“I promise.”
“So how much longer do you think they’ll leave you out there?”
“Hard to say,” he said. “I’ll try to get an answer.”
“Okay,” she said.
He knew she wanted to press him on his promises. She wanted some specific possibility to anticipate, a number circled on a calendar, perhaps. But he couldn’t tell her that his reasons for staying put were infinitely more complicated than any aspect of the job that he no longer had.
He considered calling the doctor’s office but he knew they would ask the question he’d already deflected twice that morning: When can you come back?
The frenzied gannets swirled and plummeted, the whales around him rolled, glistening and gasping.
Pierre watched, as if hypnotized by the spectacle, then stood, picked up the gun and hurled it, watched it sail upwards and away, a black projectile against the flutter of confetti, until it disappeared among the little gannet geysers that reminded him so much of shrapnel.
He examined the BlackBerry, briefly considered sending it after the gun but then sat down and scrolled back to [email protected]. Wrote: You can call this number after eight, your time, tonight but not before. Cormier. And he typed in his private cellphone number.
25.
He’d told Lois he’d be working late and it was only partially untrue. There were arrangements to be made—files to review, emails to be sent, meetings to be had—before he could leave for the East Coast. But he didn’t tell her that he also wanted one more visit to the Only Café. Maybe one day he’d explain to her the compulsion to go there, if and when he ever could explain it to himself.
He lingered in the doorway, scanned familiar faces, listened to the now familiar babble, the music—reggae tonight—and he realized that he felt at home there, as if he had been a regular for years. What a shame that this would have to be his final visit.
He hadn’t expected to run into Ari, didn’t really want to encounter Ari, if the truth were known. But there he was.
Pierre nodded, ordered a whisky, then walked over to Ari’s table.
“Sit for a minute,” said Ari. He sat. Neither spoke until finally Pierre said, “I was passing by. Thought I’d drop in one last time.”
Ari frowned.
“I plan to take some time off. My life is getting complicated. I don’t expect to be back here again.” He smiled. Raised his glass.
“Anywhere interesting?” Ari asked.
“A place I know on the East Coast. I have a boat there.”
“A boat?”
“I find a boat to be the perfect escape.”
“How so?”
“You know. Out on the water. You can imagine that nothing happens out there, nothing matters. Just the weather and we aren’t responsible for that.”
“And what do you do out on the water?”
“Read. Think. Mostly look at the distance between me and the land.” He shrugged.
“Yes. The land. Where everything happens. Where we have responsibility.”
“Exactly.”
“I’ve never been east of Quebec.”
“I lived on the East Coast when I first came to Canada. I think of it as home now. Cape Breton Island.”
“I’ve been following a bit the business with your company in Indonesia. Unfortunate.”
“Yes. Very.”
“So that’s why you were there?”
“I led the investigation. It was exhausting, not to mention distressing.”
“I can imagine.”
“I’m glad I bumped into you. I’m sorry about how we left things the last time I was here.”
“No need to be sorry.” He smiled. “We think alike. We understand each other.”
Pierre nodded, studying the other man’s eyes.
Ari gestured, taking in the bar. “If we could read each other’s minds.”
“Just as well we can’t,” Pierre said. “It’s hard enough to read our own. Right?”
“Yes. But to be aware of others and their difficulties gives a comforting perspective sometimes. Why do you think people slow down at car accidents? Get off on bad news? The distress of other people is reassuring.”
“One way of looking at it.” Pierre studied the face, imagined it with dense black stubble, imagined the skull hairless. He was certain, but there was the lingering impact of the denial, so emphatic and sincere, his dead mother his alibi. A lie, but unassailable on grounds irrelevant to reason.
“We survived,” said Ari. He grimaced, made a gesture of resignation with his hands.
“Yes.”
“Survival sometimes comes at a cost.”
Pierre nodded.
