It’s five o’clock. He steps out into the morning’s half-light. The devout meander toward the local mosque for dawn prayers. He recognizes Hoda’s father, leading some young men to prayer, and ducks into an alleyway to avoid discovery. Marc resurfaces to join a small column of stragglers, leaving them when they pass by a café. He reaches into his pocket to pay for the use of the café’s phone. At first, the owner refuses. He too is late for prayers. Besides, what is this foreigner doing in Sabra? When he sees the fresh burns on Marc’s neck and detects his French accent, he understands. News of Marc’s heroism has spread quickly.
“Two minutes,” he says.
The phone rings once, twice, three times before his friend’s groggy voice answers.
“Evan, it’s Marc.”
“What the fuck, mate? It’s five-fifteen in the morning!”
“I know. I need you to drive me to Damour.”
“Are you out of your fucking mind! That place is crawling with Phalangists. And you’re hardly in their good books.”
“I need to report what is going to happen there.”
“What is going to happen there is that those bastards are going to drag you into the street and shoot you like a dog.”
“Evan, do this for me!”
“Fuck, mate. Okay, where are you?”
Marc looks up at the sign on the building. Café of the Return. He asks the owner for the cross streets and repeats them slowly over the phone.
“Got it! It’s near Hoda’s place, isn’t it?”
“Yes!”
“I’ll be there in forty minutes. Hold tight.”
Marc looks around the deserted streets. The worshippers have all entered their tiny mosque. A stray dog stops to sniff some discarded vegetables and then wanders off. The streets have an eerie silence to them.
Evan’s Peugeot pulls up to the café. Marc steps out. In the back-seat of the car are two other men, cameras around their necks. Both look severely hung over. Marc hesitates.
“I didn’t realize you were bringing others with you.”
“Safety in numbers. Besides, you caught us in the middle of partying. It would’ve been impolite not to invite my guests to come along for the joy ride.”
Marc looks at the three men in the car. They’re unshaven, their clothes are rumpled and even from several feet away, he can smell the whiskey on them.
“Come on, get in!”
Marc walks to the passenger side, opens the door, sits and feels a hand on his shoulder. He cringes from the pain. The burns are still healing.
“Hi Marc, Remember me, Martin Riley, Irish Post.”
Of course, Riley, the Irishman with a big heart for the Palestinians and notorious for his drinking and philandering.
“And this is Owen Sharp. He’s a stringer for the Baltimore Sun. Evan gave us a tip that you’re onto something big.”
Marc stares at the men, unsure how much he should disclose.
“They’re good journalists,” Evan says reassuringly.
“I know, but I wasn’t expecting a posse.”
“Riley was the one who got your photos to the Nouvel Observateur,” Evan says. “You owe him.”
“Correction,” Riley says. “We owe you. Those photos woke up the world. Now everyone is clamouring for more news on Lebanon.”
“What have you got?” Owen asks.
“I overheard something.”
“And?”
“Today, Arafat and his allies are launching their big push on Damour. They plan to overrun the town by noon and avenge Karantina. No prisoners are to be taken.”
“Even the civilian population?”
“No, the order is to spare them, but the fear is that the fighters won’t hold back. Too much Muslim blood has been shed.”
The silence is jarring. Both journalists had filed stories on the massacres in Karantina, but neither had been allowed to visit the slum. Their papers had re-run Marc’s photos in the absence of fresh ones. Now, they could be in the front row of another atrocity. The world is watching Lebanon, and they know that if they break the story of a new bloodbath, it will again be front-page news. They also know the risks. Both have good ties to the PLO, but in the heat of battle, front-line fighters are unpredictable.
Evan says: “So folks, are you in?”
Murmurs greet him with a cautious affirmative.
