‘Akkawi has ensured that Marie will never see him. He knows that his enemies will relentlessly pursue her if they think that she can identify him. He must spare her that danger. How many of his friends have already died to keep his new appearance a secret? The surgery in Tehran has helped, but he can’t hide his height. When Marie leaves the café and turns around twenty paces later, she’ll only see the fourteen-year-old waiter clearing her table. The boy will later bring ‘Akkawi his bill, and tell him what he needs to know.
Marie rises from the table. She places the envelope under the wine glass and walks casually down the street. ‘Akkawi waits, but Marie doesn’t turn. Her lithe figure eventually disappears from view. Discipline, loyalty perhaps. ‘Akkawi doesn’t know. He usually abhors being wrong, but this time he smiles.
Chapter
11
Lebanon – July 1975
HODA DOESN’T RETURN TO SHEMLAN. The trip from Beirut is simply too dangerous. The school’s diplomat students also begin to take precautions. An armoured car is dispatched to the village to pick up the British students whenever they need to go to the city. Abu Walid brings his ageing mother back from the Shouf. Some other teachers do the same. Shemlan with its international students becomes a haven from the increasing sectarian confrontations across Lebanon.
Marc applies himself to Arabic. He feels an intense need to distract himself from constantly thinking about Hoda. Surprisingly, Evan also takes learning Arabic seriously and makes tremendous progress. When he has built up a good vocabulary, he begins chatting up Raja, a local Christian girl from the neighbourhood grocery store. She occasionally teases him that he is picking up a Syrian accent, and asks him if he has a girlfriend in Damascus. This is enough for Evan to apply himself to learning the purest Shemlan accent. He knows that his life may depend on it one day.
Every Saturday, Evan drives into Beirut for lunch with the Australian embassy’s political counsellor. Marc tags along to visit the city while his friend meets with his minder. He wants to see Hoda again, but to reach the Sabra camp, he would have to cross the Fakhani district, the stronghold of the PLO. The area is thick with checkpoints, and the Palestinians have developed serious suspicions about French nationals, and with good reason. Marc has heard through his own embassy contacts that his country’s foreign intelligence service has doubled its presence in Lebanon. France is also rumoured to be in negotiations with the Syrians to send in troops in a joint effort to curb Palestinian power. Even if Marc could conceal his nationality, few taxi drivers are now willing to run the gauntlet of checkpoints where the Palestinians and their Lebanese leftist allies routinely extort money.
With Evan ensconced with his “mentor” at the poolside of the luxurious Saint George Hotel, Marc decides to head to Librairie Antoine, one of the best bookshops in Beirut. It’s not a long walk. The city is still booming despite the war, or perhaps because of it. The usual back-packing tourists have been replaced by a small army of foreign journalists, all out to file exaggerated reports, sometimes turning small exchanges of gunfire into major battles.
“Marc! Over here!”
Marc turns at the sound of his name. At a table outside a small coffee shop, a grey-haired man is waving at him. It takes him a moment to recognize Martin Riley, a journalist for the Irish Post who recently visited the school in Shemlan. Beside him is a young blond man.
“Hi Martin.”
“Marc, I would like to introduce you to Marwan Kanaan.”
“Pleased to meet you, Marwan.”
“The pleasure is mine.”
“Marwan is an excellent interpreter.”
“What are you doing in Lebanon, Mr. Taragon?”
“Please call me, Marc. I am studying Arabic.”
“In Shemlan?”
“Yes.”
“I have a friend who was teaching there.”
“Really, who?”
“Hoda ‘Akkawi.”
Marc pauses to think what next to say.
“She’s hoping to return to Shemlan when things are safer,” Marwan says.
“Really? She was my teacher but only for one day. Do you see her often?”
“Yes, once a week. She can’t come to classes anymore. The area around the university is too dangerous for Palestinian students, especially young women. So I bring her notes from her classmates.”
“How do you get through the checkpoints in Fakhani? I mean, Kanaan’s a Christian name, isn’t it?”
“Usually, and yes, I’m a Maronite. I borrow a taxi from my uncle. His company serves all of West Beirut. He has good relations with everyone.”
