Our guests have become bears in our vineyards. Bears, mad dogs, jackals. These are the names the villagers use now when they speak of the Palestinians from the camp above Sidon who have been setting up checkpoints on the road down to the coast, stealing olives and fruit from the terraces, practising with their katyusha-rockets in the wadis up on the mountain. That morning I had watched the black Buicks and Chevrolets of their leaders slowly climbing through the hills, and I had followed the cars to the house knowing everyone would be too busy to notice me as I crept in to be alone with the painting.