Free Dynamite Fishermen by Preston Fleming Page B

she did not wait for a response, but instead leaned forward and began a conversation with the woman seated opposite her brother, a chubby-faced Libanaise in her late twenties with a pageboy hairdo and heavily made-up eyes whose buxom figure did ample justice to her strapless cocktail dress. Typical of Lebanese women, she had come far more elegantly dressed than the occasion demanded.
    A sheepish Husayn al Fayyad then turned toward Prosser, shrugged, and assured the American in grammatical but oddly inflected German that he had meant no harm.
    “No offense taken,” Prosser replied in German, pleased that Husayn seemed to feel more at ease with him now. He wondered whether Husayn might be in need of a best friend, in Pirelli’s sense of the term. Husayn’s militia contacts might be useful, he mused, even if he didn’t intend to stay in Lebanon longer than was necessary to settle his father’s estate.
    While Husayn summoned the restaurateur to bring two more bottles of Chateau Musar, Prosser listened to Harry Landers regale the young woman on his left, a newly arrived visa officer at the British embassy, with lurid tales of the breakdown of order in Lebanon and the exploits of Beirut’s legendary thieves. One gang, Harry claimed, had recently carted away a section of the country’s international telephone cable to sell as scrap metal, interrupting international telephone and telex service for a week. Another ring had destroyed the municipality’s entire store of computerized tax records with the idea of saving their patron, a large property owner, from having to pay taxes on his commercial real estate holdings.
    Harry had just begun to describe how Palestinian militiamen had systematically looted the safe deposit boxes in the city’s downtown banks during the early days of the Lebanese civil war when the restaurateur’s Austrian wife arrived with the first platters of food. All discussion ceased as she unloaded the domed serving platters and passed them around the table. More platters arrived minutes later; another half hour passed before they lit their first postprandial cigarettes.
    Husayn, one of the first to finish eating, could scarcely wait for Prosser to lay down his fork before accosting him with a pointed question about American policy toward Lebanon’s Sunni Muslim minority. Since Husayn seemed likely to take a partisan view on the issue, Prosser offered the official State Department line that U.S. policy was to show no favor to any faction, but rather to support Lebanon’s lawful, if weakened, central government.
    Husayn gave a bitter laugh. “Was it not your Secretary of State Henry Kissinger who invited the Syrian army into Lebanon in 1976?” he asked, his voice tinged with sarcasm. “The Lebanese have spent five years under Syrian occupation while America sits idly by and claims neutrality vis-à-vis the Lebanese factions. All we ask is for America to help us regain our independence. Not until Lebanon is free of Syrian and Palestinian occupation will our people be at liberty to make peace with each other.” The faraway look in Husayn’s eyes hinted that he had spoken more to vent his frustration than to convince his audience.
    Poor Henry Kissinger is taking a real beating in Lebanon these days, Prosser thought. “I understand what you’re saying, Husayn,” he replied politely, “but you overlook the fact that the Lebanese parties had already been at each other’s throats for years before Kissinger came along. If you ask me, the Lebanese will still be fighting each other long after Henry the K is dead and forgotten. Anyone who expects that evicting the Palestinians and the Syrians will instantly solve Lebanon’s domestic political problems is living in a dream world.”
    By now Harry and the British visa officer had begun to follow the exchange with growing interest. Rima, who sat between Prosser and her brother, listened but held her tongue.
    “My dear friend,” Husayn continued with more