by Simon Pare
“No Melouza and no uncalled-for comments about the war of independence to the press!” was the sole but emphatic piece of advice from the superintendent after my release. “We have had – and you have had – enough problems already. Why go and tarnish the memory of a hero like your daughter’s grandfather? If some muckraker turns up looking for news, just tell him that your family were victims of a mentally disturbed person. As for the Frenchman, the official version is an ordinary car accident.”
He eyed me up and down with a look that was both dreamy and hostile at once.
“What else could your daughter’s kidnapper have been apart from deranged? How can someone store up such a desire for revenge for half a century without going rotten inside? If that nutter had been bitten by a rat, I’m sure the rodent would’ve dropped down dead.”
I still jump sometimes when someone knocks on the door too hard. For a few seconds I’m convinced that this is it, this time the police have come to announce that they have found the recording and that I can look forward, if not to the firing squad, then at least to many years in prison. And then utter desolation overcomes me because I imagine my daughter’s life as a complete orphan, trapped forever in misery, with no money and nobody to help her. Luckily – up till now – this lasts only until I realise that the person knocking on my door is but a travelling crockery salesman or a beggar asking for a little money.
Tomorrow I’ll take her to the zoo to see her beloved Lucette. It’s the only place where she feels anything like safe. Midweek, when the weather is good enough, Shehera takes the bus on her own to come and meet me after school. She goes for a walk before reading or doing her homework in front of the bonobo enclosure. Despite it being forbidden to feed the animals, she always has a titbit for her favourites: the little female and her mum, Lucy.
“They and I share a common fate,” she retorted one afternoon when I was teasing her about her affection for the two female bonobos. “They and I have been kidnapped, Dad. My abduction is over; theirs still goes on.”
And seeing my stunned look, she added with the same earnest expression, keeping her lisp under control as much as possible: “I come to give them moral support. If I could, believe me, I’d help them escape and make it back to their forest.”
I had returned to my office with my heart empty. On the way I had bumped into Lounes, who had become an even closer friend – and far less of a chatterer – since he had found out the circumstances of the disaster that had befallen us. I had jokingly related my daughter’s words. But my pallid face must have given me away, because the vet had put his hand on my shoulder with a hoarse, mumbled “Mate… mate…” before, to my great surprise, slipping away without further comment.
Three weeks later I handed Hajji Sadok the report he had requested from me. Hajji Sadok, now permanent Director, had flicked through the ten-page document with a worried look on his face. My superior seems constantly ill at ease in my company since my return. He had, it is true, demanded – and obtained – disciplinary action against me for what had been interpreted as my wilfully offensive behaviour towards the delegation from the ministerial supervisory committee. What’s more, the incident had almost cost him his appointment. He had attended Meriem’s funeral and apologised several times for not having imagined the tragedy my family was trying to cope with. Sick with guilt, he had subsequently used every possible means to have my reprimand revoked, and this had also been very badly received by his superiors. Nonetheless, for some time he avoided walking past the new bonobo enclosure when my daughter was there.
“You should learn to be more conciliatory, Aziz,” he flung back at me, throwing the report on the table. “What would it cost you to write that it’s an excellent idea to present some Saharan gazelles to our Congolese counterparts? In any case, it’s already been decided by people more important than you and me. The Algerian President is absolutely determined to present these symbolic animals of Algeria to the President of the Congo by way of thanks for his bonobos.”
“I merely highlighted that the Congolese climate is very humid and not suitable for…”
The Director interrupted me with some irritation.
“Rewrite the report for me. I want it by tomorrow, with the opposite conclusion. As for this one…”
And adding gesture to word, he tore up the sheets of paper and threw them in the bin. Resignedly, I made for the door.
“Hey, our conversation isn’t over yet, Aziz! I’ve decided that Lounes will lead the delegation that will escort the eight gazelles presented to the Congo…”
I laid my hand on the door handle with an imperceptible shrug of the shoulders.
“…And that you will accompany him to supervise the administrative aspects of the trip.”
I didn’t hide my displeasure.
“That’s impossible. There’s my daughter, school… My daughter’s not very well, you know…”
“Will you let your boss finish his instructions? Lounes has informed me that two of the bonobos are in a bad way.”
“Which ones?” I jibbed with rising irritation. “I saw them just now and they were all in the best of health!”
Hajji Sadok pretended to be fascinated by the tip of his pen.
“Our vet knows his job. In his view, it’s the two female apes, Lucy and Lucette.”
I stood there dumbfounded because the Director had used the two names my daughter had given them.
“Lounes suggested repatriating them to the Congo to have them examined by specialists, for example those at the station on the Kasai River… Nor should we underestimate the chances of losing them on the way…”
“The Kasai River? Where the mother was captured?” I remarked in surprise. “Is this some kind of joke? You say yourself that we might lose them?”
The Director’s expression turned crafty. “I didn’t say that we should; I said that we might lose them. What’s more, you’ll need a secretary for the trip… a secretary the monkeys know well… who can reassure them if they get scared.”
He coughed while I waited with a faint sense of anxiety to find out what his true intentions were.
“I thought of your daughter.”
