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Saturday, Jul 4, 2009
Taken under the wing of a Lebanese detergent tycoon, our correspondent learns that there's a fine line between hospitality and kidnapping.
Jun 6, 2000 | I first met Mr. Ibrahim in the Hamra district of West Beirut. At the time, I'd been searching for a pub that had been recommended to me secondhand, and I wasn't having much luck. I was studying my street map on the corner of Hamra and Rue Jeanne d'Arc when Mr. Ibrahim approached me, looking innocuous in his blue jeans, plaid shirt and neatly trimmed goatee.
"Are you lost?" he asked me.
"Not really," I said. "I know where I am; I just can't find the place I want to go."
"I am Mr. Ibrahim," he said, gesturing grandly at the buildings of Beirut, "and this is my city." He looked to be in his early 30s, but he spoke as if he thought of himself as a wizened old patriarch. "Where do you wish to go?"
"Well, it's a pub that a friend of a friend told me about, but I'm not sure if you would know where ..."
"This is my city!" Mr. Ibrahim bellowed happily, giving me a start. He grinned intensely as I attempted to continue.
"Oh, right. Well, I'm looking for a ..."
"Where are you from?"
"I'm from America."
"America!" Mr. Ibrahim yelled, his voice echoing through the street. Still grinning, he pulled out his wallet and produced a dollar bill. "What is this?" he asked me.
"Um, it's a dollar."
"And what does it say?"
"It says, 'One Dollar.'"
"No!" Mr. Ibrahim boomed. He held the dollar up in front of my face. "It says, 'In ... God ... We ... Trust'!"
"In God we trust," I repeated, not sure what the point was.
"That's why your country is great: Because you trust in God." Mr. Ibrahim magnanimously handed me the dollar bill. "You keep this," he said.
"Well, that's nice," I said, holding the dollar back out to him, "but I don't need a dollar as much as I need to find ..."
"You keep this!" Mr. Ibrahim hollered happily, snatching the dollar from my hand and stuffing it into my shirt pocket. "Every day you must pray to God for sex, and he will give you more dollars than you ever dreamed of."
"Pray for sex?"
"Yes, pray for sexus!" He beamed proudly, as if he'd just changed my life.
"Oh," I said, catching his accent. "Pray for success."
"Sex-cess!" Mr. Ibrahim yelled, suddenly looking impatient. "Where do you want to go? This is my city, and I can show you anywhere."
"Well, a friend's friend told me about a pub called the Hole in the Wall ..." I began. As I spoke, Mr. Ibrahim pulled out his cellphone and began to furiously punch in numbers. "I'm just not sure if I'm even in the right ..."
I paused as Mr. Ibrahim began to shout Arabic into his cellphone. He stopped for a moment and looked over at me. "Where do we go?"
"The Hole in the Wall."
"The Holy Diwah!" he yelled at his phone. He punched another button and put the phone back into his pocket.
"Who was that you were talking to?" I asked.
"It's OK; we will take you there. It is my pleasure."
"Yes, but who's we? Who was on the phone?"
"That was Abdul."
"Is he a friend of yours?"
"Of course not!" Mr. Ibrahim boomed, laughing. "Abdul is my bodyguard!"
Five minutes later, a massive young man drove up in a gold Mercedes 300E. The door locks, I noticed, were tipped with rhinestones. At Mr. Ibrahim's grand insistence, I took the shotgun seat, and for all practical purposes, I was his hostage for the next three days.
