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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