by Maryse Conde
Ivan pushed away his plate and Henri Duvignaud continued in no uncertain terms, “Don’t judge! Please don’t judge! Turn your back on me too, since you can’t bear to hear the truth.”
Ivan leaned forward and his words hissed though his lips.
“So you give your blessing to every base act in the world? For me, you’re just as despicable as Ulysses. And for you, the word of God doesn’t count?”
“If God exists, which nobody knows for sure,” Henri joked. “He is Love. You never think of that characteristic.”
Ivan stood up and in an unintentionally theatrical voice said, “I think we no longer have anything to say to each other.”
Thereupon he strode out of the restaurant and disappeared into the night. He walked straight ahead not knowing exactly where he was going and found himself in an elegant and brilliantly lit neighborhood. Unwittingly he gave the passersby embittered stares as if they were guilty. Guilty of what? Of feeling happy with themselves whereas he felt so ill at ease? After a while he collapsed on a bench in anger. On seeing him, a couple of lovers who were necking stood up in fright and fled. Ivan remained seated for a long time. When he decided to continue on his way, he came across a metro entrance which led to the regional express. By talking to him of God’s love, Henri had touched a sore point. He suddenly thought he had been unfair to Ulysses, who was a victim like himself and seeking to survive as best he could.
At this time of night the regional express was deserted. A group of women from Eastern Europe dressed in long flowery robes were singing so as to distract the passengers from the young pickpockets who were stealthily robbing them. Every time Ivan set foot in this smelly, drafty place he felt the same repulsion.
He finally arrived at Villeret-le-François. In the warmth of the night, Ivana was sitting on one of the benches set around the housing estate flanked by the inevitable Maylan. They had just seen a film, and chattered on loquaciously explaining that they couldn’t remember the exact title: French Fried Vacation perhaps?
As they climbed up the filthy stairs Ivana seized him by the arm.
“I haven’t yet told you the good news. I’m so glad,” she declared. “Out of all the applications, the municipal police of Villeret-le-François have selected mine. Mine, can you imagine! That’s where I’ll do my internship next month.”
“If you’re happy then I am too,” Ivan replied. “But what will it change?”
“I’ll be just up the road,” Ivana retorted. “I won’t have to get up at dawn like I do now, quickly down my breakfast, and take that horrible express metro which is always overcrowded.”
Once they arrived on the third floor, Ivan headed for his sister’s bedroom as usual for a chat when she held him back.
“I’m dead beat. Good night and sweet dreams.”
Stupefied, he watched her close the door behind her.
Ivan then spent the worst week of his life, watching for the slightest smile or the slightest gesture which could explain Ivana’s behavior. What was she hiding from him?
One evening returning home from the Marcellin Berthelot College he bumped into a man waiting in the tiny living room: young with a dark complexion, like someone of mixed blood, and fairly handsome. The stranger jumped up and cried, “So you must be the brother! The twin! I’m very pleased to make your acquaintance. I’m Ariel Zeni, you sister’s best friend, if I may say so.”
Ivana came out of her room dressed to the nines and smelling of perfume. On seeing her, Ariel hummed jokingly the well-known song by Adamo for the benefit of Ivan.
“May I have your permission, monsieur, to escort your sister?”
The couple disappeared in a burst of laughter. Ariel Zeni, a foreign-sounding name, could he be a Jew? Ivan, who never watched the news broadcast over and over again on television, knew very little about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Sometimes he was moved by seeing houses in ruins or women in tears beside their wounded children, but that was all. Up till now he had felt neither sympathy nor antipathy for the Jews. He had never understood why the Nazis had hounded them relentlessly, seeking the Final Solution. He still didn’t understand what people blamed them for. Is it a crime to form a close-knit, united community? Suddenly the fact of being a Jew took on the looks of a rival. Was Ariel a rival?
Ivana returned home shortly before midnight with the saucy look of someone who has had a good time.
“You’re still up?” she exclaimed in surprise on seeing Ivan glued to the television.
