“But they’re going to destroy the house!” I shout.
“What’s a house when you’ve lost a country?” she says with a sigh.
Some soldiers get the bulldozer off the tank carrier. Others keep at bay the neighbors who’ve started to arrive. Faten helps the old man drop into his wheelchair and pushes him to a sheltered spot in the courtyard. Najet doesn’t want to take anything with her. “Those things belong with the house,” she says. “In ancient times, the lords were buried with their earthly goods around them. This house deserves to keep its belongings. It’ll be a fading memory, like a dream.”
The soldiers oblige us to gather on a shabby mound some distance from their work site. Omr is sunk deep into his wheelchair—I don’t think he realizes what’s going on; he looks at the agitation around him without really seeming to see it. Hajja Najet stands behind him with as much dignity as she can muster; Faten’s on his left and I’m on his right. The bulldozer bellows, spewing a thick cloud from its smokestack. As it pivots on itself, its steel tracks tear ferociously at the ground. The neighbors move past the security cordon set up by the police and join us in silence. The Israeli officer orders a group of his men to make sure there’s no one remaining in the house. After he’s certain that the house is empty, he gives a signal to the driver of the bulldozer. At the moment when the low wall surrounding the property collapses, a wave of rage washes over me, sending me running toward the machine. A soldier steps in my way; I shove him aside and keep charging toward the monster that’s about to annihilate my family history. “Stop!” I shout. “Stop!” shouts the officer. Another soldier intercepts me. The butt of his rifle smashes into my jaw, and I drop down like an unhooked drapery.
* * *
I’ve stayed on the mound all day long, contemplating the debris of what was once, under a twinkling sky light-years ago, the castle where I was a barefoot little prince. My great-grandfather built it with his own hands, stone by stone; many generations flourished there, wider-eyed than the horizon; many hopes were nourished by those gardens. One bulldozer was enough to reduce all eternity to dust in a few minutes.
Toward evening, while the sun is barricading itself behind the Wall, a cousin comes looking for me. “It’s no use staying here,” he says. “What’s done is done.”
Hajja Najet has gone back to her daughter in Tubas.
The eldest of the tribe has found refuge in a great-grandson’s house not far from the orchards.
Faten has immured herself in an impenetrable silence. She’s chosen to stay with Uncle Omr in his great-grandson’s hovel. She’s always taken care of the old man, and she knows how demanding that task is. Without her, Omr wouldn’t make it. In the beginning, other members of the family agreed to take care of him, but he wound up neglected. That’s why Faten decided to live in the patriarch’s house. Omr was her baby. But when the bulldozer went away, it took Faten’s soul with it. Now she sits lifelessly, silently, with a dazed look on her face, like a shadow forgotten in a corner, waiting to melt into the night.
One evening, she goes back to the wasted orchard on foot, her loosened hair hanging down her back—she who has never been known to take off her head scarf—and stands there the whole night, looking at the ruins under which the essential part of her existence lies buried. When I go out to get her, she refuses to come back with me. Not one tear falls from her empty eyes, which are glazed in that unmistakable way I’ve learned to fear. The next day, she’s disappeared without a trace. We move heaven and earth to find her, but she’s vanished. When the great-grandson sees that I’m stirring up the neighboring villages, he, fearing that things may get worse, takes me aside and confesses: “I drove her to Jenin. She kept on insisting. In any case, no one can do anything about it. It’s always been like this.”
“What are you saying to me?”
“Nothing.”
“Why did she go to Jenin? Who’s she staying with?”
Omr’s great-grandson shrugs his shoulders.
As he goes away, he says, “These are things people like you don’t understand.”
When he says that, I understand.
I take a taxi back to Jenin and surprise Khalil at home. He thinks I’ve come to have it out with him. I calm him down and explain that I just want to see Adel. Adel comes at once. I tell him that Faten has disappeared and let him know what I suspect she’s up to.
“No woman has joined our ranks this week,” he assures me.
“See what you can find out from Islamic Jihad or the other groups.”
“That would be a waste of time. We’re already having trouble agreeing on basics. Besides, no one has to account to anyone else. Everyone conducts his holy war the way he sees fit. If Faten’s made up her mind, it’s useless to try to bring her back. She’s of age and perfectly free to do what she wants with her life. And with her death. There aren’t two weights and two measures, Doctor. If you agree to take up arms, you have to agree that others may do the same. Each of us has a right to share in the glory of battle. You don’t choose your destiny, but it’s good to choose your end. It’s a democratic way of giving fate the bird.”
