2084

by Sansal Boualem

  Toz seemed perfectly at ease in his strange clothes. As these things did not exist in Abistan, he referred to them using words he’d made up or found who knows where: the lower part for the body from the waist down was clothed in trousers and his torso up to his neck in a shirt and a jacket; his feet were clad in waterproof shoes, and everything was buttoned, overlapping, knotted, or belted. It was a getup fit for a clown. To go out into the street, he reverted to the norm; he took off his shoes, rolled up the legs of his trousers as far as midcalf, slipped on some good all-terrain sandals, then tossed the burni befitting a prosperous merchant over his shoulders—and there he was, invisible in the anonymous crowd.

  He hastily pushed the two friends into the back of his shop; it was full of curiosities that seemed to have come from another planet. He had done his homework, had found a name for every item, and knew what it was for. In the course of their conversation—and Toz was talkative—he pointed things out to his visitors, informing them that they were sitting on chairs, around a table, and that the pieces of wood hanging on the wall were paintings, and over there, on the sideboards and pedestals, those little things that cheered the gaze were called knick-knacks. And on he went, without ever hesitating or making a mistake, calling each thing by its name. How could he remember so many names, of so many unfamiliar items, and in a language that no one knew? It was a mystery, one the two friends simply did not try to comprehend.

  Encouraged by their friendly astonishment, Toz relaxed, and became good-natured and expansive.

  “These things surprise you, I can see that, but if you knew, you would see that there is nothing here that is not perfectly ordinary, for this is how people lived in that vanished era you have never heard about. With patience and considerable difficulty I have managed to reconstruct in my shop and my house a little of that world that fills me with nostalgia, even though I never knew it, other than . . . but perhaps you don’t know what these are, they are books . . . I will show you some, my room up there is full of them. I’ve also got catalogues, and leaflets, they are so lovely to look at, you’ll know instantly what they’re about. I only show them to friends . . . and to be honest, I don’t have any in these parts . . . True pleasure is selfish . . . When I sell them, I transmit my pleasure to the customer and then I look for other pleasures.”

  Ati and Koa were fascinated. Toz really was remarkable; they were ready to listen to him the whole blessed day. They had never imagined such people might exist on earth. They were happy, and flattered; Toz trusted them as much as they trusted him, he told them everything . . . like an open book.

  Then he got down to the purpose of their visit. In few words, he showed them that he knew everything and had guessed the rest; they didn’t need to waste time on explanations.

  “I know you’re looking for a friend of yours, Nas by name, an archeologist with the Ministry of Archives, Sacred Books, and Holy Memories. A brilliant young man who was in charge of the investigation into Mab, the village where our marvelous Delegate, may salvation be upon him, received the revelation of the holy Gkabul. At the black market by the mousehole you alarmed a few honest civil servants with your questions, and naturally they informed their bosses and the Moral Health judges of what you were up to. It’s unfortunate, they were punished severely for being there and listening to your questions . . . And from that point on the information traveled by word of mouth and in the end reached me. That’s the way things are, everything eventually ends up with me, I’m friends with everyone. Well, tell me now how you met Nas and tell me about yourselves. If you want me to help you, you have to tell me everything.”

  Ati and Koa did not hesitate for a moment. Ati told of how he had met Nas somewhere on the way back to Qodsabad from the sanatorium at Sîn, how they’d had long conversations about the mysterious village the pilgrims had discovered. Nas had been uneasy, he said strange things that Ati didn’t fully understand—that his discovery was the very negation of Abistan and its beliefs. Koa took over and told his own story, how he’d rebelled against his genocidal family; how he withdrew—and this became a rite of passage for him, in the devastated suburbs or lost villages; he talked about their escapade into the ghetto of Balis and their journey across Qodsabad that had left them with the firm conviction that Abistan did not exist, that Qodsabad was merely an artifact, a stage setting that hid a cemetery, or worse, that filled their minds with the terrible sensation that life had died long ago, and that people were so damaged by their uselessness that they failed to see they were just vague traces of life, painful memories wandering in a lost time.

