Murder Under the Fig Tree Read online

  “Naam,” yes, Chloe responded with a wink. She turned back to the soldier woman, who was still staring down at the passport copy.

  “Why do you give me this? Where’s your passport?”

  “This is what I carry,” Chloe said.

  “You don’t have your passport?”

  “This has always been good enough,” she lied.

  “It’s not good enough. Where are you from?”

  “The States,” Chloe said. Maybe the woman couldn’t read English. Maybe she didn’t even know for sure it wasn’t official ID. That gave Chloe an idea. She pulled her wallet from her backpack and fished out a tattered business card, which she handed to the soldier.

  “Go,” the woman said, handing the documents back. She pressed the button that released the turnstile. Chloe walked through, chuckling to herself. Avi had helped her make that card last time she was here. It said, “Chloe Rubin, Human Rights Worker,” but he had added in Hebrew: “This person is authorized to do important work.”

  Chloe had never been to Ramle and wasn’t really sure how to get there. The simplest way would be to take a servees to Jerusalem, a local bus to the bus station, and then an intercity bus to Ramle. But that would take hours, and, by the time she got there, it might be too late to visit. She studied her Rand McNally map book. Ramle looked to be about thirty miles due north from where she was standing, a short ride on Highway 404 and then a straight shot up Highway 1. Orienting herself in what she hoped was the right direction, she held her hand out, palm down, at a 45-degree angle to her body, trying to make eye contact with the drivers as they whizzed by. Just when she was sure no one was ever going to stop, a middle-aged woman in a beat-up Toyota swerved to the shoulder in a screech of tires.

  “Ramle?” Chloe asked. The woman nodded. Chloe climbed into the front seat and in under an hour was within sight of the barbed wire–encircled towers of the prison.

  Neve Tirzah was the nearest part of the labyrinthine prison complex. She was relieved to see people lined up at the little barred window marked Visitors. That must mean it was a visiting day. Since Neve Tirzah was the women’s prison, most of the visitors were men with children bundled in their arms. Chloe took her place at the end of the line. After ten minutes, she got to hand her passport to a blue-uniformed woman who took it along with Rania’s name and disappeared.

  The minutes ticked by. She got tired of standing and went to sit on a patch of grass that turned out to be wet. She pulled out the paperback copy of The Da Vinci Code she’d picked up at SFO, meaning to read it on the plane. She had wanted mindless entertainment but had been too nervous even for that. She couldn’t concentrate on it now either. She read the same page three times. One by one, she watched each set of visitors pass through a gate into a wire cage where they were searched and then shown into a smaller cage where the prisoners paced anxiously. The prisoners wore their own clothes. Their eyes would light up when they saw their visitors come in. They would scoop up their kids into tight hugs, then settle down onto one of the benches and picnic on the food their husbands had brought. Chloe had not thought to bring food for Rania. She examined the contents of her purse. Half a chocolate bar and a package of smoked almonds from the plane would be the sum total of what she had to share with her friend.

  Half an hour after the last visitor was ushered back out of the cage, a soft-spoken man with a perfectly round face appeared and asked for her ID. She told him that she had given it to a woman. He looked bemused and went away.

  She was wondering if she would ever see her passport again, let alone Rania, when she heard a disembodied voice call “America.”

  She looked around.

  “America. Bo’ee” A hefty policeman stood in the doorway to the cage. Chloe walked over and stood toe to toe, so close she could smell the sweat under his limp blue shirt. She faintly hoped he would move back a foot to get some distance, and she would be able to get one foot in the door.

  “What do you want?” he asked.

  “I already told three people, to visit Rania Bakara.”

  “She cannot have visitors.”

  “That’s not true. Her sister visited her.” He had not moved an inch. She took another half step closer, until she was nearly standing on his toe. He held his ground.

  “Are you her sister?”

  “No. But if her sister can visit, I can.”

  “You have to have special permission to visit security prisoners. Do you have a permit?”

  “What kind of permit?”

  “Tasrih.”

