The Ardent Swarm

by Manai, Yamen

  INTERNATIONAL PRAISE FOR THE ARDENT SWARM

  “Yamen Manai . . . speaks with the accuracy of the scientist and at the same time with the fire of the poet and the imagination of the novelist.”

  —Jean-Marie Gustave Le Clézio, in interview with Patrick Simonin, TV5 Monde

  “[The Ardent Swarm explores] the problems of contemporary Tunisia but [they are] approached in a very gentle, very subtle way, with a smile.”

  —Yvan Le Perec, France Bleu

  “What a wonderful little book that is at once an enchantment, a hymn to nature, a warning about intolerance and the fundamentalism that threatens us, and also a great lesson in courage.”

  —Gérard Collard, La Griffe Noire

  Excerpt from “Anger” in “Selections from the Bestiary of Leonardo Da Vinci,” trans. Oliver Evans, Vol. 64, No. 254, of the Journal of American Folklore, is used with permission from the American Folklore Society (www.afsnet.org).

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, organizations, places, events, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

  Text copyright © 2017 by Éditions Elyzad

  Translation copyright © 2021 by Lara Vergnaud

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without express written permission of the publisher.

  Previously published as L’amas ardent by Éditions Elyzad in Tunisia in 2017. Translated from French by Lara Vergnaud. First published in English by Amazon Crossing in 2021.

  Lara Vergnaud gratefully acknowledges the generous support of a PEN/Heim Translation Fund Grant toward the translation of this book.

  Published by Amazon Crossing, Seattle

  www.apub.com

  Amazon, the Amazon logo, and Amazon Crossing are trademarks of Amazon.com, Inc., or its affiliates.

  ISBN-13: 9781542020473 (hardcover)

  ISBN-10: 1542020476 (hardcover)

  ISBN-13: 9781542020459 (paperback)

  ISBN-10: 154202045X (paperback)

  Cover design by Adil Dara

  First edition

  CONTENTS

  START READING

  CHAOS

  PROLOGUE

  1

  2

  3

  4

  DISCORD

  5

  6

  7

  8

  9

  CONFUSION

  10

  11

  12

  Anger

  13

  14

  15

  16

  17

  18

  19

  BUREAUCRACY

  20

  21

  22

  23

  24

  25

  26

  27

  28

  29

  30

  THE AFTERMATH

  Sidi’s Song

  31

  32

  33

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  ABOUT THE TRANSLATOR

  And thy Lord taught the Bee

  to build its cells in hills

  on trees, and in [men’s] habitations;

  Then to eat of all

  the produce [of the earth],

  and find with skill the spacious

  Paths of its Lord: there issues

  from within their bodies

  a drink of varying colours,

  wherein is healing for men:

  verily in this is a Sign

  for those who give thought

  Quran, “The Bee,” 16:68–69

  CHAOS

  PROLOGUE

  The 320-foot-long yacht left Sardinia early in the morning. Apart from the crew, sober by obligation, everybody on the boat was hungover, and no one spared the hunt for their undergarments upon waking. The prince nudged the naked bodies out of his way, slipping on a silk robe, and navigated between stiletto heels and a sex toy here and there. As he stumbled through the mess, his feet got tangled in a large pair of satin Mickey Mouse briefs, prompting flashbacks to the previous night. He shook the briefs off with a big smile and continued toward the bridge. The sun was strong. As soon as he was spotted, one of his servants rushed to bring him sunglasses, coffee, and a cigar.

  The ship sliced through the Mediterranean like a conquistador’s galleon. The cliffs of Sidi Bou would be visible by early evening. Despite the idyllic setting, the prince was traveling for work. The only reason they had docked at the quiet port of Santa Teresa di Gallura the night before was that Silvio Cannelloni had been waiting there to talk business.

  They certainly didn’t lack topics of conversation. Both were influential politicians, presidents of powerful media and telecommunication conglomerates, as well as owners of prestigious European soccer teams. On the agenda for their meeting: Mamar’s fate and Thor’s transfer. Everything went as planned, followed by Silvio’s legendary after-party, the “bonus” that made him so popular. Hell of a guy, the prince thought, texting him on his iPhone: You forgot your boxers again.

  The response was immediate: Keep them for Mamar he might need them.

  The night before, on the boat, they had discussed Thor’s transfer first.

  “Let’s start with the easy stuff,” suggested Silvio.

  “Mamar?” replied the prince, feigning ignorance.

  “Cazzo! Stop fucking around,” grumbled Silvio. “No, that’s complicated. Let’s talk soccer first.”

  “Whatever you want,” laughed the prince. His companion, an aging prime minister, was obsessed with his youth, and the artifices he used to conjure it made for a far-fetched appearance: dyed hair, face-lift, Botoxed lips—all wrapped in a suit that was too tight. Silvio was a class act, all right.

  “With the salary you promised him, the brute can leave. I can’t keep him anymore, but I’m not just going to give him away.”

  “State your price,” said the prince nonchalantly.

