But the Koran left nothing unanswered, even that which had no answer. The prophet Mohammed received inspirations to questions posed by himself or others; these inspirations, the suras, became a rigid structure of belief learned by repetition, whose challenge was punished by death on earth, eternity in Hell.
The Crusaders went to the Holy Land to deliver it from this heresy, to slaughter the infidels. Those who came back brought the techniques of cathedral architecture, which led to the Gothic enlightenment and the principles of advanced castle construction, which led to a more advanced rate of slaughter. They also brought rattus rattus, the black rat, which in turn brought the Black Plague: God's way, Neill had always thought, of punishing the Europeans for the sin of Christianity.
A rusty railroad engine huddled in brush on an abandoned siding. How many lives had it carried back and forth across Europe? What did they come to, each of them?
Three American men were talking loudly in the seats ahead, trading dirty gay jokes in the mistaken impression no one could understand English, or perhaps not even caring. One was being teased about curling his eyebrows. “You go to Paris to make money,” he said. “Like Tokyo. The catalogues, fashion shows, magazines, even TV. Madrid too – you can make money there, though not as much as in Paris.”
“Do you really curl your eyebrows?” another said.
Ubiquitous greenhouses flitting by, amid grimy cities and prim little towns with patches of muddy green between them. “Have to have the clothes,” the first added. “Have to have the clothes.” One made a farting sound with his mouth; they laughed. Rain loud as hail struck the train roof, the window
ANDRÉ LEFT THE ALPINE on Boulevard des Invalides near the Musée Rodin, and crossed against the light, Napoleon’s gold-domed crypt afire with sun. He turned into the courtyard at 57 bis Rue de Varenne and took the elevator to the third floor, to a bright office with rooms along one side looking down into the courtyard.
“You don't even speak Arabic,” St. Honoré said.
“But I know Beirut. And it doesn't matter they've got him surrounded, he'll get away. I know where he'll go.”
“Where, pray tell?”
André smiled at St. Honoré's silly envy of a desk man for those who come home with blood on their hands. “It's a waste to tell you; he'll break through one sector, slip round it and get them in the backs.”
“The Israelis'll bomb him to the stone age.”
“They've been trying for two years. Look at the result.”
“Same as yours will be.”
“I'm one man, Christian! I can weave right into that crowd.”
“With your blue eyes and fluent Arabic.”
“I know enough people and you know it.”
“So how’s Haroun going to help you?” St. Honoré leaned further back in his chair, as if obeying the dictate never to act interested unless you need to. “He's got Palestinians and Hezbollah and Druze and Amal and every other kind of Arab under the sun crawling down his throat. Just because you were with him before isn't going to bring you much.”
“That's how you decide who to revenge?”
“The President and the Palestinians, they're hot right now.”
“Hezbollah's not the Palestinians.”
“Iran's making overtures. Foreign Affairs is wrapping up that billion-dollar reactor debt. The Iranians are moderate now.”
“You know they did it, Christian! Everyone knows!”
“That's the trouble with you military guys, you're hung up on truth. Do you understand the place we're in – la France? We burn over twenty billion francs of natural gas a year. A third of it comes from Russia, another third from Algeria – both unstable. Any day now we could lose two-thirds of our supply. Literally overnight. We have to diversify.”
“And you think Iran's more sure?”
“Iran has seventeen trillion cubic meters of natural gas, the world's second largest reserves.”
André thought of St. Honoré when they'd been little, at Institut Suffren. When St. Honoré’s mother drove up every morning in the big white Porsche and made him lift up his little tablier and piss on the tree outside before he went in to school. Running across the Champs de Mars, skinny knees, tablier caught in the wind. The Fields of War – how long since I've thought of it like that?
“The Government’s negotiating a pipeline deal with the Iranian National Gas Company,” St. Honoré said, “that could eventually supply one-third of our national need, at two billion francs a year cheaper than the Russians. Against that, André, how much do you think your brother's death should weigh?”
“Forty-seven French paratroopers died when Hezbollah blew those barracks, not just Yves.”
“France has always required her young men to lay down their lives – whenever she wants. The Government would argue, in the long run, that even Yves' death was for the good of France. When we're called, we don't get to choose how we might die.”
Again André thought of St. Honoré's little black tablier sailing in the wind. St. Honoré'd lost something, and he, André, had found it. But he couldn't remember what it was. “When were you ever called, Christian?”
St. Honoré was listening to traffic on Rue de Varenne. “We go back a long way, mon cher. But I don't ask you to like me. I just ask you to understand that your plan gets no sympathy here. In fact, if you go ahead with it, we're going to get badly in your way.”
“You'd tell him? Via your bedmates in Tehran?”
“He's overstepped his bounds, this Mohammed. Other people out there want him. The Russians, maybe, surely the Israelis, the Americans. But not you. We don't want la France mixed up in this.”
André felt sweaty, as if he'd been driving too fast. “If la France doesn't care about Yves, screw la France.”
“Unless you drop this idea, we have to do what it takes to stop you.” The phone buzzed; St. Honoré's hand fell on it. “All the way from the top, mon cher, the rule right now is don't piss off Hezbollah.”
André shrugged, stood. “I didn't come to ask your advice. I came to tell you.” He smiled. “So you don't shoot me by mistake.”
“If and when we shoot you,” St. Honoré smiled back, “it won't be by mistake.”
10
A SYRIAN 240 came over the Green Line, caught people running; a machine gun coughed, tracers darting among the runners. Three bodies lay in the street, one dragging itself backwards till the machine gun coughed again.
Rosa backed from the window. “Despite being surrounded, you seem to have lots to eat.”
One of the men crouched round the fire turned, mouth full of bread and lentils. “You've got plump enough yourself, on the outside.”
A round cracked across the ceiling. Mortars thudded, one, two, three, onto the roof.
“We're going to break out soon,” one said.
“He's got a plan,” another answered, chewing. “The people outside, they'll break in.”
“If you believe that,” Rosa said, “I've got another story for you.”
“And you think he'll listen to you?”
She returned to the window, edging her face round the frame, thought of a sniper's bullet hitting her head, how hard it would feel. Darkness had fallen on the Green Line, shrapnel wailing through the streets, sound of a chopper – no,