by Colin Smith
'I will tell you what I do know,' continued the lawyer. 'I know he's nearly caused bloodshed between brothers again. I know he almost killed a friend of mine in London, a man I love as dearly as my own brother. I know that he killed an Englishwoman and that Palestinians are made to look like murderers again. And now we have the woman's husband here, this poor crazed Englishman who came to see me at the university the other day. What do we say to him? Do we tell him: "Oh, we're very sorry your wife died, it wasn't really our fault,'' and try to persuade him to go home and be a good schoolteacher? Or do we kill him before he kills one of us? Or do we kill Koller and tell the world that the Palestinians no longer employ such people?'
'My friend,' said Abu Kamal, 'I thought we came here to talk peace between brothers. Why do you talk so much of killing? Until we know differently Koller is our comrade. To harm him would be to harm one of us. As for the Englishman, he can be looked after.'
'The English are to blame for everything,' said one of Kamal's aides at the table, a muscular young man in tight jeans and platform-soled shoes. He was confident; he knew that the one eared man by the door had the lawyer and his two companions covered. 'They gave the Jews our land. One Englishwoman dies in London, but how many Palestinian women and children have died when the Zionists have bombed our camps? This Englishman must not think he can come here acting like a colonialist, carrying a gun and looking for revenge.'
'How do you know he has a gun?' This time it was one of the lawyer's companions who spoke, also a younger man. It was like an ideal medieval battle: the knights had clashed, now it was the pikeman's turn.
'Because I bumped into him along Hamra and felt it,' said Kamal's man proudly. 'It was a small pistol in his trousers.' He had on the same jeans and sports shirt he was wearing when he collided with Dove. 'I did it twice. Perhaps we all look alike to him.'
'You are lucky he did not shoot you,' said the other man. He did not bother to hide his contempt, and Dove's shadow became angry, forgot himself.
'He's not a fedayeen,' he snapped. 'His gun is old and-' Kamal frowned at him and he cut himself off, but it was too late.
'Where's the Englishman now?' pounced the lawyer, addressing his question to Kamal as rank demanded. He had guessed the answer. He just wanted to see if he would confirm it.
'He's all right,' said Abu Kamal in his quiet voice. 'He's with us.'
At the door the one-eared man moved his right hand slightly closer to his left hip. The lawyer pretended not to notice it. 'Kiliing him is not going to help,' he said.
'I said he's all right. Look, I think it's time for us to talk alone if you agree.' The lawyer nodded his assent and the others rose slowly and left the room. The one-eared man was the last to leave.
Food was served by an elderly man in a soiled khaki shirt and keffiyeh. Both Palestinians ate sparingly at first, mining modestly into the hommos and tehineh dips with their pitta bread, saving their hunger for the flat cakes of spiced meat and onions ground in wheat, known as kebbeh. They drank water with the meal, but afterwards the rough Cypriot brandy was produced, although the lawyer thought whisky would have been better for his liver. It was not until this stage that Kamal unfolded his plan. 'You want Koller dead, don't you?' said Abu Kamal slowly.
'That is your price for peace?' The lawyer nodded.
'We are willing to give you this - but on our terms.'
'And these are?'
'We will arrange for the Englishman to kill Koller.'
The lawyer managed not to look shocked. All he did was raise a quizzical eyebrow and ask, 'And how do you propose to do this? Recruit him into the Front?'
Abu Kamal smiled. 'No. With your permission we will recruit him into the, er, Realists.'
The lawyer could no longer quite conceal his bewilderment. 'Look, my friend,' Abu Kamal continued, 'it's simple. Dove doesn't know who is holding him. He thinks we are the Front, but he cannot be certain. If we tell him that we are you, that there was some misunderstanding, that his questions made us curious and that we had to hold him while we checked him out with friends in London, he'll believe us.'
'But what is the point of all this deception? Why not kill Koller yourselves?'
'Some of my people might think it too high a price to pay even for peace among brothers. It would look bad. The only people who will know about it in the Front will be the people training him and they are going to be commanded by somebody who has my total trust.'
