2084

by Sansal Boualem

  Another day they heard gunshots. By guesswork they located their origin two chabirs away, in the direction of the monumental entrance to the Abigov. Then there was an explosion (rocket, bomb, grenade?) that made the whole warehouse shake. The mother, sweeping her little courtyard and humming, did not hesitate for one second: she buried her baby between her shockproof breasts and with her head lowered she rushed in to take shelter in her house that the mildest of storms could have blown away just like that. The two friends thought it might be Regs trying to invade the Abigov or, why not, an eventual return of the Enemy. Then they instantly forgot about the event; alerts were common currency in Qodsabad and never had any consequences, people knew what was going on, the purpose of these warning shots was to frighten sluggish believers and remind them of their duties. Under the reign of the Gkabul faith began with fear and continued with submission; the flock had to keep together and march straight toward the light, and the good sheep certainly must not pay for the bad ones.

  The boredom became oppressive, and there was nothing to relieve the pain. The contents of the warehouse, for all that they were astonishing, could not distract two such minds for long, avid as they were for action and the real truth. All these months gone by, Ati and Koa had had no lack of adventure, despair, or earth-shattering questioning, and this forced repose in confinement and darkness was more draining than anything. They were threatened with the syndrome of the hermit. They must react, of course—but how?

  On the ninth day of their reclusion, as they were drearily eating their food, an idea came to them in the dark, so exalting that they acted upon it at once: to hell with risk or caution. They would go out for a walk and, better still, they would go as far as the main entrance to the City of God, simply in order to get a closer look at the impressive Abigov and the holy and most extraordinary Kïïba: so mysterious and alluring on all four sides of its pyramidion, all the way at the top and close to Yölah’s sky, the magical eye of Bigaye stared relentlessly at the world and the souls who lived there. They would also see the beautiful, elegant Great Mockba, where for three whole decades the mockbi Kho, Koa’s grandfather, had officiated. That was where his magical voice, relayed by powerful loudspeakers, had beguiled the crowds, tens of thousands of people massed all around, bewitching them and packing them off to die for Yölah. The vast majority of troops for the last three Great Holy Wars had left from there, their ears ringing with the mockbi Kho’s heroic cries.

  The two friends reckoned they could not have come so far nor confronted so many strange follies only to fail to reach their goal: it was there, close at hand, only two or three chabirs away. As they said this, they recalled a precept in the form of a quatrain they had learned at the gkabulic school, which taught that:

  To pray at the foot of the Kïïba

  And in faith swear loyalty to Abi

  Redeems a thousand sins, great and small, when death comes.

  And with your spirit light, go to the bosom of Yölah.

  Koa remembered that at the same time some of his co-disciples at the School of the Divine Word, all sons of noble princes and very rich merchants, and devilish composers of pastiches, had come up with a bawdy ditty and that one day, in the end, it had earned them a thousand lashes, equitably distributed, with a silk whip:

  Take it to heart to pull on your cock

  And in faith play marbles in the raw

  Relieve a thousand sins, great and small, and then some.

  And with your spigot light, put it back in your drawers.

  They laughed about it; what else should they do? There was neither blasphemy nor lying in their vivacious lines.

  Like shadows, they slipped out into the night. Somewhere, a dog was barking furiously; they supposed he was promising death to his loyal little enemy who was without a doubt perched at a safe height, replying now and again with a short and innocent miaow.

  They went over to the little house that so enchanted them with its crying and its songs of love and they stood there, as if in a dream, listening to the purr of domestic life, feeling its soothing warmth, inhaling its odors and perfumes, those of a gentle burrow.

  The air was ominous with torpor. They roused themselves and went on their way.

  Further along, beneath the awning of a dilapidated building that seemed to be, or had once been, a midra, or a soku, a covered market, they noticed a group of men conversing with restrained ardor, some carrying bags, others baskets, bundles, or crates, which they exchanged hastily, from hand to hand. Ten paces behind them, here and there, leaning against the walls, were shadows, their right-hand men whose job was to keep watch and ensure the safety of the bigwigs. There could be no doubt: a black market had been set up there, an encounter among hardened professionals—tradesmen, fences, and smugglers. And there were Regs there too, they were everywhere, in on everything, they excelled at business and always closed a deal before anyone else; because it was so confined, the ghetto’s only resource was trafficking, and the profession was handed down from father to son. But how had they managed to come this far without getting caught? Their smell and their gaze, like that of a nocturnal bird, would betray them to the first comer.

  The two friends continued on their way; they had nothing to buy or sell, and no wish for any trouble.

