said, unable to get a smile into the stiffened muscles of his face, fear prowling through his bowels. “Maybe I didn’t handle it well. Maybe I made mistakes. But I wouldn’t betray you, Faisal. Whatever I got over there I was going to bring to our people on Malta. It’s what you’d have done. I did it for us! For the organization!”
Only after he spoke did he become conscious of the obsequious wheedling in his voice, a sound he had heard in the voices of people he had thought despicable, a sound he had thought himself incapable of. That a weakness in him could emit such a sound was frightening. Hadn’t he outgrown that? Hadn’t he worked all these years to overcome that weakness?
“And this girl you were seen with,” Faisal said. “Are you stupid as well as disloyal? You had to know that hanging around a girl like that would bring the secret police down on us!”
“Not on you!” Bashir said. “They couldn’t find a connection between you and me.”
“Because there isn’t one,” Faisal said. “No more. I don’t trust you now. We are finished.”
“But I haven’t done anything!” Again he shot a pleading glance at Diab, and Diab just looked at him. Bashir raised both hands in a gesture of bewildered helplessness. “I haven’t done anything wrong! I swear to God!”
“Have the police questioned you about her?”
“They question everyone who comes in contact with her.”
“What did you hope to gain from her?”
“Influence, Faisal. Influence at the very top. It’s for us. It would have given us a voice at the top level of the Department of Interior. Think what….”
Faisal frowned. He glanced at Diab and turned his whole body toward the air conditioner and drew up his knees.
“I wouldn’t betray you, Faisal! I owe everything to you! I’ve always been grateful!”
Diab got up. “You and me are going for a ride,” he said.
Bashir had heard that expression in exactly that tone. He knew what it meant. Always it had been directed toward fools, toward unimportant people, people no longer of use to the organization. Not to people like him.
“This is insane!”
When Diab took his arm and lifted him from the chair, Bashir pushed both hands into the big man’s chest. “Get away from me!”
Diab, nearly twice Bashir’s size, grabbed Bashir’s shirtfront and slapped his face.
Cringing in pain, enraged by the indignity, Bashir yelled, “Get your hands off me!”
Diab roughly turned him around and bullied him out of the room.
“Many years ago,” he said, forcing Bashir down the hall, “I was in your old neighborhood in Gaza. I got very drunk one night and looked for a woman. Maybe the woman I found in one of those lice-ridden buildings was your mother.”
*
Little more than three miles east of Cairo on the far side of a plateau called Mokattam there is a large colony of Coptic Christians who live in a culture of filth, earning a meager living collecting garbage in the city, carrying it on donkey carts to the hills where their women and children pick through it for whatever they can salvage for their own use or for resale. They live in roofless shanties of cement blocks and metal siding, old boards and mud. Although they dwell in stinking fields of swill, they appear, at least to casual observation, contentedly resigned to their situation, sometimes even happy. Their children, like children the world over, laugh and sing and chase after each other in play, seemingly oblivious to the squalor of their surroundings.
When Diab came down the hardened roadway in his green Pontiac and pulled up to the shack of Elskran, “the drunk,” children ran in from their games and stood in silent clusters watching the big man and his driver pull a smaller man out of the car—a slender, frightened man in white shirtsleeves who was blindfolded, whose face had been bruised, and whose hands were tied behind his back.
They watched Elskran push the blindfolded man across a mound of garbage to a
Only after he spoke did he become conscious of the obsequious wheedling in his voice, a sound he had heard in the voices of people he had thought despicable, a sound he had thought himself incapable of. That a weakness in him could emit such a sound was frightening. Hadn’t he outgrown that? Hadn’t he worked all these years to overcome that weakness?
“And this girl you were seen with,” Faisal said. “Are you stupid as well as disloyal? You had to know that hanging around a girl like that would bring the secret police down on us!”
“Not on you!” Bashir said. “They couldn’t find a connection between you and me.”
“Because there isn’t one,” Faisal said. “No more. I don’t trust you now. We are finished.”
“But I haven’t done anything!” Again he shot a pleading glance at Diab, and Diab just looked at him. Bashir raised both hands in a gesture of bewildered helplessness. “I haven’t done anything wrong! I swear to God!”
“Have the police questioned you about her?”
“They question everyone who comes in contact with her.”
“What did you hope to gain from her?”
“Influence, Faisal. Influence at the very top. It’s for us. It would have given us a voice at the top level of the Department of Interior. Think what….”
Faisal frowned. He glanced at Diab and turned his whole body toward the air conditioner and drew up his knees.
“I wouldn’t betray you, Faisal! I owe everything to you! I’ve always been grateful!”
Diab got up. “You and me are going for a ride,” he said.
Bashir had heard that expression in exactly that tone. He knew what it meant. Always it had been directed toward fools, toward unimportant people, people no longer of use to the organization. Not to people like him.
“This is insane!”
When Diab took his arm and lifted him from the chair, Bashir pushed both hands into the big man’s chest. “Get away from me!”
Diab, nearly twice Bashir’s size, grabbed Bashir’s shirtfront and slapped his face.
Cringing in pain, enraged by the indignity, Bashir yelled, “Get your hands off me!”
Diab roughly turned him around and bullied him out of the room.
“Many years ago,” he said, forcing Bashir down the hall, “I was in your old neighborhood in Gaza. I got very drunk one night and looked for a woman. Maybe the woman I found in one of those lice-ridden buildings was your mother.”
*
Little more than three miles east of Cairo on the far side of a plateau called Mokattam there is a large colony of Coptic Christians who live in a culture of filth, earning a meager living collecting garbage in the city, carrying it on donkey carts to the hills where their women and children pick through it for whatever they can salvage for their own use or for resale. They live in roofless shanties of cement blocks and metal siding, old boards and mud. Although they dwell in stinking fields of swill, they appear, at least to casual observation, contentedly resigned to their situation, sometimes even happy. Their children, like children the world over, laugh and sing and chase after each other in play, seemingly oblivious to the squalor of their surroundings.
When Diab came down the hardened roadway in his green Pontiac and pulled up to the shack of Elskran, “the drunk,” children ran in from their games and stood in silent clusters watching the big man and his driver pull a smaller man out of the car—a slender, frightened man in white shirtsleeves who was blindfolded, whose face had been bruised, and whose hands were tied behind his back.
They watched Elskran push the blindfolded man across a mound of garbage to a
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