Marc looks out the window. He can see Palestinian fighters climbing into trucks. Black-and-white keffiyehs for Fatah, red-and-white for the Popular Front. Syrian-plated trucks with the Sa’iqa thunderbolt on the doors pull up beside the PLO fighters. It will be only minutes before they run into the first Phalangist checkpoint. Driver and passengers confer on whether to risk the checkpoint or hang back and follow the PLO fighters into the town. So far in the war, checkpoints on both sides have given journalists safe passage. Marc might be a liability though. His photos of the Dekwaneh killings have infuriated the Maronites. Riley asks him if he has a small photo of himself. Marc takes out his card for the French cultural centre and pulls off the photo in it. The Irishman fishes out a plastic badge from his bag and pries it open with a Swiss knife. He swaps the badge’s photo for the one that Marc has just given him. Marc glances at it—“Richard Blacksmith, Leeds Telegraph.”
“I always keep a backup press pass. The militias have a bad habit of confiscating them.”
“Richard Blacksmith?”
“A friend in Leeds.”
They’re soon out of the city’s southern slums. The mulberry bushes grace the mountainside. The car rides to the right to avoid oncoming trucks. It skirts the slope plunging down to the rocky shoreline. Damour comes into view against the aquamarine of the placid Mediterranean. The town’s reputation as one of the prettiest on the coast is well earned. The steeple of Notre Dame de Damour and then of the five other Maronite churches bear witness to centuries of Christianity. The old palace looms over the town. There’s a serene beauty, one that has long survived the guns of war.
The militiamen at the checkpoint barely look at the journalists’ identity cards. Why should they? What danger could these foreigners be, with everything else happening? The defenders look haggard. Since the news of the Karantina massacre, they’ve been on full alert for reprisals. Now they seem resigned to their fate. Eyes hollowed out as if their souls have already departed. Honour-bound to make a last stand.
The journalists drive to Saint Elias Church. The priest is attempting to calm his parishioners. When they jump out the car, the women run up to them, crying: “Sauvez-nous!—Save us! Ils vont nous tous tuer!—They are going to kill all of us!” The priest introduces himself as Father Gabriel. He recognizes Marc from the photos in the newspaper and pulls him aside.
“You’re Monsieur Taragon.”
“Yes.”
“You have connections to the Palestinians?”
“I know some.”
“Will you take the women and children under your protection?”
Marc looks at the group. More are coming to the church. Soon there’ll be over a hundred.
“I can try. What about you?”
“I’m going to take our young men’s confessions.”
The priest turns his back to his parishioners and marches up the highway, past where the older men of the town are erecting a new barricade. Some carry old hunting rifles. One or two have a new Kalashnikov. They’re not prepared to let their sons die alone.
Evan pulls on Marc’s sleeve. “This is suicide. Let’s get out of here now!”
Riley is taking notes from the women and children. Their names. The names of their loved ones at the barricades. Owen is snapping photos like a madman. A sudden artillery barrage from the mountainside sends them scrambling for cover. The gunfire and then the approaching war cries unnerve them. They have a clear view of the road north of Damour. Scores of trucks are now barrelling toward the barricades. From the mountainside, sharpshooters are picking off the defenders like flies. Hundreds of Shia and Sunni militiamen are entering the town
from the south. The Phalangists’ defences are crumbling, but their men hold their positions until they’re overwhelmed by superior fire-power. Some town people have gone to the beach in hopes of escaping the worst of the fighting. Marc watches in horror as the Palestinian fighters approach one group there and separate the men and older boys from the women and children. They push them into a circle a hundred metres from the women and force them to their knees. Each is asked a question. Some are then shot and others are spared. Later Marc learns that the Palestinians have killed only the Maronites, sparing the town’s other Christians.
Father Gabriel comes into view again. An artillery shell hits a truck of Phalangist reinforcements sent to confront the Palestinians. He rushes up the hill to administer the last rites. The invading Palestinian fighters pay no notice to the priest as they drive by. But a pair of Japanese Red Army fighters in red-and-white keffiyehs jump out of a truck. They approach the priest. He looks up at them and crosses himself. They sling their Kalashnikovs over their shoulders and lift him up. They march the priest up the hill, stopping at each of the town’s dying defenders long enough for him to administer the wounded fighters the sacraments. Then they finish them off.