“Marc, will you join us?” Riley asks.
“Yes, please do,” Marwan says.
Marc pulls up one of the old wicker chairs. Librairie Antoine can wait.
Evan leans forward to hear more of the political counsellor’s take on the latest developments in the city.
“We are all getting frustrated with Arafat. He just doesn’t know how to or perhaps doesn’t want to rein in the extremists in the PLO.”
“From what I hear, it’s more of the latter,” Evan says.
“In any event, the old poof is putting the Palestinians on a collision course with both the Israelis and the Maronites.”
“Will the Americans intervene?”
“For the moment, the Americans want to play it cool. Kissinger is on his way out. Philip Habib is now running the State Department. Habib is an odd bird. His parents are Lebanese Maronites, but he grew up in a Jewish area of Brooklyn. He definitely knows the key actors in the Middle East and many of the movers and shakers in the American Jewish community. Perhaps, he can use his connections to get things back on track here.”
Evan smiles at how naïve the older diplomat is to think that the Americans could ever pull off something in Lebanon. They may have the firepower, but everyone knows they’re at the beck and call of the Israelis.
Riley rises to excuse himself. He has a story to file. He exchanges numbers with Marc and leaves the two young men.
After a moment, Marc breaks the silence.
“I’d like to send a message to Hoda. Can you do that for me?”
“Sure.”
Marc takes out a slip of paper and starts to write. He plays it safe. Just a few pleasantries. News of the class in Shemlan. Things that will conceal the burning desire he has to see her. He folds the paper and passes it to Marwan.
Marwan looks at Marc. The young Frenchman is obviously interested in Hoda, and he doesn’t like that. But he can’t blame him. Who wouldn’t be interested in her? Her long silky hair, high cheekbones and a hint of a Roman nose.
Marc is speaking again. Marwan breaks away from his own thoughts of Hoda.
“Marwan, let’s stay in touch. Do you have a phone number that I can reach you at?”
“Sure, let me write it out for you. It is actually my neighbour’s, but she’ll pass on the message and I can ring you back.”
Chapter
12
Beirut – October 1975
MARWAN KANAAN LOOKS OUT the car window at the garbage piled up against the mostly drab grey walls of the refugee camp. A few walls close to Hoda’s house are adorned with the exquisite murals painted by her brother Nabil. On others are crude stencilled paintings of Palestinian heroes and maps of Palestine shaped like Kalashnikovs. He admires Nabil’s portrayal of an old itinerant water seller and Bedouin women baking flatbread on upside-down cauldrons. They remind him of the Lebanon he loves best, the country that is fast disappearing.
Several young boys play soccer in the alleyway. A young fighter approaches them and nods toward Marwan. One of the young boys whispers in the fighter’s ear, who pats the boy on the shoulder and walks away. Marwan relaxes. He’s been numerous times to Hoda’s to deliver notes from her classmates and knows that the neighbourhood children will vouch for him.
This may be the last time Marwan comes to the house in Sabra. The university semester is over, and Hoda has decided to return to teaching in
Shemlan. This time she’ll stay in the mountain town to avoid the daily dangers of the checkpoints. That’s why he’s there today—to take her to the mountains. He doesn’t like the thought that he won’t see her for a while. He likes it even less that the Frenchman is still in Shemlan.
“Hi Marwan. Can we go?”
Marwan looks up. Hoda is as pretty as ever, even with a white hijab covering up her beautiful hair. Nabil is carrying her suitcase. Marwan steps out, shakes Nabil’s hand and opens the trunk for the suitcase and the passenger door for Hoda. He feels good that she asked him to take her to Shemlan. They’ll have time to talk in the car.
A relative calm has returned to Beirut, not that anyone counts on it lasting. Still, it’s a nice respite from the chaos of the first months of the war. The initial confrontations only proved that neither side can defeat the other, and no one is ready to risk annihilation. The old politicians resurface from their diwans—ageing men preaching moderation, pretending wisdom, but still flawed by their arrogant beliefs in the superiority of their own communities.