  They concluded with the terrible business that had compelled them to leave their neighborhood and come to ask for Nas’s help: Koa’s appointment as Destroyer in the trial of a young woman, the mother of five children, who was accused of blasphemy and doomed to the stadium.

  For most of the day they talked about these matters, but as simple conversation is not enough to express things that are beyond our grasp, they began to philosophize about life in general, which helps pass the time and stimulates the appetite. Toz offered them an unusual sort of meal, food they had never seen, white bread, pâté, cheese, chocolate, and a bitter, burning drink he called coffee. At the end he took a basket of fruit from the buffet—bananas, oranges, figs, and dates. Ati and Koa nearly jumped out of their skin, they thought these things had disappeared off the face of the earth long before they were born, and that the few remaining crops were reserved for the Honorables. After that Toz reached into his pocket for a little pouch, and with its contents he fashioned a white stick the length of four fingers, filled with dried grass; then he placed it between his lips, lit the other end, and began to produce smoke. The horrible smell did not disgust him, but seemed on the contrary to delight him. He used the words cigarette and tobacco and said that this was his one small sin. It was hard to admit something sinful to oneself in a world where sin could be fatal.

  There were no two ways about it, Toz lived in his own world, and it had nothing to do with Abistan. Was he even Abistani? Where did he come from, where had he acquired his power, what was he doing in such a mediocre neighborhood, where people only lived and survived on what the Abigov tossed over the side from the top of its ramparts? Toz himself didn’t look like anything special, he was short, stocky, stooped, his neck was scrawny, his hands were ridiculously small, and he must have been in his fifties, already flabby and graying. The only things that shone about him were his gaze, his culture, his intelligence, his charisma, and that aura of mystery that surrounded him. How had these qualities come to him: was he just born like that, like a genie emerging fully armed from his magic lamp, or had he acquired them over the course of a lifetime? In any case, it was these qualities that had made him who he was, the king of the neighborhood.

  He remained silent for a long while, the time it took to smoke two cigarettes and sip two coffees, then he turned to Ati and Koa and said firmly, “Here’s what we’re going to do. I will get you settled in a safe place, a warehouse that belongs to me, right nearby, for the time it takes for me to find out about your friend. After that, we’ll decide what to do next.”

  Then, with a little smile in his eyes: “What will you give me for my pains?”

  Koa reached into a hidden pocket in his burni and took out a rag, unfolded it, and handed the paper that had been hidden there to Toz. Toz read it, looked at them, and burst out laughing. He slipped the paper into a drawer in the table and said, “Thank you, this is a very precious present, I will add it to my collection of fine relics. Right, I have to go out now, I have a client to meet. Follow me, I’ll have you stay upstairs for now. Don’t make any noise, don’t go near the windows, please . . . I’ll be back at the end of the day. After nightfall I’ll take you to the warehouse.”

  Without further ado he put on his sandals and his burni and vanished into the dusty streets. There was a furtiveness about his gestures that seemed to suggest something, but everything about
him was so elegant and tactful that it erased whatever that something was.

  Left to their own devices, the two friends took the opportunity to explore the dwelling of the warm and mysterious Toz. They were all at sea, everything they saw had come there from another planet. How to name these things, in what language? Like in the back room at the shop, there were chairs, a table, a sideboard, paintings, and many very amusing knickknacks. And other truly strange objects. If there were any similar dwellings in Qodsabad, they must belong to very rich dignitaries—who else—and these very rich dignitaries were bound to know Toz, their supplier: there could be no one else in all of Abistan, he had said as much himself. The law prescribed uniformity for all, and Toz was the miraculous exception that confirmed the rule. It was truly a mystery, to find such a unique man among the dense mass. The people had no knowledge of such unusual items, they were all in the same boat, a drab world of ruined neighborhoods, crumbling buildings, worn-out houses, wobbly hovels, one or two bare rooms, a single toilet, everything was done on the floor—cooking, eating, sleeping; the rule was one burni per person, to be mended over and over until the final day, when it would be turned into a shroud, and one pair of sandals that were resoled for as long as possible. A dismal process was at work: since no one knew how to repair the old with the new, they did it with the old, using the same vintage, and thus everyone merely added to the woes they had been hoping to eliminate. Indeed: but where to find new ideas in an ancient world?

