Raymond Khoury - The Sanctuary

But the name stirred great passions in Lebanon itself.

Following the civil war of the 1970s and 1980s, some Christian factions in Lebanon had effectively hijacked it, using it to create a subtle distinction between themselves and their Muslim countrymen by painting those as later migrants from the Arabian Peninsula after the rise of Islam who had a less worthy claim to the land. Every argument in the region, it seemed, ultimately boiled down to four simple words: “We were here first.” Tensions had escalated to a point where the word Phoenician had become taboo in official circles. There wasn’t a single mention of it to be found anywhere in Beirut’s National Museum, where exhibits’ tags now sported more politically correct terminology such as “Early Bronze Age.”

Which was a shame — as well as, quite possibly, a distortion of history. Hence the project.

Mia was aware that she was stepping into a political minefield. The project’s aims were altruistic enough: If it was possible to use DNA samples to establish that all of the country’s inhabitants, Christian and Muslim alike, were descendants of one culture, one people, one tribe, it could help defuse long-held prejudices and inspire a feeling of unity.Two local experts had been hired to work with Mia: a highly respected historian who taught at the university, and a geneticist to assist her. The former was Christian, the latter, Muslim. But as Mia soon found out, tribal allegiances were of paramount importance to the people of the region, and redefining history wasn’t necessarily welcome.

Still, with the big three-oh closing in on her, no husband or kids to worry about, a social diary as bleak as a liquor store in downtown Kabul, and an intriguing and generously funded project to call her own, it was really a no-brainer, even more so since it was an opportunity for her to get to know her mother.

To really know her.

So she’d signed on the dotted line and packed her bags — then proceeded to unpack just as swiftly and watch CNN for two months until the fighting stopped, the cease-fire was finally agreed to, and the blockade was lifted.

“It’s literally under the mosque,” Evelyn was telling Mia. “Could be one of the earliest chapels on record; it’s pretty amazing. I’ll take you down there if you like. Ramez is from a small town near there and he heard about it.”

“And this guy just showed up there, out of the blue?”

Evelyn nodded.

Mia studied her mom. Something in the firm honesty in the woman’s voice assured Mia that her mom wasn’t just being coy, but the nervous flutter was still there. “Can’t imagine what they’re going through out there,” Mia commented ruefully. “Was he looking for work?”

Evelyn winced with discomfort. “Yes. Sort of. It’s…complicated.”

She didn’t seem to want to go into it any deeper. Mia decided to leave it at that. She acknowledged Evelyn’s reply with a slight nod and a reciprocal half-smile and took another sip of her own. A pregnant silence hung between them for a moment, then a waiter glided over, filled Mia’s glass from the almost empty wine bottle in the ice bucket, and asked if they wanted another.

Evelyn sat up, snapping out of her reverie. “What time is it?”

She checked her watch as Mia shook her head at the waiter. As he walked away, Mia noticed a man with close-cropped, jet-black hair, deep-set eyes, and a pockmarked face, standing at the bar, smoking, and glancing sideways at them — a cold glance, maybe just a touch too focused — before turning away. She hadn’t been in Beirut long, but she knew that in this town, men took more notice of her than she was used to, with the appeal of her winsome features amplified by the distinctly foreign air of her paler, slightly freckled skin and her honey-blond hair. She would have been disingenuous if she’d denied enjoying the flirtatious glances, and in this case, she would have shrugged off the man’s glance as a compliment, especially if the guy were cute, only not even this guy’s mother would have thought of describing him as “cute,” and there was nothing remotely flirtatious about his look. In fact, his shuttered glance creeped her out. Which, again, wasn’t a first, not in this town — the flip side to her exotic-foreigner appeal was that a lot of people were angry, and suspicious, particularly of foreigners, since the brutal war had erupted around them unexpectedly. But somehow he didn’t fit, he didn’t look as if he was in here to have a good time, the expression on his face was just too stone-cold, too remote, like an android’s, and—

Evelyn cut through Mia’s little fog of paranoia by suddenly getting up. “I’ve really got to go. I don’t know what I was thinking,” she chided herself as she collected her jacket and her handbag from the sofa. She turned to Mia. “I’m sorry, I really can’t be late for…I’m supposed to meet someone. Can we get the bill?”

Mia could see the urgency etched into her mom’s face. “Go. I’ll take care of it.”

Evelyn moved to rifle through her handbag. “At least let me—”

But Mia reached out and put her hand on hers, comfortingly, stopping her. “Don’t worry about it. Just go. You can get the next one.”

Evelyn gave her a smile that was loaded with such intense signals — gratitude, concern, unease, and maybe even, Mia suddenly thought with an unexpected tightening in her chest, fear — and hurried off.

Mia watched her weave through the first few drinkers standing around their corner and disappear into the cloudy haze of the crowd. The bar was buzzing with its customary loud, big-drinking, and even-bigger-smoking clientele. She sat back, sinking into her seat, not sure about what to think, and as she cast her eyes around the room, she caught sight of the android at the bar making his way out as well.

He seemed rushed.

Too rushed.

The realization tripped a fuse inside Mia’s already unsettled mind. She tried following him with her eyes and lifted herself off the armchair, craning her neck after him, but he was already lost in the sea of people crowding the bar and blocking her view of its entrance.

Malignant thoughts came flooding out from the dark recesses of her imagination, and the room suddenly seemed to recede and shift out of focus. The two — or was it three? — glasses of wine didn’t help. She settled back into the chair, dazed and rattled, calming herself down. And then she saw it.

Evelyn’s cell phone.

Tucked into the side of the sofa, one end sticking out, barely visible.

Her mind zapped into a fast rewind — and in her mind’s eye, she remembered seeing her mom taking it out of her handbag when they’d first sat down and putting it down on the sofa, by her side, as if willing it to ring somehow.

Mia didn’t hesitate.

She just grabbed it and bolted after her.

Mia made it out of the hotel lobby and into the street just in time to see a gray Mercedes taxi disappearing down Rue Commodore. Through its rear windshield, she could just about make out the back of Evelyn’s head. Several taxi drivers who hung around outside the hotel angling for fares came up to her, offering their services, and in the muddle, another car slid past her, a black BMW sedan with four men in it — and through its front passenger window, Mia glimpsed the android from the bar, talking into a cell phone while staring intently ahead, his granite-black eyes laser-locked on Evelyn’s taxi.

There was now no doubt about it in her jumbled mind: Evelyn was being followed.

This can’t be good.

A thought cut through Mia’s sauvignon glaze for a nanosecond — call her on her cell phone, warn her — before she remembered that her mom’s cell phone was right there, in her own hand.