Beirut 1982.
      Bertrand comforts his Pentax inside his jacket, waiting for the next round of bullets. The building he hides in has no glass left in the windows of the ground floor. He hears shouts in the street outside. He cocks his head over the sill of the nearest window. There are soldiers. And boys. All ages. Throwing things. Falling. Collapsing from shots to their backs.
      He starts to click. Bertrand cannot see. The lens is covered in his sweat and the dust from the brittle concrete. He wipes it, blows softly. A man is aiming a gun at a target in the distance. He fires. Bertrand clicks. Too far to the left. The subject is too far to the left. He wants a better shot. He leans over.
      A hand grenade arcs in through one of the near windows. Bertrand is still clicking.
      Someone is lifting him. He is being carried. Bertrand cannot see. There is bitterness in his sides. It feels like bitterness. He lifts a hand.
      "Na, na, na." It is a man's voice. A sharp voice.
      Bertrand puts his hand down and asks for water in French. He is on a hard surface. There are four men carrying him. They are climbing stairs. Many stairs.
      "Hôpital?" He asks.
      There is no one in the room. Bertrand cannot turn his head. He cannot lift his left arm. With his right, he searches for his camera. The strap is gone from his neck.
      "CAMERA? CAMERA?" No-one answers.
      He waits. The walls darken and he sleeps.
      When he wakes, men are eating. One man comes over to him. Props him up and shoves a glass to his face. He nods at Bertrand to drink. He drinks. His neck is less painful.

      Nasser.
      The man who gave him water brings over a plate. It looks like fried dough. The man holds it out for Bertrand who opens his mouth and takes several bites.

      Assad.
      On a mattress lies Assad. He is counting marbles. He rolls them in his fingers and then places them on his stomach. Some roll to the ground and he chases after them. The other men laugh at him and he grins the same wide grin as Nasser. The same white teeth. Bertrand mentally measures ages. Assad has knotted hairs forming on his chin, small oases of manhood emerging in a desert of boyish skin. The others have fuller beards and Bertrand notices that the boy does not join in with their prayers.
      The boy does not watch him as much as the others. He looks out of the windows. He seems to be looking very far down. Bertrand wonders how high up in the building they are.
      "You American?" Assad asks.
      "Belgique." His "g" so slightly soft. Sensual, like a French "g".
      The boy shakes his head and goes back to one of his windows.
      "What is your age? You are, fifteen?"
      He says seventeen as he shakes some marbles in his hand.

      Hafez.
      On the third day with them, Bertrand is able to sit up properly and move both his hands. His legs are a mess. They are brown, rusting. Flies want them. Bertrand cries.
      Hafez, probably older than Assad, walks over with a cloth. He does not smile. He speaks less than the others. He wears a gun on his belt. He goes into another room for a short time and returns with a bowl. He washes the legs through Bertrand's wincing and crying. Then, he hands him a mug, its enamel pocked with blue where it has worn away. Bertrand sips the warm water. He curses the pain of his legs. He curses in French.
      Hafez comes in close to Bertrand. "My uncle wants to kill the French. Don't speak French."
      "You speak better English." Bertrand's sweat is mingling with his tears. He tries to smile. "Where, is my camera? If you get me out of Beirut, you can sell it. And the pictures. They are worth more. If you take them to papers… you can get money."
      "Tell me, what pictures?"
      "Of the fighting."
      The Syrian laughs. He rubs Bertrand's shoulder, as a comrade would. "I like French. My uncle is too old to kill you."
      "I do not find this funny, Monsieur."
      His eyes shift and he sees a bottle filled with yellow fluid. He knows this is his bottle, for his use alone. Usually, the old man helps him by setting the bottle in the right position and Bertrand screams the piss out. Bertrand has not passed any solids for four days.

      Samir.
      When they are clean, he sees that his legs are not so bad. The skin on the right seems to fuse with his beige trousers. He can feel his legs. They are swollen, and the stinging is enough to keep him crying for a couple of hours. Samir covers the wounds with the peel he has taken off some drying oranges.
      He strokes his beard when he prays and when he laughs at Nasser who plays out slapstick routines of fighting in the streets.

      Paris 2003.
      Bertrand limps to his hotel room. His sub-editor, trails behind him in the narrow corridor and is talking about pictures from Baghdad. How they contrast with the headlines in Arabic newspapers. He asks Bertrand if the woman sitting next to her dead husband will make a good front page. Jean-Luc hands him the pictures but they are dismissed.
      In his room, he pours himself a glass of water. He goes to his suitcase. There is a box containing prints from assignments in the Middle East. One unopened envelope is marked "Beirut 1982, Batch 7/9".
      There are twenty-five prints. The first one is of Bertrand in his mid-twenties. Enveloped by sunlit dust. He sees for the first time how light he looked. He sees how his right leg was a living carcass. On that mattress on the top floor.
      The second picture is of Nasser. His head is leaning against a wall. The shot is out of focus but there is a clear brown circle at his temple.
      The third picture is of two men lying with their faces to the ground. There are stains like red flowers growing on their pale shirts. Bertrand recognises the gun on the belt. Next to the other man, there is a packet of biscuits and a metal bowl.
      Then there are five pictures of the sky.
      Bertrand does not remember taking these. Bertrand does not remember taking these.
      "Assad." Now he remembers.
      He stops looking at the pictures and puts them back in their envelope. These are not for the front page, Bertrand thinks aloud.