“I beg you, please find her.”
Adel’s upset. He shakes his head and says, “You still don’t understand a thing, Ammu. But now I have to run. Sheikh Marwan’s going to arrive any minute. He’s giving a sermon in a little under an hour at the neighborhood mosque. You should come and listen to him.”
That’s it, I tell myself: Faten’s probably in Jenin to receive the sheikh’s blessing.
* * *
The mosque is full to bursting. Militiamen are lined up outside, protecting the sanctuary. I take up a position on a nearby street corner and keep an eye on the part of the mosque reserved for women. The latecomers—some of them wrapped in black robes, others wearing brightly colored head scarves—are hurrying to reach the prayer hall through a concealed door in the rear of the mosque. No sign of Faten. I go around a block of buildings in order to approach the concealed door, where a fat lady is standing guard. She’s scandalized to see me in the vicinity of that part of the sanctuary, where even the militiamen are too modest to show themselves.
“The men’s entrance is on the other side,” she informs me sternly.
“I know, sister, but I need to speak to my niece, Faten Jaafari. It’s an emergency.”
“The sheikh’s already in the minbar.”
“I’m very sorry, sister. I have to talk to my niece.”
“And how am I supposed to find her?” she says, getting irritated. “There are hundreds of women inside, and the sheikh’s about to begin his sermon. I can’t very well snatch the mike away from him. Come back after the prayer.”
“Do you know her, sister? Is she here?”
“What? You’re not even sure she’s here, and you come bothering us at a time like this? Go away or I’ll call the guards.”
* * *
I have no choice but to wait until the prayer’s over.
I go back to my spot on the street corner, where I’ve got a good view of the mosque and the wing reserved for women. Imam Marwan’s spellbinding voice, sovereign in the silence that has fallen on the neighborhood, booms from loudspeakers outside the building. It’s practically the same speech I heard in the illegal cab I took that day in Bethlehem. From time to time, enthusiastic outcries salute the orator’s lyrical flights.
A speeding vehicle screeches to a halt in front of the mosque; two militiamen get out, brandishing walkie-talkies. This looks serious. One of the men points an agitated finger toward the sky. Others leap out and consult for a while and then go off to find someone in charge. They return with the man in the parachutist’s jacket, my former jailer. He puts a pair of binoculars to his eyes and scrutinizes the sky for several minutes. Movement begins on the perimeter of the sanctuary. Militiamen start running in every direction; three of them race toward me and pass me by, panting. One shouts authoritatively to the others, “If we don’t see a helicopter, that means it’s a drone.�
� I watch them charging down the street as fast as they can. Another vehicle stops in front of the mosque. The occupants shout something to the man in the parachute vest, the vehicle backs up with an unnerving roar, and they speed away toward the square. The sermon is interrupted. Someone takes the microphone and asks the faithful to remain calm, because it could be a false alarm. Two 4X4s come hurtling up as some members of the congregation begin to evacuate the premises. They’re blocking my view of the women’s side of the mosque. I can’t go around the block without the risk of missing Faten should she exit through the concealed door. I decide to pass in front of the main entrance, go through the crowd, and come out directly in front of the women’s wing of the mosque. “Please move out of the way,” one of the militia guards shouts. “Let the sheikh pass.” The faithful elbow one another, hoping to get a better look at the sheikh or touch a part of his kamis. When the imam appears in the doorway of the mosque, a surge from behind me pushes me into the midst of the crowd. I’m being crushed by the enraptured throng and try in vain to break free. The sheikh plunges into his vehicle, waving with one hand from behind the bulletproof glass while his two bodyguards take their places on either side of him. And then . . . but there’s nothing more. Something resembling a lightning bolt streaks across the sky and bursts like a giant flare in the middle of the roadway; the shock wave strikes me full force; the crowd whose frenzy held me captive disintegrates. In a fraction of a second, the sky collapses, and the street, fraught with the fervor of the multitude a moment ago, turns upside down. The body of a man, or perhaps a boy, hurtles across my vertiginous sight like a dark flash. What’s going on? A surge of dust and fire envelops me, flinging me into the air with a thousand other projectiles. I have a vague sensation of being reduced to shreds, of dissolving in the blast’s hot breath. . . . A few yards—or