What Will Survive Read Free Page B

equipment, but the chopper returned and circled over them again as he was folding the tripod into the boot.
    Shortly afterwards Aisha dozed off, waking with a start to find the car stationary as Fabio and Mahmoud talked with men in uniforms at the side of the road. Spotting that she was awake, one of the soldiers strolled towards the Volkswagen and stared at her through the glass. He was not wearing a blue UN helmet and when he tapped on the window she rolled it down, instantly nervous. ‘Eeng-lish?’ he asked, breaking into a smile that showed a chipped front tooth. ‘Eeng-lish, good,’ he added, holding up his thumb and giving her a lingering look before strolling back to join his colleagues. On his return to the car Fabio assured her that the soldiers were Lebanese and friendly.
    â€˜But where are we?’ Aisha demanded. ‘How long have I been asleep?’ Fabio brushed away her questions, blaming Mahmoud: the driver had taken the wrong road, he said, and the Lebanese captain had just shown him where they were on the map.
    â€˜I’m starving,’ Aisha said plaintively, reaching for a bottle of warm mineral water. ‘When will we get to Beirut?’ Fabio moved his head from side to side, as though he found the question difficult to answer, and finally admitted they were near a town called Nabatiyeh, which meant nothing to her.
    To Aisha’s astonishment, he went on to say they had ended up, completely by chance, about ten minutes’ drive from a village where an old friend of his lived. And, as if he were doing her a favour, Fabio suggested they look up this friend, who was called Marwan Hadidi, and see if his family could offer them something to eat before they continued north to Beirut. Now fully awake, Aisha began asking for more details about this mysterious friend and received a disarming reply: Marwan had been Fabio’s fixer in Beirut during the war and had actually saved his life on more than one occasion.
    â€˜If you knew him in Beirut, how do you know he’s even going to be in this village?’ she objected, realising she had lost another argument. Fabio said confidently that Marwan had always intended to return home whenhe finished his degree. He had been a law student when the war started, Fabio added, but had started working for foreign correspondents in the city when conditions became too difficult. Irritated and hungry, Aisha sat back and only half-listened as Fabio spoke with Mahmoud in Arabic, tapping the map a couple of times to make a point. A few miles along the road, they passed a deserted-looking UN compound, and shattered buildings began to appear on exposed hillsides. It was almost a relief when the sun set in a blaze of rosy light, cloaking these relics of the civil war in shadow.
    In Marwan’s village, Mahmoud stopped an elderly man to ask the way and was directed — after some suspicious glances, Aisha thought — to a house halfway up a hill. Mahmoud parked opposite a high wall, on the right-hand side of the rutted street, and Fabio threw open the front passenger door, suddenly full of energy. Aisha got out of the car more slowly, stretching her arms and legs, and followed him to the gate.
    Inside the dark courtyard, a young woman in jeans and a faded sweatshirt emerged from a door to the left, light from the room behind her framing her wavy hair. Fabio spoke to her in Arabic, gesturing towards himself and Aisha, and the girl listened impassively until he mentioned Marwan’s name. Then her body became rigid and she backed away, disappearing inside the house and leaving Aisha and Fabio to exchange perplexed looks. ‘Are we in the right place?’ she asked, but before he could answer the door opened again and the girl returned, this time with a baby in her arms. With her was a much older woman, wearing a headscarf, who took over the conversation as the girl stood to one side, rocking the infant.
    The older woman poured out