Dynamite Fishermen (15 page)

Prosser recalled the occasion when he had come to Fakhani during the previous summer to shop for bargain-priced Palestinian embroidery and souvenir Fatah T-shirts at a PLO-owned handcrafts store. He had realized shortly after stepping out of his car that it had been foolish of him, as an American official, to venture into the area, but he had played dumb and returned safely with the merchandise he had wanted. Had anyone challenged him, he could easily have been seized as an enemy spy. In the absence of diplomatic relations between the United States and the PLO, asserting diplomatic immunity would have been futile.

He headed south again and passed the Cité Sportive Stadium, where a column of military trucks waited outside the cargo entrance. He had read in the morning newspaper that a PLO rally and military parade in the stadium were planned that evening. He made a mental note to avoid the route upon his return, when crowds would be gathering outside the entrance. A kilometer beyond the stadium, he turned east onto the two-lane road that led through the populous slum of Shiyah toward the Galerie Semaan crossing.

As the clogged traffic moved forward in spurts through Shiyah, he examined the ramshackle shops and cinder-block homes whose corrugated metal roofs were held down by bricks and stones. Donkey carts plodded along the side of the road, unfazed by the attempts of their motorized competition to overtake them. Packs of ragged children played in the dusty alleys.

The inhabitants of the area were predominantly Shiite Muslim refugees from the agricultural areas of southern Lebanon, descendants of peasants who had lived on plantations under a form of feudalism that survived well into the twentieth century. During the mid-1970s increasing numbers of the peasants had been forced off the land by Israeli air strikes aimed at Palestinian commando bases in the south. By March of 1978, when the Israeli army invaded South Lebanon to drive the PLO out of the border areas, the Shiites had become the majority in South Beirut. Later both the continuing Israeli air raids in the southern part of the country and a skyrocketing birthrate had added to the number of poor Muslims in the southern suburbs of the capital until by the end of 1980 it had reached several hundred thousand.

Prosser had met a number of the refugees and had sensed their rising anger at the United States for supplying the weapons that Israel was using in the south. He also saw how their militancy toward the U.S. had intensified since the beginning of the Tehran embassy hostage crisis. Washington’s simultaneous rapprochement with Iran’s archenemy, Iraq, only confirmed the spreading conviction among the Lebanese Shiites that America was the Great Satan.

Suddenly Rima grabbed his elbow and called his attention to a cobalt blue Mercedes 280S parked in a driveway to the left of the road. The gleaming sedan, incongruously free of the dull layer of dust that covered everything else in view, was surrounded by four children between five and ten years of age. The children peered greedily at the luggage piled high in the backseat. The oldest child, a boy of about ten in a soiled white
jalabiyya,
smashed a heavy, gray cinder-block fragment against the rear passenger window. The safety glass cracked and buckled, but a second and a third blow still failed to penetrate.

Prosser pulled to a stop at the curb.“The little bandits,” he muttered between clenched teeth. “Stay here; I’ll be back in a minute.” He unlocked the door and started to get out.

Rima seized his arm. “No, batta, it is too dangerous to stop here.” She looked nervously behind her at the cars that were unable to edge their way around the Renault on the narrow road. Meanwhile, the oldest child had succeeded in smashing through the window and was attempting to clear away enough glass to reach through and unlock a rear door.

“But we can’t just stand by and let those little bastards loot the goddamned car.” Prosser said.

“Leave it,
batta
. It is none of our concern.”

In the rearview mirror he could see the long line of cars stopped behind him. Horns blared. He looked for a place to pull off the road farther ahead but saw none.

“All right, I won’t stop here. But there must be somewhere to pull off the road up ahead. I’m not about to let them get away with this.” He put the car into gear and pulled away from the curb with a screech of tires.

“Forget them,” Rima said. “Behind such children are men who will shoot you for daring to interfere.”

In his mirror he saw that the children had opened the doors of the Mercedes and were already greedily carrying off boxes and suitcases. Then the stalled queue of cars ahead of him moved forward. He followed them and moments later spotted a policeman directing traffic in the middle of the intersection some fifty or sixty meters ahead. A police motorcycle was parked at the side of the road.

“Terrific! A cop! Give me a few seconds to tell him what’s going on, and then I promise to forget about the whole business.”

“Ha!” Rima snorted. “Do you truly expect the police to intervene? That one is with the traffic police. He will do nothing about a criminal matter.
Batta
, why do you persist in this? Let the children take the entire car if they wish. Why should it concern you?”

As the Renault drew closer to the policeman, Prosser slowed down to a crawl and called out to attract the policeman’s attention, but his voice was drowned out by the sound of horns behind him urging him forward. The policeman gestured toward the oncoming lane of cars, his back turned to the Renault. At last Prosser gave up and drove through the intersection.

“Well, at least I tried,” he said under his breath. “That’s more than anyone else did.”

“The others have learned that one must sometimes look the other way if one is to survive,” she replied.

Prosser bristled. “Well, if surrendering to the lowest elements of society is what it takes to survive, Rima, then I frankly don’t see how Lebanon’s future is much worth the effort.”

“Husayn used nearly the same words soon after his return to Beirut,” Rima replied bitterly. “I see that you and my brother think alike. By Allah,
batta
, I fear for you both.”

* * *

The drive to Byblos took slightly more than an hour. They followed the coastal highway into the town center and then parked in the old Roman harbor opposite the ancient two-story limestone villa that housed Pepe’s fish restaurant. When they entered, the owner embraced Rima like an old friend and led them to a table with a splendid view of the ancient port. Moments later the headwaiter brought them a stainless-steel tray piled high with shrimp, crab, lobster, smelt-like sultan brahim, and other fresh seafood from which to select their entrées. In addition, Prosser ordered a mezzé for two and a bottle of Ksara Blanc des Blancs.

