BEIRUT
The lone patron of the sidewalk maqha signaled the
tea shop owner to bring him another glass， his gesture
displaying the impatience and arrogance of the young. The
old tea vendor disliked having to cater to every youth with a
9-mm automatic in his waistband， but what young man did
not have one these days? Or a Kalashnikov or some equally
deadly thing. Beirut was， after all， a city of guns. The old
man wiped sweat from his graying stubble and brought tea
for the sullen young man.
Despite the cease-fire， all other shops near the Green
Line that divided Christian East Beirut from Muslim West
Beirut remained closed as the noon hour approached. No
one believed in cease-fires anymore--it was safer to close
up and watch the soccer on television. The tea vendor had
been closing his own shutters when the young man ap-
proached， opening his light Italian-cut sport coat to expose
his pearl-handled Browning and staring coldly at him from
behind his Vuarnet sunglasses. With the fatalism character-
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