Later, Marc learns from Abdullah that the Japanese are two brothers from Nagasaki. Raised as Christians, they had once contemplated joining the priesthood but became instead revolutionaries. In later battles, the brothers would repeat this ritual of finding a priest to drag along as they dispatch the mortally wounded. The Palestinians would name them the Mala’ikat al-Maut—the Angels of Death.
Evan’s cajoling Riley, Owen, and Marc to head for the car when an artillery shell blasts a crater beside the Peugeot, sending it flying onto its side. Suddenly, it’s clear that there’s no escape from the advancing fighters. The local women gather around them, encouraging their children to cling to the journalists’ legs. It’s in this tangled mass of humanity that the Palestinian fighters find them. An officer walks up and asks one question.
“Are there men here?”
“No,” Marc answers.
“Yallah,” the officer says to his men, marching them off toward the town’s centre.
Owen races after the officer and asks in broken Arabic for permission to accompany him, but the man raises his pistol and tells him to leave. He then shouts at Marc to take the women and children to the north edge of the town. And so begins a trek led by three foreign journalists and a diplomat of one hundred women and children. When the women walk past the slain Phalangist militiamen, many their sons and husbands, the wailing becomes unbearable. It draws the attention of some newly arrived Palestinian fighters. The women cower in fear as a gigantic man approaches them. Marc immediately recognizes Abdullah ‘Akkawi.
“How did you get here?” Abdullah says. “We were looking all over for you! Never mind. You need to leave.”
“Can you help us get these women and children to East Beirut?”
“Yes. Wait here. We can bring in buses. It will take some time.”
“Fine. We’ll wait with them.”
“Walk first beyond that bend and stay out of sight. I’ll leave some men with you. Be careful.”
With that, Abdullah leads his men down the hill into the battle.
The winter sun offers little warmth to the huddled women and children. Then the rain starts. The curbside on the highway turns to mud. Marc goes to each woman to ask her name and the names of her children. They also give him the names of their husbands and older sons, and beg him to find them. Marc promises to do so. He feels his heart wrench. These women, are they different from his mother, who escaped Franco’s Spain, or from the refugee women in Sabra? He knows he’ll find their husbands, but he doubts any will be alive.
Three hours pass. The women have no more tears to shed. They wander back to the crest of the hill where they can see their town. The guns go silent. Black smoke rises. Damour is burning. A woman becomes hysterical with grief. Others run up to drag her back. No one wants to attract the attention of the invaders.
Finally, the buses arrive. Red Crosses and Crescents are painted on their doors. Out of the first bus jumps Marwan Kanaan. Behind him, Hoda and her brother Nabil. A young girl follows them out of the bus. It’s Marwan’s cousin Selima, Marc later learns. Each wears a white armband. Marc embraces Hoda, who scolds him for disappearing that morning. Marwan tells Marc of the planned evacuation. The buses will be met at the entrance of Sabra by a truck of Social Nationalists and Palestinian fighters who will escort them to the Museum crossing. From there the women and children will walk to the Phalangist lines.
“I’ll stay with the buses,” Marc says, now holding Hoda’s hand in his.
“Fine, Owen and I will head back to Damour to cover the rest of this disaster,” Riley says. “Marwan, would you take this film to Sarkossian’s to be developed? Marc, can you take our notes to our press office? Ask for Sarah. She’ll transcribe them and get them off to our editors. There’s still time to make the evening papers in Europe.”
“Give them to me. It’ll be faster,” Evan says. “I’ll use them to alert the embassies. Maybe the Americans can talk some sense into Arafat.”