“Who is this Ariel?” thundered Ivan. “He’s a Jew, isn’t he?”
Ivana rolled her eyes.
“Do you have something against Jews?”
Ivan grabbed her by the wrist.
“How long have you known him? What’s going on between you two? Where did you go?”
“You have no right to ask questions,” Ivana said curtly. “Besides, I won’t answer you.”
The next day, while he had practically forgotten Abdel Aziz Isar, given the agony he was going through, Ivan received a text message from Abdel Aziz asking him to come and see him. On that particular day Abdel Aziz was alone, and a little less cold and uptight than during the previous visit.
“The plans for the attack are taking shape,” he declared. “It will probably take place on Christmas Eve so as to make an impression. The form it will take will be different from previous attacks as the directives have changed. Mass attacks leaving sixty or eighty dead are no longer on the agenda. The leaders prefer carrying out simultaneous skirmishes on the same day at different locations. They are therefore planning a hostage-taking at a police retirement home, another at a Jewish school, and another probably in a church.”
Abdel Aziz handed Ivan a well-filled envelope and some typewritten sheets of paper. His mission was to go to Brussels and retrieve a load of firearms.
“You will go to this garage, the Keller Garage,” he declared. “Ask for Séoud and rent a car for three days. It’s quite enough for a round trip from Brussels. Don’t give your real name of course. This is your ID card. In Brussels, go to number thirteen on the rue d’Ostende where my cousin Zyrfana lives. There you will take the batch of weapons he will have hidden in musical-instrument cases. You have nothing to fear. If the police stop you en route, your ID card says you’re an instrument maker and your business is selling violins, cellos, and guitars. You will bring me the haul and I’ll use it when needed.”
In his current state of mind, Ivan perceived this mission to Belgium as a welcome break. Two days later he set out along the motorway with a feeling of liberation. He left behind him his worries and anxieties regarding his sister and had the impression of being a new man. The sun had risen and was sending him an inviting smile from high in the sky. His blood began to flow again briskly and warmly in his veins. He drove for hours and then stopped in a rest area to eat. Against a noisy background of jazz music, customers were eating French fries and downing mugs of beer called Mort Subite, a name that at first delighted him then made him think. Mort Subite? Sudden Death? Wasn’t that what the jihadists wanted? To take their own lives in order to be admitted to the Garden of Allah and enjoy the delights of seventy-two virgins? Suddenly such ideas seemed to him absurd and childish. How could this be a satisfactory solution? Was that how you could change the world? By killing yourself? Isn’t it better to stimulate our minds and brace our muscles to plan for a revolution? He no longer knew or understood what had guided him. He vaguely recollected Monsieur Jérémie’s objections. Unfortunately he hadn’t listened properly and didn’t remember much about them. He drove the last few kilometers to Brussels plunged deep in thought.
Brussels cannot be compared to London, Paris, or New York. Smaller in size, it looks more like a country cousin in comparison with its more sophisticated relatives. Yet it exudes an old-fashioned charm. Ivan enjoyed driving along its boulevards, less jammed with traffic than in Paris and lined with w
ell-pruned trees.
Unfortunately he got lost and it took him almost an hour to find the rue d’Ostende, a quiet alley in a neighborhood where the shops had nothing to offer except items from elsewhere: prayer mats, kettles, burnooses, hijabs, burkas, prayer beads, Korans, and multicolored straw sponges. Europe had suddenly vanished and been replaced by faraway cultures. Passersby, too, came from elsewhere, from North Africa, Turkey, India, and Pakistan.
Zyrfana was a colossus with a hooked nose, very convivial and jovial, unlike his cousin. He embraced Ivan like an old acquaintance.
“How was the journey?” he asked. “Not too many police on the road? Ever since the last attack, the place is teeming with them.”
Ivan replied that much to his surprise he hadn’t seen a single one. Zyrfana owned a nice apartment and led Ivan into a room tastefully furnished, its walls lined with photos of Muhammad Ali.
