Bride of a Bygone War (Beriut Trilogy 2)

by Fleming, Preston

  Chapter 12

  The headlights of Major Elie Musallam’s fifteen-year-old Mercedes touring car peered through the clouds as if searching for some assurance that the pavement would still be intact around the next switchback. A bullet-scarred concrete milepost indicated that they were only four kilometers from Bikfaya, which was about half the distance to the winter resort of Qanat Bakiche. Now at an altitude of about eight hundred meters above sea level, the rain had already turned to sleet, and where the road hugged the windswept northern slopes of the Sannine Mountains, Lukash saw scattered patches of glare ice.

  “After Bikfaya, we cannot rely on finding benzine,” Elie said. “A cousin of mine owns a filling station on the far edge of town; we will stop there. For us, there will be benzine regardless of rationing.”

  Beyond the switchback the road widened and began a gradual descent past the boarded-up roadhouses and auto repair workshops that had once catered to a lively summer resort trade and now remained derelict awaiting the day when the fighting was over and the tourists returned. The road broadened into a sort of boulevard with a muddy median strip.

  Through the mist Lukash could discern the outlines of massive limestone villas lining both sides of the town’s main street, each one with an identical red tile roof. “The town has a prosperous look to it,” he said. “Where did the money come from?”

  Elie laughed. “Lebanon has no oil or gas. Most of these villas were built by émigrés who made their fortunes abroad as merchants, mainly in Africa and South America. The newer ones belong to Phalangists who profited from the war. If you don’t believe the Events have made some people rich, just look around you.”

  He pointed toward the long stucco wall that extended an entire block to the right. “Behind that wall is the villa of Walid Nader, brother of the director of intelligence. Walid owns a company that imports munitions from Belgium and China.”

  He downshifted and veered off to the right, where another broad thoroughfare continued in roughly the same easterly direction. “Look carefully ahead, behind the iron gate. The director built that villa last year for his wife. My cousin told me that it cost five million lira. He has six children, and each of them has a separate bedroom.”

  “You mean he commutes from here to Beirut every day?”

  “Sometimes. But he also owns a flat in Achrafiyé. I have visited him there. Other flats in the building cannot be bought for less than one million lira. It was his blessing from God to have married Shaykh Pierre Gemayel’s favorite cousin.”

  They passed through the center of Bikfaya, where most shops had not yet rolled up their corrugated iron shutters for business. Then they continued to the far edge of town and pulled off the road at a grimy, one-story, cinder-block hut that faced a pair of ancient gas pumps bearing the faded logo of the state-owned gasoline company. A curly-haired teenage boy in a greasy red ski parka over navy overalls glowered at them from behind a battered aluminum storm door.

  “I see my cousin’s oldest boy,” the major said. “Wait here while I arrange things with him.” Elie opened the door and a blast of frigid air forced its way into the Mercedes, scattering a handful of tiny ice crystals over Lukash’s black ski pants.

  Lukash spread out the map on the dashboard. Not far beyond Bikfaya, he knew, they planned to leave the main highway and follow a secondary road to the market town of Baskinta, where Elie intended to install tire chains for the final ascent to Qanat Bakiche, perched some eighteen hundred meters above sea level. This winter resort village was now a major Phalange artillery base, from which the Christian militia’s U.S.-made 105-millimeter guns could provide covering fire for the Christian enclave of Zahlé, at the edge of the Bekaa Valley, or strike at Syrian positions in the heart of the Bekaa and along the Beirut-Damascus Highway. From Qanat Bakiche there was also a clear line of sight to the neighboring resorts of Farayya, Faqra, and Zaarour, the last now under Syrian occupation.

  Lukash saw Major Elie leave the hut, his cousin’s oldest boy following directly behind. He considered for a moment staying in the car while the boy filled the tank but thought better of it and joined the two Lebanese at the pump. Many an agent recruitment could be traced back to a case officer taking the time to befriend a clerk or a receptionist or another little gray person who happened to have access to someone or something of intelligence interest.

