Jericho Mosaic jq-4

by Edward Whittemore

  Or on a sunny winter weekend as the two of them sat side by side in overcoats on Halim's verandah, a bottle of brandy between their thronelike chairs, Ziad would suddenly interrupt their silent drinking with another terrified giggle.

  In Lebanon they say that Syrian torture is considered the cruellest in the Middle East, he whispered. But how do people arrive at such conclusions? Is there a way to measure these things? What of our brothers the Iraqis who also have a progressive Baath party in power? Their president is known as the butcher of Baghdad, and doesn't that mean progress is everywhere? . . . Why do I fear Naji and the Maronites so much? Are they worse than anyone else? It's irrational, I know, but fear's like that. It starts with something specific and becomes general, which is called anxiety. Which is my state of mind, precisely. When are the Israelis going to come in and take Lebanon off our hands? Isn't it time for the Americans to fly by and bomb it into the Stone Age? Aren't the Russians even a little interested? Could the French be talked into taking it back?

  Doesn't anyone want it? . . .

  Halim didn't see Ziad often that last winter. They were away from Damascus at different times, or Halim was too busy when he was in Damascus. But Halim did see Ziad in Lebanon once during those last months of his friend's life, the only time that ever happened.

  It was in the mountains north of Beirut. Halim had gone to a village stronghold to meet a Maronite sub-chieftain who was an enemy of Naji. The man had dealings with the Syrians and Halim was there for Colonel Jundi, under the cover of some suitable business, to find out more about a certain Syrian intelligence officer. As he was led into the villa he saw a row of men sitting on a bench in an anteroom, waiting their turn, each man with a briefcase between his feet. One of them was Ziad. Ziad looked up and quickly looked down again, staring hard at the floor. His face was wet with sweat. In his heavy old winter suit he looked like a poor petitioner from the village, some tenant farmer who had put on his best clothes and come to beg the landlord for an extra tenth of his crop.

  Halim kept on walking. He was ushered into the sub-chieftain's library and had his meeting. He was asked to stay for lunch, but lunch in Lebanon could take three or four hours and he gave an excuse. The house was richly furnished with expensive carpets and furniture. There were gardens and a swimming pool. It was the kind of mountain retreat that became known as a summer palace in Lebanon, if the owner managed to shoot his way to the top in Beirut.

  Later, Ziad gave an account of that day to Halim.

  He had been sweating heavily in the anteroom because he was wearing long underwear. It was cold in the mountains in the winter and he had to wear long underwear to keep warm on the trip up to the potentate's village. But when he finally reached the potentate's waiting room, naturally it was hot. Potentates were rich and their houses were well-heated. Sometimes he had to wait for hours and his long underwear began to smell. At least it began to smell to him. As for his old suit, that already smelled of a thousand lonely nights in Damascus and Beirut and the back streets of poor Lebanese mountain villages, all those places where he had spent the last ten years of his life as a messenger . . . watching life. Because that was what he did, wasn't it? He was always looking at life from the outside and was never a part of it. He was always peeking in at it and yearning to be in there somewhere, clumsy in the way he came across to people, awkward and out of place and inept. There was no denying that, was there? A whole decade of his life spent carrying messages to Lebanon in fear and loathing, always hiding inside himself and wishing for something better, damning them all because he was trapped, terrified when anyone looked at him or spoke to him and asked him who he was . . . Who am I? I'm Ziad, the anonymous failed spy from Damascus. Before that I was an anonymous failed whore of a journalist, and before that I was a boy sitting in a tiny cavelike room above the souk in Damascus, dreaming of the world, dreaming of being someone when I grew up. But it didn't work out that way and I never did become someone, and you might as well shoot me now. That's who I am. . . . So finally, after waiting and sweating and waiting some more in the sub-chieftain's anteroom, a man came in and looked at Ziad. He was a young man about half Ziad's age, a junior thug. He laughed arrogantly and came striding up to Ziad and slapped a Lebanese pound-note on Ziad's wet forehead. The pound-note stuck there, glued to Ziad's skin, and Ziad knew he was being called into the presence. He was next. The chief thug would see him now. Ziad got to his feet, feeling weak and sick and ruined. He shuffled forward, thinking: this is me, this is my life. He kept swallowing, trying not to throw up out of fear. His feet made squishing sounds in his shoes. Cold sweat was running down his arms, his legs. The pound-note was still stuck to his forehead and what was he supposed to do with it? Was it safe to peel it off and hand it back to the junior thug, or would that be an insult? Perhaps he was supposed to go inside this way and appear in front of the chief thug with the money glued to his forehead. A kind of sign: I'm a whore and I sell myself to get by in the world. He knew that once he was inside he had to cringe and look frightened in front of the chief thug, but that was easy. That was the way he felt. But what about the rest of it? Different thugs liked different kinds of obeisance. How should he behave with this one? Should he do a little dance of excitement, like a boy who had to make water? Should he grin and joke that he smelled like a soggy ram left out alone in the rain too long? Or should he compliment the chief thug on his French cologne and his excellent taste in carpets looted from Beirut homes? No, that was all haphazard. Better to fall back on basic local behavior when meeting a Middle Eastern dignitary. Look humble and fearful and gaze at the chief thug as at a great light, while muttering over and over, God be praised, God be praised. . . .

