‘She is very special.’
‘Who’s this?’ Aunt Vera hung their combat jackets over the balcony, gazing at them with almost maternal pride. ‘Are you talking about me, Ryan, or your sister?’
‘Someone far more special,’ Louisa rejoined. ‘His dream woman.’
‘You two are my dream women.’
This was literally the truth. The possibility that anything might happen to them appalled Ryan. In the street below the balcony a night-commando patrol had lined up and were checking their equipment – machine-pistols, grenades, packs loaded with booby-traps and detonators. They would crawl into the darkness of West Beirut, each a killing machine out to murder some aunt or sister on a balcony.
A UN medical orderly moved down the line, issuing morphine ampoules. For all the lives they saved, Ryan sometimes resented the blue helmets. They nursed the wounded, gave cash and comfort to the bereaved, arranged foster-parents for the orphans, but they were too nervous of taking sides. They ringed the city, preventing anyone from entering or leaving, and in a sense controlled everything that went on in Beirut. They could virtually bring the war to a halt, but Dr Edwards repeatedly told Ryan that any attempt by the peacekeeping force to live up to its name would lead the world’s powers to intervene militarily, for fear of destabilising the whole Middle East. So the fighting went on.
The night-commandos moved away, six soldiers on either side of the street, heading towards the intermittent clatter of gunfire.
‘They’re off now,’ Aunt Vera said. ‘Wish them luck.’
‘Why?’ Ryan asked quietly. ‘What for?’
‘What do you mean? You’re always trying to shock us, Ryan. Don’t you want them to come back?’
‘Of course. But why leave in the first place? They could stay here.’
‘That’s crazy talk.’ His sister placed a hand on Ryan’s forehead, feeling for a temperature. ‘You had a hard time in the Hilton, Arkady told me. Remember what we’re fighting for.’
‘I’m trying. Today I helped to kill Angel Porrua. What was he fighting for?’
‘Are you serious? We’re fighting for what we believe.’
‘But nobody believes anything! Think about it, Louisa. The Royalists don’t want the king, the Nationalists secretly hope for partition, the Republicans want to do a deal with the Crown Prince of Monaco, the Christians are mostly atheists, and the Fundamentalists can’t agree on a single fundamental. We’re fighting and dying for nothing.’
‘So?’ Louisa pointed with her brush to the UN observers by their post. ‘That just leaves them. What do they believe in?’
‘Peace. World harmony. An end to fighting everywhere.’
‘Then maybe you should join them.’
‘Yes . . .’ Ryan pushed aside his combat jacket and stared through the balcony railings. Each of the blue helmets was a pale lantern in the dusk. ‘Maybe we should all join the UN. Yes, Louisa, everyone should wear the blue helmet.’
And so a dream was born.
During the next days Ryan began to explore this simple but revolutionary idea. Though gripped by the notion, he knew that it was difficult to put into practice. His sister was sceptical, and the fellow-members of his platoon were merely baffled by the concept.
‘I see what you’re getting at,’ Arkady admitted as they shared a cigarette in the Green Line command bunker. ‘But if everyone joins the UN who will be left to do the fighting?’
‘Arkady, that’s the whole point . . .’ Ryan was tempted to give up. ‘Just think of it. Everything will be neat and clean again. There’ll be no more patrols, no parades or weapons drills. We’ll lie around in the McDonald’s eating hamburgers; there’ll be discos every night. People will be walking around the streets, going into stores, sitting in cafés ...’
‘That sounds really weird,’ Arkady commented.
‘It isn’t weird. Life will start again. It’s how it used to be, like it is now in other places around the world.’
‘Where?’
‘Well . . .’ This was a difficult one. Like the other fighters in Beirut, Ryan knew next to nothing about the outside world. No newspapers came in, and foreign TV and radio broadcasts were jammed by the signals teams of the rival groups to prevent any foreign connivance in a military coup. Ryan had spent a few years in the UN school in East Beirut, but his main source of information about the larger world was the forty-year-old news magazines that he found in abandoned buildings. These presented a picture of a world at strife, of bitter fighting in Vietnam, Angola and Iran. Presumably these vast conflicts, greater versions of the fighting in Beirut, were still going on.
Perhaps the whole world should wear the blue helmet? This thought excited Ryan. If he could bring about a ceasefire in Beirut the peace movement might spread to Asia and Africa, everyone would lay down their arms . . .
