Prince of Fire (29 page)

In the aftermath of al-Qaeda’s attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, the government of France devised a four-tiered color-coded system similar to that of the United States. On that afternoon the level stood at Orange, the second level, with only Yellow being lower. The third level, Red, would automatically close vast stretches of French airspace and put in place additional security precautions in the transit systems and at French landmarks such as the Louvre and the Eiffel Tower. The highest level, Scarlet, would virtually shut down the country, including its water supply and power grid. No member of Group Napoleon was prepared to do that based on a warning from the Israelis. “The target of the attack is likely to be Israeli or Jewish in nature,” said the interior minister. “Even if it’s on the scale of Rome, it doesn’t justify increasing the level to Scarlet.”

“I concur,” the president said. “We’ll raise it to Red.”

Five minutes later, when the meeting of Group Napoleon
adjourned, the French interior minister strode out of the Salon Murat to face the cameras and the microphones. “Ladies and gentlemen,” he began, his facial expression grave, “the government of France has received what it believes is credible evidence of a pending terrorist attack against Paris this evening. . . .”

T
HE APARTMENT HOUSE
was on the rue de Saules, in the quiet northern end of Montmartre, several streets away from the tourist morass around Sacré-Coeur. The flat was small but comfortable, a perfect pied-à-terre for those occasions when work or romantic pursuits brought Paul Martineau from Provence to the capital. After arriving in Paris, he’d gone to the Luxembourg Quarter to have lunch with a colleague from the Sorbonne. Then it was over to St-Germain for a meeting with a prospective publisher for his book on the pre-Roman history of ancient Provence. At 4:45 he was strolling across the quiet courtyard of the building and letting himself into the foyer. Madame Touzet, the concierge, poked her head out of her door as Martineau came inside.

“
Bonjour
, Professor Martineau.”

Martineau kissed her powdered cheeks and presented her with a bunch of lilies he’d bought from a stall on the rue Caulaincourt. Martineau never came to his Paris flat without bringing a small treat for Madame Touzet.

“For me?” she asked elaborately. “You shouldn’t have, Professor.”

“I couldn’t help myself.”

“How long are you in Paris?”

“Only for one night.”

“A tragedy! I’ll get your mail.”

She returned a moment later with a stack of cards and letters, neatly bound, as always, with a scented pink ribbon. Martineau went upstairs to his apartment. He switched on the television, turned to Channel 2, then went into the kitchen to make coffee. Over the sound of running water, he heard the familiar voice of the French Interior minister. He shut off the tap and went calmly into the sitting room. He remained there, standing frozen before the television screen, for the next ten minutes.

The Israelis had chosen to alert the French. Martineau had expected they might resort to that. He knew that the increase in the threat level would mean a change in security tactics and procedures at critical sites all around Paris, a development that required one minor adjustment in his plans. He picked up the telephone and dialed.

“I’d like to change a reservation, please.”

“Your name?”

“Dr. Paul Martineau.”

“Ticket number?”

Martineau recited it.

“At the moment you’re scheduled to return to Aix-en-Provence from Paris tomorrow morning.”

“That’s right, but I’m afraid something has come up and I need to return earlier than expected. Can I still get on an early-evening train tonight?”

“There are seats available on the seven-fifteen.”

“First class?”

“Yes.”

“I’ll take one, please.”

“Are you aware of the government’s terror warning?”

“I’ve never put much stock in those sorts of things,”
Martineau said. “Besides, if we stop living, the terrorists win, do they not?”

“How true.”

Martineau could hear the tapping of fingers upon a computer keyboard.

“All right, Dr. Martineau. Your booking has been changed. Your train departs at seven-fifteen from the Gare de Lyon.”

Martineau hung up the phone.

“
S
UMAYRIYYA
?
Y
OU WANT TO KNOW ABOUT
Sumayriyya? It was Paradise on Earth. Eden. Fruit orchards and olive groves. Melons and bananas, cucumbers and wheat. Sumayriyya was simple. Pure. Our life moved to the rhythms of the planting and the harvest. The rains and the drought. We were eight hundred in Sumayriyya. We had a mosque. We had a school. We were poor, but Allah blessed us with everything we needed.”

Listen to her,
thought Gabriel as he drove.
We . . . Our . . .
She was born twenty-five years after Sumayriyya was wiped from the face of the map, but she spoke of the village as though she’d lived there her entire life.

“My grandfather was an important man. Not a
muktar
, mind
you, but a man of influence among the village elders. He had forty dunams of land and a large flock of goats. He was considered wealthy.” A satirical smile. “To be wealthy in Sumayriyya meant that you were only a little bit poor.”

Her eyes darkened. She looked down at the gun, then at the French farmland rushing past her window.

“Nineteen forty-seven marked the beginning of the end for my village. In November the United Nations voted to partition my land and give half of it to the Jews. Sumayriyya, like the rest of the Western Galilee, was destined to be part of the Arab state in Palestine. But, of course, that wasn’t to be the case. The war started the day after the vote, and as far as the Jews were concerned, all of Palestine was now theirs for the taking.”

It was the Arabs who had started the war, Gabriel wanted to say—Sheikh Asad al-Khalifa, warlord of Beit Sayeed, who’d opened the floodgates of blood with his terrorist attack on the Netanya-to-Jerusalem bus. But now was not the time to quibble over the historical record. The narrative of Sumayriyya had cast its spell over her, and Gabriel wanted to do nothing to break it.

She turned her gaze toward him. “You’re thinking of something.”

“I’m listening to your story.”

“With one part of your brain,” she said, “but with the other you’re thinking of something else. Are you thinking about taking my gun? Are you planning your escape?”

