18

I saw Samir park his yellow taxi outside the Commodore and come in alone. I’d been waiting for him in the lobby after having a beer and a vodka in the bar with Bob, who was still there.

‘Fiona’s not coming. She doesn’t want to get into trouble with her charity,’ he said, his face twisted in disgust. He looked at me. ‘When you don’t need one you can’t get rid of them, but when you do, they disappear.’ He looked at me some more. ‘What’s the matter, my friend?’

‘I need to show you something,’ I said, getting up. Maybe it was a cowardly way to do it but I couldn’t bear to tell him myself. Besides, he would have wanted to see the tape for himself.

I felt my throat constrict and my eyes burn as I watched Samir watch the tape. He was too calm afterwards. He lit a cigarette and looked out of the window onto the street below. We didn’t speak for a while. Then he turned on his heels with a determined look on his face.

‘Let’s get Bob and go – the ambulance is in Fakhani,’ he said.

Now we were racing down side streets towards Fakhani and Samir was completely focused on the road. Usually his driving was secondary to whatever else he was doing, like smoking or leering out of the window. I wished he would rage and swear or break something but the only clue to his anger was his fixed expression and the speed at which we were travelling. Bob was quiet in the back, fiddling with his equipment. As well as the Sony video camera he’d brought a Nikon for stills. In Fakhani we pulled into the municipal football stadium where Samir had killed the three-legged dog. It was less a stadium than a football pitch with a spectator stand. Samir parked beside a line of shrapnel-punctured cars. Among them I could see the ambulance with Red Crescent markings. I also noticed Samir’s BMW 7 series and the UNICEF Nissan Patrol, both tucked behind the abandoned cars. For some reason, now that we were here, I felt nervous about taking the ambulance.

‘Maybe we’d be better off in the Nissan,’ I said. ‘I mean since we don’t have a nurse.’ We looked at each other and Bob shrugged. Samir had adopted a blank expression.

‘OK,’ he said. I was worried that I was the only one concerned about doing this right but we piled into the jeep and Bob put his equipment in the back, under a canvas cover. It felt safe in the Nissan, its size and whiteness giving an illusion of invulnerability. Bob was in the front to give foreign respectability to our effort, although his ponytail was probably the same as having PRESS tattooed on his forehead. I was leaning forward between the seats, aware of my own breathing, trying to slow it down. Samir drove assertively at the Israeli roadblock, as if he was expecting to be waved through without stopping. The IDF had other ideas, however, and I could see them slipping off the safety on their Galils as we drew near. They were waving for us to turn back before we had even stopped. But we did stop and they surrounded the vehicle. Bob was shouting from the window.

‘We need to go through – let us through please.’ This was said in an authoritative voice designed to command respect. But all we got was a stream of Hebrew that didn’t sound friendly. No one was able to speak English or Arabic. One of them got on a walkie-talkie and someone else signalled Samir to turn off the engine. We sat for a few minutes in an awkward silence, which was broken by the sound of a straining bulldozer working somewhere. It came into view, crossing the road on the other side of the roadblock. It was close enough that the noise made everyone turn and look and the militiaman driving it turned and waved at the roadblock. Nobody waved back. The bulldozer looked like one the Israelis used to flatten buildings in the south of Lebanon on their push north; it had been camouflaged and armoured for military use.

‘Do you see that?’ Bob asked. An IDF jeep pulled up beside us. A young soldier hopped out; he wasn’t carrying a weapon. He spoke to the senior officer at the roadblock and approached the Nissan. I could see him looking in as he approached; his eyes met mine and I looked away.

‘You can’t come through here,’ he said in Arabic, then again in English. He spoke as if by rote, like he couldn’t care less. His Arabic was better than his English and I wondered where he was originally from. He looked drained and pale, as if he’d spent days and nights telling people they couldn’t pass from one place to another.

‘We’re on official business,’ Bob said.

The interpreter shook his head wearily. Samir was staring forward into the camp. I was worried that he was considering trying to drive through in a bid for martyrdom, taking Bob and me with him.