  “That just means permit in Arabic. It doesn’t tell me anything.”

  “You need a tasrih to visit her.”

  “No I don’t.” She had no idea if she did or not, but she did know that bluffing was nine tenths of the law.

  “You cannot visit her because she is in trouble.”

  “Obviously, that’s why I came.”

  “I mean she is in trouble with us. She makes big trouble for us.”

  That would be Rania, all right. Chloe stifled a chuckle.

  “If you don’t let me in, I’ll call a lawyer, and she’ll call the court, and they’ll say you have to. Then you’ll get in trouble.”

  “Wait here.” He snapped the gate shut and disappeared into the prison.

  Could such a dumb threat possibly work? Or was he going off to get someone to come arrest her? She had lots of time to wonder. Another fifteen minutes crept past before he came back. This time, he spoke to her through the fence, giving her no hope of forcing her way in. She felt her chance slipping away.

  “Why do you want to see her?” he asked.

  “I am a friend of hers from America. I came all this way to visit her and then found out she was in prison. I can’t go back home without seeing her.”

  “Wait here.”

  He went away again. Chloe went back to the grass, which had dried in the sun. She took out The Da Vinci Code, but couldn’t even get herself to open it.

  “America. Come.”

  She looked up. The burly policeman was opening the gate. She almost ran to make it through before he could change his mind. She expected him to tell her to open her purse, as she had seen the other visitors do, but he did not stop. She followed him through the inner cage into the whitewashed stone building, where high ceilings echoed with distant shrieks. It took her eyes a moment to adjust to the dim interior. When they did, she saw what looked like a hospital waiting room, with wooden benches along walls covered with peeling, white paint and penciled graffiti in Hebrew and Arabic. Two heavy chairs faced one another in the middle of the room, like a scene waiting for the actors.

  A small woman whose heavy glasses covered half her bruised face entered, flanked by police, one male, one female. A gray jilbab cloaked the woman’s painfully thin body, a blue headscarf hiding all but a wisp of chestnut hair. Defiance battled intense sadness for domination of her chiseled features.

  “Rania!” Chloe ran to her, sweeping her into a hug.

  Rania winced and caught her breath sharply. Her wrists were cuffed behind her back, and Chloe told herself that was why Rania didn’t hug her back. But no cuffs bound her face, and she didn’t offer the traditional three kisses to the cheek. She looked remote and wooden.

  “No touching. Come here,” ordered Chloe’s escort.

  He took Rania’s arm and led her to a table with chairs on either side. She flinched at his touch, as if he had hurt her. Chloe thought there was something wrong with her right arm. She was leaning to her left, gripping the back of the chair with her white-knuckled left hand. Her right was held at an odd angle. But it was impossible to tell because of the cuffs.

  “Can’t you take those off?” she asked the policeman.

  “No. You have five minutes.”

  “Would you give us some privacy?” Chloe said. He said something to the other two, and each moved to one wall. Chloe took the empty chair opposite Rania.

  “Are you all right?” Leaning forward, Chloe spoke in a low voic
e.

  “You should not have come.” Rania turned her head slightly to the right, avoiding eye contact.

  Chloe fought the tears burning her eye sockets. Buck up, she told herself. If Rania really felt that way, she would have refused to see her.

  “What happened to your face?” she asked.

  “Nothing.”

  “Obviously something did. Did they beat you?”

  “Of course. They beat everyone.” If anyone else talked to Chloe in that tone, she would snap back at them. She took a deep breath and reminded herself what Rania was going through. If she needed to vent her anger at Chloe, that was probably safer than anything else she could do with it.

  “A friend of mine who works with Checkpoint Watch is calling the army to try to find out why they are holding you here,” she said.

  “We already know why I am here.”

  “Nehama might be able to get your lawyer access to the evidence against you, so he can appeal the detention order.”

  “Even if he does, he will lose.”

  “You don’t know that,” Chloe said without belief. “Besides, what else can we do?”

