Quill of the Dove

by Ian Thomas Shaw

  “Listen, Jean, you’re in a bad situation here.”

  “I am innocent. I haven’t even fired a gun!”

  “Why were those photos on you?”

  Jean pauses. His eyes shift to the left and the right before looking up.

  “I swear I didn’t participate in any of that! Commander El Khoury gave me the photos to take to the other militias. He wanted to show he was serious about wiping out the Muslims in Karantina.”

  Marc presses him.

  “So you were going to join in on the killing in Karantina?”

  “No, I had enough of that bullshit. I was deserting. I’m only half-Lebanese. My mother is Armenian. I was trying to reach the port to go to Cyprus and then to my uncle in Armenia.”

  “Can you prove that?”

  The young man pulls out a wad of US dollars and a piece of paper with the name of a captain of a Greek vessel and another paper with a name and address in the Armenian capital, Yerevan.

  “My mother gave me this. The Greek is a family friend. His ship’s coming to Beirut tonight. Let me go. Take the money!”

  Marc feels sorry for the young man. He said that he had no choice but to fight for the militia. All his school friends signed up after the first incursion by Muslim fighters. The Muslims had kidnapped a local businessman and left him mutilated in a rubbish heap by the port. The man lived long enough to tell his family that the kidnappers had come from Karantina. After that, refusing to sign on with the militia was considered an act of treason.

  Marc tries to bargain for the young man’s freedom with the Palestinian fighters whom Abdullah has left behind. But they have their orders to keep the prisoner until Abdullah’s return. And then? The Armenian half-breed will pay for his crimes, declares a teen-aged fighter. Marc decides that he’ll join Abdullah on the front to plead for the young man’s life. And there he’ll stay to witness for the world what will befall Karantina.

  Evan reads his mind.

  “Give me half of the photos. I’ll make sure that Robinson gets them published in the Australian and international papers. Go!”

  Hoda suddenly realizes what’s happening.

  “No! Marc, come with us!”

  “I can’t. I need to speak to Abdullah. I don’t want this man’s death on my conscience, and I need to see for myself what’s happening in Karantina. If I don’t go now, no other journalist will.”

  “You’re so stubborn! This is not your fight.”

  “Hoda, innocent people have already died in Karantina. I need to get the story out so more won’t.”

  “The photos are enough. This boy’s testimony is enough. Write your story, but come with us now!”

  “I can’t.”

  Marc looks at Evan.

  “Evan, keep her here!”

  “No!” Hoda screams, struggling to free herself from Evan’s grip.

  “Take me to your commander!” Marc barks at a fighter, too young to challenge his authority. The other Palestinian fighters are unsure whether to stop Marc and free Hoda or join him on his trip to the front. Instead, they walk over to the young Christian captive who is now praying aloud in Armenian. They kick him until he stops.

  Maroun El Khoury’s cousin Samir surveils the street below. Maroun has taken most of his fighters with him to defend Dekwaneh against reprisals from the neighbouring Palestinian camp of Tel al-Zaatar. Two snipers and a mortar crew have been left under Samir’s command. Their mission is to prevent the Muslims in Karantina from joining forces with fighters in West Beirut. Samir has sent his snipers to neighbouring buildings to triangulate their fire on the main road leading out of the slum. But the mortar is his real asset. That and the retired Lebanese artillery instructor who has joined them. As the morning wears on, the kills mount up. A dozen mortar strikes have stopped all the cars trying to run their gauntlet. His snipers have gunned down another dozen men and women trying to escape by foot.

  Time is not on their side. Much of their munitions ran out during the initial incursion in Karantina. This has forced his cousin to postpone the next assault and to ask for reinforcements from rival militias. Maroun has sent out two couriers. One to Shaykh Pierre to implore the Phalangists to send their fighters. They’re confident that the old man will hear their plea, even if the Phalangist areas are themselves thinly defended. Another courier, a half-Armenian, has gone to Étienne Saqr to seek the support of the Guardians of the Cedars. Saqr was well known for his disdain for half-hearted efforts so to win his support, Maroun executed a dozen prisoners and sent with the courier photos of the slaughter as proof that they’re all in. Samir curses under his breath. His cousin has become reckless. Those executions will only stir up a hornet’s nest, and Saqr can’t be trusted.