“I wept like a child the day he died. He’s my hero,” he explained to Ivan. “Not only because he converted to Islam. It’s because he turned his body into a temple. We must do the same and each of us must make a masterpiece of his body. In fact, I was just about to go to the gym. Do you want to come with me?”
Ivan retorted that he hadn’t the slightest sports outfit on him; not even a pair of swimming trunks.
“No problem,” Zyrfana said, and dashed into his bedroom, returning with a pair of striped shorts.
The two men climbed down the stairs. Night had fallen and the air started to feel cool. More and more passersby filled the sidewalks. One by one the shop windows lit up and this cosmopolitan neighborhood exuded a kind of reassuring intimacy. Music could be heard wafting in from somewhere. Zyrfana and Ivan headed for the Equinox fitness center. For almost two hours, despite his fatigue from the journey, Ivan pedaled, skipped, lifted weights, and stretched left, right, and center. This state of physical exhaustion was oddly beneficial. Ivan became the little boy he had once been when he used to dive headfirst into the water at Dos d’ne and swim out to sea. When finally he returned to the beach, exhausted, he would cuddle up against his sister.
Zyrfana turned out to be an excellent cook: a seafood pie and an apricot tart. When Ivan complimented him on his dinner, he said sadly, “If you had come here a month ago, you would have complimented my wife, Amal. She was a real chef.”
Ivan sensed that Zyrfana would like for nothing better than to go on talking about her.
“Where is she, then?” he asked.
“She left me,” Zyrfana explained gloomily. “When she learned that it was me who provided the arms for the last attack at the airport, she left in a shot. Even worse, she took our little Zoran with her. I’ve been all alone ever since.”
“Left!” Ivan cried. “So she wasn’t a real Muslim?”
“Better than you,” Zyrfana fired back vehemently. “Her father was a much-respected imam in Lahore. She was fourteen when her father took her on her first pilgrimage to Mecca. She could quote the Koran by heart. But she said that we hadn’t understood its message at all; that we were using the wrong method to change the world. We didn’t comprehend the word of God, who ordered us to love each other and not kill each other.”
How like Ivan’s own interrogations these thoughts were. How similar they were to Ivan’s own preoccupations!
Perhaps Amal was right? Who knows?
Zyrfana got up and rushed into his bedroom, returning loaded with photo albums showing a chubby baby, then a small boy standing firmly on his two legs: Zoran, on every page Zoran. There was no doubt about it, he was a very cute child.
“You’re not yet a father!” Zyrfana pointed out. “You don’t know what it’s like to have a child, a son. He’s the one who wants to make you change the shape of the world, with the help of Kalashnikovs, if need be. So that he won’t be banished to the back of the class because of the color of his skin or for any other futile reason. So that he won’t be mocked by his classmates or turned into a scapegoat. So that he won’t have a jobless future, but one with marvelous prospects. Before I had Zoran I was a good-for-nothing. It was him who made me what I am: a warrior, a soldier of God.”
Ivan remained silent, even though he understood perfectly what Zyrfana had gone through. Zyrfana was describing the story of Ivan’s own life. He too had been ignored by his teachers. He too had been mocked by his classmates. He too had been jobless at the age of twenty.
Two days later he set off back to France. As on the outward journey, he didn’t meet a single police officer. He handed over to Abdel Aziz three cellos, three violas, as well as countless guitars whose cases had false bottoms filled with firearms.
“With that, we’ll make a nice little night music,” Abdel Aziz joked.
Ivan obviously didn’t get the allusion to Mozart, but he understood perfectly that Abdel Aziz was making a witty joke.
We know what you are thinking. Once again you’re going to blame us for not paying enough attention to Ivana, for not describing her moods in as much detail as for Ivan. Forgive us, dear reader. We shall attempt to make amends.