  “There is nothing you can do. You should go back to America. Otherwise, they will arrest you again.”

  “There’s no reason they would do that,” Chloe said, although, of course, everything Rania knew, she also knew. The men who had had Rania arrested had plenty of friends in the Ministry of Interior. Doubtless, they knew by now that Chloe was back in the country.

  “If they were so worried about me being here, they would have denied my entry,” Chloe said. “Anyway, I’m here, and I’m doing everything I can to get you out.”

  “You can do nothing. I will not get out.” Rania shifted in the chair, grasping the latticed back with her cuffed hands. Chloe knew from her own experiences with handcuffs that holding onto something could relieve the pressure on your wrists.

  “Of course you’re going to get out. They didn’t find anything in your house, right?”

  “What would there be for them to find?” They both knew that the only weapon Rania had ever had was buried somewhere in Avi’s father’s house. Although Palestinian police were permitted to carry weapons, Rania did not.

  “So, they will have to let you out. They can’t hold you forever.”

  “Can they not?”

  Chloe almost doubted that this bitter, dull-eyed creature was really Rania. “Listen to me. You can’t give up. You have to fight and stay strong. We’re going to get you out, Bassam and I. We’ll find a way.”

  Rania straightened in her chair and looked straight at Chloe. “You saw Bassam?”

  “Yes. He loves you very much.”

  “Did you see Khaled?”

  Mentioning her son’s name brought a spark to Rania’s face. Chloe wished there was some way she could avoid killing it.

  “No,” she said. “I met Bassam at his office. He says Khaled is fine, though.” She wanted to keep talking about Khaled but could think of nothing more to say. She should have asked Bassam for details about his son. Of course, she had not known she was going to see Rania. She didn’t want to let there be silence between them, for fear that the fragile connection would fade away again. “Bassam is thinner, without you to cook for him.”

  “I’m sure his mother keeps him well-fed.” That almost sounded like the old Rania. Chloe laughed too heartily, and the policeman in the corner looked at his watch.

  “Time’s up,” he said.

  Chloe didn’t think it was worth arguing. “Is there anything you want me to tell Bassam?” she asked quickly.

  “Tell him to make sure Khaled wears a clean shirt to school.”

  “Okay.” Chloe suddenly remembered the chocolate and almonds in her purse. She withdrew them, held them out sheepishly and then realized Rania couldn’t take them. She walked around and placed them in Rania’s left hand, closing the fist around them. She bent and kissed her friend’s cheeks, left, right, and left again. On the last one, she felt Rania’s lips press her cheek as well. She moved toward the door.

  “Chloe,” Rania said, so softly she almost didn’t hear.

  Chloe took a step back toward her, away from the policeman jangling his keys in the iron doorway. “Yes?”

  “Will you come again?”

  “Of course.” As much as it had hurt to leave a minute ago, it hurt more now. With her hands cuffed behind her, Rania had no way to wipe away the tears streaking her swollen face.

  Chapter 9

  From the Ramle bus station, Chloe caught a sherut to Jerusalem. The driver, a Palestinian with Israeli citizenship, was willing to drop her at Damascus Gate for only five shekels more, and she was back in Ramallah by mid-afternoon. She browsed in the market, bought some spiced nuts that Tina liked, and successfully dodged being dragged into a shop to look at authentic Palestinian crafts made in China.

  The unmistakable smell of tomato sauce drew her into a dimly lit restaurant called Enrico’s. She ordered a calzone and cappuccino, and tried to get immersed in The Da Vinci Code, while the visit with Rania played on a loop in her mind. She wished she could be as confident that she would see Rania outside of prison as that Robert Langdon would find Mary Magdalene’s love child with Jesus. The door swung open and a burst of laughter heralded the arrival of a group of young men. They wore tight jeans and skin-tight shirts, some showing gold chains around their necks. They gravitated to a round table in the middle of the room, settling themselves while calling out hellos to other diners and the young woman at the cash register.

  “Daoud, when are we going to get married?” the young woman called back.