  “Effendi, look!” his adjutant says.

  “Where?”

  “There behind the cars.”

  A small figure in a dirty jellabia is crouching behind a burnt out taxi. Even from the distance, Samir can make out the boy’s African features. Probably a Sudanese. There are many in the slum. He has no quarrel with the impoverished African workers, other than they’re Muslims, and he knows that the Kurds and Palestinians will recruit them to fight against him. The boy is young, very young. Probably too young to be a fighter. But what is he doing there? Spying? Lost? No matter, they’ll kill him when he tries to cross the road. They have no choice. The story of even one person escaping Karantina will encourage others to try the same. Samir’s men don’t have enough mortar shells and bullets to stem a large outflow. And he knows that once the slum dwellers escape, they’ll begin plotting their revenge. All the men of Karantina must die.

  Samir trains his guns on the road to the left of the burnt-out car. Come on, he says to himself, let’s get this over with.

  His young adjutant taps his shoulder and whispers: “Look, Effendi, the other side. We didn’t get all of them after all.”

  The effort by Abdullah’s men to relieve Karantina had gone wildly wrong. All of the Palestinian and Lebanese reinforcements were caught in a barrage of mortar fire when they reached the outskirts of the slum. Most of those who survived were decimated by the enemy snipers. The rest took shelter behind half-demolished walls, waiting to lull the Maronite snipers into believing that they had all been killed.

  Abdullah focuses his binoculars on the one Maronite sniper position he has located. He sees the glint of the sun off metal as a gun is repositioned toward the direction of an arriving car. Abdullah signals his men to aim their guns at the sniper’s position.

  “Your friend, the Franji’s come,” his adjutant Jamal says.

  Abdullah turns to see Marc, walking quickly toward them, and waves his hand at him to keep low.

  When Marc reaches Abdullah’s side, he has a clear view of the street before them. Dozens of fighters lie dead across the pot-holed street. The rest, six at the most, have taken shelter in what was left of a corner store on the other side of the street.

  Abdullah has positioned himself strategically behind a thick brick wall, the remains of what was once a police station. He can easily retreat without exposing himself to the snipers, but he won’t leave his men. He can’t leave them.

  Marc presses his back against the solid wall, his Leica camera in hand. He senses Abdullah’s displeasure that he has come, but the man says nothing. Instead, he shifts his huge frame to offer Marc some added protection from the snipers’ bullets. Marc juggles the Leica into position. For a moment, the tobacco breath of the two young Palestinian fighters distracts him. They’re now pressing their bodies against him, trying to see what he’s photographing. The smell of the sulphur of the recent shelling makes him gasp for a second. Then he sees Yassin Ayoub, two metres from the store, his body cleaved in two by a mortar shell. Whatever crimes he’s committed, all is forgiven—he is now a Shahid.

  The muscles in Abdullah’s neck tighten. He wants to berate the young Frenchman for coming. But he knows that any sound might draw the fire of the Maronite militiamen. He’s fairly certain that Marc’s
imprudent arrival has probably alerted the snipers perched high in the nearby buildings. Are there more hiding closer? And then he hears the first click.

  Marc has swung into action, rapidly snapping down the shutter-release of his Leica to record the sacrifices of the dead Palestinian fighters. Before Abdullah can yank him back, Marc crawls to a mound of rubble barely covering the bodies of civilians from the slum. He feels nauseous but musters the courage to remove the rocks to document the killings. A sniper’s bullet whizzes by his ear. Abdullah pulls him back before a second bullet can strike.

  “You fool! They now know that some of us are still alive.”

  “Sorry.”

  “Forget it!”

  “What can I do to help?”

  “Just stay alive and get your photos into your newspaper.”

  Marc looks at Abdullah. The vein on the left side of his forehead is bulging. He watches the Palestinian bite his lip before turning back toward Marc.

  “Listen, we may need to retreat,” Abdullah says. “There’s not much we can do now, not without more men. But first, we need to find a way for our comrades to cross this road. We need a diversion.”

  “And those still in Karantina?”

  Abdullah looks Marc in the eyes. He has never run away from a battle, but he isn’t ready to lead his men to annihilation. The enemy’s ambush was well planned. He suspects that there aren’t many of them hidden in the buildings, but their aim is good and they have at least one mortar.