Despite numerous rebuffs Ryan pressed on, arguing his case with any soldiers he met. Always there was an unvoiced interest, but one obstacle was the constant barrage of propaganda – the atrocity posters, the TV newsreels of vandalised churches that played on an ever-ready sense of religious outrage, and a medley of racial and anti-monarchist slanders.
To break this propaganda stranglehold was far beyond Ryan’s powers, but by chance he found an unexpectedly potent weapon – humour.
While on duty with a shore patrol by the harbour, Ryan was describing his dream of a better Beirut as his unit passed the UN command post. The observers had left their helmets on the open-air map table, and without thinking Ryan pulled off his khaki forage cap and lowered the blue steel bowl over his head.
‘Hey, look at Ryan!’ Arkady shouted. There was some good-humoured scuffling until Mikhail and Nazar pulled them apart. ‘No more wrestling now, we have our own peacekeeping force!’
Friendly cat-calls greeted Ryan as he paraded up and down in the helmet, but then everyone fell silent. The helmet had a calming effect, Ryan noticed, both on himself and his fellow-soldiers. On an impulse he set off along the beach towards the Fundamentalist sentry-post 500 yards away.
‘Ryan – look out!’ Mikhail ran after him, but stopped as Captain Gomez rode up in his jeep to the harbour wall. Together they watched as Ryan strode along the shore, ignoring the sniper-infested office buildings. He was halfway to the sentry-post when a Fundamentalist sergeant climbed onto the roof, waving a temporary safe-passage. Too cautious to risk his charmed life, Ryan saluted and turned back.
When he rejoined his platoon everyone gazed at him with renewed respect. Arkady and Nazar were wearing blue helmets, sheepishly ignoring Captain Gomez as he stepped in an ominous way from his jeep. Then Dr Edwards emerged from the UN post, restraining Gomez.
‘I’ll take care of this, captain. The UN won’t press charges. I know Ryan wasn’t playing the fool.’
Explaining his project to Dr Edwards was far easier than Ryan had hoped. They sat together in the observation post, as Dr Edwards encouraged him to outline his plan.
‘It’s a remarkable idea, Ryan.’ Clearly gripped by its possibilities, Dr Edwards seemed almost lightheaded. ‘I won’t say it’s going to work, but it deserves a try.’
‘The main object is the ceasefire,’ Ryan stressed. ‘Joining the UN force is just a means to that end.’
‘Of course. But do you think they’ll wear the blue helmet?’
‘A few will, but that’s all we need. Little by little, more people will join up. Everyone is sick of fighting, doctor, but there’s nothing else here.’
‘I know that, Ryan. God knows it’s a desperate place.’ Dr Edwards reached across the table and held Ryan’s wrists, trying to lend him something of his own strength. ‘I’ll have to take this up with the UN Secretariat in Damascus, so it’s vital to get it right. Let’s think of it as a volunteer UN force.’
‘Exactly. We’ll volunteer to wear the blue helmet. That way we don’t have to change sides or betray our own people. Eventually, everyone will be in the volunteer force . . .’
‘. . . and the fightin
g will just fade away. It’s a great idea, it’s only strange that no one has ever thought of it before.’ Dr Edwards was watching Ryan keenly. ‘Did anyone help you? One of the wounded ex-officers, perhaps?’
‘There wasn’t anyone, doctor. It just came to me, out of all the death ...’
Dr Edwards left Beirut for a week, consulting his superiors in Damascus, but in that time events moved more quickly than Ryan had believed possible. Everywhere the militia fighters were sporting the blue helmet. This began as a joke confined to the Christian forces, in part an irreverent gesture at the UN observers. Then, while patrolling the Green Line, Ryan spotted the driver of a Royalist jeep wearing a blue beret. Soon the more carefree spirits, the pranksters in every unit, wore the helmet or beret like a cockade.
‘Ryan, look at this.’ Captain Gomez called him to the command post in the lobby of the TV station. ‘You’ve got a lot to answer for . . .’
Across the street, near a burnt-out Mercedes, a Royalist guerrilla in a blue beret had set up a canvas chair and card table. He sat back, feet on the table, leisurely taking the sun.
‘The nerve of it . . .’ Gomez raised Ryan’s rifle and trained it at the soldier. He whistled to himself, and then handed the weapon back to Ryan. ‘He’s lucky, we’re over-exposed here. I’ll give him his suntan . . .’