The lawyer seriously doubted the existence of such a creature, but said nothing. Instead he asked, 'And you think Koller is a traitor? That he made up this story of the old fascists, the Circle?'
'My dear friend,' said Abu Kamal, 'I neither know nor care. When Koller joined our organisation he told me he was willing to die for it. Now it's necessary that he does so. Surely it's immaterial who fires the bullet?'
Abu Kamal had taken off his steel-rimmed glasses and was polishing them with a piece of tissue. He might, thought the lawyer, be talking about the price of oranges. Not for the first time he wondered: where do we get such people? But he pretended indifference to the other's cynicism, changed the subject. 'And how are you going to convince Dove that you are the Realists?'
'I thought you might help me there.'
'How?'
'By lending me your publishing friend.'
'You ask a lot.'
'I know.'
'It's going to be difficult to persuade him out here, especially to see you. After all, one of your men just tried to kill him.'
'But now you know why.'
'That's his story.' He was careful not to say 'your story'.
'He would be here under my protection. Nothing will happen to him. I guarantee that.'
'If anything did happen there would be no hope of a reconciliation between us. No more talks ...only the gun.'
'I realise this,' said Abu Kamal.
'Then I will see what I can do.'
As he was being driven back to Beirut in the early hours of the morning, passing through the Christian ruins of Damour, its rubble now haunted by Palestinian survivors of the siege at Tal Al Zaatar, the lawyer reflected on the devious mind of Abu Kamal. It was hard not to admire such duplicity. He stretched out, undid the knot of his expensive tie, allowed his eyelids to dose. Just before he gave way to the soporific combination of brandy and darkened car the lawyer again asked himself the question: can I trust Abu Kamal? He decided to give him the benefit of the doubt.
6. Contact
Dove was scared. He had thought that his rage had banished fear, but now it was with him all the time, turning his stomach to water, shrinking his testicles, and making his mind race until it was crammed with blurred images like views collected from a fast train. Emma, Koller, colleagues from the common room, Ruth with her bloody face and torn shirt, reporters from the Admiral, made repeated exits and entrances on a carousel spinning out of control. His fear pumped adrenalin, denied him sleep, and brought on a peculiar, dry-mouthed alertness: he did not feel tired.
It was the beginning of his third day in the cell. The daytime was measured by the meals they brought him on a tray, mostly hommos with bread and goat's cheese. But the interminable night vigil, waiting for dawn to break to rough the barred ceiling grille and begin its zebra shadowplay on the floor, had no milestones. It was like the purgatory on a long aircraft journey when time seemed to have stood still until minutes before the actual landing. He thought he must have catnapped sometimes, but he could not recall waking from a single minute's sleep. He had sat on the filthy blanket they had given him, his back to the cold concrete, listening to the noises above of doors slamming, people moving, cars starting. One of these sounds, he promised himself, must spell release; then he would punish his optimism with the reminder that it was possible for things to get much worse.
It had started with a trip to the port area, where the local architecture had been so well ventilated during the civil war that it could have been sculpted out of gruyere cheese. A taxi-driver had told
him that there was a bar there where he might find the sort of people he was looking for. He went in mid-afternoon, the journalists having warned him not to visit that district any later in the day. The furnishings were chrome and leather, and the lighting just strong enough for a sober man to avoid collision with the tables and chairs arranged in a pit before the high bar. Around the walls alcoves offered a degree of privacy. As if to emphasize its nocturnal aspirations the juke-box was playing 'Strangers in the Night'. At first Dove thought the place deserted apart from the barman, a moustached young Lebanese in a short-sleeved sports shirt who served him a beer. Then he saw Emma.
She was sitting at the end of the counter and must have appeared while he was ordering his drink - he was certain she had not been there when he entered. Her cropped hair was slightly blonder than he remembered it, but it was Emma all right: the slim, boyish body in cord jeans and a well-opened shirt; the slightly retrousse nose, and when she became aware of his transfixed stare and turned to face him, the familiar sardonic smile. 'Hello,' she said, 'anything I can do for you, luv?' Her accent was English North Country, Manchester he guessed.