  He looks up the road. It is littered with his men’s bodies and those of the civilians who tried to flee. The Maronites will not give up their strategic position without a real fight. Even trying to retrieve the bodies of his fighters would be a death sentence. At least, he knows that the enemy will not desecrate the bodies of those left behind—it’s one line they won’t cross. The war is still young, and both sides are respecting some time-honoured traditions.

  “There, look!” Jamal says.

  Crouching behind an old taxi across the road is a young boy. He wears a dirty grey jellabia. The boy looks five, no, maybe four and is clearly African.

  Abdullah signals the boy to wait. A mortar explodes just in front of the taxi throwing up a massive cloud of dust. Abdullah lunges toward the boy, but Jamal pulls him back. A bullet hits the ground just where Abdullah was headed. The boy begins to race across the road. He freezes in his tracks when another sniper’s bullet hits the ground in front of him. This time Marc sprints toward him, zigzagging to confuse the snipers. Two shots miss him. He grabs the child and turns. Both are thrown forward when a mortar shell strikes the abandoned taxi. Its fuel tank ignites. Marc shields the child, ignoring the searing pain as the flames reach him. The smoke of the burning diesel is blinding. The stench of his incinerated flesh makes him gag. For a second, he loses consciousness. Then the squirming of the boy under him wakes him. He hears the crackle of gunfire and pounding footsteps. Abdullah and Jamal have darted out, taking advantage of the billowing black smoke. They now have a clear view of the positions of the snipers, still firing wildly at Marc and the child.

  Abdullah and Jamal pinpoint the first sniper and fire several rounds of tracer bullets at him. Abdullah’s men from behind the corner store reposition themselves to several more secure positions. They watch the tracer bullets and then unleash their own volley of fire in the sniper’s direction. He falls silent, but in the cacophony of the gunfire and the billowing smoke, the other two snipers don’t notice and still focus their fire on Marc and the child. Abdullah identifies the position of the second shooter. More tracer bullets followed by concentrated fire from the dispersed Palestinian fighters take him out. The remaining enemy fighters launch one last mortar. It falls a hundred yards short of the Palestinians, hitting another vehicle and creating more smoke for cover. Abdullah’s men advance, with guns blazing at their enemy’s exposed position.

  Samir El Khoury ducks the barrage. He turns to signal his men to gather up the mortar and retreat to Dekwaneh. Too late. Their bodies lie in a pool of blood around the mortar. He knows he can’t abandon it. Aieee! A bullet grazes his forehead. He bends low and races across the floor, his arm scoops up the mortar, but another bullet pierces his arm, forcing him to drop it. He rolls on the floor in pain and then crawls his way toward the safety of the stairwell.

  Abdullah now certain that the enemy is retreating, grabs Marc and the boy, and sprints to his fighters.

  “Is the boy alive?”

  “Yes.”

  “Merci, Abdullah,” Marc says before falling into unconsciousness.

  Dr. Kressmann looks at his new patient, one of many brought to his clinic in Naba’a from Karantina. The third-degree burns on the man’s left arm and shoulder have sent him into septic shock. The nurse is already treating the burns with sucralfate cream and has prepared a tetanus shot. After giving the man a generous shot of morphine, Kressmann examines the burns. Through the man’s delirium, Kressmann hears familiar words. He leans in to be sure—“Hoda, attends. Je viens.”

  “Who is this patient?”

  “A Fransawi like you, Dr. Bernard,” the nurse says.

  “Are these his things?”

  “Yes.”

  Kressmann rifles through the leather bag. A Leica camera, some Polaroid pictures and a thick notebook. He flips through the notebook to the last entries. A confession by a Christian fighter of a massacre. He checks the man’s passport—Marc Taragon, a journalist for Le Nouvel Observateur. Suddenly, Kressmann realizes the importance of the contents. He has warned the French embassy of the barbarity of the extremists. Now here’s the proof. He nudges his new patient. No response. He knows that the man is slipping into unconsciousness and possibly a coma, but is unable to stop it. At that moment, he makes his decision.

  “Nurse, take this film to Sarkossian and have him develop it right away. Ask him to duplicate these Polaroids and photocopy the notebook.”