  Thus Ziad's day at that well-guarded villa in the mountains where Halim had been casually asked to stay for lunch, which would have meant fine French wines in the glassed-in terrace overlooking the gardens and the swimming pool. Ziad ended his description by warning Halim about that particular Maronite sub-chieftain. Ziad had heard rumors that the man was not to be trusted. That he might be making some kind of deal with Naji to sell out his Syrian friends and go over to the side of Naji and the Israelis.

  Halim listened sadly, in silence, to this warning. Of course he knew all about the man. That was his job. And in fact the man was making a deal with Naji, and it would have been better for Ziad to stay away from that sub-chieftain's village and never go there again. It might be dangerous for any Syrian to be within the man's reach when the deal was set and he betrayed his Syrian contacts and made some gesture to prove his new allegiance to Naji and the Israelis.

  Halim knew all about that. Colonel Jundi knew all that. This kind of intrigue was a morning's work for them.

  They were professionals. But Halim couldn't say anything to Ziad, and even if he could, what difference would it make? Ziad didn't decide where he would go in Lebanon, or when. He didn't have any control over it. My captain decided that. And who could say? Perhaps it was even better that poor Ziad knew nothing about the trouble ahead other than some vague rumor. What he didn't know he couldn't fear. And yet even now here he was still loyally trying to help Halim, trying to warn his friend.

  The thought of that cut deeply inside Halim, and once more he felt useless. He was failing Ziad, perhaps fatally so. But there was nothing he could do about it.

  ***

  There was nothing special about their last evening together. Of course they didn't know it was their last evening, so there was no reason for it to be different from any other. They were to meet downtown and have dinner. It was to be an early evening because Halim was just back from a visit to Beirut and still exhausted from his trip. Halim had work to do at the office, and it was decided that Ziad would wait for him at the hotel bar on the top floor of the office building.

  As it happened Ziad hadn't been up to the hotel for a long time. The barroom was still the same with its wood paneling and potted plants and ceiling fan, not turning now, and the bowls of peanuts that came with the drinks. T
o Ziad, though, it seemed much shabbier than he remembered it from the times when he had sat here and waited for his friend — the gaucho then, the enthusiastic young idealist from Argentina — to finish his paperwork on the balcony and come in and plan an evening on the town. But yes, that had been a long time ago, over twenty years. As he had done then, Ziad sat near the window watching the light of the sinking sun slant into the room. When Halim finally did show up Ziad had a crisp new copy of Le Monde open on his lap, a glass in his hand, an untouched bowl of peanuts at his elbow. Ziad was smiling and relaxed, happy for once, his fond memories of the room having evoked a magical nostalgia in him. He raised the bowl of peanuts in greeting.

