by Peter Walker
‘A few minutes of this,’ the film man was saying, ‘and I’d had enough. I got up and moved away to another seat. But she came after me: “Look into my eyes. Do you not see my love for you?” ’ That was it. I got up and walked out. But she followed me into the foyer. “Madam!” I said. “You have entirely ruined that film for me.” “I am so sorry,” she said. “You did not like my translation? I was sent to translate the film into English for you.” ’
Candy gave a little scream of laughter. At the same time she was looking through the windows into the courtyard, which was shaded by high pines of some Mediterranean species.
‘Where’s Race?’ she said. ‘Where’s Chadwick? Holding everyone up, as per usual.’
The mini-bus was nearly full. The one which had been parked in front of them had already left: it shot off out of the courtyard and disappeared down the hill back into the city. Toby, meanwhile, had flushed a deep dark red. The man behind him talking to his mother must be Jojo’s new lover. Toby had never met him but he knew he was in his thirties, and English, and in the film business. He could not imagine how he, Toby, had come to sit right in front of this fellow without realising it. ‘Fool,’ he thought. Though of course it was just like Candy, as well, to tangle everything up, befriending Jojo’s Englishman. As if it was not difficult enough that Jojo had even been invited to Gilly’s wedding, much less to be there as a bridesmaid, at the centre of everything, and not only that but to bring along her new ‘partner’ as well. Toby had not seen Jojo for nearly two years but somehow, during that interval, she had become Gilly’s closest friend. At times Toby suspected it was her way of taking revenge on him. At other times he wondered if it was not more than that. She did not want to leave, to lose, his family. Might that not be construed as a reflection on Toby himself?
‘Oh, just go,’ cried Candy to the driver. ‘Go!’
She waved her hands, with her fingers downward, as if saying ‘Shoo.’
‘Ma!’ said Toby.
‘They can catch the next one. They can come by cab. We can’t wait here all day.’
Candy couldn’t bear to miss a moment of the wedding. The service had just been held in this little chapel amidst the mountainous suburbs and now they were heading for lunch in a sports club – which was not, apparently, a sports club at all – down on the Corniche. Off they went. Candy would like to have said she’d planned every minute of this day for the last year, but that would not be true. In fact she hardly knew what was going to happen from one moment to the next. She’d flown into Beirut only the day before, like most of the other guests. Everything had been decided and arranged by Maro’s family, who were very well-off and well-connected and knew how things were done in this place. Gillian didn’t mind. She was delighted with everything. She had, in Candy’s view, suspended all critical faculties, but maybe that was just another definition of love. The mini-bus driver, obeying Candy, took off. Down the hills they shot, winding round smooth boulevards and through sharp gorges. The Beirut street tarmac made a smooth hissing sound which Candy liked. It was a strange place, she thought. The outward signs of years of civil war had largely vanished but the town itself, the atmosphere, seemed nervous, careful, absent-minded, like someone who has experienced a psychotic episode. It was staggering as well, Candy thought – these thousand-foot mountains covered in villas, right up to the sky.
At the base of the hills, though, in the very centre of the city, lay ruinous plains, and a gigantic mosque was taking form amid cranes like a great grey egg. And then they were down on the Corniche itself, beside the sea.
They pulled up at Le Sporting, which seemed to Candy an odd name, and an odd place for a wedding breakfast, but what did she know? The real wedding feast was not until the next day, fifty miles away, at Baalbek, near the Roman ruins. Or was it the day after that? She could hardly keep track of the revels. ‘Baalbek,’ her future son-in-law had said to her, as if the word was rich with poetry and allusion, which it might have been to him but wasn’t to her. He was a nice boy, though. He was in trade, like all the family. He traded in parts. ‘Parts of what, darling?’ she had said. ‘Plant,’ said Maro. ‘Plant?’ It was a mystery to her, though not one she was deeply interested in. But she liked Maro and she noticed that, unlike any businessmen she’d met before, in the US for example, he was interested in history, art, architecture.
‘Baalbek!’ Maro said to her. His eyes were large, dark and round. ‘The greatest ruins of the classical world.’