light-years—away, the sheikh’s automobile is ablaze. Two blood-covered specters try to drag the imam out of the conflagration. With their bare hands, they pull apart the flaming vehicle, break the windows, tear off the doors. . . . I can’t get up. . . . An ambulance wails. . . . Someone bends over my body, gives me a summary examination with his stethoscope, and goes away without looking back. I see him stoop before a heap of charred flesh, take its pulse, and then make a sign to some stretcher-bearers. A man comes to me, picks up my wrist, and lets it fall again. “This one’s a goner.” In the ambulance that carries me off, my mother smiles at me. I try to reach out and touch her face, but no part of me obeys my wishes. I’m cold, I feel bad, I’m in pain. The ambulance pulls up howling at the entrance to the hospital. Stretcher-bearers open the doors. They lift me out and put me down in a corridor, right on the floor. Nurses step over me, running in every direction. Gurneys loaded with the wounded, with horror, pass back and forth in a dizzying ballet. I wait patiently for someone to come and take care of me. I don’t understand why no one’s spending any time at my bedside. They stop, they look at me, and they go away—that’s not normal. Other bodies are lined up on both sides of mine. Some have small groups of relatives around them; the women scream and weep. Others are unrecognizable and can’t be identified. The only person who kneels down beside me is an old man. He speaks the name of the Lord, puts his hand on my face, and closes my eyes. All at once, all the lights and all the sounds of the world fade away. Absolute terror seizes me. Why has he closed my eyes? When I can’t reopen them, I understand: That’s it, then; it’s all over; I am no more. . . .
In a final effort, I try to regain control of myself; not a fiber in me stirs. There’s nothing besides that cosmic sound humming around me, penetrating me bit by bit, already annihilating me. . . . Then, suddenly at the very bottom of the abyss, an infinitesimal glimmer of light. It quivers, approaches, slowly takes shape; it’s a child, a running child; his fantastic strides drive back the impenetrable darkness around him. Run, cries his father’s voice, run. . . . An aurora borealis rises over festive orchards; the branches of the trees immediately begin to bud, to blossom, to bend under the weight of their fruit. The child runs through the wild grass, heading for the Wall. It collapses like a big cardboard box, broadening the horizon and exorcising the fields, which extend over the plains as far as the eye can see. . . . Run. . . . And the child runs, laughing all the while, his arms spread out like a bird’s wings. The patriarch’s house rises from its ruins; its stones shed their dust and return to their places in a magic dance; its walls rise up; tiles cover its ceiling beams once more. Grandfather’s house is standing upright again, more beautiful than ever. The child runs faster than pain, faster than fate, faster than time. . . . And dream, the artist calls to him. Dream that you’re beautiful, happy, and immortal. . . . As though delivered from his torments, the child runs along the crest of the hills, flapping his arms like wings, his little face radiant, his eyes glittering with joy, and leaps for the sky, swept away by his father’s voice: They can take everything you own—your property, your best years, all your joys, all your good works, everything down to your last shirt—but you’ll always have your dreams, so you can reinvent your stolen world.
a note about the author
YASMINA KHADRA is the nom de plume of the Algerian army officer Mohamed Moulessehoul, who is the author of five other books published in English, among them The Swallows of Kabul, Wolf Dreams, and In the Name of God.
Also by Yasmina Khadra
PUBLISHED IN ENGLISH
In the Name of God
Wolf Dreams
The Swallows of Kabul
FIRST ANCHOR BOOKS EDITION, JANUARY 2007
Copyright © 2005 by Yasmina Khadra
English language translation copyright © 2006 by John Cullen
All rights reserved. Published in the United States by Anchor Books, a division of Random House, Inc., New York, and in Canada by Random House of Canada Limited, Toronto. Originally published in hardcover in the United States by Doubleday, a division of Random House, Inc., New York, in 2006.
Anchor Books and colophon are registered trademarks of Random House, Inc.
The Attack was first published in 2005 under the title L’attentat in France by Julliard, Paris.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Khadra, Yasmina.
[Attentat. English]
The attack / Yasmina Khadra ; translated from the French by John Cullen.—1st ed. in the United States.
p. cm.
I. Cullen, John. II. Title.
PQ3989.2.K386A8813 2005
843'.914—dc22
2005052944
eISBN: 978-0-307-38695-3
www.anchorbooks.com
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