This was a breakthrough, and not the last. Clearly there was a deep undercurrent of fatigue. By the day of Dr Edwards’ return, Ryan estimated that one in ten of the militia fighters was wearing the blue helmet or beret. Fire-fights still shook the night sky, but the bursts of gunfire seemed more isolated.
‘Ryan, it’s scarcely credible,’ Dr Edwards told him when they met at the UN post near the harbour. He pointed to the map marked with a maze of boundary lines and fortified positions. ‘Today there hasn’t been a single major incident along the Green Line. North of the airport there’s even a de facto ceasefire between the Fundamentalists and the Nationalists.’
Ryan was staring at the sea, where a party of Christian soldiers were swimming from a diving raft. The UN guard-ships were close inshore, no longer worried about drawing fire. Without meaning to dwell on the past, Ryan said: ‘Angel and I went sailing there.’
‘And you’ll go sailing again, with Nazar and Arkady.’ Dr Edwards seized his shoulders. ‘Ryan, you’ve brought off a miracle!’
‘Well . . .’ Ryan felt unsure of his own emotions, like someone who has just won the largest prize in a lottery. The UN truck parked in the sun was loaded with crates of blue uniforms, berets and helmets. Permission had been granted for the formation of a Volunteer UN Force recruited from the militias. The volunteers would serve in their own platoons, but be unarmed and take no part in any fighting, unless their lives were threatened. The prospect of a permanent peace was at last in sight.
Only six weeks after Ryan had first donned the blue helmet, an unbroken ceasefire reigned over Beirut. Everywhere the guns were silent. Sitting beside Captain Gomez as they toured the city by jeep, Ryan marvelled at the transformation. Unarmed soldiers lounged on the steps of the Hilton, groups of once-bitter enemies fraternised on the terrace of the Parliament building. Shutters were opening on the stores along the Green Line, and there was even a modest street market in the hallway of the Post Office. Children had emerged from their basement hideaways and played among the burnt-out cars. Many of the women guerrillas had exchanged their combat fatigues for bright print dresses, a first taste of the glamour and chic for which the city had once been renowned.
Even Lieutenant Valentina now stalked about in a black leather skirt and vivid lipstick jacket, blue beret worn rakishly over an elegant chignon.
As they passed her command post Captain Gomez stopped the jeep. He doffed his blue helmet in a gesture of respect. ‘My God! Isn’t that the last word, Ryan?’
‘It certainly is, captain,’ Ryan agreed devoutly. ‘How do I even dare approach her?’
‘What?’ Gomez followed Ryan’s awestruck gaze. ‘Not Lieutenant Valentina – she’ll eat you for breakfast. I’m talking about the soccer match this afternoon.’
He pointed to the large poster recently pasted over the cracked windows of the nearby Holiday Inn. A soccer match between the Republican and Nationalist teams would take place at three o’clock in the stadium, the first game in the newly formed Beirut Football League.
‘“Tomorrow – Christians versus Fundamentalists. Referee-Colonel Mugabe of the International Brigade.” That should be high-scoring . . .’ Blue helmet in hand, Gomez climbed from the jeep and strolled over to the poster.
Ryan, meanwhile, was staring at Lieutenant Valentina. Out of uniform she seemed even more magnificent, her Uzi machine-pistol slung over her shoulder like a fashion accessory. Taking his courage in both hands, Ryan stepped into the street and walked towards her. She could eat him for breakfast, of course, and happily lunch and supper as well . . .
The lieutenant turned her imperious eyes in his direction, already resigned to the attentions of this shy young man. But before Ryan could speak, an immense explosion erupted from the street behind the TV station. The impact shook the ground and drummed against the pockmarked buildings. Fragments of masonry cascaded into the road as a cloud of smoke seethed into the sky, whipped upwards by the flames that rose from the detonation point somewhere to the south-west of the Christian enclave.
A six-foot scimitar of plate glass fell from the window of the Holiday Inn, slicing through the football poster, and shattered around Gomez’s feet. As he ran to the jeep, shouting at Ryan, there was a second explosion from the Fundamentalist sector of West Beirut. Signal flares were falling in clusters over the city, and the first rounds of gunfire competed with the whine of klaxons and the loudspeakers broadcasting a call to arms.