Hoda looks at the men, and then at the women and children climbing into the buses. She feels shame, a sense of guilt at what’s happening in Damour. She knows that the journalists’ reports will tarnish the image of the Palestinian cause, but she admires them for bringing the horrors of this war to the attention of the world. It is the right thing to do. She watches the men embrace and leave, and then slips her arm around Marc to pull him toward the buses.
Chapter
23
Beirut – Winter 1976
THE KARANTINA BURNS have left horrendous scars. Kressmann tells Marc that he’s done this to himself by returning to work too soon. There’s nothing more Kressmann can do. Hoda doesn’t mind. Her beloved’s scars are badges of honour—proof to her parents that he’s a hero, a man to be admired. When Marc also helps Nabil obtain a scholarship to study art in France, they consent to her seeing him. Secretly, they hope Marc will convert. They ask Nabil to speak to him of Islam. Nabil says he will but doesn’t. After Akil’s assault of his sister, he has quietly ceased to tolerate the moral hypocrisy of the believers.
Marc Taragon’s standing with Hoda’s parents is helped when his blow-by-blow telling of the Lebanese civil war rockets him to celebrity status in France. In Lebanon, his even-handedness in denouncing the excesses of both sides eventually earns him begrudging respect from most of the country’s power-brokers. For the Palestinians, he becomes their conscience, the brake on their desire for revenge. For moderate Maronites, his articles bolster their calls for restraint.
Marc rents a room from Riley in the old Jewish quarter of Beirut. The synagogue is just down the street, open to the handful of Jews who venture to worship there under the protection of Fatah fighters. Arafat has sent out word that no Jew in Beirut is to be harmed. There Marc notices Abdullah ‘Akkawi’s frequent visits.
One Sunday afternoon, a quiet day, Marc turns the corner to see Abdullah enter the main gate of the synagogue. It’s too late to greet his friend. Marc decides to wait outside for him to reappear. The guards know Marc well and appreciate his small gifts of cigarettes, but they will of course not let him into the compound when their commander is there. As Marc offers the guards a new pack of Marlboros, he overhears Abdullah speaking to the rabbi just inside the wall.
“Shalom, my son,” the old rabbi says. “It has been too long.”
“Rabbi, I was here just last week.”
“Oh yes, I’m becoming forgetful. Forgive me.”
“I’m worried. You’re one of the last Jews to stay in Beirut. I can get you safe passage to leave if you want.”
“No, there are others here who I must attend to.”
“I haven’t seen them for quite a while.”
“Don’t worry, they’re still here. They’re just reluctant to come to the synagogue with the guards outside, so I visit them in their
homes.”
“Do you have everything you need?”
“I could use news of those who have left.”
“All I know is that the community in Montreal is opening a new synagogue soon. And those who have gone to Israel are allowing themselves to be used for propaganda purposes.”
“I’m sad to hear that. Lebanon is their home. When the war is over, I hope that they will all return.”
“Rabbi, that may never happen. It’s safe in Canada. You should go there.”
“No, I must stay.”
“As you wish, but please don’t leave the synagogue again.”
“My son, do you remember the Hebrew I taught you?”
“Yes, you taught me well.”
“Wait a minute! I’ve something for you.”
The rabbi returns with a piece of cloth.
“I hear you have a son. I’d like to give this to you for him.”
Abdullah unravels the cloth. Embroidered in Hebrew are the words of Maimonides, one of the greatest thinkers in the Jewish and Islamic worlds:
Great indeed is peace, for as much as the purpose for which the whole of the Torah was given is to bring peace upon the world, as it is said: “Its ways are ways of pleasantness, and all its paths are peace.”
Abdullah thinks about the words “all its paths are peace.” He wishes that all who study the Torah would come to the same conclusion, but he knows that that will never be so. He’ll give the cloth to his son, and teach him the goodness that still resides in the hearts of many of his grandmother’s people. He turns to the rabbi.
“I need to join my men now but, next Shabbat, I’ll return with my son for your blessing. After that, you should leave for your own safety.”
Quill of the Dove Page 13