  You see here a man on top of the world, said Ziad. Twenty years ago I sat in this place and didn't know my good fortune. I wonder if you'll ever be able to appreciate how I felt then, drinking real Scotch and plundering bowl after bowl of free peanuts? It was sheer joy, and more. You showed me the world. Just watching you and seeing your confidence in things was a marvel for me to behold. Oh yes, good days, my friend. The very finest life has to offer. . . .

  They went on to one of Ziad's little restaurants, which was Halim's too now. Then they walked along the river, stopped for one more coffee, parted. Halim took a taxi home and it was as simple as that. A quiet evening between two friends. A commonplace evening toward the end of winter, 1982.

  ***

  Colonel Jundi told him of the killing.

  Halim was returning from Beirut one winter morning when he found the colonel's man waiting for him at the border crossing. It was unexpected. He and the colonel didn't have a meeting scheduled. He got into the curtained automobile and they set out across the hills.

  A dismal rain had been falling since first light, a hard steady downpour that threatened to go on all day. Deep pools had formed in the ruts of the mountain road and there were washouts on the curves. The major was a new man who had only recently joined the colonel. He drove slowly, picking his way with care. In the distance an occasional goatherd huddled beside some outcropping of rock, which gave little shelter. Halim caught sight of them through the curtains. The land was bleak and the lonely men looked cold and miserable. At last the car came bumping into the yard of the little stone farmhouse. Halim pulled his coat around him and made a dash for the door.

  Colonel Jundi was waiting for him in the main room, standing with his back to a crackling open fire. He must have just come in from a walk across the hills, because his trousers were steaming and his boots were caked with mud which hadn't yet dried. The room smelled of wet wool and wood smoke and that special sweet fragrance that came from wild mountain bushes, which were used to supplement fires in the hills where wood was scarce. Halim greeted the colonel and went up to warm himself at the fire. He noticed that a bottle of brandy stood on the table, which was unusual. The colonel poured two glasses and handed one to Halim.

  Colonel Jundi seldom drank and never during the day. Halim knew the brandy was meant just for him and the colonel was joining him out of courtesy, because it wasn't proper to make a man drink alone. Gravely, the colonel faced him.

  I have bad news, said the colonel. Your friend Ziad is dead.

  Naturally, the colonel knew all about Ziad. To him the friendship had always seemed strange because the two men had been so unequal. Halim was an unusual man in every respect and Ziad hadn't been at all. Halim was gifted and would have been a success anywhere, while Ziad had been mediocre and would have failed anywhere. Still, friends could be oddly balanced and the colonel knew these two men went back to the time when Halim had first arrived in Damascus from Argentina.

  The colonel's account was terse.

  The Maronite sub-chieftain had finally made his about-face switch to Naji. In doing so, as a gesture of his new loyalties, he had rounded up the Syrians in his area. Ziad had the misfortune to be spending the night in the village. He was pulled out of bed and taken away without being allowed to dress. There were five Syrians in all, minor figures like Ziad. The next morning they were found hanging naked from a makeshift gallows in the central square of the village. There had been torture and mutilations. Huge, deep crosses were cut in their chests. It wasn't known whether the carving had been done before or after death.

  But now it doesn't matter, said Colonel Jundi. Your friend's suffering is over and he rests, his pain gone. Ours is still with us, but our concern must be for the living. . . .

  There were other words from the colonel but Halim didn't really hear them. He left the little farmhouse and was driven back to the border crossing, where he went on to Damascus. It was raining as hard as ever when he arrived home. It was cold and he kept his overcoat on although he had no intention of going anywhere or doing anything. He was too restless to sit in front of a fire and warm himself, so he poured brandy and wandered around the house with the glass in his hand, listening to his footsteps echo.

  At the end of the central room, the almond tree outside the window-door was in full bloom, its white and pink flowers bravely set against the gray skeletons of the garden. It was by far the first tree to bloom, recklessly throwing out its flowers in the very deepest gloom of winter, long before the other trees had sprouted even a tentative bud. In the rain and cold its beauty was always astonishing, an unexpected cry of abandon and hope, its delicate colors calling forth the memory of a season that seemed far away. And impossibly out of place in the bare gray desolation of winter. Even now the beautiful little flowers of the almond tree were past their peak and falling, broken by the hard rain.