  A young man with a long, heavily embroidered scarf draped around his throat like a feather boa swung around to face her.

  “As soon as your parents agree to meet my price.”

  They all exploded in good-natured laughter, including the cashier.

  “You can’t marry her; you are going to marry me!” one of the other guys said. He put his arm possessively around Daoud. He was startlingly good-looking, black, wavy hair framing pale, jutting cheekbones.

  Chloe wasn’t positive she had understood correctly, but she couldn’t mistake the word tjawaz. She heard “Inti mitjawzi?” Are you married? every day of her life in Palestine. At home, she would think nothing of a group of obviously gay young men goofing around in a restaurant. But this wasn’t home.

  The young man called Daoud noticed her watching them. She looked down at her book, but too late.

  “Where are you from?” he asked loudly in English.

  “California,” she said.

  “West Hollywood?” How did he know about West Hollywood?

  “No, San Francisco.”

  “Aaaaaah!” With the shriek, he jumped up and made for her table, motioning his friends to bring their chairs. Before she knew it, she had a rapt audience.

  “I want so much to go to San Francisco!” Daoud said. “What is San Francisco like?” asked Daoud’s would-be fiancé. His long, narrow fingers played the table like a piano, probably unconsciously. “Are the men as beautiful as in the movies?”

  Okay, she couldn’t be mistaking his meaning.

  “I don’t know, I don’t really notice them, if you know what I mean.”

  “My sister,” Daoud said with a broad smile. “Are you married?”

  She was surprised. She thought he had understood, but maybe he hadn’t. She doubted news of the San Francisco mayor’s short-lived plan to allow same-sex marriages had reached Palestine.

  “No.”

  “Then marry me and take me to San Francisco. Please?”

  His friends whooped with laughter. “No, me,” said the one with the ponytail.

  “I’m the best looking,” said the piano player.

  “No, Elias,” said Daoud. “You have to stay and become the next Ammar Hassan.”

  “Sah,” true, said Elias with an extravagant sigh. Chloe had heard about Ammar Hassan, who had held the nation in thrall two years earlier, whe
n he took second place in the Lebanese television talent competition Super Star. He was from a village in the Salfit District, where Rania lived.

  “Are you from Salfit?” she asked Elias.

  “Yes, from Jemai’in,” he named one of the villages in that area.

  “My village is also in Salfit. Kufr Yunus,” said Daoud.

  “I don’t know that village,” Chloe said.

  “That’s because it’s not even a speck!” said one of the other men, drawing more gales of laughter.

  “Do not disrespect my homeland,” Daoud said in Arabic. Chloe was gratified that she understood.

  The waiter served her calzone. She cut it into six pieces and put it in the middle of the table.

  “T’faddalu,” she said to them, indicating they should join her.

  “No, no, please, you eat,” said Pony Tail.

  “Really, I invite you.”

  They might have taken her up on the offer, but her phone rang, and they got up noisily and went back to their own table. Chloe looked at the phone. Nehama, her friend from Machsom Watch. She must have news about Rania’s case.

  “There’s no detention order,” Nehama boomed. “She was arrested on the orders of someone high up, that’s all my contact could say.”

  “I already knew that,” Chloe said. “Did they say how long she’ll be held?”

  “They don’t know. Whoever ordered her arrested is calling the shots. She’ll probably be there until they decide to release her.”

  “But surely they can’t just hold her indefinitely, without even a hearing.”

  “She’ll probably be sent for an administrative detention hearing in a few weeks, but that won’t help her. The judge will accept whatever the army says and order her held for six months.”

  “Six months? So, we need to get her out before they do that.”

  Nehama was quiet for an unbearably long time. “You have the lawyer’s number?” she said finally. “Give it to me. I’ll call Rachel, the Israeli lawyer who got you out of prison.” And agreed that they could kick me out of the country, Chloe thought uncharitably, as Nehama went on.

  “She’s very good at getting access to secret evidence. Maybe she can help Rania’s lawyer find out what they have on her.”