  Toz came back at the end of the afternoon, just as furtively. He looked depleted, pensive. He collapsed on his chair, poured two coffees, and smoked two cigarettes to raise his spirits. Then Toz caught them unawares: they had been watching spellbound as he blew smoke out of his nose after swallowing it through his mouth, when he abruptly asked them a strange question:

  “Have you ever heard of a certain Democ?”

  “D . . . dimoc? What’s that?”

  “A ghost . . . a secret organization . . . no one knows . . . Apparently people talk about it, now and again,” he said with a certain weariness, on the verge of boredom and incredulity.

  Ati and Koa didn’t understand. They looked at each other in astonishment, almost frightened; they were becoming aware that if they were to discover the world, they must venture into its complexity and feel that the universe was a black hole welling with mystery, danger, and death; it meant discovering that in fact only complexity existed, that simplicity and the apparent world merely camouflaged it. It would, therefore, be impossible to understand; complexity would always know how to find the most attractive simplification in order to prevent all understanding.

  Ati had a flash of inspiration. Memories were coming back to him . . . the sanatorium . . . cold, solitude, hunger . . . and delirium as he slept . . . Yes, he remembered . . . the caravans disappearing up there, so close to the sky, in the latticework of summits and mountain passes, beyond something you didn’t actually know . . . a border . . . an imaginary line . . . soldiers tortured and killed . . . the people’s silence . . . they didn’t speak because they had never spoken, because they knew nothing and had no way of knowing . . . And yet, behind those disappearances and murders and that atmosphere heavy with menace there had to be something, someone, there was bound to be . . . a shadow . . . a ghost . . . a desire . . . a secret organization . . . Could it be that thing . . . that person . . . Democ . . . Dimoc? Ati was sure he had heard the word, or something like it . . . but that was a sick man’s rambling . . . Someone had talked about . . . demo . . . democ . . . demon? . . . He had talked about torture, too . . . but didn’t know what the word meant . . .

  Once night had fallen, Toz took them to the warehouse, which was not just by the shop as he had said, but clear on the other side of the neighborhood, and they reached it via a labyrinth that obeyed absolutely no reasonable human logic. A labyrinth is an eminently intelligent thing, but not in this case; the path followed the wind and was constantly changing. In the deserted streets darkness came close on their heels as here and there furtive shadows slipped past. Toz seemed guided by instinct. Ah, they’d arrived. This lugubrious place, this huge dark mass was the warehouse, a cube, a concrete base on which a clutter of rusty sheet metal had been erected. They could only make out what a moonless sky with a sparse scattering of stars allowed them to see: ghostly storage sheds to the right and to the left, with a dusty alleyway sandwiched in between, prowling with tribes of dogs and cats exhausted by hunger, scrofula, and beatings, like all the dogs and cats in Qodsabad. In the distance—or was it right nearby—they could hear something magical in the ponderous void, a baby crying and a woman singing a lullaby. Toz opened the door. A metallic sound rang out. He struck a match; giant shadows emerged from the night and began dancing madly on the walls. They were overwhelmed by the stuffiness of the air, a complex smell: something rotting, rusty, fermented, a dead creature, mold-encrusted objects. He struck another match and lit a candle in a heavy candlestick. A scant light flickered, yellow and black, surrounded by quivering shadows. Here and there were pieces of furniture, and trunks, bags, barrels, jars, machines, statues, and crates overflowing with knickknacks. At the back was a metal stairway, and upstairs, two low-ceilinged adjoining rooms. In the second one a crate contained some dishes; against the wall were a chest and a bench, and piled on a shelf, some blankets; in one corner a bucket full of water stood next to a chamber pot. On the outside wall was a fanlight which Toz hastily concealed with an old rag. “My employee, his name is Mou, will bring you some food after dusk. No one will see him coming and going, he knows how to make himself invisible. He’ll leave the basket in a corner by the entrance to the warehouse. Don’t speak to him, he’s deaf and a bit simpleminded. Be discreet, don’t go out, don’t open for anyone, the spies are all on edge, they’d love to make themselves some money off of you . . . Someone got them going, a mouaf from the Apparatus . . . or someone high up,” he said, once they were settled.