  The surprise awaited them around the corner, one chabir ahead. A grandiose, heart-stopping vision: there at last was the unique, incomparable City of God, the Kïïba, the Great Mockba, and the Abigov, the all-powerful government of believers on earth. What a thrill! Here was the center of the earth, and of the universe, the point of all departures and all arrivals, the heart of holiness and power, the magnetic pole toward which all races and individuals turned to praise their Creator and implore his representatives.

  The atmosphere in this place was so intensely mystical that a fervent atheist would have lost his mind right then and there; faith would have seized him and rid him of all vain pretention, throwing him to his knees, brow to the ground; with tears and quivering he would have heard himself utter the profession of faith that would have made him into the most fervent of believers: “There is no god but Yölah, and Abi is his Delegate.” In this formula there was no mention of the man himself, happy believer or unfortunate zombie; he had nothing to do with the transaction between Yölah and Abi, that was a private matter. Yölah had created Abi and Abi had adopted Yölah, or vice versa, and that was all there was to it.

  Ati and Koa felt crushed by the majesty of it all, so colossal, excessive, beyond human dimensions. At the foot of the fortress a square covered a boundless expanse, richly lit and so vast that no gaze could encompass it all at once; paved with translucent tiles of every shade of green, it measured over a thousand square hectosiccas and bore the sublime name of the Square of Supreme Faith. The entrance to the City was marked by a cyclopean arch known as the Great Arch of the First Day, its summit lost in the clouds. Its pillars were in keeping with the rest of the construction, sixty siccas wide and a range of three hundred siccas underneath the arch, and they fit into the enormous rampart that encircled not only the City of God—the fabulous showcase for the Kïïba, the Abigov, and the Great Mockba—but also the barracks for the prestigious Abigovian Guard and, further along, hidden in their own shambles and connected to the city by invisible tunnels, the civil servants’ kasbahs. All the substance of the world was there, concentrated behind those immovable ramparts: eternity, power, majesty, and mystery. The world of men was elsewhere; one day it might exist.

  Another surprise: the square was teeming with people. The two friends had never seen so many before, even in dreams. The square was always like this, day and night, all year round, and always had been. People came from the sixty provinces of Abistan in entire flocks—on foot, by train, by truck, and at the entrance they were duly checked, counted, assigned their place. The swarm was divided into three blocs, separated into pens by corridors of metal barriers in which, like so many pe
tty kings in their fiefdoms, guards were armed with whips and kovs, machine guns that dated from before the Revelation: first there was the bloc of pilgrims (a few tens of thousands), who came to worship at the foot of the Kïïba before setting off on their long pilgrimages; then there were the supplicants, civil servants, tradesmen, and simple citizens (several tens of thousands) burdened with files, who were waiting their turn to go into the Abigov to this or that ministry or administration; and finally the third bloc, admired by the crowd of onlookers and children who were held back at the edge of the square, the bloc of volunteers (several thousand), some of whom were applying for an immediate departure to the front, and others who had come to enlist for the next Holy War, which they preferred to experience right from the start to know all the joy it could offer. And everywhere, all around, eager and buzzing, and ever so resourceful at deceiving the guards, were snack vendors, water sellers, blanket renters, washermen, healers, kids touting places in the lines or renting their services to keep a place, as the waiting could go on for weeks or months. Here there was neither night nor day, there was a constant rush year-round. Legends spread throughout the ranks, it was a way of passing the time, there was often talk of one old man who had spent a little over a year in the line of supplicants who on finally reaching the entrance window could no longer remember why on earth he was there. And without a motive, there could be no entrance ticket. The man was forgetful, but not stupid; he put his place in line up for auction. It went to a very rich tradesman; he couldn’t be away from his business for more than a day, having left things unattended. Now that he had made his fortune, the old amnesiac bought himself a roof, and got married for the seventh time, to a sweet nine-year-old kid who had just begun to bleed, and he gave her seven or eleven jolly babies and lived happily to his dying day. On his deathbed, although no one had said a thing, he recalled in a flash what it was that had driven him one day to stand in the line of supplicants: he had come to inquire about the status of his request concerning accommodation . . . or was it employment . . . or emergency assistance . . . over a year old . . . or had it been ten years, or thirty.

  The two friends found out that there was a fourth bloc, located one chabir further to the east, a dark, silent place, the bloc of prisoners, several thousand of them chained together by the hundreds, waiting to be blessed and sent to the front. Some were prisoners of war taken from the Enemy, who had refused the death camps and chosen to convert to the Gkabul and go back to the front, but on the right side this time; the others were Abistanis condemned to death—riffraff, rebels, highway robbers who did not want to die in the stadium or the camps and had decided to become suicide bombers; they would be sent to war, to the front lines, to blow themselves up among the Enemy. A place in this bloc was a favor that was not granted to all the death row prisoners (and never to Regs) but only to those who had demonstrated a true desire to serve Abistan in the name of Yölah and Abi, may salvation be upon them. An old passerby had explained all this to Ati and Koa; he said that he himself had a son who’d managed to avoid the stadium by volunteering to go and greet the Enemy. “He died a martyr, which means I have a good pension and priority access to the State stores,” he said proudly, with a burst of laughter.