Although astute observers understand that this is at best a hiatus in a drawn-out conflict, it’s enough to permit Hoda to return to Shemlan. And just in time. Since the fighting, her father has been unable to work in the clothing factory in East Beirut, and the prices of food have sky-rocketed as the militias on all sides impose taxes on trucking into and out of the city. Her family needs the money from her teaching more than ever, and she wants to see Marc again.
She feels a gentle pat on her hand. She hadn’t even noticed that they had entered Shemlan. Marwan motions to a pretty whitewashed house covered with bougainvillea. Its doors and window frames are painted in blue. There is a serene quality to it.
“That’s it. Five houses past the Al Sakhra Restaurant. That’s what you said, wasn’t it?”
“Yes. It’s beautiful, isn’t it?”
Marwan pulls up to the villa that Professor Jamal Seifeddine, known to everyone as Abu Walid, has rented for his mother and sister. Abu Walid has offered Hoda a room in the house for a nominal rent. It’s a good arrangement for everyone, one that Hoda was able to convince even her parents to agree to.
Hoda knocks on the door. An older woman opens it.
“Yes?”
“I’m Hoda.”
“Oh yes, my son Jamal said that you were coming.”
“I’m honoured to meet you, Um Jamal.”
“And is that your fiancé?”
“Oh no, that is my friend Marwan. He very kindly drove me here.”
The old woman leans up to whisper in Hoda’s ear. “Only a friend? That’s a shame. He’s such a handsome boy. Tell him to come in please.”
Hoda smiles as she enters the house and waves to Marwan to follow.
Over tea, Um Jamal tells Hoda and Marwan why she and her daughter finally left their town in the Shouf to join her son in Shemlan. While Beirut may be experiencing a reprieve from confrontation, things are going the opposite way in the countryside. Druze are no longer safe in her hometown of Maaser. She trusts her older Maronite neighbours, but their children have fallen under the influence of militiamen from the city. Marwan listens intently to the conversation and then begins to ask a some questions. Does she know which militia the young Beirutis belonged to? What precautions were the Druze villagers taking? Had they asked Druze Leader Kemal Jumblatt for help?
“Marwan, please. You’re tiring Um Jamal out with all these questions.”
“No, it’s all right, dear. Marwan, I’ll tell you all about it when you come back to Shemlan. Now I should start preparing dinner.”
“Of course, Um Jamal. Excuse me. I should be on my way anyway.”
“Oh, wait. Here’s my daughter Nadia.”
Hoda and Marwan turn to see a middle-aged woman enter the living room with bags of groceries and fresh vegetables.
Hoda settles easily into life with Um Jamal and Nadia. Both women are well educated, like many Druze women. Nadia had worked in the fashion industry in New York for many years in America before returning to take care of her elderly mother. She shares with Hoda many insights into American policies on the Middle East. President Ford was a weak president with no real understanding of the region, Nadia explains. So US policy was left in the hands of Secretary of State Henry Kissinger who used his influence to strengthen US support for Israel. There is a glimmer of hope that Kissinger’s successor Philip Habib would change that, but Nadia is sceptical.
Hoda is assigned the advanced beginners’ class, and she’s disappointed that it includes neither Marc, who has made considerable progress, nor Evan, who now miraculously appears quite conversant in Arabic. Most of the less talented Brits are still there, toiling away at trying to master the basics of the language. Fortunately, both Marc and Evan again have Abu Walid as a teacher, and after a couple of days, he invites his favourite students to a dinner at his mother’s home.
Evan nudges Marc when Hoda and Nadia enter the room with plates of tabbouleh, hummus, and kebab.
“Hoda’s put on a little weight. And in the right places,” Evan says.
Marc is deaf to the remark. His eyes fix on Hoda, and hers dart back and forth in a futile attempt to avoid returning his stare.
After Marc and Evan feast on the mountain of food, the conversation turns to politics over several glasses of Arak. Abu Walid is unsparing in his criticism of Kemal Jumblatt’s decision to ally his Druze militia with the Sunni Muslims. Marc notices for the first time how attentive Evan is to the conversation. He has his suspicions about his friend’s weekly meetings with the embassy. After all, they can’t all be about imports of Australian wheat and lamb.