'No,' faltered Dove. 'I'm sorry, you reminded me of somebody - that's all.'
'Anybody nice?'
'Somebody I once knew - she's dead.'
'Thought you saw a ghost, did you? All flesh and blood I am.'
She smiled again; 'Mind if I join you?' Before he could reply she had picked up her cigarettes and a gold lighter and moved next to him. Her perfume arrived before she did, as overpowering as nerve-gas. 'I'm Tina,' she said, holding out a cold hand for a formal introduction.
Dove, amused, touched it and she briefly dosed around his fingers before letting go. 'Stephen,' he said.
'Pleased to meet you, Stephen. It's nice to hear an English voice. You staying in this shit-hole long?'
'A few days.'
'Lucky you. Like to buy me a drink and tell me all about it?' Closer to, Dove saw that she was coarser than Emma - heavier face, thicker body.
'What would you like?' Why not, he thought? It would make him less conspicuous than a man sitting alone if anybody interesting came into the place.
She waved at the barman and he gave her a glass that might have contained whisky. 'Tell me about it then. Who was this person?'
'What person?' He had already almost forgotten; the resemblance had faded as soon as she opened her mouth.
'The person you knew?'
'My wife.'
'Oh. How did it happen?'
Dove paused. 'Car crash,' he said eventually.
'It must have been terrible.'
'Yes. What brings you to a dump like this?' He knew of course, but he wanted to indicate that some matters were not up for discussion. He thought he detected a look of relief on her face.
'I'm in the import-export business,' she grinned. The grin suddenly reminded him of Emma again; a waif's grin. She took out a cigarette and waited for him to reach over for her lighter. 'Funny,' said Dove, 'You don't look the type.'
'Yes,' said Tina. 'Import-export - that's me. I import my body and I export cash.' She looked at him levelly and then blew smoke out of the corner of her mouth, mocking, pleased with her joke.
'Wouldn't have thought there's all that much cash around here nowadays,' Dove said, sipping his beer.
'Oh, it's not too bad. There's always the UN. The French are bastards, but the rest of them are OK. Especially the Norwegians. They're a good laff they are. They're not proper soldiers really. Territorials or summit. Big straw-haired boys.' She looked at Dove. 'You're not such a tich yourself.' She allowed a hand to rest lightly on his lap and, despite himself, Dove was no longer quite as indifferent as he had been. It had been a long time, and she did look a bit like Emma. 'Don't you find it hot in here?', she said, and undid another button on her shirt.
'You'll have us arrested,' said Dove, surveying a considerable cleavage. He slid his hand over hers and ordered some more drinks.
Later, much later than he intended to be, he was sitting in one of the alcoves with her, drinking something she called champagne for about the price of a ticket to the Vienna opera. The bar was filling up. Two more 'hostesses' had arrived, plump little Egyptians clipping Syrian officers who lunged to refill their glasses with the speed of men saving children from drowning. A few people were drinking at the bar. One of them, a lean young man with hair that covered his ears, occasionally seemed to glance in Dove's direction. There was nobody in the place remotely resembling Koller. Tina couldn't remember meeting any Germans. 'Oh, we get all sorts down here,' she said when he asked her. The only people who appeared to have registered with her were the young Vikings of the Norwegian contingent. 'Lovely fellahs,' she giggled. 'Generous, too.'
Later still, having negotiated a price, he was lying naked on a bed in a nearby apartment house watching her undress. 'I don't usually do consoomation,' she had explained. 'Only if I really like a fellah. I'm just there to get you to buy drinks, really.'
'For what I've spent it ought to be love at first sight,' said Dove. But he was sufficiently drunk not to care. Within earshot the Syrians and the Christian militias were exchanging the first shells of the evening. Neither of them had mentioned it.
