The Collaborator of Bethlehem Read Free Page B

wasn’t there, she was melancholy. Without her husband to enliven her nights, the days in the glass booth at the back of the garage were dull. Worse, Louai’s father Muhammad and his brother Yunis grew cold toward her, as though they blamed her for the risks he took in coming through the darkness to the house. Or maybe it was something else.
    Weeks before, a burly man in military fatigues had come into the autoshop when Muhammad and Yunis were out. He sat on Dima’s desk, crumpling her paperwork with his broad backside, and tried to touch her cheek. “I have something I need to buy from your family,” he said to her, “but I’d pay double the price if they’d let you deliver it to me.” She moved away and the man laughed. Behind him, she noticed Yunis at the entrance to the garage. The man lifted his hand again, but then followed her eyes to her brother-in-law. He laughed again and left the autoshop. Yunis looked darkly at her and followed the man out, whispering insistently to him. He had barely spoken to her since that day.
    When Louai last came home, Dima complained that his father and brother were distant with her. A quiet, calm man, he surprised her with his sudden anger. “You have no right to judge my father and brother,” he shouted. “These are not matters that concern you.”
    Dima had no idea what “matters” he meant—she had referred only to their icy manner about the house and office. But Louai quickly calmed himself and apologized. He said he was tense because of his confinement in a safehouse, but Dima knew he was lying. He was defensive, because he, too, was frustrated with his brother. Dima’s suspicions about Yunis somehow were confirmed by Louai’s outburst. Before he had left that last time, Dima had heard Louai and Yunis arguing. They had spoken in whispers. She couldn’t tell what they were saying, but the tone had been heated. She had also noticed her husband stare sternly at his father after he embraced him in farewell.
    As Dima Abdel Rahman stood at the window straining to see the source of the steps sounding in the undergrowth, she heard the steady footfalls stop. Then they began again, not so clearly defined, but rather a shuffle through the underbrush, as though the creeping man had suddenly relaxed.
    “Oh, it’s you, Abu Walid.”
    It was her husband’s voice. He spoke calmly, in a friendly tone. Dima looked toward the voice. For a moment she saw nothing, then at the edge of the pines a small red dot appeared, flitting unsteadily as though describing a circle of a small radius. It quivered to a halt, like a firefly settling onto a leaf. When the red dot was still, instantly there was a shot. Dima gasped, and it was as though the sudden extra oxygen fed her eyes, because she saw Louai. He stumbled from the edge of the trees. Dima couldn’t make out his face, but she knew the denim jacket and the jeans she had bought for him before his last visit. His hand clutched his shoulder.
    The red dot, again. Another shot cracked out of the darkness and Louai spun, his arms stretched wide, like a Sufi dancing in the divine trance of the sema , whirling, head back, one hand turned toward the earth, the other palm heavenward. He collapsed facedown in the cabbage patch.
    Dima stared. Her mother-in-law came wailing into the room, crying out that the Israelis were invading. “They will murder us all,” she called. “Yunis, my son, come and bring your father to protect us. Muhammad, come to protect us, husband.” There were footsteps from the upper floor as the men awoke from their evening naps and hurried to the stairs. Dima felt as if she had been turned to stone. If she moved, she thought she might fall to pieces on the ground, her body dropping noisily in a cloud of dusty chips. With a fearful effort, she turned and ran to the door, knocking over a glass of kamar al-din on the way.
    The killers could be out here still, Dima thought, but I have to reach him and touch him. Don’t let