“Syria is a land of stalwart resistance. Whoever is for stalwart resistance must be for Syria. Syria is a land of liberation, and whoever is for liberation must be for Syria. Syria is a land of Arab nationalism and progress, and whoever is for Arab nationalism must be for Syria. Syria is a land of the Palestinian struggle, and whoever is for the Palestinian struggle must be for Syria. Any talk about liberating Palestine without Syria is ignorance and a deception of the masses.”
Title card:
On the same day that the Syrian president gave this speech, Lebanon’s mufti sent him the following appeal:
“Today, after the pressure caused by the crisis of hunger, thirst, fear and illness has grown intense, and spreading epidemics have come to threaten the lives of all the inhabitants of Beirut and its environs, not to mention the danger of spreading contagion throughout Lebanon . . . because of the continuation of the squalid 500-day war, and the tightening of the blockade around us from all sides, from land, sea and air.
“. . . We turn to you, demanding in the name of Muslim and Arab brotherhood, that you fulfill the call of duty to the human race and to Arab nationalism, namely:
“First – that you leave the international Damascus–Beirut road open to all convoys carrying supplies of food, medicine and fuel from brother Arab states through Syria.
“Secondly – that you prevent any threatening move that would block the arrival of ships to the harbors of Sidon and Tripoli . . .”
A separate title card:
Two days later . . .
The headquarters of the Socialist Progressive Party in Beirut. A crowd of journalists and politicians. Kamal Jumblatt, head of the party, holds a press conference. The Lebanese leader announces the establishment of a central political council with him as president that will undertake the functions of political leadership for the nationalist and progressive forces and parties in Lebanon.
In front of the Tel Zaatar camp. Crowds of soldiers. A group of Red Cross ambulances slowly approaches.
A newspaper headline: “Isolationist forces fire on the Red Cross delegation that attempted to evacuate the wounded from the Tel Zaatar camp.”
A newspaper headline: “TASS blames Saudi Arabia for what is happening in Lebanon.”
A newspaper headline: “The Saudi Industrial Services Company (SISCO) announces that the Middle East will likely settle down once the Palestinian resistance in Lebanon has been weakened.”
A newspaper headline: “For 3 days, Syrian forces have been unable to break through the lines of the Palestinian resistance in Bhamdoun.”
Title card:
On July 29 . . .
A newspaper headline: “Agreement in Damascus between the Palestinian resistance and Syria to end the fighting.”
A circle around a paragraph from the same newspaper: “The Syrian side confirmed its firm and ongoing position supporting the PLO as representative of the Palestinian people in their struggle against the Israeli enemy and on behalf of liberation; and confirmed that Syria was and will remain a base of the struggle for the people of Palestine . . . Likewise, the Palestinian side praised the position of the Arab nation of Syria with regard to the struggle of the Palestinian Arab people, the Palestinian cause, the assistance of the Syrian nation, and its support for the Palestinian resistance.”
Title card:
Two days later . . .
A newspaper headline dated July 31: “Evacuation of the wounded from Tel Zaatar. A Swedish doctor states that the number of killed at the camp has reached 1,400, and the number of injured 4,000.”
The Naba’a neighborhood near Beirut. A Phalangist militia fires bullets in every direction. The militia starts expelling residents from their homes.
A crossing-point between the Eastern and Western sectors, near the Museum. Hundreds of residents of the Naba’a district, expelled from East Beirut, arrive together. A narrow street that ends at an overturned bus. Barrels filled with sand. Broken pipes. Women carry everything they own on their heads and drag their children behind them. A girl is carrying a doll, and another carries a gas stove. Everyone advances to the end of the street where the barrier to West Beirut is located.
Title card:
On the fiftieth day of the siege of Tel Zaatar, Yasser Arafat sent letters to Arab leaders, holding them responsible for the fate of the camp. On the same day, the agreement was reached, through the Red Cross and Arab Security Forces, to complete the evacuation of 12,000 civilians from the camp, and to transport them to the Bekaa Valley or West Beirut.
