CROUCHING BEHIND A PILE OF CINDER BLOCKS, YUSSUF ABU Saleh waited until the Israeli patrol completed its sweep along the road that separated the Jewish half of Abu Tor from the Palestinian half. From the Old City of Jerusalem beyond the Hinnom Valley—the Gehenna where people burned garbage in the time of the Islamic Messenger Jesus—a bell atop the Church of the Holy Sepulcher tolled the half hour. As the echo faded, Yussuf scaled the wall and dropped into the garden behind his father-in-law’s villa. A dog in one of the Jewish houses on the top of the hill bayed at the moon hanging over Mount Scopus. Several dogs in the Arab houses below barked back. The ancient saluki tied to a tree in the garden stood up and sniffed at the air, but sank back onto the grass when she recognized the intruder. Making his way across the garden to a trellis, Yussuf climbed through an old rose bush to the small balcony on the second floor. Inside the villa everything was dark. He scratched at the window. In the room a match flared, and then the wick of a candle burned brightly. An instant later the window was flung open and Yussuf found himself in the arms of his wife.
“Ahlan wa sahlan,” Maali murmured into his neck, her lips pressed to his skin. “My house is your house.”
“This is not the sentiment of your father,” Yussuf noted.
“My father is a lawyer,” she whispered back. “He sees only the legal aspects of what you do. He has lost sight of who is right and who is wrong.” She discovered blood in the palm of his hand where a thorn had nicked the skin and kissed it away. Shrugging the thin straps of her night dress off her shoulders, she drew the turtleneck over his head and pressed herself against his body. “My heart, my husband, welcome home to your bridal chamber, welcome to your marriage bed.”
“You are wonderfully beautiful,” Yussuf declared. “Two weeks is a long time for lovers,”
Maali led him to the brass bed and pulled him down on top of her. “It has been sixteen days and sixteen nights, my love, my heart. Where have you been to?”
Yussuf ran his fingers through her jet black hair and looked down to see if the fire was still smoldering in the eyes he loved. “There are questions a wife does not ask,” he instructed her. He kissed her shoulder and her breast and her mouth. Then he sat up. “We have been married six months tonight. I have an anniversary gift for you.”
“You are my gift,” she insisted, but she smiled with delight.
He produced a ring from his pocket. She raised the candle to inspect it. She could make out the words “Erasmus Hall” and the date 1998 inscribed on the inside of the ring, and some sort of crest on the stone in its center. “Never before have I seen such a ring,” Maali said. “Where did you get it?”
“From a Jew named Erasmus Hall.”
“You would have me wear a ring bought from a Jew?”
Yussuf smiled. “I took it from him. He did not object because he was dead.”
“Who made the Jew Erasmus Hall dead?”
“I and my friends did. I noticed the ring on his small finger. When I could not remove it, I took out my pocket knife and cut off his finger.”
Yussuf tried to put the ring on the fourth finger of her left hand, which was believed to be directly connected to the heart. When it wouldn’t fit, he took her finger into his mouth and sucked it. He removed her wedding band and worked the Jew’s ring over the joint and onto her finger, and then replaced the gold wedding band. “The ring of the late Erasmus Hall is so tight you would not be able to remove it even if you wanted to.”
Maali held up her hand and inspected the ring. “You actually took it from a dead Jew!” she whispered.
“I hate them. Killing them is not enough after what they did to me, to my family, to my people, to my religion.” He tightened his grip on her shoulders. “I cut off the finger and threw it to a dog in Abu Tor.”
Maali declared with emotion, “I will wear this trophy of your victory over the Jews with pride.”
Yussuf stripped and stood on a small Bedouin carpet as Maali sponged his body, and the healed bullet wound in the flesh of his shoulder, with orange blossom water from an enamel bowl. She fed him dates and wedges of apple to break the Ramadan fast. Then she took his hand and led him to the brass bed to break the marriage fast.