The war is beautiful today. So many lights and colors. As journalists we exult. As normal human beings we are fucking afraid. The encirclement of the city is complete, so gone now are the days of intermittent flashes at unpredictable points in the evening. The vibe now is organization, and uniform terror. At 10pm exactly it starts. Why? The sun goes down at nine. 9:15 exists. 9:36 exists. But the noise of the jets we always hear first at 10pm. Plumes of flame in the night. The south side of the city is blacked out. Our side, the side with all the embassies and ritzy hotels filled with foreigners, shines with every light possible to tell the pilots where we are.
          Below us the city is spread. It’s an unfortunate word, spread, because associations attach: vulnerability, rape. When the jets fire their missiles at the refineries on the coast, transforming the beachfront into a miles-long arc of fire and steam, we tremble with fear and awe, men and women all feminine alike, hoping our sisters get it before we do. Spare us!
          This is a misogynist country, they warned us. We paused. No, but really, they said, and now look at us with our afternoons of headlines and frightened mimosas. The footage on our looming TVs: Look at that ocean view! On Day One, it was packed with families swimming and tanning in the perfect light. On Day Two, the camera team rang us from the lobby. They spilled into the suite carrying hours of jumpy footage. We watched it and we all drank together, talent and crew. Such class leveling! We felt proud to cleave together in the face of such adversity. In this hotel the channel’s expense account obtains indefinitely, and we pamper the camera team, with hamburgers and hot showers and bottles of booze. In the morning we coyly share the two tiny bathrooms and, self-organized, meet by the pool at 10am where we are served croissants and coffee and olives and eggs. Televisions and cell phones, all day, every day. The hotel is operating with a skeleton staff. Surely some of the angry, desperate men down below in the rubbled city look up at us, atop our hill, with envy.
          We are not so unsophisticated as to ignore the smell of burning buildings to the west. One of the team captures a great deal of footage: limitless towers of smoke bending inward and outward like dancing girls, vaporously fading upward into the sky. Helicopters fly in and out of the city, in and out. Not for us, not today at least. Our star, beautiful in her one-piece swimsuit, dives into the pool and when she emerges she sits by the railing, dries her hair, and drinks a glass of cava.
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