“. . . I had a son – God have mercy on his soul. His name was Muhammad and he was around eighteen. He had fire in his belly. He never let the gun out of his hands. But God made it his fate to die a martyr on July 2, 1976, on the field of honor and heroism. About a week later, my other son Ibrahim was martyred. He wasn’t yet fourteen years old. I was very sad. I mourned for them the way any mother would, and also because I no longer had any young men I could offer to fight and defend our honor. My husband is an older man and he’s not in good health.
“As for my daughters, may God protect them, wherever they are. I had three daughters: Lamia, who was twenty, Ayida, who was twenty-two, and Dina, who was seventeen. They used to help at the aid stations, and then they went up into the mountains. To this day, I’ve heard no news, good or bad, about them. I don’t know whether they were martyred or if they’re still alive . . .”
Title card:
Randa Ibrahim al-Duqi, age 14 [continued].
‘‘. . . On the last night, we were able to get through to Yasser Arafat on the two-way radio, and we asked him what we should do. He told us: ‘Don’t surrender.’ ’’
Title card:
A woman who didn’t give her name.
“. . . Tel Zaatar was the last holdout in East Beirut. It was obvious that the isolationists won because they had the support of Syria and Israel, and because Tel Zaatar was cut off from our areas. An early surrender could have been negotiated. But instead, more than 2,000 Palestinians and Lebanese were martyred unnecessarily.”
Title card:
Watifa Shahada Dahir, age 35, mother of seven.
“It was obvious to everybody the camp would fall, because there were more martyred and wounded than there were fighters. Our brothers in West Beirut didn’t send us a single fighter or ammunition for the artillery and other weapons to replace what we lost in over fifty-eight attacks by the isolationists.”
Title card:
Nuzha Hasan al-Duqi, age 65, mother of five sons and grandmother of ten [continued].
‘‘. . . What did we do wrong, Miss? I don’t know. What did we do wrong, that we have to die to return to our land? Is that so wrong? What do they want from us . . . Make us disappear?’’
Chapter 16
Jacques LeRot and his wife welcomed us warmly. With a laugh, he began repeatedly welcoming us in Arabic: “Ahleen . . . ahleen.”
He was of medium build, like most Frenchmen, around thirty-five, with a sardonic look beaming from his smiling eyes, and always laughing for no apparent reason. His wife had a full head of black hair, and looked older than he was.
They walked us to a spacious room lit by side-table lamps. I shook hands with Marwan, the one with the thick mustache, and his friend the film director, and another young man with a thick beard that covered his entire face.
I sat down in a comfortable chair with polished wooden armrests. Grinning, Jacques addressed me in perfect Arabic that had no trace of a foreign accent: “We’re always bumping into each other.”
“The last time you were studying the minarets of Cairo,” I replied.
He laughed out loud. “Now I’m studying the Lebanese dialect,” he said.
He turned to Antoinette.
“How’s the film going?” he inquired.
“Good. It’s coming along,” she replied.
“Are you sure?” he asked, winking in my direction as he leaned over a small table with a row of liquor bottles on it.
He poured each of us a glass of gin, then walked to a big stereo that had a clear plastic cover on it, and asked: “Fairuz or Umm Kulthum?”
“Bach,” I said.
He laughed as he flipped through his record collection.
“This is the real reason for the failure of the Arab left. Chasing after European culture and being disconnected from the masses.”
“Bach belongs to everyone,” I objected.
He picked up a record, and said: “How about something modern, close to Bach and Arab music as well? Have you heard of Charette?”
I shook my head. He put the record on the turntable, and placed the needle on it, then went back to his seat.
Antoinette was engrossed in a conversation in French with Jacques’s wife. Jacques directed his speech toward Marwan, while pointing at a piece of paper lying on the table in front of him: “Not a single newspaper in France will publish the petition in its current form.”
Marwan’s eyes were sharply focused on him.
“Why?” the young man with the beard asked in a challenging tone.
