Free Bride of a Bygone War by Preston Fleming Page A

ça, ” she replied with a careless shrug. “ Au revoir, monsieur .”
    Before he could tell her to call him by his first name, Muna Khalifé was past him and on her way to the lobby.
    Prosser looked around the room. The decor was typical of the Levantine merchant class—Louis of Lebanon, as he had once heard Muriel Benson call it—a profusion of oriental rugs, ornate woodwork, gold leaf, and red velvet along with an untidy collection of souvenir knickknacks from France, Switzerland, Japan, and North America, balanced by the melancholy of painted icons of the Maronite Catholic Church. The decor showed the influence of César’s late wife—nothing had been moved or replaced since her death two years before, when a car bomb exploded outside the bakery where she had gone to buy bread.
    “ Bonjour, bonjour, mon ami ,” came an unexpectedly jolly voice in the corridor. Prosser caught sight of a short, barrel-chested man with a florid complexion and shiny gray hair combed back in marcelled waves. He seemed the picture of the Levantine merchant in his raw silk suit, tailored white shirt worn unbuttoned to the breastbone, and wraparound Alain Delon sunglasses worn on top of his head.
    According to César’s file at Headquarters, before the outbreak of civil war in 1975, César had been a reasonably prosperous importer of electric appliances, owning a showroom and warehouse off rue Weygand in the heart of the old commercial district. The building had been gutted by fire in the first week of the war and now stood near the center of the no-man’s-land separating East and West Beirut. Because César’s wealth had been almost completely tied up in his building and inventory, the loss of merchandise and real estate had forced him to liquidate all of his other investments and even to sell his ancestral mountain villa near Beït Meri to pay his creditors. Having managed to retain little more than his Mercedes and his furniture, César moved his wife and daughter into a high-rise apartment in Antélias on the strength of a mortgage to his sister and brother-in-law.
    With the loss of his business, César threw himself into the war effort with abandon, commanding a battery of Chamounist artillery in the hills around Beït Meri from May of 1975 until the autumn of the following year, when the arrival of Syrian tanks brought temporary peace to Lebanon and gave the Christian alliance between the Chamounist National Liberal Party and the more powerful Phalange Party sufficient time to unravel. By the end of October, César had found it impossible to work with his Phalange counterparts, who baited and harassed the Chamounist NLP officers at every opportunity. He resigned his commission, went back to being a rank-and-file member of the NLP’s political organization, and set about rebuilding his electrical goods business.
    Around the same time, Prosser recalled from the file, César had found an occasion to visit the American embassy’s consular section, where he met a mid-level consular officer named Edwin Pirelli. During the winter of 1976–1977, César had spent many evenings at Pirelli’s apartment pouring out his bitterness toward the Phalangists and their relentless drive for political dominance over the Lebanese Christian community. Pirelli was nothing if not a patient listener, and his penetrating questions also displayed an astute grasp of Lebanese history and politics, which further endeared him to the merchant-warrior.
    From time to time, Pirelli pressed César to back up his opinions with facts that Pirelli could cite to his superiors at the American embassy to show that he had his finger on the pulse of Lebanon’s political life. Before long, César found himself canvassing his friends and relatives regularly about their views on specific political issues and cultivating those of his acquaintances who held positions in the Phalange Party or militia.
    One evening, after a particularly enjoyable meal at Pépé’s, a