Beirut, Beirut

by Sonallah Ibrahim

  In front of an oven of the Mahallet Abu Shakir neighborhood. A pile of used shoes, modern and traditional, are scattered near the wall. Near the Green Line. A wide pit has come to serve as a cemetery for Muslims. A pile of dead bodies recently thrown onto the pile. Men’s genitalia cut off and sticking out of their mouths.

  Title card:

  In May, an extremist group of Shia calling itself “The Knights of Ali” killed fifty people, among them a number of leftists.

  Young men run, carrying wrapped loaves of bread on their shoulders. A street corner. A woman in a short skirt runs toward a car where an armed man is taking cover.

  The front page of a Lebanese newspaper. Main headline: “Phalangist leader confesses”. Another headline: “Saeed Naeem al-Asmar admits that he worked as a sniper in the Chiyah neighborhood, and says that it was armed Phalangists under the leadership of Joseph Abu Aasi who caused the massacre of Ain al-Remanneh.” A third headline: “al-Asmar accuses officials of the Deuxième Bureau and others from Jordanian intelligence of aiding the Phalangists in their military operations.”

  A headline in the al-Nahar newspaper: “Israeli artillery bombards the south.”

  A headline in the al-Safeer newspaper: “Washington discloses US arms deal recently sent to Lebanon by way of the American Embassy in Beirut.”

  Another headline in the same paper: “Interpol warns of the arrival in Beirut of 7 European terrorists acting as Zionist agents.”

  The village of Bteghrine. Slogans on the walls of houses: “All the idiots support the Palestinian revolution.” Another slogan: “Down with Palestine.”

  An Israeli bombardment of the city of Tyre, by land, sea and air.

  A newspaper headline: “Kissinger heads to Egypt on his 11th shuttle diplomacy tour.”

  Newspaper headlines: “Signing of the Sinai Agreement between Egypt and Israel on September 1.” “Agence France Presse says that Washington is the biggest winner in this deal.” “Yasser Arafat warns: ‘The agreement leaves the Syrians and Palestinians standing alone and will lead to another war. Israel and America are making a delusional mistake if they believe that the Egyptian Army will stand aside and do nothing while the Palestinian revolution risks being wiped out.’” “The Soviet Union officially asks from the United States that the Geneva Conference be invited to convene with the participation of the PLO.”

  The first page of the magazine al-Karazah, published by Egypt’s Coptic Church. A photograph of Abba Samuel, in charge of foreign relations for the Egyptian Church, in a meeting with members of the World Council of Churches.

  Headline: “Investigations by the US Congress have exposed the connection between the World Council of Churches, which John Foster Dulles helped found, with the CIA.”

  A paragraph from an article in a West German magazine about the Egyptian Church. A photo of Abba Samuel, with this caption below it: “Abba Samuel, one of the most prominent leaders in the Coptic Church, played a key role in helping members of wealthy Coptic families that were harmed by confiscation orders and Nasserist nationalizations, taking advantage of his wide-ranging international connections, especially in West Germany. For many of them, he obtained significant postings in foreign business and banking institutions, which Sadat’s ‘Open Door’ policy opened up for them.”

  Beirut. Journalists surround Rashid Karami, the Lebanese prime minister, in a white suit and colorful tie with a grin on his face. He is telling the journalists: “President Frangieh is a great leader and I am confident that the final years of his presidency will go down in history.”

  Headline of a Lebanese newspaper: “Armed Maronites from Zgharta, the stronghold of President Frangieh, take 25 hostages from Tripoli, stronghold of Prime Minister Rashid Karami, killing 12 of them.”

  Headline of another newspaper: “Deadly outburst in 3 cities in the north. Phalangists demand deployment of the army. Egyptian ‘Voice of the Arabs’ radio attacks the Palestinian resistance and calls on the Lebanese Army to be deployed on the streets in order to strike it.’’

  A circle around a paragraph from an editorial in the Egyptian newspaper, Akhbar al-Yawm: “. . . the current clashes are part of a conspiracy of rejection in order to frustrate the peaceful arrangement between Egypt and Israel with the goal of creating a situation that forces Syria to get involved, and if that happens, then Israel will be forced to get involved.’’

