Legends

“Tell me something, Dr. al-Karim—” Dante hesitated.

The imam’s head bobbed. “Only ask, Mr. Pippen.”

“I notice that you often speak of the Jews, not the Israelis. I’m curious to know if Hezbollah isn’t confusing the two. What I’m getting at is this: Are you anti-Israeli or anti-Jewish?”

“In as much as Isra’il is an enemy state,” the imam replied without hesitation, “we are, of course, anti-Isra’ili.” He started manipulating his worry beads again. “But make no mistake, we are also anti-Jewish. Our common history goes back to the Prophet Muhammad. The Jews never recognized the legitimacy of Islam as the true religion, and the Koran as the word of God.”

“Your critics say this attitude more or less puts you in the same boat as Adolf Hitler.”

The imam shook his head vigorously. “Not at all, Mr. Pippen. Our critics miss an essential point. Hitler was anti-Semite. There are enormous differences between being anti-Jewish and anti-Semite.”

“I’m afraid you’re losing me …”

“Anti-Semites, Mr. Pippen, believe that once a Jew, always a Jew. For Hitler, even a Jew who converted to Christianity remained a Jew. It follows that for the Nazis in particular and for anti-Semites in general, there was no solution except what they called the Final Solution, namely the extermination of the Jews. Being anti-Jewish, on the other hand, implies that there is a solution short of extermination; a way for Jews to save themselves from extermination.”

“And what might that be?”

“The Jew can convert to Islam, at which point Islam will have no quarrel with him.”

“I see.”

“What do you see, Mr. Pippen?”

“I see that I shouldn’t have started this conversation in the first place. I am a hired gun. You pay me for services rendered, not my opinions on your opinions.”

“Quite right, quite right. Though if my answers don’t interest you, I will admit to you that your questions interest me.”

Abdullah materialized outside the window, tapping a fingernail against a pane. When the imam went over to the window, Abdullah pointed to the car winding its way up the dirt road toward the Hezbollah camp.

“I had almost forgotten,” Dr. al-Karim said, turning back to Dante. “I am expecting a visitor. The Syrian commander in the Bekaa stops by every once in awhile to see what we are up to. He will stay through prayers and the evening meal tomorrow. It might be wise if you keep out of sight, as I have not informed him of your presence and the Syrians do not take kindly to foreigners in the valley.”

“How about if I disappear in the direction of Beirut,” Dante asked. “It’s been almost three weeks since I arrived. As tomorrow is Friday and my students will be in the mosque praying, I was going to ask you for a day off.”

“And what will you do on this day off of yours?”

“In my entire life I have never gone this long without a swill of beer. I will take my warm body off to a bar and drink a barrel of it.”

“Why not? Beirut has quieted down. And you have earned a day of rest. I will send Abdullah and one of my bodyguards to keep you out of harm’s way.”

“An Irishman does not go to a licensed tabernacle to keep out of harm’s way, Dr. al-Karim.”

“Nevertheless, out of harm’s way is where we must keep you until you have completed your work here. What you do after that is your affair.”

The following afternoon the battered Ford that had transported Dante to the Bekaa three weeks earlier threaded its way through a tangle of secondary roads in the direction of Beirut. The bodyguard, sporting baggy khakis and cradling a Kalashnikov with notches cut into the stock for each of his kills, sat up front bantering in Arabic with the driver, a coal-black Saudi with matted dreadlocks. Dante, wearing a coarse brown Bedouin burnoose, a black-and-white checkered kaffiyah and dark sunglasses, shared the backseat with Abdullah, who climbed out of the car at each Syrian checkpoint to wave, with an imperious snap of the wrist, the letter bearing Dr. al-Karim’s seal and signature in the face of the soldiers who were (so Abdullah swore) completely illiterate. Dante, lost in thought, stared through his reflection in the window, barely noticing the dusty villages with the swarms of barefoot boys playing soccer in the unpaved streets, the crowded open-air souks with giant dish antennas for sale on one side and donkeys and camels tethered to a nearby fence, the tiled butcher shops with young boys fanning the flies off the carcasses hanging from hooks. At the outskirts of Beirut, the Ford passed through the first of the militia barricades but (as Abdullah explained in halting English) the pimply gunmen there, though literate, were more interested in the twenty-dollar bills folded into Dr. al-Karim’s letter than the letter itself or the passengers in the car.