There had been a furious battle in the area of Beirut called Ain ar-Rommaneh. As I recall, it lasted several weeks. The population of the area had been paralyzed and the death toll had mounted while two “Christian” militias shot at one another from building to building and up and down the streets. I no longer remember the details or the politics behind the fight, and they are not significant to this story. In Beit Meri we were a safe distance from the action but constantly heard the rumble of battle. Afterwards I had driven through Ain ar-Rommaneh, pausing at a major intersection strewn with bullets. Militiamen were directing traffic, letting all of us curious people drive over a carpet of metal debris. I still remember how it both rolled and crunched under my tires.
Wayne and I lived then in an apartment house at the top level of Beit Meri. All of our children were in America, having left behind happy memories of things we did together in that apartment, but we often had the pleasure of little visits by Lebanese young people who missed them.
Thus it happened that soon after the lengthy battle two young men popped in one day to ask for news about our family, especially our two girls whom they knew best. Alone in the house at the moment and thrilled to see them, I seated them in the living room, brought lemonade and began to answer their questions and to ask my own.
These two had been in my house many times before, and I had trusted them to pick up my girls and take them away to gatherings of friends. For reasons that may become evident I do not want to identify them now. I will call them Rafi and Pierre. Rafi was tall and fair, Pierre short and olive-skinned, but it would be impossible to say which was the more handsome. They both had dazzling smiles and respectful demeanor. Though each of them oozed confidence and charm, Rafi was prone to very serious conversations, while Pierre created a party just by showing up. They were two of my favorite people.
And they were members of a militia group that had been involved in the battle in Ain-ar-Rommaneh.
I sat down across the small coffee table from them and said, “I worried about you. Every time I heard gunfire, I thought, someone is shooting at Rafi and Pierre.”
And Rafi said, “We started it.”
I didn’t immediately understand. His statement just created a kind of senseless blank in my head.
“What do you mean?”
He motioned then from himself to his friend and back again. “He and I. We started the battle. We were ordered to go to the top of a certain building and start shooting. We fired ten shots and ran for our lives. Tens of thousands of shots were fired before it was over.”
They smiled broadly, both of them, pride showing in those handsome, dazzling smiles. I realize now that I should not have been surprised, but I was. I was stunned. I remembered the spent bullet casings in the intersection, the long days of disruption in the city, the casualty reports, the newspaper pictures of destruction and funerals.
“Praise God for your safety.” That’s what I was supposed to say, and I meant it. It was all I could say.
They stayed a comfortable length of time. Pierre played the piano. I brought out letters from my daughters and read excerpts. They sent greetings to my girls; I sent greetings to their mothers. At the door I asked them to please come again and watched them go down the stairs. Because of a vague confusion in my heart, I then went out to the balcony to look down on them as they got into a car. I watched them drive away, thinking that I loved them, though maybe I did not know them at all.
They started it, those two beautiful boys, our friends. And then all those people died.
Nearly forty years have gone by, and I have thought about this off and on ever since. I have been slow to accept that there is no clear line between the good guys and the bad. Most of them will tell you they are just obeying orders.
I was reminded of Rafi and Pierre recently when I had occasion to converse with a young man in the U.S. Army. He gave me some explanation about how his team identified an invisible enemy for destruction. Then he casually remarked, “I think we worry too much about collateral damage. At some point, you just have to hit the enemy.”
I thought to say something sarcastic, like, “Sure, don’t worry about collateral damage. It’s just people.” I held my tongue.
He is a fine, conscientious young man, in a very dirty business. Like Rafi and Pierre, born and educated in a culture of violence, he intends to live honorably and do good. It is possible that this is true of their enemies.
Those two handsome boys, those friendly faces, turn out to be more than a picture of Lebanon. They could just as well serve as a picture of the world.