Maher has always made me feel like a fraud. Seeing him today - after what, 10, 12 years- makes me also feel like what the Egyptians call an Aubergine, betanjaan, a swollen up, shiny member of the bourgeoisie. We seem to have expanded in opposite directions, he and I, my head has shrunk with my hair falling out and my waistline - well, I sit down sometimes and am not sure if my arm will reach the table - is not really a waist at all. He, on the other hand, is wirier and his beard is so huge and unkempt his head appears absurd. It could fall off. He’s like an ancient Greek bust on a teenager’s body, I decide, as he bounds towards me putting out his arms to embrace my tubby torso.
I follow protocol; we did small talk first - politics (of the gossipy kind, the serious stuff always comes last), then the mutual enquiries about extended family and then the closer members. I put my foot in it by mentioning the trial too soon and he waves me off the subject with one hand. I should have waited.
‘The rat poison was not that critical.’ He says as though surprised at my interest. I am surprised at his surprise. It was, after all, what the media had focused on,
‘My lawyers said it was all circumstantial evidence. You know, it always amused me when they used this word ‘circumstantial’ as though it meant ‘unimportant’ for what are we, but a product of our circumstances?’ He flips back to me.
‘And you, my friend? It was a rough trip, you say. Did you manage to get upgraded? It was already Business. Good, it is as it should be. Affluence suits you. More on the stomach, less on the head, but you look well. Do you have photos of the children? Let me put on my glasses. Unbelievable! Ma’ shallah! Nidhal’s just like his father and Dana has a bit of your sister, wouldn’t you say? Their mother is well, I trust? Is Dubai suiting her? Did she know you were meeting me? No, fair enough, my friend, fair enough - I can see her concerns.
'Do you see how Beirut changes! They are trying to plug the bullet holes with cement and marble and they are not doing a bad job, but the scar tissue needs a different type of treatment and there are those who keep cutting open the wounds. Those bastards flying low overhead with their sonic booms for a start. There are still more of the Lebanese abroad than inside, more of the Palestinians in camps than inside. We are all still outside ourselves my friend.
"Our flutes would have played
a duet
If it weren't for the gun
As long as the earth turns around
itself inside us
The war will not end."
We finish the last two lines together and he seems pleased that I remember them. I am also relieved that it has not all left me. For who do I know nowadays, but Maher, who would quote Mahmoud Darwish? We are walking down the steps that run behind the American University where we were students 20 - no 25 - years ago now. Tarty pink Bougainvillea spills over the graffiti 'Yes, yes to Hizbollah!' (Arabic, in black with a flag)- 'Khalid loves Randa (English, in a heart) - 'Stop the Syrian Occupation of Beirut! - (French, in red capitals). He moves me forward holding my elbow in his cupped hand. Jasmine smells of Jerusalem here and nostalgia overwhelms me with that smell so sweet you feel it stuck to your skin. Why is it that however much I try in the Gulf, Jasmine still holds the fragrance of dust?
I have not seen Maher since his trial in London. His barrister advised me against standing as a character witness. My past could be used against us, he said. Even if you are now an Executive Account Manager with a Multinational, the proud owner of a manicured wife, two children in American schools and a capsule-shaped Lexus with a leather interior. They will look at your guerrilla training and expulsion from these shores in '82 with the other fedayeen fighters and crucify you both. They may even throw the net of conspiracy so wide that it falls on to the activities of your offshore bank accounts, he said. So, I drew back and let Maher stand alone. Nobody blamed me for doing that, it was entirely reasonable in the circumstances.
We have reached the Corniche, and have stepped through the traffic to the pavement by the coast. We have fallen silent and I wait for him to tell me about the London couple.
'I had known David for years. He'd introduced himself after one of the talks I'd given in Holborn criticising the Peace Process back in '96. He was earnest and seemed genuine so I invited him to join a group of us that went on a pub afterwards. We got on well and stayed on after everyone had left. He has this scientist's mind which just probes and probes. He was sure there was an answer somewhere and he just had to get at it. I was speaking of bi-nationalism favouring it over the two state solution, saying that we should create one state with the Israelis giving up ethnic segregation and giving us passports instead. He was enthusiastic and asked to read more, so we swapped numbers and these pub meetings became a regular thing. I think he was pleased to get out a bit. He was married with no children and seemed to spend a lot of his spare time, from what I could tell, in the laboratory/workshop he'd built in his garage and I, as you know, never had much of a life in London.
