Legends

Djamillah went over the photographs again, double checking the distances between buildings, the location of the gate in the perimeter fence, identifying the footpaths that crisscrossed the village and the Hezbollah camp. She produced a military map of the Bekaa to see what other forces Hezbollah might have in the general vicinity of the camp. “When the raid begins, you must somehow get to this spot”—she pointed to a well between the village and the Hezbollah camp. She handed Dante a white silk bandanna and he stuffed it into the pocket of his trousers. “Wear this around your neck so you can be easily identified.”

“How will I know when to expect the raid?”

“Exactly six hours before, two Israeli M-16s will fly by at an altitude high enough to leave contrails. They’ll come from north to south. When they are directly above the camp they will make ninety degree turns to the west.”

Djamillah slipped the photographs and the map back into the folder and wedged it into the seam of the cushion.

“Looks as if we’ve more or less covered the essentials,” Dante remarked.

“Not quite.” She stood up and began matter of factly stripping off her clothing; it was the first time in his life Dante had seen a woman undress when the act didn’t seem sensual. “You are supposed to be up here having sex with me. I think it would be prudent for you to be able to describe my clothing and my body.” She removed the blouse and the skirt and her underpants. “I have a small scar on the inside of my thigh, here. My pubic hair is trimmed for a bikini. I have a faded tattoo of a night moth under my right breast. And on my left arm you will see the scars of a smallpox vaccination that didn’t prevent me from getting smallpox, which accounts for the pockmarks on my face. When we came up here I locked the door and you put fifty dollars—two twenties and a ten—on the desk and weighed them down with the shell casing that’s on the floor over there. We both took off our clothing. You asked me to suck you—that was the expression you used—but I said I don’t do that. You stripped and sat down on the couch and I gave you a hand job and when you were erect I slipped on a condom and came on top of you. Please make note of the fact that I make love with my shoes on.” She began to dress again. “Now it’s your turn to strip, Irish, so that I can describe your body if I need to. Why do you hesitate? You are a professional. This is a matter of tradecraft.”

Dante shrugged and stood up and lowered his trousers. “As you can see, I am circumcised. My first American girlfriend talked me into having it done—she seemed to think there was less chance of her catching some venereal disease from me if I were circumcised.”

“Circumcised and well endowed, as they say. Do you have any scars?”

“Physical or mental?”

She didn’t think he was humorous. “I do not psychoanalyze my clients, I only fuck them.”

“No scars,” he said dryly.

She inspected his body from foot to head, and his clothing, then gestured for him to turn around. “You can put your clothes back on,” she finally said. She walked him to the door. “You are in a dangerous business, Irish.”

“I am addicted to fear,” he murmured. “I require a daily fix.”

“I do not believe you. If you did not believe in something you would not be here.” She offered her hand. “I admire your courage.”

He gripped her hand and held it for a moment. “And I am dazzled by yours. An Arab who risks—”

She tugged her hand free. “I am not an Arab,” she said fiercely. “I am a Lebanese Alawite.”

“And what the hell is an Alawite?”

“We’re a sliver of a people lost in a sea of Arab Muslims who consider us heretics and detest us. We had a state once—it was under the French Mandate when the Ottoman Empire broke up after the First World War. The Alawite state was called Latakia; my grandfather was a minister in the government. In 1937, against our will, Latakia became part of Syria. My grandfather was assassinated for opposing this. These days most of the Lebanese Alawites side with the Christians against the Muslims in the civil war. Our goal is to crush the Muslims—and this includes Hezbollah—in the hope of returning Lebanon to Christian rule. Our dream is to reestablish an Alawite state, a new Latakia on the Levantine shore washed by the Mediterranean.”

“I wish you good luck,” Dante said with elaborate formality. “What is it that Alawites believe that Muslims don’t?”

“Now is not the moment for such discussions—”

“You are a professional. This is a matter of tradecraft. I might be asked what we talked about after we had sex.”

Djamillah almost smiled. “It is our belief that the Milky Way is made up of the deified souls of Alawites who rose to heaven.”

“For the rest of my life I shall think of you when I look at the Milky Way,” he announced.

She unlocked the door and stepped aside. “In another incarnation,” she remarked solemnly, “it would have been agreeable to make love with you.”

“Maybe when all this is over—”