Chapter 53\ Take a good look at Beirut before it burns to the ground

I returned home from one of my business trips carrying a toy glider, as my son Reda was fascinated with airplanes. The date was 15 April 1975^[1] and it had been two days of not being able to drive down to Beirut because of the battles that were flaring up between Palestinian commando groups and the Christian militias of the Phalangist Party. Reda had been begging me to fly his glider, so I seized the opportunity to take him to peak 888, which would become famous later during the war because of the battles that were fought there.

As we were waiting for a strong gush of wind to release the glider, I saw a recent acquaintance, Raouf Abou Zaki, the editor of the business and economic section of An-Nahar, holding the hand of his young daughter Nadine, who was of a similar age to Reda. Nadine was pushing a stroller that looked to be a recent gift from her father. After the greeting, Raouf asked if I had been able to make it to Beirut during the past three days. When he heard my negative response, he turned to me and said: “Take a good look at Beirut, before it burns to the ground!”

To my great surprise, Raouf said that these were the first days of a long and bloody civil war. Reda threw his glider up into the wind and went running to retrieve it, then tried again and again. Nadine pushed her doll in the stroller, while Raouf and I sank deep into a silence that had befallen us following Raouf’s prophecy.

I experienced Raouf’s ultra-sensitive anticipation of danger more than once in the following years. The battle scene moved away from Kahale and Furn Al Chebak, so I was able to make it to the office on Rue de Damas. However, this road gradually became the partition line between the warring militias, who built their barricades on opposite sides. The Homsi building became one of those strongholds. Sandbags were stacked on all the windows overlooking Damascus Road and the main entrance was blocked. Our only access was through the delivery entrance at the back of the building on Rue Monot to lift stopped functioning, so we had to climb the stairs, which were being used as a resting area by the fighters. All the streets in the neighborhood became extremely dangerous as snipers using telescopic long-range guns from the top of high-rise buildings on both sides would shoot anything moving on the other side.

One day, Bassem Dajani, who had graduated from university in Canada and returned home to Jordan, managed to get through to me by phone the moment the office telephone lines regained life following weeks of silence. Bassem was concerned about the safety of all Intermarkets’ Lebanon team members. He and his parents had been closely following news of the fighting in Beirut and he called to invite us to transfer the operation to Amman. At the end of a long call packed with Dajani’s generous invitations and my reciprocation, Bassem concluded the call by insisting on flying to Beirut to extend the invitation face to face.

The day Bassem arrived, I met him at the airport and asked the taxi driver, Melhem, to take us to the museum crossing via the Achrafieh backstreets, then through Rue Monot to the Homsi building. The scenes of war shocked Bassem and he intensified his invitation even before we arrived at the agency. Bassem repeated this invitation to Erwin Guerrovich, Raymond Hanna, and Nahi Ghorayeb. Samir Fares was not available, as he was operating out of the Phoenicia Hotel, where he could make use of the hotel’s long-distance telephone and telex machine facilities, which allowed Intermarkets to maintain regular contact with its overseas clients.

At the end of the visit, and as we went down the Katol-smelling stairs to Melhem’s blue Plymouth, Bassem turned to me and said: “This whole situation seems to have changed you all. I have been your guest since early morning, and you only offered me your lousy tasting coffee. No lunch and nothing to eat. So here I am, going back home with a terrible hunger-induced headache.” I felt so embarrassed and tried to explain the security hazards every time we had to go up and down the building’s stairs, but Bassem laughingly said: “I refuse to fly back if I do not eat Lebanese sweets.” Melhem, who was listening to our conversation with astonishment, then with relief when he realized Bassem was joking, drove us left at the end of Monot Street towards Salim Boutros Street, where Warde Sweets was located. Bassem and I dashed into the shop simultaneously – Bassem to relieve his hunger, me to not allow him the opportunity to pay. From the corner of my eye, I saw two uniformed Lebanese Forces fighters carrying M16 machine guns approaching Melhem the moment we entered the shop. This did not disturb me much, since Melhem came from Bkhechtay, a small Christian village at the heart of a Druze area. However, my heart started pumping faster the moment I saw the two walking towards the sweet shop, where Bassem was supervising the packing of his orders.

The two of us could have been a jackpot heist for the two-armed men. Bassem, being a Jordanian of Palestinian origin, whose dialect was distinctly noticeable, and me, whose family name could have rung another alarm bell, because my uncle was the head of the leftist political party that was the Lebanese Forces’ arch enemy. Mr. Warde, the shop owner, seemed to have noticed Bassem’s dialect and instantly reacted by walking towards the shop entrance to intercept the two young men, telling them that all shoppers at Warde were personally known to him and he was keen not to see any of his clients disturbed. Bassem who missed all my anxiety, questioned my sudden pale color and silence as we were driving him to the airport. I urged Melhem to explain what could have happened – to the two of us – had it not been for Melhem and Mr. Warde’s quick wits.

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^[1] Lebanese civil war (1975-1990) – American University of Beirut – University Libraries: – الحرب الأهلية اللبنانية