decent

"To take taxis across the Green Line. To light up in a bloody great smile when Israeli jets break the sound barrier. To pretend to be unaffected when guns start firing round the corner. That’s why he went.”
The worn voice began to acquire a certain disregarding impetus. Soon it would fall into monologue, an inner speech that did not need a context or listener.
“To sit there with his beer, chatting with a colleague as the mortars rain down or whatever they do. Absolutely unmoved. I think he lived for such moments. They were the high points of Lebanon, as demonstrations were the high points of Panama when we were there. During the worst of the anti-American demonstrations he’d put on his Union Jack lapel badge and go walking right into it. How I came to hate that badge. He felt he couldn’t be harmed wearing it. And so he sits in someone’s office in Beirut when militiamen are active. To betray no sign of emotion. To chat. What’s the point of getting excited, he liked to say to me. Truly believing there is good sense in this. As if getting excited had something to do with deciding to get excited, making a conscious decision to get excited. They’re out there, hurling grenated, firing rockets. What’s the point of getting excited? What’s the point?"