“I’m sorry Husayn couldn’t join us,” he commented to Rima when the headwaiter departed with the tray. “Did he say why not?”

“He was planning to visit some men in Shtaura. They once fought in the militia with him and he thought they might be able to help him.”

“I don’t recall Husayn mentioning which militia he was in.”

“The
munazzamat ‘amal al shuyu’ii.
How do you say that in English?”

“Communist Action Organization.”

“I have heard it called by that name as well,” Rima said, “but do not be misled. During the events only a small fraction of the fighters in the organization were Marxists. Most were students and intellectuals like Husayn who advocated radical secular reform for Lebanon. Husayn is certainly no believer in communism, and I doubt that he ever was.”

“So what does he believe in?” Prosser asked.

“His work. His family and friends. For him there is nothing else.”

“No political ideology? That sounds very un-Lebanese.”

“The fighting changed him that way.”

The headwaiter brought the wine, followed by an assistant carrying a tray with a modest
mezzé
, including Arab bread, an assortment of raw vegetables, and several dips and salads.

“How much combat did Husayn see?” Prosser continued after the mezzé was laid out.

“He fought from the outbreak of the war in 1975 until February of 1976. But he seldom speaks of those times. He told me of his experiences only once, and I think it upset him too much to open the subject again.”

“When I first met Husayn, he said something about a disagreement with some other officers during the siege of the Holiday Inn. Did he ever tell you about it?”

“Of course. It is the reason he went to Germany.”

“How did it happen?”

Rima took a deep breath and put down her glass of wine. “First,
batta
, you must understand that, although Husayn belonged to the organization throughout the Events, during most of the fighting he was assigned to a Palestinian unit. It was because he had taken part in earlier assaults on tall buildings in the commercial district that he was assigned to lead a squad of Palestinian fighters in the final assault on the Holiday Inn.

“Even after the lobby and mezzanine were taken, it required many hours to capture and clear the upper floors one by one. The fighting was extremely bloody, and many of the Palestinian boys in Husayn’s squad were killed or wounded. Those who survived were crazy with fear. When their victory was complete, the commanding officer ordered all the prisoners taken to the roof in small groups for execution. Husayn was guarding four Phalangist boys from the mountains, brave boys who had been captured only because they were knocked unconscious by a grenade that exploded very close to them. Husayn said every one of them had serious wounds, but none was afraid to die.

“When Husayn led them to the roof, he had a horrible feeling about what would happen there. A strong wind was blowing off the sea, and the noise of the battles below seemed very far away to him. Over the edge of the building he could see fires burning for kilometers in all directions and countless explosions and tracer paths. On the roof the Palestinians were burning paper and trash and wooden furniture in oil drums, and the light from the fires gave everything an unnatural appearance. He said the smell of blood made him gag.

“Husayn saw at once that some of the Palestinian fighters had been celebrating their victory by making a brutal sport of killing the Phalangist prisoners. Not by ordinary execution, but each in a different and more horrible way than the last. He watched them shoot several prisoners and push them over the edge of the roof. Others were hacked into pieces with knives and fire axes. Some had benzine poured on them and were set on fire like human torches and forced over the side by men with bayonets. One Palestinian tied a long rope around the neck of a Christian boy and tied the other end to an iron railing. Then the Palestinian pushed him over the railing. When the rope broke, the Palestinian became enraged, doubled it, and hanged three more prisoners the same way.

“Two of the Phalangists in my brother’s group of prisoners ran for the edge to jump off before they could be tortured, and Husayn killed them both with shots from his rifle. On seeing this the Palestinian major who was in command of the torturers became furious and accused Husayn of trying to make it easier for the prisoners to die. The major took the rifle from him, gave him a bayonet, and then forced him to cut the throats of two young Christian boys; they were trussed like pigs on their bellies, lying in the blood of others who had suffered the same sort of death. Husayn said the boys were now insane with fear. One was retching, and from the smell Husayn thought that at least one of them had also befouled himself. After this the major forced my brother to execute several others by even more sadistic methods until a colonel from Fatah came to the roof to stop the butchery. Each of the remaining prisoners were dispatched with a single pistol shot to the head.

“Husayn refused to rejoin his unit after that and left Beirut the next morning to rejoin our family in Tripoli. After staying with us for only a few days, he learned that the Palestinian major had charged him with desertion. Under the pretext of ordering his arrest, the major had sent two of his men to kill Husayn to prevent him from reporting the major’s atrocities to the Joint Forces military tribunal. Within a week of Husayn’s arrival in Tripoli, while he was shopping in the souk, someone tried to shoot him and failed only because Husayn instantly moved aside upon hearing the sound of rapid footsteps behind him. He fired back but the assassin escaped. After that Husayn had no choice but to flee abroad. My father agreed to lend him money for his first year of studies in Germany, and later he worked to support himself while completing his engineering degree.”

Prosser refilled their wine glasses and dipped a piece of the flat Arab bread in a dish of hummus. “What became of the Palestinian major? Is he still around?”

Rima hesitated, and Prosser saw fear enter her eyes. “Yes, only now he is a colonel and lives in Damascus. Had he remained in Beirut, I do not believe Husayn would have returned.”

“Do you remember his name?”

“His given name is Jamal, but everyone knows him as Colonel Hisham.”

Prosser felt as if an electric current had suddenly been applied to the base of his spine. In intelligence work, coincidences were rarely the result of blind chance. If Abu Khalil’s Colonel Hisham and Rima’s were the same, then Husayn al Fayyad’s access to his old militia comrades might be considerably more useful than he had expected.

“Have you ever met Colonel Hisham, Rima?”

She shook her head while reaching for her wine glass. “I know only what Husayn has told me about him.”