My job had gone sour after the '94 peace deal because I'd fallen out with the editor, Baradi, because I was refusing to compromise my position on the deal, so they were getting me to write recipes in the Women's Section to humiliate me into submission÷ so if you have any queries about the construction of tabooleh or the healing qualities of Camomile, I'm your man. My life was just politics, my cat, my books and the occasional flying visit of a friend or relative passing through to the States or Canada.
'I met his wife, Helen, later. He invited me over to their house for dinner and I can't say she made much of an impression. I remember she had the most unsuitably tight top on and physically I just noticed her protruding eyes and nipples. She hardly spoke, seemed bored to be there, although obviously the dinner had taken her hours to prepare. She did at one point launch into a very animated account about a friend of hers who was having an affair and seemed very interested in my opinion. It was completely out of context with the rest of the evening. I remember thinking boumeh, (owl), you know, as she had stayed quiet watching, watching then this outburst.
'When I returned the invitation she was quite different. She seemed intrigued by everything in my house and was asking lots of questions. It was like having an inspection at a military training camp or a simulated interrogation, do you remember those? Then she found my framed photograph of Layla with the gun. You know that 60's photo which the Western press used when they compared her to Hepburn, the one where she is looking off to the right with a Kalishnikov propped by her and the Palestinian kaffiyyeh around her neck. I know it's stupid to have pictures like that now, but there was something so pure and directed about our war then. We knew who the enemy was, we used words like 'imperialism' and 'apartheid' and she was young, beautiful and fighting our battle with her hair showing. You're wincing - I know it doesn't do the same thing for you, but I still hanker for those days. So I told her about Layla and the hijackings and she was really excited by it all. Particularly when I said I had met her several times.'
We are walking by the sea where that great arch of rock has fallen on its feet in the bay. It appears that people lost their taste for this view of Beirut in the 70's as the cafes are hollow and dirty windowed, lined only with unattended white Formica tables. We finally find one with customers. The outside tables have blue and gold table-cloths and two moustached men playing backgammon. We stop for an argeela and some mint tea. An old recording of Fairuz is playing, where she sings of our country and the backgammon players hum, tut and shake their heads. Maher waves the argeela pipe at me, bemused by the disposable plastic wrapping on its mouthpiece 'Argeela condoms; aren't you pleased that the state is being sanitised?' (eyebrow raised, ironic). He asks to prepare the pipe himself and chats to the young boy whose task it is to arrange the coals on the metal foil of the hajjar. He asks of his village, how long he's been here and ensures that the boy, (Walid, from the Bekaa), is not offended at having his role usurped. I notice that he hasn't lost that ability to charm and get a following. His voice is full of intonation and urgency. From the first time I saw him speak at the University in '79, I recognised the ability to include all and embrace difference.
Inclusionary Politics is the name I give Maher's approach and I had been espousing it at a meeting only last week at the National Bank. They really dig it those old guys those 'I Sold Out Before I Was Even In' Arabs who need an ex-fighter like me around to feel better about themselves. Sitting on their big arsed bank accounts in their glass and chrome towers needing to seek consolation about the fact that we are being slaughtered like dogs and they are getting rich on it. That's what the mix between business and politics is in the Gulf now - talk big but for God's sake don't do anything. Stick to that credo and you'll be just fine.
I resolve to pay for this and the dinner that we may have. I am not going to let him fight about it. My wallet rubs warm against my chest as I move the pipe to my mouth with my good arm. The boy, Walid, is trying to fuss, to make it more comfortable for me. He is doing this because of Maher. To insist on paying is the least I can do, and anyway it will come to nothing when you convert it to Dirham.
Maher is now focused back onto me. His hands fill out in a gesture of deep explanation,
'The tradition of going on holiday together started about six months after I first met David. I had no 'holiday partners' as I had never really been on holiday before and their friends had children which they couldn't abide. We went first to Seville. They asked me to guide them through the wonders of Granada to explain the Islamic architecture. Then we went to Tuscany, which we liked so much we decided to buy a farmhouse together. We used to go as a contented little trio: Helen used to busy herself with shopping or sorting out the house whilst David and I chatted about the buildings and history during the day and debated politics into the night.
