The Kill Artist

into the camp. They could overhear the Phalangists talking on their radios. But they didn't lift a finger to stop it. And why did they stand by and do nothing? Because it was exactly what they wanted to happen.
    "I was just seven at the time. My father was dead. He was killed that summer when the Israelis shelled the camps during the Battle of Beirut. I lived in Shatila with my mother and my sister. She was just a year and a half old at the time. We hid beneath our bed, listening to the screaming and the gunfire, watching the shadows of the flares dancing on the walls. We prayed that the Phalangists would somehow miss our house. Sometimes we could hear them outside our window. They were laughing. They were slaughtering everyone in sight, but they were laughing. My mother covered our mouths whenever they came near to keep us quiet. She nearly smothered my sister.
    "Finally they broke down our door. I wriggled out of my mother's grasp and went to them. They asked where my family was, and I told them everyone was dead. They laughed and told me that I would soon be with them. One of the Phalangists had a knife. He grabbed me by the hair and dragged me outside. He stripped off my shirt and sliced away the skin on the center of my back. Then they tied me to a truck and dragged me through the streets. At some point I went unconscious, but before I blacked out I remember the Phalangists shooting at me. They were using me for target practice.
    "Somehow, I survived. Maybe they thought I was dead, I don't know. When I regained consciousness the rope they had used for the dragging was still wrapped around my right ankle. I crawled beneath a pile of rubble and waited. I stayed there for a day and a half. Finally, the massacre was over, and the Phalangists withdrew from the camps. I came out of my hiding place and found my way back to our family's house. I found my mother's body in our bed. She was naked, and she had been raped. Her breasts had been sliced off. I looked for my sister. I found her on the kitchen table. They had cut her into pieces and laid her out in a circle with her head in the center."
    Jacqueline tumbled out of bed, crawled into the bathroom, and was violently sick. Yusef knelt beside her and placed a hand on her back as her body wretched.
    When she finished he said, "You ask me why I hate the Israelis so much. I hate them because they sent the Phalangists to massacre us. I hate them because they stood by and did nothing while Christians, their great friends in Lebanon, raped and killed my mother and chopped my sister to bits and laid her body out in a circle. Now you know why I'm a rejectionist when it comes to this so-called peace process. How can I trust these people?"
    "I understand."
    "Do you really understand, Dominique? Is it possible?"
    "I suppose not."
    "Now, I've been completely honest with you about everything. Is there anything you wish to tell me about yourself? Any secrets you've been keeping from me?"
    "Nothing of any consequence."
    "You're telling me the truth, Dominique?"
    "Yes."
    * * *
    The call came at four-fifteen that morning. It woke Yusef, though not Gabriel. He had been sitting up all morning, listening to Yusef's account of Sabra and Shatila over and over again. It rang just once. Yusef, his voice heavy with sleep, said, "Hello."
    "Lancaster Gate, tomorrow, two o'clock."
    Click.
    Jacqueline said, "What was that?"
    "A wrong number. Go back to sleep."
    Maida Vale in morning. A gang of schoolboys teasing a pretty girl. Jacqueline imagined they were Phalangist militiamen armed with knives and axes. A lorry roared past, belching diesel fumes. Jacqueline saw a man tied to the bumper being dragged to death. Her block of flats loomed in front of her. She looked up and imagined Israeli soldiers standing on the roof, watching the slaughter below through binoculars, firing flares so the killers could better see their victims. She entered the building, climbed the stairs, and slipped into the flat. Gabriel was sitting on the couch.
    "Why didn't you tell me?"
    "Tell you what?"
    "Why didn't you tell me he had survived Shatila? Why didn't you tell me his family had been butchered like that?"
    "What difference would it have made?"
    "I just wish I had known!" She lit a cigarette and inhaled deeply. "Is it true? Are the things he told me true?"
    "Which part?"
    "All of it, Gabriel! Don't play fucking games with me."
    "Yes, it's true! His family died at Shatila. He's suffered. So what? We've all suffered.