throughout.
“The fact remains, you can’t know what or who he is,” he said, unruffled by our anger. “Maybe they saw him taking pictures he shouldn’t have been taking. Maybe that’s why they attacked. His camera’s gone, we don’t know what he was doing there.”
The hours were frittered away on fruitless arguments. I laid out, in the most minute of detail, the American justice system and the concept of innocent until proven guilty, shouted until I was hoarse and still Ismail called me a traitor and an enemy sympathizer. Sabah reminded him of the Prophet’s fairness and morals and his venomous glares silenced her. He refused to hear reason and when the time came, he was the first to leave.
“I need to go,” he muttered. “Meeting.”
“You go,” Youssef hissed. “Go to your brothers. They’ll tell you to kill us before long. Kill us for liking a little red wine with our supper and having the audacity to save a man’s life.”
“You misunderstand us,” Ismail replied, his eyes full of what seemed to be genuine hurt. “We want to protect you, protect the country, protect Islam. These spies, they want to gain your trust to betray you.”
“The man hasn’t uttered a word,” Youssef exploded. “Yet you put words in his mouth and condemn him to die.”
“That’s enough,” Omar said, his voice barely a whisper. “I’ll take Ismail to his meeting now. We should all cool off and we’ll meet here in the morning.”
The silence that greeted him was his cue to leave. Sabah left too, but not before leaning down and giving me a soft kiss on the cheek.
“He doesn’t mean it, any of it,” she murmured into my ear. “Take care of our friend until the morning.”
I asked her to text me when she got home safe. She said she would. Then she was gone.
I was still fuming, but the kiss and the liquid honey of her voice had soothed me somewhat. Youssef had had no such respite and stamped angrily around the houseboat some more. When Amm Attia returned with the medical supplies, Youssef couldn’t contain his temper. He yelled at the old man to tend to the wounded Englishman and then to find him some hash before retiring to a corner to sulk.
“I’m sorry Ammo, it’s a trying time,” I said to the old man as we wrapped Benjamin’s various cuts and bruises. We doused everything in iodine and did the best we could resetting his crushed nose. “You know Youssef, he can’t handle pressure.”