“We survive when others don’t. There’s no point wondering, why or how. It happens. Survival isn’t really a matter of choice, so I wonder sometimes about this thing they talk about, survivors’ guilt.” He laughed, studied his glass. “Survival has no moral quality.”
“That’s an interesting thought.”
“You were in the camps?”
The sudden question startled him. “What camps?”
“You know the camps. You were there. I didn’t mean it as a question. You were one of Hobeika’s boys.” Ari shrugged. “An interesting man, Hobeika. One way or another, if you were with Hobeika, you were in the camps.”
“You knew him?”
“Everybody was aware of him.”
“Yes. I was with him—in your forward command post…”
“My forward command post…”
“With your General Yaron, the IDF intelligence people, Mossad, watching and listening to what was going on a couple of hundred metres away on that Thursday night. I was with him at the stadium on Saturday morning…”
“But you were also in the camps…”
“Hobeika wasn’t in the camps. I just told you where he was.”
“But you?”
“Briefly, on Saturday. He sent me there after his meeting with someone I thought was you.” Pierre paused, watching for a telltale flicker. Then looked away. “I’m sorry for the mistake.”
“You saw the camps on Saturday?”
“Shatila.”
“This person with Hobeika at the stadium. He was IDF?”
“That’s what I was told.”
“He wore a uniform?”
“There were no markings. As you know, the uniforms were much the same, yours and ours.”
“What was he doing there?”
“He delivered two prisoners from the camps for interrogation. Anyway, the stadium was full of IDF, Shin Bet. Surely you knew that.”
Ari shrugged and made a face. “Possibly. And these prisoners? Terrorists?”
“I was ordered to take them back into the camps when our people were through with them.”
“Saturday morning.”
“Before the army moved in.”
“Just to take them back?”
“I don’t think I have to spell it out.”
“So why to the camp? Why not the stadium, like so many others?”
“You know why.”
Ari shrugged.
“The reporters. Politicians showing up at the stadium, asking questions. Your people were getting sensitive.”
“And that’s what you did.”
“That’s what we did.”
Ari sighed heavily, shook his head. “It is not such a big thing. In the circumstances. Two more bodies among the hundreds.”
Pierre remained silent.
“But in the present context. To these people, now?” Ari gestured again around the bar. “It would be horrifying to them. Taken out of place and time, out of context, these things become large. People who have never had to think about survival see such events in a different way. Impose their idealism, their morality. They become prosecutors and judges.”
“It’s why we keep secrets,” Pierre said.
“And why we should. I will speak as your friend. I consider you my friend.” He paused, searching Pierre’s face. Pierre
waited.
“Hobeika. He is gone now. Beyond judgment. But some of what he caused, what he did, remains painful for people who survived him. I understand the circumstances as you do. But there will always be people wanting to punish, to harm even people who were not responsible, at least not directly. You understand?”
Pierre nodded.
“For someone to acknowledge, I was with Hobeika here, I was with Hobeika there, doing this, doing that. I was with Hobeika in the command post, or Phalangist headquarters in September 1982, or in the camps—it is like the smell of blood to sharks.”
“Or to admit that I was at the stadium on Saturday, delivering prisoners to the men who would do your dirty work…”
“The same. You and I, Pierre, we love this country, Canada. The whole world should be like Canada. But Canadians, they are like everybody else. Quick to judge. Quick to demonize people who might not fit their…how can I put this? Their sanctimonious self-image.” He laughed then. “I need a smoke. Come outside.”
They stood and watched the traffic. “In every car there is a secret,” Ari said, exhaling. “In that mosque, in the memory of everyone who goes there, secrets. And of course the fabric that keeps the secrets hidden.”
“What do you mean, fabric?”
“The lies. Everybody lies. If every immigrant or refugee told the whole truth, there’d be hardly anybody here.”
“I was a refugee.”
“So you understand what I’m talking about?”
“I didn’t lie.”
“No? So you told them you were in the camps? You told them you were in the Kata’ib?”