  Mino Thor was the soccer star of the moment. A behemoth from the North with the looks and manners of a Viking, capable of kicking balls over 125 miles per hour and walking on an opponent on the ground just for the pleasure of humiliating him.

  “Sixty million euros, officially, and ten for the pain you’re going to cause me. He’s an idol in Milan. The tifosi are going to rip me apart for months!”

  “Deal.”

  Then they moved on to Mamar’s fate.

  “I don’t agree,” Silvio said straightaway.

  “We were able to come to an agreement with the tribal chiefs. We’ll come to an agreement with you too.”

  “You’re really going to take him out?” asked Silvio.

  “It seems inevitable,” answered the prince.

  “Send him into exile! Look at the Handsome One. He’s doing fine in Arabia.”

  “The Handsome One’s washed up. His life isn’t worth a thing. Mamar knows too much, and a lot of people have benefited from his money.”

  “Once he’s dead, the Bedouins are going to claim his fortune. His money will be confiscated and his belongings sold for their benefit. That will mean a lot of empty pockets around here!”

  “Not all of them,” said the prince. “You’ll get your part when everything gets seized.”

  Silvio was in desperate need of money. He had more than a few judges to bribe, plus an election to finance to regain his parliamentary immunity. The deal struck him as fair, and so he reconciled himself. “Poor Mamar. He was nice to me.”

  “As they say in your country,�
� stressed the prince, “nothing personal. It’s strictly business.” Silvio nodded in agreement.

  The prince continued. “We have to be on the same page, politically and in the international media. We have to drill down the same message, in every opinion column, in the East and the West: the only way to give the Bedouins back their freedom is to topple Mamar, the tyrant persecuting them. Our allies will run the show on the ground.”

  The Italian let out an impressed whistle. “Our allies will run the show?”

  “Absolutely.”

  The prince didn’t say anything else, though the plan had already been hatched. Bounty would charge Mamar’s fief from the sea, Nico would parachute weapons over the Bedouins’ heads, everyone would get their own Kalashnikov, bullets would fly in every direction, and within this dangerous muddle, Mamar would eventually take a hit. Maybe even a couple. A few in the head . . .

  “Perfect,” concluded Silvio. He looked at his watch. “I like business that wraps up quickly. Now, let’s celebrate!”

  The aging politician took out his phone. With one call, the small port was filled with a procession of limousines and models with powdered noses, rivers of brut and rosé champagne, and a spectacular avalanche of multicolored pills. A hell of a guy.

  Exhaling the smoke from his Cohiba, the prince stood facing the clear horizon. And even if it hadn’t been clear, he would have cleared it. He was the most prominent prince in a crop of royal progeny actively working toward the hegemony and rise of the kingdom of Qafar. That feeling of power sparked a relaxing wave inside him that ran through his body top to bottom, provoking a long, resounding fart along the way.

  Even though its size was laughable and its history approximate—the adjectives could easily be switched—Qafar’s ambitions had no limit, just like its recently discovered natural gas resources. The deposits were so deep that they would forever change the fate of this small kingdom, once a peaceful village of pearl fishers.

  It was no secret that it was gas that gave Qafar its power and its wealth. And when it came to manners in the kingdom, you really didn’t have to hold back—the louder and more aromatic the fart, the more applause it garnered from the assembled guests. According to the elders—and in the kingdom of Qafar, the words of the elders were truth itself—the reason this little desert dump had staggering quantities of underground butane was the combination of its people’s natural aptitude for farting and the Spartan customs that compelled them to sit ass down on the sand. To the point that, to avoid insulting the conservatives, the first king, Abdul Ban Ania, progressive on certain matters, declared: “There is enough gas underground that we may begin to sit on chairs.”

  Thus began a modernization effort that left half the planet speechless: a liquefaction industry using cutting-edge technology, skyscrapers planted in the middle of the sea, international news networks of impressive professionalism, and airports for an airline among the best equipped in the world.

  Its ambitions spilled over its borders, and in barely ten years, international investments had multiplied, as had the power wielded over the most fragile neighboring countries, which the naysayers called interference. But to hell with the naysayers!

  The captain waved at him from the cockpit. The prince pointed to his watch in response.

  “We’ll be there in four hours,” yelled the captain.

  “Perfect!”

  His appetite was growing.

  Soon he’d see the cliffs of Sidi Bou, where other business was waiting for him. Soon this land would fall under the kingdom’s control.

  The prince wasn’t the first to covet this country. Even before its current borders existed, it had been the object of great desire and numerous conquests. Originally a land of Berber tribes, it became, in succession, a shelter for the Phoenicians, a breadbasket for the Romans, spoils for the Vandals, a port for the Byzantines, a paradise for the Arabs, an annex for the Turks, a colony for the Franks . . . Now it was Qafar’s turn to take the reins, he thought, rubbing his hands together. Because while the endangered greenery and polluted beaches of this former haven were far from the stuff of dreams, its geostrategic position was still enticing: to both the east and the west were two vast expanses of hydrocarbon that the world’s leaders, without exception, had in their sights.