  Ati was moved as he thought of Nas, his friend and travel companion. He lived here in grandeur and mystery, in dark madness and absolute servitude. What had become of him, where was he? Ati was counting on Toz to find out and come to his aid.

  A man came up to them, a professional: he truly looked the honest, efficient trafficker he strove to appear, his own mother would have been none the wiser. He’d been observing the two friends for a while already, and they’d noticed him. He said, “If you want a good place in line, I have some excellent ones to offer you . . . I’ll give you a good price.”

  “That’s fine, brother, we’re just passing through . . . ”

  “I can also get you papers, appointments, hard-to-find items, and all sorts of information . . . ”

  “Well then, let’s see. What can you tell us about a certain Nas? He works for the Abigov, in the archeology service.”

  The merchant of goods and services smiled as if he were preparing to reveal a great secret.

  “What do you want to know, exactly?”

  “Whatever you can tell us about him.”

  “And then what?”

  “Where does he live, for example? We’d like to go and see him.”

  “Give me an advance and come back tomorrow, you’ll get your information. And for a small supplement I’ll lead you to his door, or even bring him here to you.”

  The two friends quickly wearied of playing “may the more clever one win.” It was time to go back to the warehouse if they were to be there before daybreak; the spies would soon be on the warpath.

  They hadn’t gone ten paces when their sixth sense, sharpened in the course of their absurd, perilous voyage through Qodsabad, tipped them off: they turned around and saw the merchant of services pointing them out to the patrol. The merchant was also a spy and a Judas.

  They did not hesitate for one second and took to their heels. Nor did the guards hesitate; they began shouting and pointing their guns in every direction. Ati yelled to Koa, “Let’s split up! You go to the left, run, run! I’ll see you at the warehouse, run! Hurry!”

  They had their experience of the dark, narrow labyrinth in A19 in their favor, but their pursuers had strength in numbers, and they were already joined by reinforcements springing forward from the crowd of onlookers.

  Night swallowed them up around the first corner.

  From time to time they could hear shots, then . . . then nothing more.

  Ati ran as fast as he could, for an hour, two hours. His feet ached terribly and as a former consumptive his lungs were on fire. He went down a narrow dead end and collapsed behind a pile of garbage guarded jealously by a dozen particularly sinister-looking tomcats. They hissed at him, fangs bared and claws drawn, then when they saw how pitiful he was they returned to their sprawling lookout at the top of their pantry.

  An hour later, Ati set off again; hobbling along, going out of his way, getting lost, he eventually reached the warehouse just as the mockbas were sounding the call to the faithful for the first prayer of the holy day. It was four in the morning. At the other end of the city, night was letting in the first rays of dawn. Ati found his bed, rolled up in his blanket, and fell asleep. He just had time to think that Koa would not be long now, and he’d be glad to see his friend safe and sound, snoozing away as if nothing had happened.

  The sun had not completely emerged from the night when Toz burst into the warehouse and unceremoniously pulled Ati from the nightmare in which he was struggling. Ati leapt up from his bed as if ten guards had pounced on him to strangle him. He scarcely had time to recover before he relapsed into despair: he saw that Koa had not returned; his bed was empty.

  “Wake up, dammit, wake up!” shouted Toz.

  Toz was not the type to waste time arguing; he kept a cool head. He grabbed Ati by the collar and shook him hard. There was enough authority in his voice to make an entire unit of rebels stand to attention.

  “Sit down and tell me what happened!”

  “I . . . uh . . . we went out for some fresh air . . . and we went as far as the Abigov . . . ”

  “And now you see what has happened, the entire neighborhood is in a state of siege, the guards are searching everywhere and people are bending over backwards to denounce each other . . . This was the last thing we needed.”

  “I’m sorry . . . And Koa? Do you have any news?”

  “None for the time being. I’m going to move you somewhere else, this warehouse isn’t safe anymore. It’s impossible to go out now, you’ll have to hide in a storage room downstairs that I arranged behind a fake wall for hiding rare items. And tonight or tomorrow someone will come and get you to take you to another hiding place. His name is Der, follow hi
m and don’t ask any questions. Right, I have to run, I have to make arrangements.”

  “And Koa?”

  “I’ll find out. If he’s been arrested or killed by the guards, I’ll find out soon enough, otherwise we’ll just have to wait. Either he’s hiding somewhere and he’ll eventually get in touch . . . or he’s dead in a ditch and his body will be found before long.”