He laughed. “Because it’s talking about the detention of several dozen leftists, while there are thousands of others being detained in Syria, from the Muslim Brotherhood and other groups. Plus, it doesn’t clearly establish responsibility. We all know that if it weren’t for the Soviet Union, the Syrian regime would collapse. The petition doesn’t point that out directly.”
Marwan bowed his head, saying: “I see your point. The wording of the petition has to be changed.”
“That’s impossible,” the young man with the beard angrily interjected.
Antoinette joined in, saying: “If you change the wording of the petition, I will withdraw my name from it.”
Jacques laughed. “You don’t have to change it,” he said. “You can do a different wording for the French text.”
I followed the conversation while listening to the music. It was quite similar to pieces played on the Arab instrument known as the qanun. But its structure was complex, and bit by bit it ascended until it was on the verge of reaching a climax, at which point it retreated to the beginning, only to begin a new attempt.
Jacques’s wife invited us to a table, laden with platters and gold-trimmed porcelain dishes. We started with soup, followed by the rest of the courses, according to the traditional sequence. We finished with coffee and cognac in the first room.
“Do you know that tomorrow will be the third anniversary of Sadat’s visit to Jerusalem?” Jacques asked, as he took a small wrapped package the size of a matchbox out of a cigar box and placed it on the table.
Marwan picked up the package and opened the thin wrapping, then brought it up to his nose and said: “This is an excellent variety.”
“I got it yesterday from Baalbek,” Jacques explained.
He took a wooden peg out of the cigar box and handed it to the film director. With a practiced motion, the director stuck it into the tip of a cigarette and began moving it in and out. He took a small lump of hashish from the package, rubbed it thoroughly between his fingers, and rolled it between his palms. Then he pushed it into the cigarette, in the empty space made by the wooden peg. He offered the cigarette to Jacques’s wife and lit it for her.
The Frenchwoman took a deep drag that made the end of it glow, extending more than a centimeter up the joint. Then she passed it to Antoinette, saying: “I was in Cairo this spring when the Israeli ambassador arrived. The sight of his car making its way across downtown, flying the Israeli flag, was truly jaw-dropping.”
“How did people react?” Marwan asked her in French.
She pouted. “There wasn’t a large crowd,” she said. “And the car was moving fast. There were lots of policemen lined up on the street.”
“If he came to Damascus, the crowds would come out to welcome him,” said the director as he flicked the wooden peg in a new joint.
“All that because they blocked your film,” Jacques added, laughing.
“What could be less important to us now than Assad and his underlings?”
I took my turn with the joint, and passed it to Jacques, who asked me: “Have you found a publisher for your book?”
“Not yet.”
“That’s how things go with Arab governments,” he offered, while giving me a scrutinizing look.
The driving rhythm of the piano was still struggling to reach the climax. It seemed to be towering over it, and was suddenly accompanied by a human moan expressing pain or pleasure or both together.
“Will you be staying
long in Beirut?” I asked Jacques.
“Maybe,” he replied. “I don’t know. I’ll be going back to France in two months’ time to take part in the election campaign.”
I looked at him inquisitively.
“I’m a member of the Socialist Party,” he explained. “We have a good chance this time. If we win the elections, then Mitterand will be president.”
He laughed. “What . . . you don’t like Mitterand?” he added.
“Isn’t he the one that declared that Israeli aggression in 1967 was a war that Israel waged to defend itself?”
“You don’t ever want to forget? Is that it?”
“Why should we forget?”
He busied himself with accepting the joint from Marwan, taking several drags from it and offering it to me. I took two drags and passed it to Antoinette.
Her nails rested on my fingers for a moment, then wrapped around the joint and pulled it slowly through my fingers, touching me all the while.
The human moaning that accompanied the piano’s melody occurred again. A feeling of numbness spread through my legs and my perception of the music grew keener.