  Buying this country square foot by square foot was a whim that his money could allow but that the nation’s constitution and international law would not. People have the right to decide their own fate, apparently. Good for them, but was he going to stand idly by? There was no such thing as an impregnable city or an impassable wall. What’s more, the circumstances couldn’t be more in his favor.

  The thing is, after decades of dictatorship, the people here had surprised the Qafaris. They had risen up, waged revolution, and called for self-determination and democracy. About time! What was easier to hijack than democracy? Like most things in the world of men, democracy was principally a question of money, and the prince had plenty.

  The first free elections would be held soon, and he had a horse in the race. The Sheik, a local figure, was an eminent member of the religious brotherhood financing the kingdom, whose rigorist doctrine guided his long-underground party—the Party of God. And wouldn’t you know it, the revolution had restored the party’s image, providing political legitimacy and even bolstering its audience. In the eyes of many, the Party of God had a good chance of winning at the ballot box and seeing its enlightened members make up the first democratically elected government in the country’s history.

  The prince had anticipated what was needed to bankroll his candidate’s march to victory. The yacht’s hold was as full as a cargo ship, crammed with boxes of clothes and crates of canned goods. Along with several briefcases of green bills, this was the arsenal of seduction necessary to garner every poor vote, and this country had plenty.

  “Here’s all you need to fill your booths and go on a nice little tour of the hinterlands. Campaign in the name of God. Distribute the boxes in the name of God and the Party of God,” he planned to tell the Sheik during the lovely evening that was approaching.

  The models, whom Silvio had left behind, along with his satin briefs, were starting to emerge, one by one, to float in the pool. But they and the prince weren’t the only pests. There were even more in the crates stuffed into the yacht’s hold.

  From time immemorial, the gifts of princes have always been poisoned.

  1

  Everyone knew that Sidi would give his life for his girls, and do so without the slightest hesitation. His love was such that he was capable of anything. Hadn’t he devoted his life to them, building them citadel upon citadel? Hadn’t he confronted a Numidian bear just to bring them the most beautiful flowers? Hadn’t he defied princes and renounced love to dedicate himself entirely to them? And so, when news that many of them had died under troubling circumstances spread from mouth to mouth, a reaction seemed inevitable.

  Sidi didn’t like to make a show of his problems. He was fairly taciturn by nature, and if the news had circulated through the village of Nawa, it was because, that same morning, little Béchir had been running through the fields as he often did in the early days of spring. When he approached Sidi’s colonies, set up on the hill that had the most flowers, he saw the old man on his knees, sobbing before countless mutilated bodies, as the rest of his girls flew around him, as if to console him. Little Béchir was only a child and didn’t think to hold his tongue. And so, one hour later, all of Nawa was aware of the tragedy, and all of Nawa was outraged, especially as nobody knew Sidi, much less his girls, to have any enemies. Granted, he was an odd character and could lose his temper at times, but everyone liked him and held him in high esteem. The incident was therefore a complete mystery.

  But that didn’t stop people from talking about it, which is what they did all day long, recalling seasons past and bemoaning a world going downhill.

  “It happened in the middle of the day,” maintained Bicha, the hairdresser.

  “The
y were disemboweled, cut in half,” lamented Kheira, the village grocer, to Baya, who had come to buy some sugar.

  When the village elders were questioned, they went even further. “This is clearly the sign of a curse.”

  But the collective narrative built around little Béchir’s account was merely a stopgap. Everyone was anxious to see Sidi and hear his version of events and his likely conclusions.

  As night fell, the fading light outlined Sidi’s erect silhouette along the walls of the village. He walked up the narrow alleyways with determination until he reached the terrace of the café where the village men puffed themselves up with hookah smoke and endless conversation. His entrance provoked such silence that nothing could be heard apart from a breeze whistling through the leaves outside and moths repeatedly colliding into the oil lamps. He stopped abruptly and for a moment pondered the compassion-filled faces looking back at him. He continued to his regular table; the voices followed.

  “We know what happened. How terrible!”

  “All our condolences!”

  Sidi nodded soberly in response and pulled out a chair. People had flocked behind him as he walked, and by the time he sat down, he had an entire crowd before him, hanging on his every word.

  “How do you all know?”

  “Little Béchir.”

  “Ah, little Béchir, okay. Louz, what are you waiting for? A Turkish coffee, please.”

  The waiter replied in a lilting voice, “Right away, and with a dash of orange blossom! But don’t say anything until I get back.”

  The gathering held out until the steaming cup was placed before Sidi.

  “When did it happen?” asked Louz.

  “A little before noon,” said Sidi.

  “What happened?”

  “I don’t have the slightest idea. But it wasn’t the work of any man or animal from around here,” he replied, eliminating any worries in that respect and closing the subject.

  The villagers sighed. Some brought up the end of the world while others invoked God’s mercy, then, gradually, everyone returned to their seats as games of scopa resumed to the rhythm of hookah pipes and interminable debates. That’s how evenings in Nawa went.