly.”

Abu Khaled sighed and the exhalation turned into Nizar’s name. “Death can play terrible games with a family, dear Abu Ramiz.”

Omar Yussef leaned toward the minibar and took out a bottle of water. He opened it and wet his mouth, but his throat still felt tight and raw.

“My poor nephew,” Abu Khaled murmured. “When he was only a little boy, five years of age, his dear father was assassinated. Right there in New York.”

“Yes, yes,” Omar Yussef commiserated. “I join you in your sad mood.” Nizar’s father had been notable for his writings, political fables and heroic resistance tales, which had appeared in magazines across the Arab world. Like most Palestinian authors, he had also held ideological posts in one of the PLO factions. Omar Yussef recalled a rumor in Bethlehem that the man had been killed by the Mossad to silence someone whose words were a powerful weapon against Israel.

“It’s as though he were born to die this way. My dear nephew Nizar, it’s so tragic.”

As Abu Khaled sobbed and mumbled a prayer, memories of the life that had been lost came to Omar Yussef: Nizar walking on his hands along the high parapet of a ruined Crusader castle in the Galilee. Weeping with laughter at the farting cushion he hid on Omar Yussef’s chair in class and, when he was alone with his teacher, crying because he wished for a father above all other things. The kitten he gave to Omar Yussef’s favorite granddaughter Nadia when she was only a few years old, and how he had shown her the way to feed it milk from a doll’s bottle. His energetic grin at the door of Omar Yussef’s home, a taxi idling in Dehaisha Street behind him, as he waited for Ala to bring his bag, leaving for America. Had all the good times been mere delusions? Had Nizar’s life truly been as tragic as his uncle claimed?

“When did you speak to him last, Abu Khaled?” Omar Yussef asked.

“About a week ago. He was very happy. O my grief. He said soon he would tell me good news.”

Omar Yussef thought of the love letter. “What kind of good news?”

“He was very secretive about it. I hoped perhaps he would be coming home to be with us again here in Bethlehem. Perhaps he had found a wife. He mentioned a girl, but only very briefly.”

“Dear Abu Khaled, I will give your phone number to the police so that they can contact you-about the body, I mean. Will you want it returned to Bethlehem?”

“The body? I don’t know-I’ll have to think. . Thank you for alerting me to this sad news, Abu Ramiz.”

“May his lost years be added to your life,” Omar Yussef said.

“May you receive blessings from Allah.”

Omar Yussef hung up. He put his small suitcase on the bed and opened it. His pale blue pajamas were folded neatly on top of his other clothes. He took them out and placed them on the quilt. The scent of his wife’s lavender perfume rose from the case, and he closed his eyes for a moment. He laid his hand on a box six inches long that Maryam had given him. It was a gift for Ala, an expensive pen, a Mont Blanc like the one he himself carried. He had told Maryam it was a ridiculous gift for a computer programmer, but she had wanted to give her boy something special. He slipped the box into the pocket of his jacket-he would hand it to his son when next he saw him. What are you feeling now, my little Ala? he thought. He sat beside his suitcase on the bed and put his face in his hands. He wept hard until he fell asleep in his clothes.