Antoinette announced suddenly that she had to leave, in order to get back to her house in East Beirut. Jacques’s wife offered to let her spend the night with them, but she refused, insisting that her mother would be worried if she wasn’t at home. She flashed her eyes in my direction, so I stood up, too.
“We’re headed in the same direction.”
She nodded, saying, “I’ll take you there.”
Jacques and his wife saw us to the door. As soon as we headed out into the street, the cold air hit our faces. Antoinette was unsteady and clung to my arm, resting her head on my shoulder.
“Can you drive?” she asked.
“No,” I answered. “Why?”
“It feels like everything is spinning,” she said.
“We’ll leave the car and take a taxi.”
“We won’t find one at this hour. No. I’ll drive.”
She pulled a keychain out of her purse and we got in the car. She spent a long time looking for the car key before she found it. She turned the key in the ignition and the car started off with a surprising lurch that violently jerked me backwards.
“Easy does it,” I said.
“I don’t think I can drive all the way to East Beirut.”
“So stay with me.”
I turned my attention to the road, expecting an accident any second. But the streets were empty. It wasn’t long before we crossed Hamra Street, and soon we were heading toward Wadia’s apartment.
She stopped the car in front of the building and slumped her head forward on the steering wheel, saying, “I want to sleep.”
“Come up with me and sleep at our place,” I said.
“Clearly that’s what’s going to happen.”
I stepped out of the car and waited until she got out and locked the door. Then I walked to the door of Wadia’s building and called for Abu Shakir. Moments later, he opened up to let us in.
The elevator was on the ground floor so we got in. I held on to her arm just as she was about to stumble on the threshold. Then I closed the door and pressed the button.
She leaned her head on my shoulder, and I held her in my arms. She raised her face toward me and I looked into her eyes.
“Are you sure I’m not putting you or Wadia to any trouble?” she asked.
“I’m sure,” I replied. Her eyes were incapable of staying focused, like the eyes of drunks. Her mouth was close to mine. Her lips were open and moist.
“Don’t you want to kiss me?” she asked.
At that moment, the elevator stopped. I pulled aside its glass panels, then pushed open the metal door. We left the elevator and I took the apartment key out of my pocket.
I pressed the buzzer first. Then I put the key in the keyhole and turned it. I felt the door pull from the other side, then it opened wide to reveal Wadia.
His face lit up at the sight of Antoinette.
“Welcome,” he said, stepping aside for her.
She walked in, saying, “I’m afraid you’ll have to put me up for tonight.”
Wadia put his arms around her and planted a kiss on her neck, then said, “Only for tonight?”
He directed his words to me while he was still embracing her: “When the heavy fighting was going on at the start of the war, when night fell, you spent the night wherever you were.”
She gently freed herself from his embrace and headed to the bathroom without having to ask where it was. I followed Wadia to the living room after locking the door to the apartment. From his movements, I sensed that he was drunk.
He grabbed a bottle of vodka on the table and asked me, “Can I pour you one?”
I shook my head as I threw myself on the couch. He poured himself a glass and added a little orange juice to it.
“The night is wide open,” he told me, after taking a swig.
Antoinette came back from the bathroom, having washed her face. He offered her vodka but she declined.
“I’ve got some pot, if you’d like,” he offered.
“A cup of coffee would be better,” she said.
I stood up. “I’d like one, too,” I said. “I’ll make it.”
I went to the kitchen and lit the stove. I put the coffee pot on the burner. I waited until it boiled, and then I poured it. I carried two cups of coffee on a tray out to the living room.
I found Wadia engrossed in rolling a joint, while Antoinette rested her head on her palm and was lost in thought. I put a cup in front of her. I sat on the couch sipping my coffee.
Wadia finished rolling the joint, lit it, and offered it to me. I took two drags and gave it to Antoinette, who took a puff and then gave it back to him.
He took several pleasurable drags, then offered it to me, but I declined, saying, ‘‘I’ve smoked enough. I want to go and get some sleep.’’
