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Sunday, Nov 8, 2009
The driver shrugs.
"Brilliant." Marcus swings out of the jeep, the two Nikons around his neck bouncing.
Their pear-belly guard stiffens, aiming his gun at Marcus's chest. Caddie reaches from the Land Rover to try to grab Marcus's arm, but he's too far away.
"Okay, okay." Marcus raises his hands. "I need my card back. Card. Back. Comprenez?"
The guard holds his gun steady.
"Tell him, Catherine." He's still grinning, still outwardly confident that this adventure is manageable, no more threatening than a Ferris wheel ride. But Caddie knows he drops her nickname only at serious moments.
"My colleague, please, must have his press identification," Caddie says in Arabic, addressing both militiamen, trying for a there-must-be-a-small-mistake smile. "Then we will depart, thank you."
The mustachioed militiaman speaks shotgun-fast to the driver -- to Caddie it sounds like "these beans should be fried again in Syria" -- and the driver listens without expression. Caddie's Arabic isn't bad, but now she wishes, deeply, for a better grasp of local colloquialisms.
Another man emerges from the hut. Shirtless, skinny and muscular, he appears younger than the others. His face is creased in irritation. His hair sticks up in tufts as though he's been unwillingly roused from bed. Carrying no weapon, he walks with shoulders high, hands alert, fingers slightly extended. Caddie's tongue suddenly tastes metallic.
"You still here?" The shirtless man speaks in English.
"I need my identification card." Marcus enunciates as if to a child. "What a fashla," he says to Caddie in an aside, using the Arabic for "mess-up."
The young tough squints. "What you want?" he asks in English, in a tone that convinces Caddie the best answer would be "nothing."
Marcus chuckles. "This guy speaks pretty good caveman."
Caddie speaks sharply, quietly. "Shit, Marcus. Shut. Up."
Yes, this sleepy-eyed militiaman is a fool, made silly by the handful of power he holds over a hut and two armed men. But Marcus, it's clear, has a case of Superman Disorder, the disease that worms its way into journalists, fooling them into believing they're so seasoned, their instincts so developed, that every risk is manageable. That even the clouds and the dirt will back off in their presence. That a little cockiness will simply give them Godspeed. She's avoided that pit of overconfidence. So has Marcus, until now. She shoots him a pointed look. He seems to need reminding that this is not a disciplined army. These are thugs led by a man who smuggles and kidnaps and kills. They let mood swings, and a very personal interpretation of Allah's will, dictate when and where they fire their guns.
"C'mon, Marcus. Let's get out of here," she says.
"I don't go without my card." Marcus takes a step forward and speaks in one long breath. "We're more than happy to scoot, you bloody bloke, but first, it would be brilliant if you could go peek under your pillow and see if you can find a little card, one with my face on it." He finishes with an ersatz smile.
The shirtless boy fighter surely can't understand much of Marcus's racetrack sentences or clipped accent. But he leans forward attentively as if examining vermin, then pushes closer to their Land Rover, bringing with him the scent of barbecued onions. He glances in Caddie's direction, then grips Sven's arm. "Go," he says in English, shoving Sven and motioning at their driver. "Go!" The word comes out guttural.
"Bit testy, aren't you?" Marcus remains jaunty, but he's finally edging back toward the jeep.
"Still, I think it's a good suggestion," Sven says, sounding strained.
The baby-faced guard, gratingly calm, lets off a shot into the dirt that produces a pregnant swell of dust. He levels his gun and jerks it to motion their driver forward. The driver shifts into gear. Caddie grabs Marcus's arm and tugs him back into the vehicle as the driver punches the gas pedal.
"My card," cries Marcus mock-meekly, raising his arms in an empty-handed gesture. Having lost, he's clearly decided to treat this as good fun. "Why my card?"
"Why my wife?" Rob speaks over the engine noise. "Life is arbitrary."
"Why do we always end up talking about your divorce?" Sven asks over his shoulder.
"Right," Rob says. "Who cares? Let's just get the interview. We've got to be almost there. When we get back, Marcus, you can tell the press office your card went through the wash."
"What wash?" says Marcus. "Who's holding out on me? Is anybody using anything besides the sink?"
He's too jovial, considering this nonsense could have caused them to be detained for hours -- or worse. Caddie jabs him. "You won't even need the damn card in a couple days."
"Right you are. A whole month in New York." Marcus, oblivious to the edge in her tone, is gratingly cheerful. "I'm overdue. So cheers-ciao-salaam," he says, running the words together.
She twists slightly away from him, reminded now that irritating as his reckless behavior was, it doesn't bother her nearly as much as the fact that he has more or less spontaneously booked this flight to the U.S. He insisted he needed a break, had to get out, even yesterday was too late. She argued for days to get him to postpone it long enough to make this foray into Lebanon. Once they are done here, he's taking off. She only hopes that he doesn't miss any huge stories -- major flare-ups of violence or government collapses. Nobody based in the Middle East takes photos as good as Marcus's.
Caddie glances behind them and her chest finally loosens: the roadblock is out of sight; surely the worst of the day is history. They pass a couple buildings still showing the kiss of battles -- gapes and scars where walls should be. Then a patch of trees with leaves implausibly green against the fresh sky. Mt. Hermon rises in the distance, a landmark she knows, and the region becomes rocky again.
Their driver slows as they pass a woman in a long, loose dress and a headscarf who totes a toddler straddled on one shoulder, a basket on her head. She looks middle-aged, though she's probably in her twenties, eroded by having borne a child each year since age sixteen. Caddie has interviewed women like her. She lives in a one-room hut with a husband who shows more fondness for his gun than his family. Every day she scorches her fingertips making pita, and every night she rubs sore calves with callused hands. When she speaks, the wind carries away her words. When she needs help, she leans against a tree. She rarely knows surprise.
Their driver has courtesy enough, at least, to spare the woman the discomfort of being covered in dust. As they crawl past, she acknowledges them with the smallest of nods. Her toddler, frightened by the noisy vehicle and its load of strangers, lunges forward, blocking his mother's sight. She wipes his fingers from her eyes with her free hand in a gesture that seems to rebuke and soothe at once, and the intimacy of that movement sets off a longing within Caddie, irritating but not unfamiliar.
"Stop," Caddie calls out in Arabic. "Back up. Please."