  “Jibran, this is my friend Monsieur Walter,” Elie told the boy. “He has never skied before in Lebanon, so I am taking him up the mountain to Bakiche. What do you know of the snow conditions there?”

  “Of Bakiche I know nothing,” the boy answered woodenly. “Since November it has been impossible to reach the upper slopes without a special pass. Beyond the first roadblock it is a forbidden military zone.”

  “Tell me, do you ski, Jibran?” Elie continued.

  The boy’s face suddenly came alive. He nodded with enthusiasm.

  “Would you like to have a pass to enter the military zone for skiing on the weekends? I’m told they run the téléski on Saturdays and Sundays.”

  “But I do not belong to a Phalange unit, Major. How could I get such a pass?”

  “Leave the matter to me, Jibran. All I ask of you is that you tell me the license plates of any other cars you see today traveling toward the Baskinta road with skis. And if anyone asks about us or follows us, say nothing and report it to me upon my return. Agreed?”

  The teenager gave his best stiff-armed Fascist salute.

  * * *

  The brownish tracks of the snowplow were the only discernible features around them as they crawled up the mountain in first gear, the beat of the windshield wipers and the rhythmic jingling of tire chains offering the only distraction from the engine’s muffled snorts and growls. With each hundred meters in altitude, they plunged deeper into the dense clouds and found the snow piled higher on the sides of the road.

  “Are you sure anybody is going to be up there when we arrive?” Lukash asked as the Mercedes narrowly missed the chiseled edge of a rock face at the top of a desperately tight hairpin turn. “The only other tracks belong to the snowplow, and it seems to have been on its way back down to Baskinta.”

  “Don’t worry, they’ll be waiting for us,” Elie assured him. “They have probably already dug their equipment out from the snow and will be ready to begin the day’s work. Do you notice how the sky has lightened and the snow has stopped falling? Here the storm is almost over.”

  Lukash looked up and saw that the major was right. While before they had seemed engulfed in a pale gray mist, now he could see the road ahead for at least fifty meters. A brilliant white glare began to envelop them.

  Elie turned toward Lukash with a triumphant look. “Have you ever before had an entire mountain to yourself the morning after a snowstorm? Let us finish our work quickly and seize the chance to ski.”

  After climbing for another three or four kilometers, they emerged above the clouds onto a sizable plateau, at the far end of which rose the peaks of the Sannine Range. Soon the road leveled out and they approached a settled strip of chalets and small pensions. A string of olive drab jeeps and pickup trucks lined the street where the snowplow had made a couple of extra passes to create two rows of parking spaces. The sky was now a deep azure, and the sunlight reflected with blinding power off the endless expanse of snow. Lukash reached into his breast pocket and retrieved a pair of mountain climber’s sunglasses with leather side coverings.

  “It’s a pity we were compelled to close this place to skiers,” Elie began as he parked the Mercedes opposite a stone hut between the twin T-bars at the base of the piste. “As a boy, I came here every weekend from January through March. From our house in Beït Meri, the drive was little over an hour. Then, during the Events, we used this place as an artillery base to shell the leftists and Palestinians in their bases to the south. There is even a road that can be used to smuggle weapons over the mountains to Zahlé, in the Bekaa Valley. In winter a few men with snowmobiles can bring in enough shells and amm
unition for an entire summer of fighting. The Syrians are helpless to stop us; they hold the mountains in summer, but in winter the heights are ours. While we Maronites are bred to the hardship of mountain winters, the Syrians cannot abide the cold.”

  Elie pointed toward a range of minor peaks to the south. “Do you see the high mountain in the distance, the one with the télésiège leading to the summit? That is Zaarour, a winter resort that opened just after the Events. I skied there for two seasons, until the Syrians seized it for use as an artillery base last year. Not long ago there were four places to ski within an hour-and-a-half drive of Beirut; now there are only two.”