‘It’s no good,’ said the IDF interpreter in Arabic. ‘You cannot come through here. Go back. Go back before I tell them you are not UN.’ He pointed his thumb behind him at the other soldiers. I translated this for Bob but Samir had already started the engine.

‘What’s going on in there?’ Bob asked the soldier, but he’d turned away.

Samir put the car in gear and slammed on the accelerator. To my relief the Nissan jumped backwards at high speed, leaving rubber on the road in front of us. I thought Samir was just putting some distance between him and the roadblock so that he could build up enough speed to crash through it, but seeing his hand on the handbrake I warned Bob to hang on as Samir spun the jeep around, stopping only momentarily, and shifting into first before carrying on the right way forward. It was a manoeuvre he’d practised many times when bored, designed to get him out of trouble if needed.

Back at the stadium we transferred to the yellow Mercedes. I felt stupid for having suggested this fruitless exercise.

‘Drop me off at the US embassy, Samir, I need to tell someone that something is fucking going on in there,’ Bob said, pointing over his shoulder as we drove back towards Hamra.

The US embassy was a multi-storey compound on the seafront. The roof bristled with communications equipment, putting our own Signals unit in perspective. After dropping Bob off Samir stopped at a minor gate to the AUB. He just shrugged when I asked him where he was going. I barely had time to take my bag from the back seat before he accelerated away, leaving me standing in a darkening and empty street. I hadn’t realised how late it was and the gate that Samir had dropped me off at was closed. I would have to walk round to the main gate to get in, which would mean passing near the apartment I had abandoned the day before, or the day before that, I no longer remembered. I decided to walk to the Etoile, where I hoped to find someone I could stay with.

The usual receptionist at the Etoile, an officious Lebanese with ideas incompatible with the two-star nature of the place, apparently no longer recognised me.

‘Who are you visiting?’ he asked in Arabic. I knew the bastard wouldn’t challenge Faris or Samir in this way. My tactic was to play foreign and pretend I couldn’t understand him. Hopefully he hadn’t heard me speaking Arabic.

‘I’m meeting someone in the bar,’ I said in English, darting inside before he had a chance to remonstrate. It was empty apart from a small group at a table who didn’t even look up when I came in. I sat at the bar and ordered a beer and some food, realising that I hadn’t eaten all day. But they were no longer doing food, so I picked at some salted nuts instead. I felt uncomfortable sitting on my own. I would slip upstairs as soon as the receptionist had finished picking his teeth and decided to go and do something else. I heard an English voice at my side which I recognised immediately.

‘Ivan? It is you, isn’t it?’ It was my English teacher, Mr Brampton, who had been teaching us right up until the first air raids this summer. He used to board at the school. He moved his bulk onto the stool beside me. He was still wearing his trademark linen suit and red cravat, perhaps unaware that he lived up to the image of the stereotypical Englishman. We shook hands. His fingers bulged unpleasantly.

‘I didn’t realise you were still in the country,’ I said.

‘I stayed on at the school for a bit because there were some boarders without anywhere to go, then I went over to east Beirut when things got too hot. Enjoyed the show from there.’ He gestured towards the table he’d left. ‘I’ve just come over to pick up some of my paraphernalia from the school and to visit friends.’ I was surprised that I hadn’t noticed him there when I came in. Maybe I just had too much going on in my life.

‘Is the school still standing?’ I asked. Thinking of its position on the south side of the city I imagined it must have been in the front line at some point.

‘It’s still there, but the Jew boys took it over and crapped in the new chemistry lab and headmaster’s office. Shocking behaviour. I’d write to The Times about it if it would do any good.’ He shook his head and I watched his jowls move. ‘I couldn’t believe that professional soldiers could behave that way.’ He pursed his lips as if this was the worst outrage of the whole war. As if bombing and shelling civilians was all right but shitting in a school tipped the balance of unacceptable behaviour. He told me he was sailing to Cyprus the next day then flying to London. I told him I’d seen Emile and co. and that they were fulfilling their potential or destiny or whatever had been mapped out for them.

‘In a cynical mood, I see,’ he said. ‘You never quite gelled with the others, did you?’ He slid off his stool, then, perhaps appreciating for the first time that I was sitting in a hotel bar at night on my own with a duffle-bag by my side, put his hand on my shoulder.