'I like to blame Gibran for the affair. Well its either Gibran or Helen and I hate to see myself as a victim in these things. About a year before the arrest, five years after we met, she started coming over on her own. My flat was not that near to theirs but she would find reasons to pop in and would sometimes bring food or return the books David had borrowed. Then on one visit, she found my copy of Gibran's 'The Prophet' that I've had for years. It was given to me by an old girlfriend (Donya? The Egyptian? No, I didn't think you'd met her, it was very short lived). She read the verse on Children; you know the part where it says that
They come through you but not from
you
And though they are with you yet
they belong not to you
'And she cried and cried. She said that the doctors had told her that she could never have children she'd tried every fertility treatment under the sun, her body was exhausted and her mind shot apart. And I hugged her, you know in sympathy, but she turned her mouth onto mine and that's how it began. She took Gibran home with her that night and I stayed up until sunrise sitting on the roof outside my kitchen drinking an old bottle of Chivas and smoking a batch of cigarettes that I got the Tamil chap in the off license down stairs to bring up for me. The next morning I felt younger and sadder than I had done in years.
'Of course we kept trying to break it off, but we were like children with a denied toy. The more we tried to pull away the more we craved each other and then we just settled into acceptance. I still saw David but more frequently made excuses not to. The last holiday was impossible for me to get out of. My residency status meant that I had to apply for a visa months before I could travel anywhere so the holiday had actually all been all booked and planned before the affair started. I felt like it would have been suspicious to back out. I had trusted in her discretion, but our affair seemed to have transformed her. She had become very showy and enjoyed taking risks. She seemed to get off on it. She would ask me to come to their house when he was out. I would always refuse, but still, it was worrying. I should not have underestimated it - that was my mistake.
'The holiday was not easy. Every time I spoke I had to double check whether I was letting on to something that she had told me when we were alone. She kept slipping up and getting more and more careless. David was either looking dejected, surly and self-involved or greeting me with Disney style cheer. It put my nerves on end. We visited San Gmigniano and he took me into this medieval church filled with dark frescos of hell and gave me a lecture on the seven deadly sins stressing adultery and stealing from thy neighbour. I felt embarrassed for him and ashamed of myself. So that night when she almost danced into my bedroom, I told her to leave and that it was all over. She became very hard-faced and quiet and just walked out without looking back.
'I left for two days to Florence saying that they probably wanted some time together. In Florence I met some Palestinians, (Eastern European qualified) doctors and accountants, who were working on the leather markets who they took me in and showed me where the bars were where I could watch Jazeera on TV and smoke an argeela. When I went back things were not great but we went through the motions and had one last dinner together on the balcony which was when we had the conversation about the rat poison. Helen said she'd seen a rat by the shed and that there was probably a whole colony. She was repulsed by the thought. David then said that if he had known he would have brought some of his chemicals with him as there was one that they used as rat poison. Regrettably, he added, it was also used for making explosives he didn't think it advisable to travel with it. Helen then said that everyone in London was never more than three feet away from a rat and that they mostly dwell in old Victorian buildings like mine and that I should lay poison like she did to prevent an infestation. That was it. In retrospect, yes, it was an odd conversation, but I didn't pay much attention, as long as the conversation was not about the seven deadly sins I was quite happy.'
My tea is now cold. Maher motions to the boy and orders some Turkish coffee. I have not yet mentioned that Maher saved my life in '81. Here, in Beirut, in what was the Paris of the Middle East, here, on that cavity that crossed the city during its years of internal warfare; the Green Line.
Our Unit was holed up in what must have previously been the apartment of an Armenian Madame. It was all bitty wooden furniture and crucifixes which we burnt within days as it was a cold winter that one. The windows had been shattered long before and the wall of the bedroom had gone. There were lumps of concrete hanging off the flowered wall paper and pink carpet flapping at the sky like loose skin in the hole that was once another room. And she'd left her damn cat, some yowling Persian who we found scraping around covered in dust. Maher was commander of our Unit (I say 'Unit' but there were only four of us left by then) and should have killed the damn cat and fed us with it or something. But no. He'd rather have starved so that he could feed the cat and that cat was love sick for him in return - it curled up under his arm as he slept and rubbed up against his legs as he fired from the window. He named it 'Salameh' and referred to her as the fifth man in our unit.