“What? This is madness! I…”
Breaking off my protests, he added hastily, “I know she’s still young, but I’ll deal with the paperwork… And the tickets. The president’s office has granted me a line of credit for operation ‘Present for the Congo’ to manage as I see fit. It seems as if there are some important contracts at stake between the two countries. I’ll make sure everything’s in order. And anyway it’s not really cheating – your daughter isn’t completely illiterate; she can string a couple of sentences together.”
Stunned with emotion, I stammered, “What about school?”
“A good medical certificate should do the trick for ten days or so. In any case, I suppose school isn’t really your daughter’s number one concern at the moment. The girl’s had more than her fair share of trouble and a journey outside Algeria will give her a bit of breathing space.”
Faced with my suddenly misty eyes, Hajji Sadok looked down at his file. Only his crimson ears showed that he was just as emotional as I was. I managed to stop my voice from quavering.
“Hajji Sadok, you could end up in really hot water if the ministry’s financial controller gets wind of your little scheme.”
“Lounes reported your girl’s remark about the monkeys’ being kidnapped. So I don’t want her to spend the whole year sighing in front of my zoo’s cages thinking badly of me. This animal brothel is no place for a kid.”
His voice turned husky. To allay suspicion he guffawed a bit too loudly. “I only became a grandfather two years ago. You have to earn the title of grandfather! And to hide nothing from you, I’ve received some more complaints from some uptight sods at the ministry who think that the new enclosure is still too visible to the public. So losing one or two sex-crazed specimens won’t bother several bearded officials of my acquaintance. Now get out of here a
nd write me an extremely optimistic report about how happy our gazelles will be to leave Algeria behind!”
I talked to Shehera about it the very same evening. She was so surprised that she almost felt a stabbing pain in her heart. She raised her hand to her chest, began to smile but then froze. I realised that my little girl had felt guilty for her burst of joy. With a lump in my throat, I assured her that her mother would have been happy about this trip and that releasing Lucy and her baby was a way of paying tribute to Meriem. Silently trembling, Shehera went to her room.
Two hours later I opened her door softly. The bedside lamp was on, lighting up Meriem’s photograph like an icon. I studied my daughter before turning the light off.
She was sleeping curled up on her side, her chin stern but both hands clutched tightly to her body, as if she were protecting two precious creatures, the great black bird of her sorrow and the fragile little bird of her new joy.
I went back into the room that served me as a temporary bedroom. For a second I felt boundless gratitude to that old fart Hajji Sadok before sleep – more salutary than a bottle of alcohol – took me off on another visit to my cemeteries – the only places, paradoxically, where I could still think of Meriem as a living woman rather than a bloody corpse.
…I circled her grave, like every evening, until my pain became more or less bearable. I was grateful for the flowers growing thickly around the little mound. It needed flowers for me to tell Meriem the story of the miraculous journey that had come out of the blue. For the first few nights the earth around my wife’s grave had remained bare. I felt my chest swell with contentment and part of my despair took on their fragrance.
I sat down and, after a moment’s reflection to recall where I’d left off the night before, I took up the thread of our conversation. For the time being I couldn’t see her and I was the only one chatting, of course, but I carried within me the hope that that the night would eventually come when she would decide to answer.
Having finished my account of the day’s events, I stood up. I hesitated a little before paying a visit to Mathieu. His grave was near the edge, yet visible from Meriem’s tomb. Sometimes I wasn’t sleeping deeply enough to recognise the place where my father-in-law lay straight away. He didn’t speak either, maybe because he was too preoccupied with his troubled conscience? But I guessed that he was probably happy enough about my presence, even if I only spoke a few words to him. I gave him some news of Latifa and Shehera, lying a little of course, as you lie to a friend of whom you have grown fond.
Once, early on, I made it as far as the informer’s grave, which was located, as if by design, in the middle of a field of rubbish. I wanted to apologise to the man I had killed, but I didn’t have the courage to go through with it. Even in my sleep, I was afraid I wouldn’t be able to justify myself to a rapist.
I could almost end up calling the Other Man my companion, however, as he is never far from me. I felt his presence again that night.
“Is that you, Zahi?”
I didn’t look at him. I couldn’t have borne it. I merely perceived that the old man had crouched down on a grave a few yards away.
Perhaps because of our trip I asked him, “Did you recover your peace of mind after taking your revenge?”
He let out a little wry laugh that still sounded menacing even though I knew he was harmless now. For some reason that escapes me, I realised that he had not found his family and that even here in this cemetery of sleep, he remained dreadfully unhappy.
I ‘heard’ him sigh, then get up and go back to his searching. I didn’t look round. I whispered, “What about us, Meriem? Will we recover our peace of mind one day?”
And tenderly I caressed the smooth stone with her name engraved on it.
Glossary
ALN (Armée de libération nationale)
Armed wing of the FLN
djoundi (pl. djounoud)
ALN fighter
douar
Mountain village
fatma
Pejorative word for Algerian woman
fellagha/fell
Pejorative French army term for ALN fighters
FLN (Front de libération France nationale)
Revolutionary party that led the war against
GIA (Groupe islamique armé)
Islamist terrorist organisation aiming to overthrow the Algerian government
haik
Large outer wrap, usu. white, worn by both sexes
harki
Algerian back-up soldier fighting for the French
houri
Virgins of the Muslim paradise promised as wives to believers
jebel
Mountains
katiba
ALN company
mechta
Small hamlet
MNA (Mouvement national algérien)
Rival nationalist movement to the FLN