“There
is
no escape, Palestina—for either one of us. Tell me your story.”

She looked out the window. “On the night of May 13, 1948, a column of armored Haganah vehicles set out up the coast road from Acre. Their action was code-named Operation Ben-Ami.
It was part of Tochnit Dalet.” She looked at him. “Do you know this term, Tochnit Dalet? Plan D?”

Gabriel nodded and thought of Dina, standing amid the ruins of Beit Sayeed. How long ago had it been? Only a month, but it seemed a lifetime ago.

“The stated objective of Operation Ben-Ami was the reinforcement of several isolated Jewish settlements in the Western Galilee. The real objective, however, was conquest and annexation. In fact, the orders specifically called for the destruction of three Arab villages: Bassa, Zib, and Sumayriyya.”

She paused, looked to see if her remarks had provoked any reaction, and resumed her lecture. Sumayriyya was the first of the three villages to die. The Haganah surrounded it before dawn and illuminated the village with the headlamps of their armored vehicles. Some of the Haganah men wore red checkered kaffiyehs. A village watchman saw the kaffiyehs and assumed that the attacking Jews were actually Arab reinforcements. He fired shots of celebration into the air and was immediately cut down by Haganah fire. The news that the Jews were disguised as Arabs sowed panic inside the village. The defenders of Sumayriyya fought bravely, but they were no match for the better-armed Haganah. Within a few minutes, the exodus had begun.

“The Jews wanted us to leave,” she said. “They intentionally left the eastern side of the village unguarded to give us an escape route. We had no time to pack any clothing or even to take something to eat. We just started running. But still the Jews weren’t satisfied. They fired at us as we fled across the fields we had tilled for centuries. Five villagers died in those fields. The Haganah sappers went in right away. As we were running away, we could hear the explosions. The Jews were turning our Paradise into a pile of uninhabitable rubble.”

The villagers of Sumayriyya took to the road and headed north, toward Lebanon. They were soon joined by the inhabitants of Bassa and Zib and several smaller villages to the east. “The Jews told us to go to Lebanon,” she said. “They told us to wait there for a few weeks until the fighting ended, then we would be allowed to return.
Return?
To what were we supposed to return? Our houses had been demolished. So we kept walking. We walked over the border, into exile. Into oblivion. And behind us the gates of Palestine were being forever barred against our return.”

R
EIMS
:
FIVE O
’
CLOCK
.

“Pull over,” she said.

Gabriel guided the Mercedes onto the shoulder of the Autoroute. They sat in silence, the car shuddering in the turbulence of the passing traffic. Then the telephone. She listened, longer than usual. Gabriel suspected she was being given final instructions. Without so much as a word, she severed the connection, then dropped the phone back into her bag.

“Where are we going?”

“Paris,” she said. “Just as you suspected.”

“Which way does he want me to go?”

“The A4. Do you know it?”

“I know it.”

“It will take you into—”

“—into southeast Paris. I know where it will take me, Palestina.”

Gabriel accelerated back onto the motorway. The dashboard clock read: 5:05. A road sign flashed past:
PARIS
145. One hundred forty-five kilometers to Paris. Ninety-one miles.

“Finish your story, Palestina.”

“Where were we?”

“Lebanon,” Gabriel said. “Oblivion.”

“W
E CAMPED IN THE HILLS
. We foraged for food. We survived off the charity of our Arab brethren and waited for the gates of Palestine to be opened to us, waited for the Jews to make good on the promises they’d made to us the morning we’d fled Sumayriyya. But in June, Ben-Gurion said that the refugees could not come home. We were a fifth column that could not be allowed back, he said. We would be a thorn in the side of the new Jewish state. We knew then that we would never see Sumayriyya again. Paradise lost.”

Gabriel looked at the clock. 5:10
P
.
M
. Eighty miles to Paris.

“W
E WALKED NORTH
, to Sidon. We spent the long, hot summer living in tents. Then the weather turned cold and the rains came, and still we were living in the tents. We called our new home Ein al-Hilweh. Sweet Spring. It was hardest on my grandfather. In Sumayriyya he’d been an important man. He’d tended his fields and his flock. He’d provided for his family. Now his family was surviving on handouts. He had a deed to his property but no land. He had the keys to his door but no house. He took ill that first winter and died. He didn’t want to live—not in Lebanon. My grandfather died when Sumayriyya died.”

5:25
P
.
M
. Paris: 62 miles.

“M
Y FATHER WAS
only a boy, but he had to assume responsibility for his mother and two sisters. He couldn’t work—the Lebanese wouldn’t permit that. He couldn’t go to school—the Lebanese wouldn’t allow that, either. No Lebanese social security, no Lebanese health care. And no way out, because we had no valid passports. We were stateless. We were nonpersons. We were nothing.”

5:38
P
.
M
. Paris: 35 miles.

“W
HEN MY FATHER
married a girl from Sumayriyya, the remnants of the village gathered in Ein al-Hilweh for the wedding celebration. It was just like home, except the surroundings were different. Instead of Paradise, it was the open sewers and the cinder-block huts of the camp. My mother gave my father two sons. Every night he told them about Sumayriyya, so that they would never forget their true home. He told them the story of al-Nakba, the Catastrophe, and instilled in them the dream of al-Awda, the Return. My brothers would grow up to be fighters for Palestine. There was no choice in the matter. As soon as they were old enough to hold a gun, the Fatah started training them.”

“And you?”

“I was the last child. I was born in 1975, just as Lebanon was descending into civil war.”

5:47
P
.
M
. Paris: 25 miles.