Things were bad though by then. The ammunition and food were hardly ever getting through, but we could have coped with that if we'd had the information. The runners rarely came. We didn't know where our commanders were and what they wanted from us. We'd even stopped knowing who was firing at us and who we were shooting at. Four men, three guns and one cat in an Armenian boudoir firing at smoke and concrete. Shit. It was depressing. So the day the Phalange militia went past below us with only one armoured vehicle we went into a frenzy. It was like a sitting duck. I start firing and Maher was meant to cover me but Salameh gets into the mood of it all and leaps up onto his fucking head. Maher fires at the sky and my arm gets blown off. The shot came from across the street though so you can't really blame the cat. It wasn't the Phalange and Maher really couldn't have stopped it. The enemy entourage sails past like it is on its maiden voyage and the anonymous neighbours start trying to blow our heads off again and then the Unit just goes to pieces. I've got blood spewing out like vomit and the other guys are all freaking out at Maher. But Maher ignores all this and manages to block them out as they shoot the cat. He ties my arm tight and gets me to stop me wailing like a woman and stays with me when our comrades leave us to it. He holds onto me for two days telling me Egyptian jokes and singing old Palestinian nursery rhymes about chickens then carries me to the hospital on his back during a ceasefire on the third.
I didn't see him again until we were on the boat in '82 being expelled with the other fighters. I had already had it by then. Our kitschy nationalistic fables make it heroic, that shameful eviction, that awful war. I just remember sitting on that boat with the other fedayeen slapping me on the back and calling me 'brother' wondering which one of those bastards shot my arm off.
The boy is hovering by Maher, a small aluminium cradle of red coals in his hand. He waits as Maher places them like mosaic pieces across the top of the encased tobacco.
'When we get back to London she makes one visit. She brings some books from David, a small box of rat poison from his laboratory and a spare set of keys for the farmhouse and that was it. She also has a timetable of house sharing arrangements.
'I was being watched. There were old men sitting in cars for hours when it was too cold to justify being there. There were also men in City Macs hanging around by the kebab shop trying to look busy with their phones and bikes. I thought David had hired them to check on whether I was still seeing her.
'The word 'arrest' sounds so gentle. They broke into the house while I was in the shower one morning, and crashed up the stairs into my bathroom. There must have been at least ten of them; all navy, black and bloated in bullet-proof vests and shiny helmets. There were machine guns pointing at me from everywhere.
The rest you know: the terrorism charges based on a box of rat poison, a picture of a woman with a gun and a history of being involved in an armed resistance movement. They clutched at everything. Why did I have Israeli newspapers? Why had I criticised the Peace Process? Wasn't it true that I had contacted a sleeper cell whilst in Italy the previous summer?
'Everyone is so charmed and envious of the processes over there. But it's no different to here once you use the word 'terrorism.' Their evidentiary rules that uphold it all break off at their stalks. In the end the whole case collapsed, as you know, because they couldn't prove conspiracy as they couldn't find anyone who I was linked to, but that wasn't before I'd spent 14 months prison whilst on remand. I lost my job and Baradi even gave evidence for the Prosecution as to my 'dangerous' political viewpoint (a cunning move on his part as he has bagged many a BBC interview since as the 'educated Arab voice of reason') and so when it came for the Home Office to exercise their discretion as to my immigration status they opted for deportation.
'Yes, fine, deport me, but where to? I got stuck back in the courts in and out and then a detention centre when my residency expired and they were still were wondering where I could go. There is no Palestine. He isn't a Jordanian. He's been exiled from Lebanon. He's already been kicked out of Kuwait. His family are dead and so forth. Finally, my uncle managed to pull strings enough for the Lebanese to step in so that a deal was struck. They would take me, but I would be categorised as a 'political asylum seeker' which sounds fair but what it means in effect that every time there is some overture to 'Peace' or 'Development' by the Government they slam me up inside to show that they are cracking down on terror too.
'The Hellers? Yes, I did see them and they looked very well. They came and gave evidence for the Prosecution at the trial. Most of it was given in camera, however, for reasons of public immunity because of David's 'special relationship' with their Embassy. We fought that but lost of course, so I don't even know what they said about me. As they were leaving, David just leaned over to my lawyer and gave him back my copy of Khalil Gibran's The Prophet whilst Helen watched. They had a post-Lewinsky-Clintons look about them, I would say, smug, reconciled and powerful'.
When I return from the bathroom, Maher has paid the bill and is standing by the steps up to the pavement. I jump at the sound of an Israeli jet breaking the sound barrier above and Maher laughs and welcomes me to Beirut. He cups my elbow in his hand and motions for me to go ahead. I make a mental note to buy a Fairuz CD for my car when I pass through the airport.