  “So is that also why Qanat Bakiche was closed for skiing, because of the risk of Syrian shelling from Zaarour?”

  Elie’s face took on a look of self-satisfaction. “Of course that is what we tell everyone. But come with me, and I will show you the real reason—a secret ten times more damaging to the Syrians than our artillery fire could possibly be.”

  They buckled their ski boots and removed their skis from the overhead rack. As Elie had predicted, the T-bars were functioning but without an attendant anywhere in sight.

  “Come, we will travel to the top and then climb a few hundred meters more on foot to our destination. After we finish our work and make the first descent by ski, there will be coffee and brandy for us below at the hut. Yalla, let’s go!”

  They carried their skis to the lift, stepped into their bindings, and stood side by side to catch the next T-bar, an old-fashioned fixture of solid oak that stung Lukash’s gloved hand when he caught its heft. Suddenly the line grew taut and the two men were yanked forward so violently that they nearly sprawled across the pristine surface of the untracked snow.

  Lukash looked down at the major’s skis, a new pair of the latest GS-cut racing skis from France. “Where did you get the new Rossignols? They don’t carry equipment like that in the local shops, do they?”

  “Of course. Skiing is very popular here. Many of my friends buy new skis and bindings every year. As for me, this is the first new pair I have had since I returned from my studies in Grenoble after the Events.”

  “I didn’t know you studied in France, Elie. What was your field?”

  “Chemical engineering. But I did not stay in France long enough to earn my degree. When the fighting started in 1975, I had completed only two years. I came home to fight the Palestinians and never returned.”

  “Have you ever thought of finishing your degree?”

  Elie laughed. “Many times. Even when I was in Grenoble, I dreamed of studying at MIT. But the Events made it impossible to continue, even in France. You see, a friend of my father had given me a loan to study abroad, but his showroom and all his goods were destroyed during the first weeks of fighting in the commercial district. He lost everything.”

  “I’m sorry to hear that. Isn’t there any engineering school here in Lebanon where you could finish your degree?”

  Elie let out a dry, mirthless laugh. “There is, in West Beirut. But until security conditions change...”

  “I know what you mean. Wars have a way of wrecking all sorts of plans.”

  Elie slipped the straps of his ski poles over his end of the T-bar and thrust his gloved hands into his jacket pockets. “I have often thought in these last days that I made a grave error—that I should have remained in France when the war started. The fighting would have gone forward in exactly the same way whether I was there or not. And now I would have an engineering degree from a French university and perhaps a job in France, a French wife, a French passport.”

  He sighed and looked off into the distance toward the glistening snow-covered peaks to the east. “But I was a brave young fool; I thought the Christians of Lebanon needed me. I could not leave my relatives and close friends, and my beautiful Muna, defenseless against the Palestinians and the Communists and the Nasserists and the Shiites and all the other rabble who had taken over the western side of Beirut. Now five years have passed, and sometimes I feel that I play the fool every day that I remain here.

  “Anyway, when I returned from Grenoble and discovered that Muna had married a foreigner, I simply could not bring myself to believe it. It is true that I had not written to her during the year I was away, but I had always known in my heart that we would marry. And though her father knew of my intentions toward her, he did not send me so much as a word of warning about the American. Yet, as it happened, by the time I returned from France, Muna was already married and her husband had been missing for many weeks. And I was left standing by helplessly like an ass.

  “That is my story. When the fighting ended in the autumn of 1976, and I was able to take up my life again, there was nothing for me to do but become like a brother to Muna and wait for her to either accept that her husband was dead or arrange an annulment. The priests could be expected to refuse, of course—since a child had been born, no one could deny that the marriage was consummated. But these things can be arranged in Lebanon if one is patient and knows the proper people.”

  Major Elie continued to look straight ahead with a look of concentrated thought, as if he were at that moment deciding what to do with the remainder of his life.

  “You never mentioned before that Muna had a child by the marriage,” Lukash said softly.