Ivana had changed enormously over the past months. The curvaceous, smiling young girl had been transformed into a young woman of amazing beauty. Her eyes, tinged with a deep melancholy, went straight to the heart. Ivana was torn by remorse. She found herself like a driver in a car traveling at full speed along a rough road, knowing full well the outcome will be fatal. She too, like Ivan, was well aware that the feelings they both shared were not natural. But she had always done everything in her power to control them. She was now at the end of her tether and resorted to drastic measures. Of course she didn’t love Ariel Zeni. Moreover, how had she met him? In the most banal way possible: he was a monitor at the police training school where she had attended classes. Having lived for many years in Israel he was a specialist in the fight against terrorism, for although Tel Aviv had not become a safe city, at least it was not the place of living dangerously it once was. Its buses were no longer death traps.
The whiteness of Ariel’s body disgusted her, reminding her of the cheap blancmange Simone was fond of. Accustomed to her brother’s bulging member, she found Ariel’s flat and lackluster under his police uniform. But she had made up her mind to marry him, to go and live with him in his modest apartment in Clamart and bear his children.
One day when she was especially distressed, she had let herself be kissed. Although his mouth had seemed insipid and tasteless, she had consented to marry him. She had even gone so far as to fix a date for the engagement ceremony where they would invite their friends and Ariel would slip a lapis lazuli ring, which he boasted had belonged to his mother, on Ivana’s finger.
How could she tell Ivan of her wedding plans? How would he react? In despair she decided to ask Mona for advice. Whereas Hugo and Mona had always considered Ivan a good-for-nothing, even a bad sort, they had always adored Ivana. She was the daughter they had never been fortunate enough to have. They loved her gentleness and extreme helpfulness.
One evening when they were both alone, Ivana asked Mona, “Have you ever found fault with the way Ivan and I feel for each other?”
Mona set down her cup of jasmine-scented tea and shook her head.
“You’re twins. In other words, a single person split in two and divided into two different bodies. You can’t be considered like everyone else, like normal people. No, I’ve never found your attitude shocking.”
“How can I tell him that I’m engaged to Ariel?” Ivana continued. “How will he take it? Don’t I risk being slapped on both cheeks or receiving a fatal blow?”
In order to gain time Mona downed her tea, then made up her mind and very slowly said, “It’s obvious he won’t be happy to hear it. But you must tell him the truth quickly. The longer you wait, the more difficult it will be for you.”
But Ivana could never pluck up enough courage to reveal her plans to her brother. She rebuked herself. She blamed her
self in the morning when she scaled the streets, which were starting to be fraught with an icy wind, setting off for the police center. She blamed herself in the evening when she returned to the André Malraux housing estate. It gnawed at her, it worried her sick and made her more desirable, and Ariel Zeni couldn’t take his eyes off her.
In the meantime Mona plied her with questions.
“Have you told him the truth?” she asked every day.
Ivana would shake her head.
“No, not yet,” she said. “You can see how moody he is.”
In actual fact, Ivan could only think of the attack whose date was getting closer. Abdel Aziz had given all the instructions. But there remained a few points to clear up: would they attack at dawn or wait until nightfall? The plan was as follows: together with the help of three associates, Ivan would burst into the police retirement home. The four men would shoot down as many victims as possible, quickly go back to the car parked on the rue du Chasseloup-Laubat, and drive straight to Belgium. This time there was no question of contacting Zyrfana again, but instead they would take refuge with a certain Karim who lived in the small town of Molenbeek. Ivan was scared to death and by no means enthusiastic. Not at all enthusiastic, in fact. He had no inclination to murder a series of retired police officers afflicted with all the sufferings of old age, some of whom were frankly bedridden. How could such an act change the world?
The municipal police center was composed of two identical buildings linked by a gravel path alongside the sidewalk: on one side the retirement home, named René Colleret after an obscure secretary of state for housing, and on the other, the training center, named La Porte Étroite (The Narrow Gate) as a tribute to the novel by André Gide. Ivan wondered why they didn’t attack the second building, filled with young and vigorous police cadets. Okay, they weren’t armed, but their officer instructors were quite capable of defending themselves.