Back at Makhlouf’s, there was a sense of nervous systems stretched to the snapping point. We watched from a street corner one night as an endless parade of U.N. tanks and trucks sped south. The exuberance and promises to keep in touch and get documents proving that depleted uranium and quite possibly phosphorous bombs had been used by the Israeli bombardment, degenerated into the whole lot of us becoming more sullen and suspicious and high strung.

Everyone waited in Beirut in those days after the initial marches to see what would break first and when. A day or so after the first marches, Shi‘a demonstrators were fired upon by rooftop snipers, killing three in the QasQas district. News reports said the three snipers were Syrians. The next day, Shi‘a vandals went on a rampage in a Sunni neighborhood, terrifying residents and trashing cars. News from Ashrifeyeh reported firefights between pro-Phalange March 14 Christian militias and the March 8 Aounist faction. Things weren’t getting better, but they weren’t exactly falling apart. The waiting for something, anything became interminable. And at some point, I had to leave.

CODA

It’s March now, and Lebanon still waits. Talks are held, new stalemates reached. In February, street battles rocked the capital. The sanest in the fray turned out to be the Lebanese military that also appeared the hardest hit in the standoff. Leaving Beirut in the final days of 2006, I had that familiar guilty feeling of popping into a delivery room for a peep of gore while something in Lebanon was being birthed. Guilt and lots of desperate questions whether the Beast that would slouch toward Parliament would be rough or beautiful.

We’re still waiting.

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JIBRIL HAMBEL is a Senior Writer for Venture Magazine and a former Managing Editor of Islamica Magazine.