But now here they were at Le Sporting, on the Corniche. And there, across a little sandy piazza, were the bride and groom, standing in the doorway and greeting the guests. Jojo and two other bridesmaids and Maro’s three brothers were just visible behind them.
‘This is my son, Tobias,’ said Candy to the English film-man when they climbed out of the mini-bus. She looked Toby up and down.
‘As you see, his luggage has gone missing.’
Toby was wearing jeans and a slightly frayed cotton shirt. Several other wedding guests were also exiguously attired. They had all got off the plane at Beirut but their luggage had wafted on, to Riyadh, to the Gulf, to the shores of India . . .
Candy was angry with Toby. Instead of going to a men’s outfitters that morning to buy a new suit as she commanded, he’d taken a cab out to the airport to see if his stuff had turned up. And of course nothing had.
‘The logo of Middle East Airlines is a very old cedar,’ said the film-man in his English voice. ‘An excellent thing in its own way, but not exactly a symbol of celerity.’
Toby nodded his head up and down during this speech, as if to hurry it up and get it over with.
‘You going in now?’ he said, indicating the door of Le Sporting with a gesture of his head.
‘Well, yes, of course,’ said the film-man.
‘Cool, I’ll borrow your hat,’ said Toby and he took the man’s panama off his head and stuck it on his own.
‘Toby!’ said Candy.
‘Just a quick walk,’ he said, and went off fast along the pavement of the Corniche. At all costs he did not want to enter Le Sporting just then and be greeted by Jojo at the door. Jojo hugging Candy, Jojo hugging her fat film-man, and then, what – my turn? He walked on. He needed to think about something else for a moment. Anything else. This Corniche is something else, he told himself. It’s really something, even after years of war. The big palms had survived, although they had a war-torn look – they reminded him of those tattered and smoke-singed banners you sometimes see in English churches. Toby had already got to know the Corniche. He had been in Beirut two full days and he now thought of the great sea-front boulevard as his own territory. The other wedding guests were staying in a hotel much further up the hill, a thirty-storey monster the colour of pink ham. Toby could have stayed there, but he’d wangled a deal with Race by which he went to a cheaper hotel and Race let him keep the difference. He was down by the sea in a hotel whose ambient decor was not pink ham. There was a little thin marble here and there, but the main visual effect was of raw concrete. The rooms even smelled of raw concrete. Toby didn’t mind that. He liked the smell. The Raw Concrete Palace stood in the sea air and on the previous evening, and again that morning, Toby had borrowed some shoes and shorts from the desk guy and gone out for a run under the great tattered palms, their fronds hanging down like those banners dedicated to the English god of war, and he had gone two or three miles along the wide seaward pavement of the Corniche, the surface of which, while not of porphyry or bronze, somehow seemed, even after years of war, sumptuously darkened with wealth. There were plenty of poor people in view as well; hot-food vendors on bikes shot out in front of the Mercedes and Opels; anglers, poorly clad – not sportsmen, just skinny guys hoping to catch supper – stood on the sea-edge of the fissured rock-shelf. ‘Slosh! Wap!’ went the green Med in the slotted rocks. Every fifty paces along the sidewalk’s gleam a beggar had set up his station. Toby had befriended one of them already – a multiple amputee who sat on a little wheeled tra
y and who wore such an expression, of both knowledge and anxiety, that Toby thought that he himself might now begin to understand the declaration The meek shall inherit the earth if by ‘inherit’ was meant ‘comprehend’. His name, this beggar had told him, when Toby first stopped to give him some coins, was Tawfik. And here was Tawfik again, just up ahead. This was the third time they had met. Tawfik had already been at his post when Toby went for a run early that morning. But this time, instead of the look of dignity and gratitude, Tawfik shot him a beam of something like hilarity. Here was this brown-haired stranger again, this foreigner, this probable infidel, now wearing a hat banded in pink, and now – they were roughly the same age – they knew each other. They were almost friends. What a place the world was!
‘Where you goin’, boy?’ came a stentorian voice.
It was Chadwick, who sometimes liked to talk black. He was calling from a cab which had stopped on the other side of the road. Race and the third Mrs Chadwick were in the cab with him.