Two days later, on August 12, 1976 . . .
Red Cross automobiles in front of Tel Zaatar. A truck carrying the emblem of the Arab Security Forces. Several women and children – no trace of a man among them – climb onto it. The street is covered with countless numbers of different kinds of shoes: traditional slippers, sandals, women’s shoes (high heels and flats). Another truck with sides made of interlaced slats, like trucks used for transporting animals.
In front of the Teachers’ College in West Beirut. Crowds. A weeping woman, another woman with torn clothes, and children step out of a small truck. Another weeping woman embraces two children.
The Arab University Hospital. An elderly woman leans over a wounded man with no legs and embraces him.
Title card:
During the evacuation of non-combatants, the Phalangists and Tigers assaulted the camp in large numbers. Fighting occurred between them and 300 Palestinian and Lebanese young men who refused to submit and continued to resist to the end. At the end of the day, it was announced that Tel Zaatar had fallen.
Chapter 15
The woman really was captivating: she was wrapped in a diaphanous cape that showed off her body’s charms. Below the photo I read these words: “The West, enraptured by the Orient and its exoticism. The Orient – like a magic wand, it can turn you into a woman of a thousand faces.”
I took my eyes off the advertisement, and went back to reading the news report about the elderly French philosopher Althusser, who had choked his wife. Then I put the newspaper to one side and picked up the phone.
I dialed the number of Dar al-Thaqafa Publishing, and found the line was busy, so I called Wadia in his office.
As soon as I heard his voice, I said, “The maid hasn’t come yet and I’d like to leave the house.”
“If she hasn’t come by now, then she won’t be coming today,” he explained. “Should I expect you for dinner?”
“I don’t think so. Antoinette and I have been invited to the house of a French acquaintance in the evening. We might go directly there from Fakahani.”
The sun was shining, making it a warm day, so I went out wearing only a wool sweater over my shirt, and slung my bag over my shoulder. Then I dialed the number for Dar al-Thaqafa again, and since it was still busy, I left the apartment.
I stood waiting for a car to take me to Antoinette’s office. An empty one stopped in front of me, so I asked the driver to take me to Ain Mreisseh.
The burly security guard was sitting at the entrance to the building, beside one of the armed guards. Reluctantly, he accompanied me upstairs, and handed me over to the secretary, who called Lamia to let her know, and asked me to wait.
I sat down on a seat facing her. I began looking over into the hallway, at the end of which was Lamia’s office. Her door was closed.
After a few moments, the door opened and she emerged. She was wearing a blouse patterned in magnificent colors with long, wide sleeves and gray velour pants. Her hair was plaited in two large braids, and she looked like a teenage girl.
She approached me, taking slow steps, with an absentminded look in her eye, as if she had been taken off-guard. She gave me her hand and forced a smile.
“Nice to see you,” she said by way of addressing me.
She turned back toward her office, and I walked behind her. At that moment I saw the hem of her blouse dangling over her pants.
The face of her friend who I had seen in the café looked up at me. She w
as sitting on a couch, with her legs crossed and sipping coffee.
Lamia headed toward her desk, walked around it, and then sat down, saying: “My friend Jamila. You’ve seen her before.”
I inclined my head toward her, walked to Lamia’s desk, and sat on the chair in front of it. I put my shoulder bag on the floor.
I looked over at Jamila and asked her, “Do you work in publishing, too?”
She smiled and shook her head.
“Close to publishing,” Lamia said. “She is a bank manager.”
I turned toward Lamia.
“I called you yesterday,” I said.
She shot a quick look at her friend. “I wasn’t at home,” she explained.
“I took the manuscript for your book from Lamia, and I’ll be reading it today,” Jamila said to me.
“Don’t worry,” Lamia quickly piped in. “I only have the last chapter left to read.”