  Before leaving he added, “Be patient . . . I have to be cautious, it’s a delicate matter. Very delicate.”

  The two friends explored the place, groping their way around; the darkness could only be penetrated with their hands.

  The warehouse was a dreary place; it must have witnessed a thousand bankruptcies in its lifespan, and it wobbled and creaked everywhere. The antiques it stored only added to the desolation. Toz cherished them as if they were treasures; to his eyes only old things were of any value, and that value was proportional to their age. If Toz collected so many things, it was in order to sell them, and if he sold them then he must have buyers: that was another mystery. “Mystery” was the word that came most often to their minds.

  That night they slept as they never had before. A surfeit of fatigue, tension, waiting, and so many riddles in the air.

  At some point during the night, as he was recalling that time of slow death he had spent at the sanatorium, Ati again heard voices in the distance, a baby crying and a warm-voiced woman singing a lullaby. In a dream he thought, life was not altogether dead.

  The waiting went on and on. Eight endless days had gone by in perfect vacuousness. The two friends were beginning to worry themselves sick, constantly wondering whether Toz was neglecting them or whether his investigation had gotten bogged down somewhere. They were reassured when, in the evening, sometime around the seventh prayer of the holy day, they heard the faithful Mou come furtively into the warehouse, put down his basket with a jerry can of water, and disappear in silence. Their host had not forgotten them, at least as far as their daily bread was concerned. Having experienced the difficult joys of Qodsabad, they had no trouble imagining what an exploit it must be merely to get into the Abigov. Questioning machines that had never known they could talk if they wanted to, going up to leaders, who were surely daunting and invisible, in order to obtain secrets from them, simply belonged to the realm of the impossible. But Toz was Toz, and impossible meant nothing to him.

  Very quickly, in only a
day or two, they had learned how to live the old-fashioned way: sitting with dignity at the table, and on chairs without feeling dizzy; eating food they could not identify off individual plates, unable to determine whether it was harmless or lethal, licit or illicit; drinking coffee that kept them awake all night, as if they were owls. And they were beginning to miss the hir, the national gruel, in the most dreadful way. Sometimes, when the wind was blowing the right direction, its aroma of burned spices would drift up from the street and come to titillate their nostrils. So they would leave the fanlight ajar to allow a bit more of the scent to reach their nostrils, and they would sneeze with pleasure. The aroma came wafting over to them from the old tumbledown house across the way, whence now and again, when the silence of the night amplified sound, they could hear the baby’s crying and the very gentle singing that accompanied it so loyally.

  One morning brilliant with sunshine and balmy air they caught a glimpse of the invisible woman with the melodious voice. She was in her courtyard, ten square siccas of concrete, with bric-a-brac in one corner, a water cistern in the other, a basin in the center and next to it a cauldron on a tripod above a wood fire; against the wall stood a dead tree where laundry was drying. The matronly woman had enough volume and curves for an entire family, with huge, blindingly white breasts that could feed an entire litter of little Gargantuas; the baby would have no cause for concern regarding his food or his comfort, and he slept soundly in a basket hanging from a low branch of the tree. The happy mother was squatting by her basin, and this emphasized the particularly well-endowed shape of her posterior as she pounded the laundry with genuine delight. This was how she filled her time, washing diapers and bibs, singing a romantic little tune whose refrain went, roughly, “Your life is my life and my life is your life and love will be our blood.” Abilang is full of rich rhymes; the word for life is vî, for love is vii, and for blood vy. So that gave, “Tivî is mivî i mivî is tivî, i vii sii nivy.” Let there be no mistake, this declaration of love was addressed to Abi, the wonderful verse was from the holy Gkabul, title 6, chapter 68, verse 412, but the deepest intention was something else altogether, as it happened. The faithful mother had too much to do to lose herself in religion; her life and her happiness revolved around her child and he was a difficult crybaby, who knew how to get what he was owed. There was also a husband in the matter. The two friends had seen him once, a fleeting shadow drifting past in a tramp’s burni. He came home late at night and the way he coughed and gasped suggested he was not long for this earth. A household that was the very image of domestic life: heartwarming and tragic.