  An abandoned street in Beirut. Trash and barrels everywhere. Padlocks smashed and thrown down in front of closed-up bars. An open door to a house. Inside are empty, plundered rooms. A thief carrying an electric chandelier runs down the street, chased by members of the Palestinian Armed Struggle forces.

  Fires blaze at the Rivoli Cinema.

  The presidential palace in Damascus. Rashid Karami ascends the stairs.

  Part of a meeting in Beirut: Zuheir Mohsen – leader of the Palestinian al-Sa’iqa organization that is loyal to Syria – wearing a colorful silk shirt and white pants, holds in his hand a deluxe narghile; Abu al-Hasan, Fatah’s security official; Yasser Abed Rabbo, one of the leaders of the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine; Colonel Antoine Dahdah, Lebanon’s security chief.

  Title card:

  Ceasefire agreement, but Phalangists have caused the situation in Zahlé to explode.

  Beirut. Martyrs’ Square. The rubble of the al-Arabi Hotel with a human leg visible in it. A man lying face-down in the entranceway of a bar; in its glass façade boxes of toilet paper can be seen. Blood stains the man’s back.

  A blindfolded man is walking between two gunmen.

  Headlines of Lebanese newspapers: “307 kidnapped and 200 released. 21 bodies found.” “Extremist Palestinian group attacks Beirut Airport. 3 killed. Leadership of the resistance movement disavows the attack and the Palestinian officials hand over one of the attackers.”

  Trucks carrying armed men leave a village and set off on the back-country road. They pass a village and open fire on its homes.

  Beirut. An empty street. An old man with no teeth in a full suit is walking with a bag clutched to his chest. A sniper’s bullet hits him in the leg and he falls to the ground. He lifts his head and looks around him, then crawls, calling for help, without letting go of the bag. A man protected by the doorway of a neighboring house ties a rope into a lasso and tosses it to the old man without daring to stick his head out of the doorway. He pulls the old man with the rope far out of the sniper’s range. The bag falls from the old man’s hand and loaves of bread roll out of it.

  Fire blazes in the old Souq Sursock. The destruction extends to the Vegetable Souq, the Opera House Souq and the Goldsmiths’ Souq. Women and children in cheap, colorful clothes dig through the piled rubble of souqs and shops. Some armed men join them in the digging. Young men carry piles of clothes and wrapped bundles. Others spread out different items for sale on the sidewalks of Hamra and Raouché.

  A house in the Barjawi neighborhood with its walls pierced by shells. The ruins of the Asseily Textile Factory in Chiyah. A Mercedes with its rear end transformed into a deep concavity because of a bomb. Another wrecked car that a gunman climbed onto in order to jump through the window of a grand home. The rubble of a house. The blackened frames of beds, clothes hangers and chairs.

  A car speeding over Fu’ad Shihab Bridge, heading toward the Christian district of Achrafieh. A sniper’s bullet hits the driver: he smashes into the bridge’s barrier and the car juts out over the water.

  People surround a dazed woman whose head is covered with a handkerchief. Right beside her is a dead man flat on the ground.

  A Mercedes. Its driver is busy tying the suitcases of its passengers to the roof. A family of two women, a man and two children are carrying suitcases and walking on a dust-covered street.

  The façade of a demolished building, the ground floor of which is a large, closed store carrying the sign “Installation of All Kinds of Glass and Crystal”. A room inside the building with its walls pulverized by rockets. A child’s head in the middle of the
rubble.

  A newspaper headline: “Jumblatt announces that Phalangists alone spend 1 million lira a day for military call-up. Their lowest-paid fighters get 500 to 900 lira, a barricades squadron chief gets 2,000, and a neighborhood commander gets 3,000, in addition to the wages of French mercenaries and their insurance costs.”

  Yasser Arafat in military clothes puts his hand on Camille Chamoun’s arm and smiles with affection. Chamoun is frowning.

  Main headline in a Lebanese newspaper: “Agreement to remove barricades and gunmen in battle zones in the capital.”

  Title card:

  Beirut. Martyrs’ Square. Four days later . . .