“I’m not worried,” I said. “All I want is to finish up this matter before I travel.”
“When are you leaving?” Jamila asked me.
“Within a week.”
The secretary brought coffee, and I sipped it in silence, while Lamia occupied herself with the papers on her desk. Her friend got out a notebook from her purse, and began flipping through the pages. The vibrant red she had painted on her lips was well-suited to the shape of her broad face, and to the color of her wheat-brown skin. She looked to me at least ten years older than Lamia.
I finished my coffee, picked up my shoulder bag and stood up, while telling Lamia, “I have to be going now. I’ll call you later.”
She made no attempt to keep me from leaving, and didn’t see me to the door. She was content to merely shake my hand while she sat. With a nod of the head to her friend, I left her office.
I fought off an urgent desire for a drink, and took a taxi to Fakahani.
I found Antoinette in the editing room. I noticed that she had arranged her hair carefully, and done her nails in clear nail polish. She was wearing a tight woolen blouse that emphasized her small breasts.
I got my pen and paper ready and turned out the light. Then I took my place next to her in front of the Moviola. She touched the machine’s reel, and scenes dealing with the fall of Tel Zaatar passed before us, one after another.
She stopped the machine suddenly, and said, “Do you need to record the next section? It’s only the testimonies of a group of women who escaped from the massacre. They don’t need any voiceover commentary.”
I thought for a moment. “Maybe. But I should familiarize myself with the content of the testimonies, their rhythms, their length, and their connection to the scenes coming before and after. Getting to know them like this will determine the ending for the voiceover that comes before: whether it should be incorporated into them or end before them, with a climax or without one. I will record everything so I can work on it in my own time.”
“As you wish,” she replied.
The Fourth Part of the Film
Women in the prime of life or in middle age. Their clothes are simple. Their heads are covered in scarves knotted below their chin. Their voices are dry, with no trace of life in them. The camera stays motionless on each woman until she finishes her testimony.
Title card:
Umm Ali Salem, age 50.
“When they expelled us from Palestine, we went to Syria. Then we came to Tel Zaatar. We were always being chased away. The supervisor Abu Aboud from Lebanon’s Deuxième Bureau would eavesdrop on us from under the window. Afterwards, they imprisoned my husband because of the leaflets. All my sons joined the resistance when they were young, and they went to training sessions, and then carried weapons. I only have one son left. I used to participate in the illiteracy-eradication units that worked in the camp. The men of the Deuxième Bureau would often take my husband and torture him to make him tell them where the children were. They began coming every day to inspect the house and ask about the children. But all that changed after the resistance took over the supervision of the camp.
“During the siege, five of my sons died as martyrs in the camp. When we left Zaatar, I took with me the shirts that belonged to my martyred sons, so I could smell their precious scent . . . I learned that they dragged my husband: they tied his feet with a rope to separate cars, and then started driving.”
Title card:
Zaynab Umm Ali, age 40, mother of ten.
‘‘Abu Aboud met with me individually. One day, at 11 pm, he knocked on the door. I quickly opened it, and there was Abu Aboud, and George Hazini with him. The first one hit me and the second one shouted. ‘You coward,’ I told him. That’s when my children came out, asking, ‘What do you want with my mother?’ He took me to see Ahmad al-Azuri. Abu Ahmad beat me five times with a whip. I stayed there for eleven hours. I slept on the floor with my hands over my eyes . . . They kept me in jail with them for three days . . .
‘‘Then the resistance came and killed the agents. I began working in the young men’s military camp . . . When the siege of the camp began, a bomb landed, and made a martyr of my sick husband. It also made a martyr of my daughter while she was going to see her father . . . Suddenly Sobhi Iraqi and Hasan Shahrur came to the shelter and said, ‘We want some young men to fetch the martyr Namr,’ but no one moved. My grown son, who was sixteen, and I went and we removed the martyr Namr. On the way back, my only son was martyred. My son – there was nothing dearer to me than him, except Palestine, because he was my only son among nine daughters.’’
