Read Holidays in Hell: In Which Our Intrepid Reporter Travels to the World's Worst Places and Asks, "What's Funny About This" for Free Online Page B

bananas and other
fruit. The house dates from 600 A.D., with Arab and Turkish
additions. It stands on a rock outcrop above a pool in use since
Phoenician days. Centuries-old Ficus trees grow over the walls,
and flowers bloom all around it.
    Billy's father was Druse, his mother from Oregon. They met at
college in California. In the middle of the civil war Mr. Hadad was
killed in, of all things, a skiing accident on Mt. Lebanon. Mrs.
Hadad took the younger children back to America, and Billy, just
graduated from a Connecticut boarding school, came out to
Lebanon to manage the property. He has five families, some thirtyfive people, working for him.
    We had lunch with one of his tenants and sat around a low
table under a loggia indulging in Arab table manners. These are
the best in the world or, anyway, the most fun. For the midday meal
there are a dozen large bowls of things-salad; hot peppers; yogurt;
a chick-pea paste called hummus; kubbeh, which is a kind of
meatball; and things I have no idea the names for. You get a flat loaf
of pita bread and make flaps to grab the food. The bread is your
napkin, also your plate. We had too much Arak, the regional
version of absinthe, and drank endless tiny cups of drug-strength coffee. You can smoke in the middle of the meal, and no one
considers it impolite.

    The tenant brought out his guns. It's like an Englishwoman
showing you her roses. There was a Soviet AK-47, a Spanish Astra
9mm automatic pistol, a Smith and Wesson .38 revolver, an old
British military rifle and a very nice Beretta over-and-under shotgun. This is a modest collection. More militant people have mortars and the like. Serious gunmen favor the rocket-propelled grenade, or RPG, which is something like a bazooka. It's inaccurate
and tremendously noisy, a perfect Lebanese weapon.
    After lunch we went for a swim. This far south of Beirut the
ocean is clean. From out in the water distant rumblings could be
heard. I thought it was artillery in the Chouf. "Dynamite fishing,"
said Billy. (Dynamite is one bait fish always rise to.)
    There was a wedding party in a nearby village that night.
Lebanese wedding parties are held on the eve of the marriage.
Thus the groom is given an excuse for looking green at the altar. A
hundred or more chairs had been placed in a circle behind the
bride's house. A few light bulbs were strung in the grapevines and
a huge table had been laid with food, Scotch and Arak. Parties in
Lebanon start slow. Everyone sits primly in the chairs, neither
eating nor drinking, and talking only in low voices. Or they would
usually. In this case the men and boys must all discuss politics with
the American. Every one of them has cousins in Texas.
    "Just tell them what you think," said Billy. I couldn't very well
do that. After a week in Lebanon what I thought would hardly make
fit conversation at a wedding feast.
    This was a Christian village. "If the Moslems take over," said
a young man (Billy translating), "They'll close the bars during
Ramadan. But we won't make them drink at Christmas if they
really don't want to." A lather of self-justification followed. Justifying the self is the principal form of exercise in Lebanon. The
principal form of exercise for a visitor in Lebanon is justifying
American foreign policy. The Marine incursion was the question of
the hour. Moslems wanted to know why the Marines were sent here.
Christians wanted to know why they left. And Druse wanted to
know why, during the Marines brief stay, they felt compelled to
shell the crap out of the Chouf.

    My answer to everyone was that President Reagan wasn't sure
why he sent the Marines to Lebanon. However, he was determined
to keep them here until he figured it out, but then he forgot.
    Nobody held it against me personally. The Lebanese never
hold anything against anyone personally. And it's not considered
rude to root for the home team. There were a number of Moslem
guests at the party. The