Hoda too joins the conversation to disagree with Abu Walid. She defends Jumblatt and castigates Arafat. Jumblatt has joined forces with the Sunni political parties only to counter the aggression of the Maronites. But the Palestinian leader has aligned himself with radical Muslim clerics, and now tolerates the PLO being referred to as the “Army of Allah.” He is turning the conflict into a religious war.
“Hoda, I’m surprised to hear you say that,” Abu Walid says. “You’re a Muslim and a Palestinian.”
“I may be born a Muslim, but in my heart all religions are equal. When they drive people to do good deeds, they’re good; when they turn people to hatred and violence, they’re bad. Political parties are the same. I’m against those who divide us along sectarian lines.”
Marc looks intensely at the young woman. In the few letters that Marwan couriered back and forth for them over the past months, they had discussed many things—music, art, history, but not politics or religion. He’s elated at how closely Hoda’s beliefs reflect his own.
In his family, religion has always been a taboo, and for good reason. His mother was born into a Catholic family, full of priests and nuns, and his father’s people were descended from the conversos—the converted Jews of Tarragona. Even after six centuries of Christian rule, some of his Spanish relatives maintain some distinctly Hebraic traditions and attend mass only at Christmas and Easter. When Marc’s parents met in the anarchist circles in Barcelona, they both pledged to renounce religion and espouse the humanist creed. His father shortened his surname from the distinctively converso name of Lopez de Tarragona to simply Tarragon. A French official cavalierly decided to drop the second r when he registered Marc’s birth.
Marc breaks himself away from his silent reminiscing to say: “Tout à fait—absolutely.”
“Sorry, what did you say?” Hoda asks.
“I agree with you.”
She smiles.
Abu Walid says: “Yes, it’s good to be open to all religions, favouring none over the others. It is what Gandhi taught the world. But in Lebanon, that’s not possible. Our people are brainwashed by their priests and imams. Every group believes heaven is reserved for them, and them alone. Even worse, they all believe martyrdom will guarantee them a place in their heaven.” And then he adds the traditional Druze saying: “But let reason be above all.”
“Religion is a waste of time,” Evan says. “Marx was right. It is the opiate of the people.”
For once, Evan has said something serious, Marc thinks.
A loud knock on the door interrupts the debate. Abu Walid rises to answer it. He comes back with the young son of the headmaster, who holds out a small slip of paper.
Marc takes it and reads it silently. “I’m sorry. I have to go.”
“Is something wrong, Marc?” Hoda asks.
“It’s from my mother. She wants me to call her. My father has had a stroke. The headmaster has offered me the use of his phone.”
As he puts his jacket on, Marc can hear the soft incantations in Arabic from Abu Walid’s mother and Nadia, asking for God’s help for a speedy recovery for his father.
Evan starts to get up. Marc puts his hand on his friend’s shoulder. “Stay, enjoy the evening.”
When Marc turns to the door, Hoda is already there, her hijab wrapped around her head. “Marc, I’m coming with you.” The determination in her voice is clear.
The night air and Hoda’s company soothe Marc as they climb the steep street to the headmaster’s house. Marc tells her of his parents’ escape from Barcelona in 1939. They were part of twenty employees who ran the anarchist newspaper, Iniciales. When Franco’s troops were on the brink of overwhelming the city’s beleaguered defenders, the staff dismantled the printing press and put its key parts into flour sacks. Each of the twenty workers carried a sack over the mountains to France.
During the journey, several fell sick, exhausted and dehydrated. Marc’s father and his companions took their comrades’ burdens and continued on. They would have all perished if not for a group of French sympathizers who met the refugiados on the narrow mountain pass. In the small village of Rennes-les-Bains in the French Pyrenees, Marc’s father supervised the setting up of the Nuevas Inciales. The paper continued to secretly publish spirited defences of the Republican cause and smuggle copies into Franco’s Spain long after France fell to Germany and its allies in the Vichy Administration.
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