  All afternoon the rain pounded down on the house. Darkness came early but Halim didn't turn on a lamp.

  Toward evening a wild electrical storm broke over the city. First hail pelted the verandahs and then fierce thunder and brilliant flashes of lightning crashed across the sky, lighting the great central room and the garden in a pure white intensity which abruptly went black. Only the flowers of the almond tree survived in the darkness. Another flash of unworldly light lit the garden and Halim caught a glimpse of a solitary broken statue beyond the gray trunks of the trees, the stone streaked and weathered with half its head gone, one eye staring.

  He was glad the storm had come. The explosions of lightning and thunder soothed him by screaming his own emotions at the night. It was wild and chaotic, a war of the gods in heaven, and its awesome crashes exactly reflected his own black, shattered mood.

  ELEVEN

  Halim traveled to Lebanon much less that spring, then stopped altogether. Part of the reason was operational: Colonel Jundi's priorities were changing and Halim's reporting was less vital to him at the moment. The colonel expected an Israeli invasion of Lebanon by the summer, which meant the Syrian secret services would have to deal with a regular army in the field, not just the murky intrigues of Lebanese tribal warfare. The term of the Lebanese president ended in September. Colonel Jundi expected the Israeli army to be in place well before then to assure Naji's election.

  Not that that particular piece of chicanery matters, the colonel said to Halim. If Naji's elected, he'll be killed.

  It's too much to expect us to put up with someone like him next door.

  Halim also traveled less to Lebanon because of Colonel Jundi's concern for his well-being. The Runner's double life for Colonel Jundi over the years in Lebanon — and beyond that his triple life for Tajar — had cost heavily. Halim had been working without letup since the beginning of the Lebanese civil war in 1975.

  Increasingly he had come to rely on alcohol to sustain him, which worried the colonel. To him, Halim had always seemed a man of impregnable balance and moderation. But he had himself seen the impact of Ziad's death on Halim, and Halim's profound emotional response had made a deep impression on him. It was only then, during that dismal rainy morning at the stone farmhouse on the border, that he had fully come to realize how exhausted Halim was. Nor was that all. Something else had suddenly struck him. For a moment he had wondered if he knew Halim as well as he thought he did.

 
; It was the depth of Halim's emotion that caused the colonel to wonder. Halim was successful and had innumerable friends. The Palestinians in particular revered him for his integrity. Was it also possible, then, that he had felt so isolated in Damascus all these years that the death of his oldest friend could have such a powerful effect on him?

  Of course it was possible, thought the colonel. There were reasons why even a man like Halim might feel isolated. Living a secret life — the fact that no one really knew him — was only one of them. Halim's sense of isolation didn't have to mean an espionage connection. Halim had grown up in Argentina and that could be the cause of his estrangement. Or it could be some peculiarity of character. A man who was revered and felt he didn't deserve it might feel estranged, especially an idealist like Halim who believed so strongly, who wanted things so much. Colonel Jundi hadn't achieved his high position in intelligence through any lack of understanding of human nature. He knew the Halim-Ziad friendship could have been exactly what it always appeared to be: an odd congruence of two unlike people, brought about long ago by chance.

  So it wasn't that Colonel Jundi suddenly had doubts about Halim's loyalty or patriotism. There was nothing as specific as suspicion, and at the moment he had a hundred serious matters in front of him. Israel would soon be invading Lebanon. The PLO would be smashed in the south. The Syrian army might be attacked. Naji would be gunning for the top in Beirut, backed by Israeli tanks. What of the Shiites and the Druse and the anti-Naji Maronites, all the dozens of factions and armed militias? The civil war in Lebanon had already gone on for seven years and it might go on indefinitely, if everyone kept feeding in arms and agents.

  Colonel Jundi was hectically busy. Furthermore, he was very fond of Halim in a personal way. He liked Halim's frankness and modesty and determination. Halim had worked hard for the colonel in Lebanon and worn himself out. He looked haggard. He was living too much on alcohol. He detested Lebanon and the death of his friend had overwhelmed him temporarily, a final event which made the weight intolerable.