“They didn’t ask.”
“And if they’d asked: Pierre, where were you on the night of September sixteenth, 1982, or during Friday, September seventeenth, or Saturday the eighteenth? Pierre, what was your relationship with this man, this mass murderer named Elie Hobeika, head of intelligence for the Kata’ib—”
“We were the Lebanese Forces…”
“Who ran the fucking Lebanese forces? Kata’ib, Phalangists…brutal, savage killers. Merciless, remorseless.”
“What about Israel? The weapons, the training, the uniforms you gave us.”
“What I think is irrelevant. It’s what these people think, these people inside this pub with their laptops and their googling, their piety. It’s the immigration people. Border police. Refugee boards.”
“Savage killers…or patriots. It’s a matter of opinion.”
“For the Kata’ib, the Damouri Brigade…it is a matter of record.”
“Israeli record.”
“We shouldn’t…”
“I often wondered, since you brought it up, why our friends in Israel were so clear and specific about what happened in the camps and about blaming the Phalange entirely. Nobody else.”
“It was fact.”
“But not all the facts.”
“True. In war and politics there is a selection of facts.”
“Yes. And among the forgotten facts, that Saad Haddad’s men—your private army in the south—and the IDF counter-terrorism specialists were also in the camps.”
“That isn’t fact.” Ari sounded weary.
“No? I heard they were.”
“You heard what?”
“About Haddad’s men, about the Sayeret Matkal…In the camps, directing the killing. But I agree. It no longer matters.”
“Sayeret Matkal?”
“You’ve heard of it?”
“Of course. Netanyahu was Sayeret Matkal.” He laughed. “You aren’t suggesting.”
“I’m suggesting what I heard from Hobeika. You were Sayeret Matkal and you were in the camps with our people.”
“You heard speculation. Very dangerous speculation. Remember what happened to Hobeika?”
“You’re well informed.”
“Everybody knows what happened to Hobeika.”
“I don’t. You tell me.”
Ari looked surprised. “I don’t believe you.” And he laughed, laid a large hand on Pierre’s forearm. “He blew up. You know that.”
“But who blew him up?”
“It could have been anyone. Palestinians. Syrians.”
“Israelis.”
“Perhaps. But why would we? There were many people in the line-up ahead of us. Look, we could sit here all night naming them. But I’ll just mention one name. A place. Because I know that if you were part of the Hobeika gang you were there.”
Pierre felt a peculiar numbness in his hand and realized that he was holding his drink too tightly. He breathed out, put the glass down, folded his arms across his chest.
“Zghorta.”
He didn’t catch it right away. “What?”
“Zghorta, Ehden. 1978. Tony Frangieh, his wife and kid. The thirty bodyguards. You know about Zghorta, Pierre. Because you were there. Yes? Wasn’t it in June?” He was staring at him intently, watching, waiting. “And to your great credit, Pierre, was it not after June 1978 that you had doubts about this psychopath who was your leader? This human weapon, HK.”
“I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
“No? You see, Pierre, and this is no secret. I was in IDF intelligence. A mere cipher, of course. We were a small service. Not like Mossad and Shin Bet. But we knew things and we saw things. And I saved things, things I still have, documents I have recently reviewed. Hobeika? Yes. He was one of us, Pierre. He wore our hat. But he was a man with many hats. But why am I telling you this? You know more about it than I do.”
He looked away and sighed. “It is tragic what people do to one another for survival. Yes, tragic for the victims. But also for survivors who have to live with secrets.”
Pierre was now unsteady. He should not have come here. He should not have had the drink. He should not have allowed the conversation to go this far.
Ari sipped his drink. “Hobeika was at Zghorta, yes? One of the commanders. You were with Hobeika. And so, Pierre, if you were asked by a refugee board or, God forbid, the police, where were you in January 1976, or June 1978, or where were you on September eighteenth, 1982, or where were you—?”
