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one the official interpreter looked after, fair-haired, green-eyed and practically mute. Youssef was dark-haired, dark-eyed and said ‘fickety fick’.
    â€˜We have to go,’ I said to Samir in an urgent whisper, ignoring the producer who turned to talk to the official interpreter.
    Samir looked at Asha waiting at the entrance. ‘Why didn’t you say something?’ he said, pulling out his keys.
    Soon we were riding in what Samir told me was a 1979 Series 7 BMW used to ferry top PLO cadres around the city. He looked at Asha in the mirror.
    â€˜The old man used to sit there,’ he said.
    â€˜The old man?’ she asked, her first words since getting into the car.
    I turned round. She looked small on the large leather seat.
    â€˜He means Yasser Arafat.’
    Asha didn’t want to go back to her hotel in case she had to speak to anyone so Samir dropped us outside my place. He leant from the driver’s window and held out a business card. ‘Listen, this guy works for a TV news company, I do some driving for him sometimes. He’s looking for an interpreter. They pay in dollars.’
    I pocketed the card without looking at it.
    â€˜You need to sleep,’ I told Asha, once we were inside. I tried to find clean linen for my bed. She followed me into the bedroom.
    â€˜Who has slept in this bed?’ she asked.
    â€˜Only me.’
    â€˜Then don’t worry about changing the sheets.’
    She started to get undressed and I left the room, closing the door.
    â€˜Don’t go,’ she said. Something had happened to her voice. I went back in, saw her standing in a slip, her small frame illuminated by slats of light from the closed shutters. Her tears came freely and it seemed right that I go to her. I held her to my chest, felt the wetness through my T-shirt, the racking of her little body. Eventually the sobs subsided but I was still stroking her long wiry hair. She lifted her head back and looked at me smiling, her face wet but happy.
    â€˜I couldn’t have done that in front of anyone else here,’ she said, placing her hands on my face. I could feel an erection growing. Mortified, I moved my groin back so she couldn’t feel it against her. What was wrong with me? She kissed me quickly on the lips. My heart was trying to jump out of my chest, like someone had injected adrenalin directly into it. She got into bed and I went to leave the room but she called my name again. I stopped at the door to look back at her looking at me from under the sheet. I waited, heart thumping.
    â€˜Thanks again, Ivan,’ she said.
    I waited outside for a couple of minutes until the sound of snoring, incompatible with someone her size, came through the door. She was clearly exhausted. Thirty minutes later I was sitting on the sofa, my Tokarev on the coffee table. I lit the candle in my Chianti bottle, watching the wax flow down the neck, wondering if it was cheating to light it during the day. I started to strip my gun, carefully cleaning each part. I wasn’t sure why I had done that – waited outside the door. I began to polish individual bullets before loading them back into the cartridge. I reassembled the museum piece, making sure the safety was on, and wrapped it in its greasy cloth before putting it back in its hiding place, praying that she hadn’t noticed my erection.

4
    I sat on Najwa’s balcony smoking a Marlboro while she made Turkish or Arabic coffee – I could never remember what the difference was, something to do with how many times you brought it to the boil. Her apartment had good views of the city but faced east Beirut, which meant it was vulnerable to shells launched from there. She’d been lucky though. Over the summer destruction had come from all directions – the sky, the sea and the cedar-covered mountains overlooking the city – but her apartment had remained unscathed. Najwa brought out the small cups of coffee and sat