“I have to go to bed now, too,” added Antoinette, “so I can work in the morning.”
Wadia finished the joint and then went off to his room and came back with a wide loose robe that he handed to Antoinette.
“I’ll let Antoinette have my room and I’ll sleep in the living room,” I said.
“I can’t take your room from you,” she replied.
“I’ll sleep in the living room,” Wadia offered, “and Antoinette will sleep in my room.”
“The problem is that I can’t sleep by myself. I won’t sleep a wink all night long.”
“Then sleep with me in my room: it has two beds,” said Wadia, putting his arm around her shoulder.
There were two beds in my room, too, but I didn’t say a word. I left them and went to the bathroom to wash my face. Then I went to my room, took off my clothes, and put on my pajamas.
I stretched out on the bed. A little later I felt thirsty and went out to the living room and then the kitchen. The door to Wadia’s room was open and the light was on. I noticed Antoinette in her underwear in the middle of the room. When I passed by again on my way back with a glass of water, I saw the door to his room was shut.
Chapter 17
The Fifth Part of the Film
Jenin. Nablus. Jerusalem. Jericho. Bethlehem. Hebron. Black flags fly over the cities of the occupied West Bank. Posters lament the martyrs of Tel Zaatar. Israeli Army jeeps cruise the streets and city squares. Jeeps with two-way radio in the plazas and at intersections. (Note to self: Israeli military jeeps, with lowered carriages, are noticeably distinct, in the same way that Gestapo motorcycles with side-seats were.)
The road leading to Mount Lebanon. Syrian armored cars advance, firing their artillery guns.
A circle around a paragraph from a public statement by Kamal Jumblatt in the al-Anbaa newspaper: “The battle for Mount Lebanon approaches, so take up arms and hold firm; holding firm means we won’t despair too much when one place or another falls.”
Beside the previous paragraph are two headlines: “Jumblatt in a hurry to hold
the Arab summit conference.” “Abu Iyad criticizes Arab silence in the face of Syrian military acting alongside the Phalangists.”
Washington. Dean Brown speaks to journalists: “We are trying to keep Lebanon from turning to the left.” “Israel is a key player in the situation, since it is supplying the Maronites with weapons.”
A circle around a paragraph from Time magazine, published September 13, 1976: “In the darkness of night, Israeli commandos dashed ashore in the Christian-controlled port of Jounieh, some 9 miles north of Beirut. As soon as they established contact with the Lebanese garrison, both forces spread out and secured a landing area. A helicopter slowly whirred up from an Israeli cargo ship standing offshore, guarded by a small armada of missile ships. The helicopter, Time has learned, brought to Jounieh a top Israeli official who spent the night in a series of secret conferences with various Lebanese leaders, then climbed back aboard his helicopter and flew out to sea again, just before dawn.
“The official was Israeli Defense Minister Shimon Peres. His brief ‘invasion’ of Lebanon – a nation with which Israel has no diplomatic ties – was the first of four trips between late May and late August. As if that were not extraordinary enough, he was accompanied on his third trip into Lebanon by none other than Israeli Premier Yitzhak Rabin, who held talks with as yet unnamed Lebanese leaders. Out of these negotiations has come a secret but potentially decisive Israeli intervention in the seventeen-month-old Lebanese Civil War. Acting with the agreement of Lebanon’s Christian leadership and a moderate group of Muslims, Israel is moving to wipe out forever the Palestinian guerilla bases in southern Lebanon. As Foreign Minister Yigal Allon said last week, ‘A situation will be created in which we will not permit any faction to allow the Palestine Liberation Organization to act against Israel from Lebanese regions close to the border.’
“Beyond that, the Israeli–Lebanese agreement has opened the way to an important readjustment in the Middle East lineup, one that could prove to be a genuine turning point in Israel’s relations with its Arab neighbors.”
Beirut. Jumblatt to reporters: ‘‘We’ve put our neck on the line.’’
Beirut, Beirut Page 18