Beirut: Seven Days in a Small War

(8 of 11)

Annoyed. "I don't see myself as a professional of warfare. I was obliged to fight for my liberty. It could cost my life. It has cost the lives of many soldiers. It is the civilian who at last benefits from war. And I will have the memory of killed people in my mind." He pauses. "I am a lawyer. In eight years of war I could have made much money, had a future, a family. I missed all that for the sake of others. I missed the best part of my life. But if Lebanon is free again, I will have achieved something."

The day ends with two rumors afloat: an imminent Israeli invasion and a reported visit to West Beirut by Jane Fonda and Tom Hayden.

Saturday, July 3

The last hours in West Beirut. Tomorrow the journey south, first The last hours in West Beirut. Tomorrow the journey south, first to Sidon, then to Tyre, to try to find Samer. It is difficult to tell why this quest remains important. A four-year-old, his father dead. What does one have to tell him? What does he have to say to anyone? Still, he offers a goal, a purpose, in a place where purposes are hard to come by or confused. This day, then, will offer one last look at the torn half city. There is an odd sense of loss and regret at the prospect of leaving. Why? Nothing is whole here. The buildings and bodies broken. Nothing is safe. What has happened so far is terrible; what may happen, more terrible still. Yet this is the center of the world for the moment. This parched, sunstruck, ruined place is where the world's heart beats. Across from the hotel, a woman mops her balcony. Finished, she stands and stares straight at the one who is staring at her.

Shortly after noon, the Palestinian poet Mahmoud Darwish comes by the Commodore. He has written no poems about the war. "I write my silence," he says. "I need distance to be a witness, not a victim." Since words are powerless against tanks, he feels that his silence is stronger than words. Still, a poem has power. Is Palestine itself a poem? "Yes," he says. "Because a poem is an unachieved desire."

Yet, at the moment, he is "fed up with poetry and refugee camps and walls." He believes that "Beirut is our last stand. From here to the grave, or to the homeland." Then he relents a bit. "We have to save the idea before we save Beirut. Beirut is not the capital of our idea." Darwish is 40. He has been a refugee four times and has been thrown in jail. "If the Palestinians find a homeland, they may discover the same dilemma as the Jews. The Jews were great creators in the abstract. Now only their army is great. Israel is the grave of Jewish greatness."

Asked what he thought when he saw that the other Arab states would desert the Palestinians, he looks stricken: "In this moment, right here, I am ashamed to belong to the world." He considers what he has said. "If we escape, however, I think a new world will be born."

The afternoon news is that the Israelis have closed the Green Line at the museum, the most frequently used crossing point. It is necessary to get to East Beirut right now, so as not to be locked in West Beirut tomorrow. The taxi driver knows a different way across the line, around by the port. In an hour that exit will be blocked as well, and West Beirut sealed off. Once out, out totally.