‘What are you doing here anyway – is everything hunky-dory, old chap?’

For a second I was tempted to unburden myself about everything that had happened to me: the siege, Black Thursday, the hospital injuries, the undercover stuff, being chased by informers, Faris being taken away in a truck, not knowing where to stay, not knowing what was happening in the camp. The feeling quickly disappeared, however, as I felt his fat fingers kneading my shoulder.

‘Are you here with your family?’

The question was reasonable but the pitch in his voice had changed ever so slightly and his fingers dug a little harder into my shoulder. He’d never asked me about my family before. I looked at him, shook my head and he let go of my shoulder. Then the moment had passed and he was grinning and slapping me on the back. I wished him a good journey home. I turned to look at his companions as he headed back to the table. They were all Western males I’d never seen before.

I sipped my beer and considered whether to try Najwa’s again or risk the AUB or go to the Commodore when the Norwegian anaesthetist walked into the lobby and looked into the bar. Although I couldn’t remember her name I waved to her as if I was her long-lost son. She said she’d just come from doing a shift at a field hospital. I told her I needed somewhere to stay.

‘Come up to the room,’ she urged me.

I waved cheerfully to Brampton whose expression didn’t hide his curiosity at me clutching my bag and leaving the bar with a woman three times my age.

I told her about Faris and she took my hands and looked into my eyes. We were sitting on Eli’s bed and the concern in her face was enough to make me start crying. I tried to hide my face from her but she pulled me to her and hugged me, stroking the back of my head. She smelt of medicinal soap. When I was done I pulled back and she gave me a tissue.

‘I feel terrible because Liv doesn’t know about Faris,’ I said. She looked at me, little wrinkles forming around her blue eyes.

‘Maybe he’ll be OK,’ she said.

‘No,’ I told her, ‘he won’t be OK.’

She went into the bathroom. I lay down on Eli’s bed. When she came back she pulled off my shoes while humming in a low voice. She turned off the main light and put on a reading lamp. I could see Eli’s son staring out from the photo by my head. It felt reassuring to be on her bed. I could smell her musky jasmine perfume on the pillow. The anaesthetist’s soft voice, cracked like the skin around her eyes, was singing a Norwegian lullaby. Its soporific effect had me drifting off into another, less troubled world.

But before I could let go of consciousness I heard a commotion in the hall, women’s voices. I pulled my shoes on and we went to the door. There were two nurses outside the adjoining room, talking to some people we couldn’t see inside. Apparently they’d been evacuated from a small hospital in the Shatila camp adjacent to Sabra. Removed by the Phalangist militia and handed over to the Israelis, they were ultimately given over to the Red Cross, who had driven them back to Hamra. The nurses talked of point-blank gunshot wounds and axe-blows being brought into the hospital that day. They told of the terror in the eyes of the Palestinian and Lebanese staff forced to stay behind. Their words were spoken quickly as if they needed to get their story out in a hurry.

‘Have you spoken to the press?’ asked the anaesthetist. ‘People need to know what’s going on.’

‘We’ve just come from the Commodore,’ said a white-faced English girl who didn’t look much older than me. Then her voice went and she started crying and her companion led her away to her room.

‘Is there any alcohol in here?’ I asked, back in the room.

‘Yes, I think Liv has something – but drinking is not going to help, Ivan.’

That’s exactly what it’s going to do, I thought. I found some Finnish vodka in Liv’s bedside locker. I also found a picture stuck to the inside of the locker door. It was of her and Faris, taken – maybe even by me – on one of the evenings they were in my apartment. Faris was sitting on a chair laughing, cigarette in hand. Liv was on a cushion on the floor next to him, looking up at him with a quizzical smile. It looked like she’d just unintentionally made him laugh and didn’t understand why. I took a slug straight from the bottle and showed the picture to the anaesthetist. She fetched a couple of plastic cups and I poured vodka into them.

‘Beirut is not such a good place, I think,’ she said, raising her cup to her lips.

‘Maybe you’re right.’ I drank from my cup and held the vodka in my mouth until it burnt and I had to swallow.