Ryan stumbled to his feet, brushing the dust from his combat jacket. Lieutenant Valentina had vanished into the strongpoint, where her men were already loading the machine-gun in the barbette.
‘Captain Gomez . . . The bomb? What set it off?’
‘Treachery, Ryan – the Royalists must have done a deal with the Nats.’ He pulled Ryan into the jeep, cuffing him over the head. ‘All this talk of peace. The oldest trap in the world, and we walked straight into it . . .’
More than treachery, however, had taken place. Armed militia men filled the streets, taking up their positions in the blockhouses and strongpoints. Everyone was shouting at once, voices drowned by the gunfire that came from all directions. Powerful bombs had been cunningly planted to cause maximum confusion, and the nervous younger soldiers were firing into the air to keep up their courage. Signal flares were falling over the city in calculated but mysterious patterns. Everywhere blue helmets and berets were lying discarded in the gutter.
When Ryan reached his aunt’s apartment he found Dr Edwards and two UN guards waiting for him.
‘Ryan, it’s too late. I’m sorry.’
Ryan tried to step past to the staircase, but Dr Edwards held his arms. Looking up at this anxious and exhausted man, Ryan realised that apart from the UN observers he was probably the only one in Beirut still wearing the blue helmet.
‘Dr Edwards, I have to look after Louisa and my aunt. They’re upstairs.’
‘No, Ryan. They’re not here any longer. I’m afraid they’ve gone.’
‘Where? My God, I told them to stay here!’
‘They’ve been taken as hostages. There was a commando raid timed for the first explosion. Before we realised it, they were in and out.’
‘Who?’ Confused and frightened, Ryan stared wildly at the street, where armed men were forming into their platoons. ‘Was it the Royalists, or the Nats?’
‘We don’t know. It’s tragic, already there have been some foul atrocities. But they won’t harm Louisa or your aunt. They know who you are.’
‘They took them because of me . . .’ Ryan lifted the helmet from his head. He stared at the blue bowl, which he had carefully polished, trying to make it the brightest in Beirut.
‘What do
you plan to do, Ryan?’ Dr Edwards took the helmet from his hands, a stage prop no longer needed after the last curtain. ‘It’s your decision. If you want to go back to your unit, we’ll understand.’
Behind Dr Edwards one of the observers held Ryan’s rifle and webbing. The sight of the weapon and its steel-tipped bullets brought back Ryan’s old anger, that vague hatred that had kept them all going for so many years. He needed to go out into the streets, track down the kidnappers, revenge himself on those who had threatened his aunt and Louisa.
‘Well, Ryan . . .’ Dr Edwards was watching him in a curiously distant way, as if Ryan was a laboratory rat at a significant junction in a maze. ‘Are you going to fight?’
‘Yes, I’ll fight . . .’ Ryan placed the blue helmet firmly on his head. ‘But not for war. I’ll work for another ceasefire, doctor.’
It was then that he found himself facing the raised barrel of his own rifle. An expressionless Dr Edwards took his wrists, but it was some minutes before Ryan realised that he had been handcuffed and placed under arrest.
For an hour they drove south-east through the suburbs of Beirut, past the derelict factories and shantytowns, stopping at the UN checkpoints along the route. From his seat in the back of the armoured van, Ryan could see the ruined skyline of the city. Funnels of smoke leaned across the sky, but the sound of gunfire had faded. Once they stopped to stretch their legs, but Dr Edwards declined to talk to him. Ryan assumed that the physician suspected him of being involved with the conspirators who had broken the ceasefire. Perhaps Dr Edwards imagined that the whole notion of ceasefire had been a devious scheme in which Ryan had exploited his contacts among the young . . . ?
They passed through the second of the perimeter fences that enclosed the city, and soon after approached the gates of a military camp built beside a deserted sanatorium. A line of olive-green tents covered the spacious grounds. Arrays of radio antennae and television dishes rose from the roof of the sanatorium, all facing north-west towards Beirut.
The van stopped at the largest of the tents, which appeared to house a hospital for wounded guerrillas. But within the cool green interior there was no sign of patients. Instead they were walking through a substantial arsenal. Rows of trestle tables were loaded with carbines and machine-guns, boxes of grenades and mortar bombs. A UN sergeant moved among this mountain of weaponry, marking items on a list like the owner of a gun store checking the day’s orders.
The Complete Stories of J. G. Ballard Page 168