  A 21mm mortar gun shoots out flame. Fire and smoke. People hurry to the shelters. Women in nightgowns and barefoot men.

  A headline in al-Safeer: “Phalangists and Tigers pound the Lazaria district; central Beirut burns.”

  The Beirut skyline at night. The rockets flying into the air between neighborhoods light it up.

  The radio: “Most Beirut streets are unsafe.”

  A long commercial street in West Beirut. The shops are closed. No trace of a human being. The residential apartments over the shops seem abandoned by their inhabitants. Sandbag barriers on both sides of the street. Shells are launched back and forth between the two sides. A white flag is raised above each barrier and the killing comes to a halt. A gunman walks forward from each side carrying the white flag. The two meet in the middle of the street. They have a brief discussion, then a number of their colleagues join them. They split up into groups of two, one from each side, and proceed to break into the shops on both sides of the street. Gunmen move the contents of the shops outside. Clothes, shoes, electrical appliances and food are gathered into a big pile in the middle of the street. The plundered goods are divvied up between the two sides. Men from each side carry their share to their positions. The fighting resumes.

  The aristocratic Christian neighborhood of al-Kantari Street burns. Smoke covers Beirut’s sky. Flames consume the Austrian Myrtom House restaurant. An Alfa Romeo burns in the middle of the street. Flames consume an old Ottoman-style building. Men and women push each other in the doorways of houses, coming and going, as they carry suitcases and bundles, tossing them into trucks and cars.

  The staircase of a luxury building. Gunmen are carrying out Persian carpets. The entrance of a residence: its expensive furniture appears to be smashed into little pieces.

  Title card:

  On October 26, the Council of Ministers settled on a ceasefire agreement.

  Range Rovers painted black carry about twenty masked gunmen from the Tiger militia loyal to Chamoun, the interior minister. The cars stop in front of the St George Hotel. The gunmen begin unloading boxes of weapons and ammunition. Inside the hotel the employees begin gathering up the carpets.

  Title card:

  On October 29, a new ceasefire agreement was reached, guaranteed by both the president and prime minister.

  Black paramilitary cars blast their sirens as they go. Phalangist gunmen in black hats and outfits jump out of them, carrying machineguns. One of them runs from one corner to another with a pair of binoculars swinging on his chest. The gunmen shout at passersby, then start firing in every direction.

  Title card:

  On November 1, a new ceasefire agreement was reached. The Phalangists and Tigers broke it three minutes later.

  Two days later, representatives of the parties and factions fighting each other met again and agreed to put an end to displays of arms and to return all hostages.

  The next day . . .

  Main newspaper headline: “Shifting barricades kill more than 50 citizens because of their identity. Dozens of bodies discovered. 2 bombs tossed from a car at the headquarters of the Social Nationalist Party.”

  Main headline of another newspaper: “The nationalist movement and the Palestinian resistance accuse the Deuxième Bureau of working to violate every truce by undertaking terrorist acts against all parties.”

  Main headline of a third newspaper: “Liaison council made up of civilian and military experts representing NATO acts in the operations room of the Lebanese Ministry of Defense.”

  Tripoli. A press conference in the city’s public hospital convened by Captain Iskender Nicola al-Maalouf. “I have been given a mission,” said al-Maalouf, “by Jules Bustani, head of the Deuxième Bureau, along with other officers, to throw bombs in scattered locations in Tripoli for the sake of fomenting discord.”

  Egypt’s al-Ahram newspaper. Main headline: “Vice President Hosni Mubarak announces that it was the Communists that precipitated the events in Lebanon, and that there is no national movement, but rather merely a cover for international Communist goals.”

  Cairo, the People’s Council Building. Dr Sufi Abu Talib, president of the Council, confirms that there is a directive from the “believing president”, Anwar Sadat, to make Islamic sharia a basis for the nation’s laws, so that it applies to non-Muslims. He tells a journalist that there is a bill coming to the Council concerning “apostasy rulings”, that will condemn to death by hanging anyone who leaves Islam.

  Beirut. Representatives of the warring parties sitting around a table. The attendees exchange lists of the names of those who have been kidnapped. They use the phone to arrange the release of large numbers of them. They all explain to reporters that they have nothing to do with the incidents of kidnapping.