‘See you later, Tawfik,’ said Toby, handing him the coins in his pocket. Tawfik bowed his head over the transaction, as solemn as a banker.
Toby went over a crossing to the cab.
‘Just some fresh air,’ he said. He winced. The fresh air was a lie. For him there were great social difficulties involved in this wedding. Race and the Chadwicks were aware of that.
‘You gave us the slip,’ said Chadwick.
‘Yep,’ said Toby. ‘We thought we’d got away.’
He stood there looking down at them. He put both hands in his jeans pockets.
‘Get in,’ said Race. Toby got in. They drove back along the Corniche and went into Le Sporting. Toby took the panama hat off and handed it to the cloakroom attendant.
‘What name?’ she said.
‘Celerity,’ he said.
They went into the great dining room which was dark and crowded. There were to be no ceremonies on this occasion, only eating. The spice of wealth was in the air. Many of the guests – Maro’s friends – had flown in first-class, from Cape Town, Tokyo, São Paulo. Race, father of the bride, was seated with the wedding party. Chadwick and Mrs Chadwick and Toby found places at the remotest table. Some rich Spaniards were on one side of the table, on the other were the owners of a hunting park in the Limpopo. Many courses were then delivered, though in no clear order or sequence. Toby immediately drank off four or five glasses of wine. He kept his head down, and then suddenly sat bolt upright.
The Spanish millionaires and the South Africans had found a topic in common. They were talking about the cost of shooting different species on safari.
‘Your leopard’s pricey,’ one of the South Africans was saying. ‘The trouble with your leopard – he doesn’t breed prolific.’
Everyone nodded. Toby nodded, too, and twirled the salt-shaker round on the table with his fingers.
‘Plus – he has this vindictive streak,’ said the South African. ‘He’ll attack the very person who’s shooting at him.’
‘Have you ever thought,’ said Toby, ‘has it ever occurred to you, just to leave the fucking leopards alone?’
‘Now listen—’ said the South African, half rising to his feet.
‘Now,’ said Chadwick. He put a hand on Toby’s shoulder and glanced at the other wedding guest, who sat down.
‘The people you have to meet,’ said Toby.
‘Now look—’ said the South African.
‘Sit down,’ ordered Chadwick. The man sat down again.
‘Come out here,’ said Chadwick. He had his hand on Toby’s shoulder. Toby stood up and went towards the terrace with him.
‘I was rather hoping,’ said the film-man who appeared at their side, ‘to see my hat again.’
Toby went away through the club and came back with the hat and planted it on the film-man’s head, pulling it down almost over his eyes.
‘All right?’ he said.
‘Come on,’ said Chadwick.
He led Toby away. The film-man stood there quietly for a second, then pushed his hat back up with two fingers, one on each side of his head.
‘He’s not a bad fella,’ said Chadwick. ‘I spoke to him before.’
‘Everything OK?’ said Race, who had seen Chadwick and Toby leaving and who came out after them.
‘All is well,’ said Chadwick.
They stood on the terrace facing the sea. It was much quieter that side, away from the traffic. There was a series of concrete steps and landings and banisters of stainless steel that led down to the rocks themselves, drenched and gleaming with the Mediterranean, a steep green sea going ‘slosh!’ in the fissures.
‘Byblos,’ said Chadwick, looking along the coast, ‘is somewhere along there.’
‘Oh yes?’ said Race.
‘I’ve always meant to go to Byblos. It’s where the Bible got its name, although I forget why.’
They walked down the steps. Further out on the rocks was a small wooden hut, neat as a sentry box, with its back to the land.
‘The thing is,’ said Toby, ‘I didn’t lose Jojo. I broke it off. I sent her away. I didn’t want to be with her.’
‘Well then,’ said Chadwick.
Mrs Chadwick came down the steps.
‘You boys all right?’ she said. Laura Chadwick was slim and pretty and older than the forty on which she had settled as her definitive age.
‘Sea air,’ said Chadwick.
They walked out on the rocks towards the little hut. But when they reached it and went round the front and looked in, someone was inside. A youth, a soldier in uniform, with an old rifle, sat sprawled on a wooden stool.
He looked up at them with a helpless air.