Title card:
Nuzha Hasan al-Duqi, age 65, mother of five sons and grandmother of ten.
“. . . When the events started, my son Ahmad, who was thirty-eight, returned from a trip. He was carrying a gift from a friend of his to his wife and sons in Jdaide, and he didn’t return. We found his body after three months in a morgue there.
“During the events, my son Jalal was martyred by a bomb. One day my daughter Fatum went to fill the water buckets and didn’t come back, since a bomb struck her and she was martyred instantly.
“When the shelter collapsed, my son Ali was working to remove the rubble. The isolationists aimed a projectile at him and he fell down and died a martyr.
“When the camp fell, my husband and his three sons and my grandsons went out. The isolationists blocked their way at the church, and stood my three sons up against the wall and began beating them with wooden clubs on their backs with all their strength until they fell down. And they killed one of my grandsons. I cried and screamed, but my grandchildren wanted me to be quiet so the gunmen wouldn’t take them . . . When we arrived at the hostel, they began having fun with us, and once they told us to run up to the third floor with a hail of bullets behind us. We would run and shove each other, hiding behind each other . . . Finally, they took us out to the street and made us get into trucks. I stood next to my husband, who clung to the truck’s metal railing . . . The gunmen brought out young men and killed them in groups in front of us. My husband cried; one of the gunmen noticed him and took him down from the truck. They began torturing the young men in front of him, then they killed him, and he fell to the ground. My grandchildren screamed in terror, so they fired bullets at us and we quickly got down from the truck, without thinking. My grandchildren were all lost, so here I am, living alone. I have no one left.”
Title card:
Su’ad Salih, age 42, mother of five sons.
“When the siege began, I had 10 kilograms of flour in my house, so I made dough out of it, baked it, and sent the bread to the fighters. I used to make tea and coffee for them at night. Then the electricity was cut, so we would make candles for the hospital. We got the wax from a nearby warehouse. My son would bring it and we would place it over the fire to melt it, then we would pour it into meat and sardine tins, and put a wick in it. After it hardened, we would cut the can and take the candle out. We got to be very good at it, and started taking X-ray images, rolling them up and tying them in place, and then we would pour the wax in. Afte
r pulling it apart, we would get a beautiful, slender candle . . .”
Title card:
Fatima Iwad, age 22, nurse.
“Ever since the siege began, I was working night and day to secure food and water for the wounded. Many of them were dying for lack of medicine. We had nothing to sterilize wounds with except water and salt. Ten days before the camp fell, we were waiting, one day after the next, for the arrival of the Red Cross to evacuate the wounded, but it only came three days later – after the camp had been cut off from the world for forty-two days . . . Around eighty wounded were evacuated, and the next day 150, and on the third day 750, along with several nursing infants suffering from dehydration.
“The night the camp fell, we were told that there were guarantees from the Red Cross and the Arab Security Forces to transport without objection those people living in the camp who surrendered. The next morning, we waited from 9.30 am, at the place where it was agreed that the Red Cross would be at 9 am. But during that time, the bombardment grew insanely intense, and the isolationists entered the camp. We were told that Red Cross trucks were in Dekwane to transport the wounded and civilians, so a group of us – nurses, along with several inhabitants – headed that way. But a barricade manned by Phalangists stood in our way: they searched us, while heaping curses on us. At the next barricade, the isolationists took the male nurses, tortured them, and killed them before our eyes . . .”
Title card:
Fatin Badran, age 23.
“I joined other female volunteers to establish a medical center in the fortified area, under the guidance of the doctors of Tel Zaatar. The night the fortified area fell into the hands of the isolationists, I was with my grandmother in the shelter. All the families in the shelter had Lebanese citizenship except for me and my grandmother. We became more afraid.
Beirut, Beirut Page 16