  “Yes, but the little girl died from a car bomb two years ago, along with her grandmother, while they waited to buy bread at a bakery in Jall ed Dib. They were thrown against the rear wall of the bakery and killed instantly.

  “Oh, my God,” Lukash gasped almost inaudibly.

  “The Muslim boys who placed the bomb were captured within hours and confessed that an officer of Syrian military intelligence gave them the bomb. Captain Fadi and I conducted the interrogation ourselves and it was extremely thorough. But of course nothing we could do could bring back the child or César’s wife.”

  The color drained from his Lukash’s face.

  Elie went on. “Even so, Muna has always had a very strong character. She mourned the baby for two months and then went back to her job at the advertising company where she had worked since before the child was born. She spends nearly all her time there now. But even when she is not working, one hardly ever sees Muna laugh or smile as she did before the Events. She attends mass every day—something she never did before the Events. But she has not become bitter and never blames the Muslims or the Syrians or anyone else for the little girl’s death.”

  They reached the end of the lift, dismounted from the T-bar, and skied a short distance to the base of a second ski lift. As before, the snow beneath their skis and everywhere else around them was pristine and untracked. The machine pulled them another fifty or sixty meters before Lukash broke the silence.

  “I know it’s a sensitive subject, Elie, but can you explain to me what happened to the Chamounists yesterday at the Libramarine Club? I don’t get it. It isn’t like the fighting between Lebanese and Syrians, or even between Christian Lebanese and Muslims. I mean, how can the Phalange do something like that to other Lebanese Christians? The Chamounists no longer have any armed forces—they represent no threat to Bashir’s power. What on earth was it for?”

  Elie turned away, a look of suppressed anger in his eyes. “Perhaps you should ask Commander Bashir yourself. Some are saying that what he did was designed to prove to the Americans that he is the sole leader of the Christians in Lebanon.”

  “So the Americans are responsible? Is that it?” Lukash challenged.

  “Forgive me. I did not intend to imply such a thing. No one is responsible but Bashir and those who carried out the operation under his orders. If I am angry, it is because César Khalifé, Muna’s father, was among those whose bodies we found floating in the swimming pool.”

  “Your anger is the only reaction that a decent human being could be expected to have, Elie.”

  “But I am a Phalange officer as well as a human being,” Elie replied with suppressed fury. “And I have learned that my own commanding officer
, Colonel Faris, is the one who planned this butchery. I confronted him about it yesterday as soon as I returned from the Libramarine. He laughed and said I was squeamish because I was once a Chamounist. It took all my strength to control myself and not throttle him in his chair.” Elie said as he struggled to keep his bitterness in check.

  Lukash waited a moment before breaking the silence. This was the moment he and Ed had hoped for: Elie was more than disaffected and seemed to no longer owe any loyalty at all to the Phalange. “So what do you intend to do?”

  Elie’s look seemed to acknowledge the risk he was taking by giving the American a frank answer. “Lately I have been thinking about resigning my commission and emigrating. César told me a few days ago that your vice consul promised to inform him very shortly whether he was able to find any record of Muna’s husband in the United States. If there is none, I plan to ask Muna to marry me and to leave Lebanon. To France, or possibly Canada or Australia.”

  “Have you considered the United States?”

  Major Elie looked askance at Lukash. “I have been told such a thing is nearly impossible unless one has close relatives in America. And I have no close relatives outside of Lebanon.”

  “There are other ways, Elie. If you are interested, I could look into them. All it takes is a word from you.”

  “You mean, through your organization?”

  “If you would like me to,” Lukash replied. “America is a rather expensive place to live. It would be smart to build up a savings fund before you went. We could help.”

  “How long would it take to arrange such a savings fund, as you call it?”

  “To work out an agreement? Just a few days. But, frankly speaking, it might take a year or more before you would be in a position to pick up and move, if you know what I mean. How soon were you thinking of leaving?”

  “I cannot say,” Elie mused. “Such a thing depends on whether Muna would agree to come with me. I would imagine in a year, though perhaps sooner.”