“What kind of trouble?”

“Three days each week, Eyad teaches at your UN school. He likes to be there, because he is from an old Gaza City family, and he often says that we should work with the refugees to show that they are always welcomed here. It seems silly, perhaps, because they are just as much Gazans as anyone else, after sixty years in their camps, but they are still the poorest people in town and Eyad thinks it’s his duty to work on their behalf. The other two days each week, he works at the university. He teaches in the Education Department.” Salwa hesitated and glanced at her friend, who gave her a nod. “Unlike his UN job, the work at the university is no longer a source of pleasure for Eyad. It is a battle.”

“Against whom?” Omar Yussef asked.

“Perhaps you think that the corruption of Palestinian life should not infect the university, Abu Ramiz? That academia should be above such dirtiness?” Salwa shook her head. “Sadly, this is not so.”

Cree drank the last of the coffee in his tiny cup, wiped the thick dregs that clung to the tips of his mustache, and put the cup down on the side table with a rattle.

“Naji, make tea, now,” Salwa said. She puckered her lips and blew out a breath, as though in relief that her son would be spared her story.

“He’s a good boy,” Omar Yussef said, after Naji left the room.

“He looks just like his father, even down to the ear. You saw, it sticks out?” Salwa said. “But he’s quiet and calm. Not like Eyad.”

“What went wrong for Eyad at the university?” Omar Yussef asked.

“Eyad discovered that the university is selling degrees to officers in the Preventive Security.”

“Preventive Security?” Wallender frowned. “What’s that?”