169. A Night Fright

169.

After a few restful days in camp I return to Baalbek by bus to see more of the Roman ruins.

In the ruins I bump into a pretty, young French woman who is staying at the guesthouse of the dope farmer. We spend an hour or two chatting. She is going back to Paris this evening--making a delivery, I assume--while I plan to return to my valley campsite.

It is dark when the bus from Baalbek to Beirut reaches the place where the country road turns off from the main highway and I get off the bus. A taxi immediately pulls up with three men inside. I tell the driver where I want to go and he agrees to take me. Along the way he drops his other passengers off and we continue alone. There is no other traffic moving on this country road.

After a long winding drive into the hills, I am beginning to think I have been kidnapped when he suddenly stops and says he will go no further. I think he is afraid of me! I pay and get out of the cab.

It is getting dark and the moon has not yet risen but soon another male pedestrian appears who speaks enough French to inform me that I might be able to get some help or transportation at a church just down the road. In the gathering gloom I walk to the “church” and knock at the huge wooden front door.

A female doorkeeper from a Charles Adams cartoon answers my knock and tells me in French that there is a priest inside who speaks English and who can help me. The place is no church however, but seems to be some sort of hospital or monastery. I follow the creepy woman down a long, white, high ceilinged passageway feeling more and more mistrustful.

The woman opens a door at the end of the hallway and right behind the door stands an officer in green uniform with polished brass and leather-holstered pistol. Wow! Now I am sure I have been kidnapped!

The officer welcomes me in a friendly way and says I may spend the night but I stammer that I really must be getting back to my camp. He says the camping place I seek is still a couple of kilometers up the road and that he and his friends will be glad to take me there in his jeep, but I have been edging closer to the entry door the whole time.

"Non, merci." and I hurry down the long hall, through the door and back out into the night.

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