  A Lebanese newspaper headline: “Israeli force crosses the borders, erects a barricade and seizes Lebanese citizens.”

  A circle around a paragraph in the Washington Post: “The Lebanese left emerged from the most recent battle in Beirut militarily stronger, but less cohesive. In seven months of fighting, it was able to achieve a clear victory over the Phalangists.”

  Rashid Karami to reporters: “The ratio of Muslim representation in parliament must be adjusted, and made half.”

  Lebanese radio: “To our families: We are fine. Please reasure us that you are also fine.”

  Title card:

  The first estimated numbers of victims in the battles: 8,000 killed, and 40,000 wounded.

  Chapter 11

  Antoinette wasn’t in her office when I went to see her the next day. The door was closed, so I was forced to wait for her in the editing room. I spent the time reading newspapers and magazines. Then I pulled the telephone over to where I was sitting, and reached into my top jacket pocket where I usually keep my notebook. The pocket was empty, so I searched the rest of my pockets, and in my carry-on. I suddenly remembered that I had put it on the bedside table when I was getting dressed, and left it there.

  Antoinette arrived an hour later, accompanied by a handsome young man two or three years younger than she. Her face was flushed with emotion. She apologized for being late, and introduced her companion as a Syrian artist. Then she went to make coffee.

  The young man had with him a petition directed at the Syrian government demanding that it release a number of leftist intellectuals who had recently been arrested in Damascus. There were a number of signatures beneath the petition. He asked me to add my signature, so I did.

  We drank coffee, then we carried the film canisters to the editing room. The young man left us so he could keep gathering signatures, and we set to work.

  The Second Part of the Film

  The front page of Lebanon’s an-Nahar newspaper. A photo of President Ford. The main headline: “US president says: ‘The United States will do all it can to preserve freedom and democracy in Lebanon.’”

  The New York Times. A circle around a paragraph from an article: “. . . Western arms are inundating Lebanon’s right wing, and they are being financed by means of the Maronite Church and Saudi Arabia.”

  Beirut Airport. Couve de Murville, the French envoy, walks down the stairway from an airplane.

  A circle around a paragraph from the French magazine, L’Express: “France, sponsor of the pact, is coming today to confirm that it hasn’t abandoned the Christians.” Another paragrap
h from the same article: “The French envoy alludes to the Palestinians’ responsibility for Lebanon’s crisis.”

  A page from a Swedish magazine with a photo of several young men in beards, in white robes, who are chasing other young men in shirts and pants. One of the bearded men brandishes his “deerhorn”-style knife. In the background, the Cairo University clock tower appears. The camera focuses on a caption below the photo, as its Arabic translation appears on the screen: “A Double-Edged Weapon.”

  A circle around a paragraph from the same page, with its translation on the screen: “Anwar Sadat listened to the advice of his millionaire friend Osman Ahmed Osman, and delegated him and governor Uthman Isma’il to arm several Muslim extremists, with whom he could intimidate his opponents and curry favor with the Islamic movement in the country. What Sadat forgot is that knives are double-edged swords.”

  The front page of an Israeli newspaper. A photo of Shimon Peres, Israeli minister of defense, beneath a headline taken from a statement by him, saying: “The Lebanese Civil War is a religious war and proof of the impossibility of establishing a Palestinian state in which all religions have a share.”

  The Lebanese newspaper, al-Nahar. A top front-page headline: “The Kaslik Council urges a declaration of Lebanese neutrality toward the Arabs and Israel.”

  A squadron of Israeli planes circle at low altitude over fig and olive orchards. Other squadrons pass over the refugee camps flying Palestinian and Lebanese flags.

  The main headline of al-Safeer: “30 Israeli planes fly over southern Lebanon. 60 killed in the refugee camps and villages and 140 wounded; 70 homes destroyed.”

  The United Nations building. A meeting of the Security Council. In front of one of the seated people is a PLO banner.

  An American broadcaster, speaking quickly: “For the first time, the PLO, despite vehement American opposition, is participating in Security Council discussions concerning Israeli hostilities.”