“TEHERAN DOESN’T WANT war right now with the United States,” Mohammed said. “Nor yet against the Jews. And we can't take back Palestine because there is too much Western guilt about the Jews.”
“You don't care if we get Palestine back!” Rosa said. “You're ready to make your separate peace. A bigger part of Lebanon for giving up Palestine, like Jew shopkeepers with a dried fish. The dried fish that once was Palestine!”
“Israel made the deserts bloom. You're just a bunch of lazy Bedouin with no camels, good for nothing but theft and complaining.”
“If you don't hate the Jews, why are you fighting?”
“I do hate the Jews, Rosa. Infinitely and irrevocably. But even worse I hate the ones who put them over us. Who hadn't the courage to take them into America, into Britain. Who let Hitler kill them and then out of guilt sent the rest down here to thrust you from your homes. So you have come up here to thrust us from our own. Even together, Rosa, we don't have the strength to take back Palestine. But they can't shove us under, there's too much Muslim oil.”
“There's none in Palestine.”
“Palestine, poor in oil, so rich in heart.”
“Hearts grow big from being filled with grief.”
“Or joy. You're too young, Rosa, to be so serious. In any case, over the years Western guilt will continue to diminish, while Western hunger for oil will continue to grow.”
“In the meantime, we're not getting closer to Palestine!”
“No. You must see. We keep up this pressure so we can eat Israel slowly, from within. While everyone is so preoccupied by the danger we present outside, they never notice what goes on inside. In a hundred years, I promise you, there'll hardly be a Jew in Palestine.”
The mujihadeen with the close-cropped beard, the captain Rosa did not like, had come into the room, nodded respectfully at Mohammed, waiting for him to finish speaking. “She's downstairs,” he said. “Your wife.”
Mohammed made a sharp face and Rosa couldn't tell if it was from anger or surprise. Walking past, he patted her shoulder. “I'll be right back.”
Rosa stood. “I must go down also.” She followed Mohammed down the shrapnel-littered stairs, the captain going ahead and swinging his lantern. The night was quiet now, no shells going over, just the distant rattle of guns. Like peace, she thought, brushing at the sting in her eyes.
Mohammed seemed to forget her, moving ahead with the captain into the ruins of the ground floor, where a slight woman in a black gown turned her face toward him.
“What makes you take this risk?” Mohammed snapped. “Where are the children?”
She held his hands, brought them to her forehead. “They're with my parents. You are well, my husband?”
“They've backed off, the Christians. We've a brave young woman here, she attacked them alone.”
“Kamil came.”
Mohammed stepped back, straightened. “And?”
“Your father...”
“Speak, woman!”
“He asks you to come quickly.”
“There's no way.”
“He wants to see you, before he dies.”
Mohammed raised his hand and Rosa thought it was to hit his wife but it was only to run fingers through his hair. “How can I leave here?”
“For a few days, Mohammed.” She leaned forward, touching his gown. “When he's gone you'll never have this chance again.”
Mohammed spun round, tearing at his hair. “How?”
“You could go up through Aley, the road's open to Sofar. From there cut through the Christians and north along the mountain into Shiite country. You could be there tomorrow night.” Again she tried to reach him but he pulled away. “It would be good for you, my husband.”
This seemed to anger Mohammed even more. “Go back to your children,” he snapped, turning toward the darkness of the stairway where Rosa stood.
18
THE POSTER. Here it was again. The rat-man's skull staring down with hatred on a burning city he had cut in half with his great Crusader's sword. With a shock, Neill realized it could be Beirut.
Spend a Night in Hell
Friday 13 March
Moldova 21
Couples Kr 1,500
Be there by 21:00
Again it was in English. This angered him, as if the poster had been aimed solely at him. Anyway it was too late now, nearly ten.
Down the street a yellow-lit sign, JaegerToefel, swung in the wind. Maybe they spoke German there, German chicks. A tall cool stein of Pilsner.
Inside the JaegerToefel was smoky and hot. Two thin old men were playing checkers at the bar; six or seven more were playing cards at a long table down one side. The barman was skinny and small with a large fluffy black moustache. Faintly the Beatles were singing “She loves you ya ya ya” on a radio high up behind the bar.
He ordered the Pilsner and leaned against his stool, against the bar. The beer was a lovely yellow color like early morning sun on fields of wheat. Why would it be in English, he wondered, that poster? It made no sense. If it was Beirut, who was the rat-man?
He emptied his glass and ordered another. Tomás was probably right. He was taking a wicked chance just trying to get into Beirut. Like Michael Szay said, he'd probably end up dead on some pavement, or in a Hezbollah hellhole. Anyway Mohammed would never talk to him.
The waiter set a new Pilsner down on the sticky wet table. Fifteen thousand pounds for one conversation. Maybe he should offer Mohammed five thousand to get him to talk. That way he'd still have Freeman's other ten thousand.
Layla. Did you know, Mohammed, I used to screw your devout Muslim wife?
Did he dare speak to that snake Hamid, the one who made it all go bad, and ask him to contact her, so he could reach Mohammed? Hamid would say no, unless he got a little cash, too. Spreading Freeman's shekels around for the betterment of man.
One of the checkers players next to him was telling a funny story and kept backing up, gesturing and bumping him, till Neill stepped on his foot. He halted, hands in mid-air, glanced round at Neill, moved away. Feeling guilty and alone, Neill watched the golden bubbles rise up inside his beer, thinking about Layla, Mohammed, Hamid, Freeman's fifteen thousand, an article about new hopes for peace in Lebanon, Bev and the kids at the dinner table passing round the paper, opened to his article. Even Commors, the deputy news editor, wouldn't dare touch it. Not this time.
After that, why not sign on with Freeman, an analyst or something, keep the paper, or switch back to The Times if the paper wouldn't raise him. And Freeman'd use him more, send him back to Ankara maybe, Amman. It was so easy to be a listening post and Freeman was too dumb to know it. He thought it was hard.
The poster wasn't a rat-man, really, but a horrifying man-rodent's skull.
He tried to imagine the fields of barley under the August sun where this beer had come from. On his hands it cast a gentle sunset light. The pores were large and shadowed, the hairs along his wrist a golden gray.
Soon he'd be dead, and this strong, limber wrist would rot and congeal at the bottom of a coffin. These strong legs and gut and eyes and this brain thinking all this and the lungs breathing in, the backbone, neck and skull. All dead. This heart pumping blood, rotting, drying, sinking into the wood.
It was too heartbreaking to lose, this lovely life.