‘Oh, my goodness,’ said Mrs Chadwick. ‘How long has he been in there?’
‘Don’t talk to him,’ said Chadwick. ‘He’s on duty.’
‘What sort of duty?’
‘Border patrol,’ said Chadwick.
They looked at the sea. It was green and choppy, and, further out, a dark flecked blue. There were no ships in sight.
‘What’s he waiting for?’ said Mrs Chadwick.
‘The enemies of Lebanon, I take it,’ said Chadwick.
He gazed into the sentry box at the youth. The soldier looked up at him with a furrowed brow. Chadwick pointed out to sea.
‘Who?’ said Chadwick. ‘Who is coming?’
‘Quoi?’ said the soldier.
‘Qui est l’ennemi?’
‘Ah. L’ennemi! Les Juifs.’
‘The Jews!’ said Toby.
‘Israeli navy,’ said Chadwick.
‘That’s right,’ said Toby. ‘Watch out for the Jew-boys, son.’
‘Oh,’ said Mrs Chadwick.
‘It’s all right,’ said Toby. He laughed a bit wildly. ‘I’m the only Jew round here.’
‘He’s drunk,’ said Chadwick.
‘I have Jewish antecedents,’ said Race. ‘The Radzienwiczs were Jews.’
‘You watch out for them Jews,’ Toby said to the soldier.
‘Steady,’ said Race.
‘Keep your eyes peeled,’ said Toby.
‘Icepeeled?’ said the youth.
2
The next day in the middle of the afternoon all the wedding guests set out for the Bekaa valley and the ruins of Baalbek. They drove over a mountain, most of them in a fleet of mini-buses which had assembled at midday at the ham-pink hotel on the jacaranda-shaded slopes of moneyed Beirut. By chance rather than design, Candy, Race and Toby were the only ones in the last mini-bus that left the hotel forecourt. Toby had arrived late, on foot, from his hotel. Race had been out walking round the city and forgot the time; and Candy found at the last minute that she was not, as she had thought she would be and should be, included in the group – bride, groom, groom’s parents – travelling by limousine. The three of them were in a subdued mood. The mountainous suburbs, the road-works, the rain falling at the top of the pass, the half-built concrete houses standing in the rain, the pylons on the lower plain . .
.
‘Thank God Chip didn’t come, that’s all I can say,’ said Candy.
Chip had refused point-blank to attend his step-daughter’s wedding in Lebanon.
‘I like Maro,’ he said. ‘He’s a good kid. I like the Lebanese. I’m pleased he’ll be one of the family. But Beirut? The Bekaa valley? Kidnap Central? Are you kidding me?’
They looked out at Kidnap Central. Flat fields and glasshouses stretched away to a mountain’s grey flank.
‘This is the first time since I don’t know when that we’ve travelled together as a family!’ said Candy, turning up the brightness. ‘How do you feel, Race? How did you feel, giving your daughter away? I was proud of you. You looked so handsome. You did it so well. Didn’t he, Toby? Didn’t he do it just beautifully?’
‘You did it just beautifully, Dad,’ said Toby.
Just then Toby looked very alone.
‘He’s stuck,’ thought Race. ‘He’s afraid of something. What’s he afraid of?’
‘Hey, look at these guys!’ said Toby.
A stern-faced cleric in a black turban came into view on a hoarding below the roadside power-lines. Then another, and another.
‘The ayatollahs,’ said Toby. ‘The imams. They look like a fun-lovin’ bunch. Just as well Uncle Chip’s not here. He’d be calling in the air-strikes right now.’
‘I was proud,’ Race said to Candy. ‘It’s a cliché, but that’s what I felt. My little girl, I used to carry her on one hand, and here she is a married woman, and she’s beautiful. That’s what I thought.’
‘The fascinating thing,’ said Candy, ‘is this: Maro’s parents knew each other at birth, but they only found out after they were married. He was an orphan and was taken in by this woman with a baby. She fed both of them together, one on each breast. Then he was taken off somewhere else and grew up and knew nothing about it, and one day he met Sonya and they got married. They only found out later: she was the baby on the other breast! Isn’t that romantic?’
‘It is,’ said Race.