  “Sarkossian doesn’t have a photocopier. The Kanaan Pharmacy does though.”

  “Good! Take it there. I want two copies. Two copies of the photos as well. Wait!”

  Kressmann quickly writes a note to his contacts at the embassy, stressing the need to prevent the impending slaughter. On another sheet, he writes to an Irish journalist, Martin Riley, asking him to get the notes and photos to Le Nouvel Observateur, and if he can’t, then to publish them himself.

  “When you have the photocopies and photos, take them to these two addresses.”

  “But doctor, we have so many patients here!”

  “This is more important. Go!”

  Chapter

  22

  Naba’a Clinic, Beirut – January 1976

  HODA LEANS OVER TO WIPE MARC’S BROW. The pain from the burns has been eased by generous doses of morphine. Marc floats in and out of consciousness. Hoda whispers to him that the international papers have used his notes and photos to run front page news for two full days. France is reportedly bringing pressure on the Phalangists to hold off from invading Karantina. “We’ll be leaving Naba’a soon,” she tells him. “Don’t worry you’ll be safe.”

  When the word on the street reaches the clinic that the East Beirut militias are hunting for Taragon, Kressmann doesn’t hesitate. He insists that Abdullah ‘Akkawi evacuate the heavily sedated Marc as soon as possible. He’s not going to put his other patients in danger.

  Sabra, far from the Maronite neighbourhoods, is the safest place to go, Hoda argues, and Abdullah agrees. When Hoda’s parents learn of the plan to hide Marc in their home, they virulently object. How can they have a foreign man in the same house as their daughter? What will the neighbours say? Hoda shows them the newspaper clippings. Abdullah reassures them that Marc is a hero. He has given the Muslims of Karantina, many of them Palestinians, a reprieve from annihilation, and the young boy Marc had saved was not Sudanese after all, but the son of a fedayee, a respected martyr. Her brother Nabil argues with his parents in support of Hoda. They relent. But her father, who knows the recklessness of his
daughter only too well, pulls her aside to say: “If you want to be with him, make sure he becomes a Muslim.” Hoda suddenly feels an icy chasm between her and her parents. Their clinging to religion clashes with her own humanism, but out of respect, she remains silent and simply nods.

  Marc’s recovery is quicker than expected. Kressmann drops by on the third day to change the bandages and administer salves. He brings with him the tragic news that the Maronite militias have finally entered Karantina. The international community couldn’t hold them back any longer. He has to get back to Naba’a. His clinic is already filling with wounded civilians. They’re the lucky ones. The survivors are bringing tales of atrocities too horrible to describe.

  Hoda never leaves Marc’s side. She reads both the foreign and Lebanese papers aloud to him. Marc’s Arabic is now reasonable, but when he looks puzzled, she reads more slowly and explains the more difficult words. She summarizes the Arabic radio broadcasts and shares the latest news from the front that Abdullah brings her. The Maronites are drenching Karantina in blood, but the war is going badly for them elsewhere. Lebanon’s Muslims and Druze are rallying behind the PLO. All have had their fill of Maronite supremacy and are incensed over the slaughter of the innocent slum dwellers. Palestinians, Druze, and Muslims are closing in on the Maronite coastal town of Damour where three hundred Phalangist fighters are trying to defend the city. Another massacre is imminent.

  On the fourth day, Marc overhears Abdullah tell Hoda’s father that the order has been given for the assault on Damour. Abdullah will maintain discipline among his men, but he worries that the other Palestinian commanders will be blinded by vengeance, and Arafat won’t restrain them. A slaughter would bring widespread reprisals. There are still many Palestinians in the Tel al-Zaatar refugee camp in East Beirut, and they’ll be difficult to protect.

  Marc is tormented by what he overhears. He knows Damour well. Whatever the Christian militias are doing in Karantina can’t justify the slaughter of Damour’s Christians. The next morning, Marc rises from the bed, as Hoda sleeps in the chair beside him. He dresses and checks his camera equipment. The pain from the burns still sears through him. He gives himself a shot of morphine and puts the rest of it in his bag. Damour is only an hour by car from Sabra. Even if he can’t dissuade the Palestinians and their allies from attacking the town, he still has the duty to record the events there. The world needs to wake up and put an end to this mad escalation of violence.