“I must go now,” Pierre said. “Perhaps we’ll get a chance to talk again.”
“Let me finish. A simple question. Would you today be a Canadian, with your Bay Street office and your Mustang and your boat? Can you answer that, Pierre Haddad?”
Pierre turned away, then paused and turned back. “Charon.”
“Sharon? What about him?”
“No. Charon, with a ‘C.’ I just remembered something. This man at the stadium. This IDF officer. He gave me a note and he signed it. ‘Charon.’ ”
“Ah. A note.”
“Yes. And I kept things, too—I saved things. I still have it somewhere. It was a laissez-passer that enabled us to pass an IDF checkpoint at Shatila on the Saturday morning.”
“I see. And to do what, on Saturday morning in the Shatila camp?”
“To kill two more people. The two terrorists you delivered to Hobeika. Two nobodies you caught hiding in the Sabra hospital. What had they done, Ari? Why did they deserve to die? Why would they, two minnows in a shark tank, warrant the attention of an officer in Sayeret Matkal? Tell me. Or tell me that you can’t remember. That by September eighteenth it didn’t matter who they were or what they did or didn’t do. We were killing everybody. Right?”
Ari studied his cigarette package, opened it, carefully selected one. Lit it, exhaled. Studied the street.
“Terrible,” he said. “It is terrible to live with such a memory. So much killing.”
Pierre nodded.
Ari gripped his hand, held it firmly, tugged him close and hugged him. “Enjoy your holiday.”
“Yes. Thank you. Goodbye.”
26.
Lois was asleep when he got home and that was a relief. It would have been difficult to talk to her about anything else. He longed to tell her everything and one day he would find a way but it wasn’t time. Not yet.
Quietly
he closed his office door. He kept the journals in a box beneath his desk. He dragged the box out, retrieved 1983, flipped through it. Yes, there it was, tucked between two pages, the note, the Hebrew hieroglyphics. The name. “Charon.” No rank, no title, no first name.
Hobeika seemed to have known Charon well. You could feel the chemistry between them. And so Ari knows about Zghorta, that bloody debacle? Charon was IDF intelligence. Hobeika was Phalange intelligence. Blood brothers. Charon would have known everything. Every detail.
He leaned back, thought back. What year did Hobeika die? Pierre had been in England when he’d heard, actually saw it in a newspaper. Clipped the story and saved it, like the laissez-passer. He often went to England. What year? Right. The joint venture in Belize? Contract signed in London. Early in 2002. He retrieved the journal for 2002, found the clipping.
JANUARY 24: ELIE HOBEIKA
Lebanese Militia Leader Who Massacred Civilians.
Yes. There it is.
Elie Hobeika, who was killed in a massive bomb attack at his house in the Beirut suburb of Hazmiyeh, was one of Lebanon’s most controversial figures.
He remembered wondering at the time who had done this. But a thousand individuals and groups would have seized any opportunity to eliminate HK, would celebrate his death. Thousands, maybe tens of thousands of people who at any given moment would have killed each other, united now in collective satisfaction.
His death at the age of 45 comes at a time when he had agreed to testify against Israeli prime minister Ariel Sharon in a war crimes trial that may be held later this year in a Brussels court. A leader of the Christian Maronite Lebanese Forces (or Phalanges, as they were known) during Lebanon’s bloody civil war, Hobeika acted as Israel’s liaison chief during that country’s invasion of Lebanon in 1982.
He remembered thinking back then that no one could ever know for sure who had killed HK. Israel. The Syrians. Hezbollah. Palestinians. Druze. Morabitoun. Amal. The Chamouns. Frangiehs. Gemayels. Every one of them had reasons. It only mattered that he was gone. He was gone, irrevocably. There would be no more of the peculiar tingling, no more the creeping sense of an unseen presence, no more the sudden surge of fear at the sight of a familiar facial feature, the sound of a familiar voice.
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