The room was lit by a single orange bulb in a bedside lamp and, to Dove's eyes, there was a cosy, almost fireside glow to it. He had removed the Webley from his waistband while she visited the bathroom - 'got to open the bank,' she said - and placed it in the inside pocket of his jacket which was slung over a chair near the bed. Now he studied her through half-closed eyes as she removed her shirt, a half-cup bra and, to his surprise, a panti-girdle. When she turned to him he noticed she was a little flabby about the thighs. It didn't matter. Drink and soft lighting helped sustain the fantasy. Just for a little while she could be Emma. She came and sat next to him and stroked him until he was fully aroused. He lay back, his eyes closed, until he heard a tearing sound. She was opening a sealed condom. 'Don't know what you've been up to, do I, luv,' she said, deftly rolling it on him like a deck-hand preparing a diver against the perils of the deep.
Dove grunted. She was ruining it. She wasn't being Emma. She wasn't being anybody he bloody well wanted. She was being a whore with a heart of oak. Under the lubricated plastic detumescence set in. Yet he was loath to let the fantasy slip away. He grabbed her, pulled her towards him, tried to kiss her. She turned her head away. 'Don't kiss me.'
'Why the hell not?' he exploded.
'Kissing's for private,' she said. 'You can do anything else.'
'For Christ's sake kiss me, you bitch,' and grabbing her hard by the hair he pulled her down on to the bed.
At first she tried to make a joke of it. 'I want nourishment not punishment,' she pleaded. Then she started to fight back in earnest: scratching, biting, trying to get her knees to his groin. 'Gerroff me, you bastard,' she groaned. 'Fuck off, you bloody animal.'
They fought in hard sweaty silence. The bedside lamp went flying to land on the floor intact, its unshaded bulb casting crazy shadows. Dove was determined, but careful not to hurt her badly. He pinioned her, he slapped her, he crushed her with his weight until she slowly relaxed, and the hand at the back of his head was no longer pulling his hair, and her lips were not biting but brushing his. When they kissed they melted together like true lovers and, to his surprise, when she allowed him to open her legs, he found she was moist below. 'It takes all kinds,' thought Dove.
Afterwards, when she was making noisy use of the bidet next door, he realised that during their exertions the condom had come off.
He dressed quickly and left, declining her offer of a drink and leaving a large tip, suddenly sober and contrite. Emma would understand, he told himself. It didn't help very much. In the lift he took the little revolver out of his pocket and put it back in his waistband.
Outside, he had taken perhaps twenty steps when an old Chevrolet pulled up alongside him, a figure in the back gesticulating as if he wanted to know the way somewhere. The door opened;
Dove recalled slight apprehension as he walked up to it, the distant jangling of alarm bells. Later, it came to him that when people wanted to ask directions they usually wound down the window.
There had been three of them: the driver, the man in the back of the car and a third who came up from behind and bundled him into the car with a gun in his back. They had taken the Webley then. The one who had been behind him, the lean, long-haired young man who had watched him in the bar, held it up by its hexagonal barrel, like an object of archaeological interest. 'Some piece,' he said. 'Who'd you get this off? Billy the Kid?'
To Dove's amazement he spoke English with a heavy American accent. Conversation ceased after that. When the Englishman started to ask questions he snapped: 'Shut up or we'll barbecue your ass.'
They passed through a checkpoint manned by Saudi soldiers of the Arab peace-keeping force. A pistol in his belly, Dove watched helplessly while they waved the traffic through with graceful Bedouin gestures as if their real task was merely to slow the foolish urban pace. Shortly after that the Chevrolet turned into an underground car park where they gagged him and handcuffed his hands behind his back, the way the New York cops do to prevent prisoners grabbing their escort's weapon. He did the rest of the trip in the boot, and he guessed correctly that this was because the Syrian road-blocks they had to pass through heading south were a tougher proposition than the Saudis.
He had bounced about in the cramped, petrol-reeking blackness, trying not to vomit because he knew if he did he would choke on it and die. There was also a tearing pain across his chest which he put down to indigestion brought on by the cheap champagne. His nerve was still quite good then. He was able to fight off fear with the notion that he might soon be meeting Koller, and all he wanted was just one chance to get his hands around the German's neck. He didn't really mind what happened after that.