The Dictator's Last Night
Page 6
My voice penetrates my senses, soothes me, purifies my being. The muffled pounding at my temples gradually starts to fade, my pulse becomes more regular. I feel much better.
I go back to the couch, pick up my Koran and open it at random. I cannot concentrate. Mansour’s wailings return, pounding in my skull again like so many sledgehammers. I close my eyes to drive them out and cling to the summons of my soul.
It is the only Voice I know how to listen to: it calls me from the deepest depths of my being, makes my guts vibrate as a virtuoso does the strings of a lute. It is that Voice that incited me to overthrow a monarchy, to confront entire empires, to bring destiny to its knees. I have always known that I came into the world to mark it with my stamp, my way illuminated by that cosmic Voice that roars within me each time doubt appears, that proves to me every day that I am one of the blessed of heaven.
I have never listened to any other voice but my own.
My mother used to pull her hair out when she realised I was not listening to her, convinced that someone had put a spell on me. She took me to see all sorts of charlatans; their potions and charms did little to calm me down. I did just as I pleased, deaf to reproach, sealed off from everything that did not suit me. The chypsy has taken you, my mother sobbed, at the end of her tether. What have I done to you for you to make me ill from morning till night? Try to listen to reason, for once, just once … I did as she asked because I felt sorry for her, and a few hours later a neighbour came to the door of our house, shoving her snivelling kid in front of her as proof. You need to lock him up, your jinn, the neighbour would shout at my mother. Our kids can’t go anywhere near him without him setting on them.
The truth was that I did not listen to anyone, so as not to have to hear their lies. People have always lied to me. Whenever I asked about my father my mother would answer quickly, ‘He’s in paradise.’ I missed my father. Terribly. His not being there scarred me. I was jealous of the kids who scampered around their begetters. Even if they were not up to much, to me they looked as tall as gods. At the age of five I imagined what it would be like to take my own life. I wanted to die so that I could be with my father in heaven. Without him, existence had no flavour or attraction. So I chewed a poisonous herb, but all I got was a high fever and attacks of diarrhoea. When I was nine I went on and on at my uncle to make him tell me the truth about what had happened to my father. ‘He was killed in a duel. To avenge the clan’s honour.’ I begged him to show me his grave. ‘The brave do not really die. They are resurrected in their sons.’ I refused to accept this far-fetched explanation. I became uncontrollable. The more my cousins stoked my unhappiness with their deadly insinuations, the worse my tantrums got. ‘Your dad was expelled from the tribe. I heard he betrayed the tribe’s trust …’ A neighbour insisted that my father had simply been crushed by a tank during Rommel’s great offensive. ‘The poor man was out in a sandstorm with his goat. He didn’t see the tank coming.’ I was furious. ‘Somebody must have collected his body.’ – ‘What could they have collected after his body was flattened by the tank’s tracks? They couldn’t even tell there was a goat there in the pulp they found.’ I wept with disappointment, and when the neighbour started sniggering I pelted him furiously with rocks. I felt like burying the whole of humanity under heaps of stones.
My uncle no longer knew which saint to appeal to. He clapped his hands in impotence and apologised abjectly to the people who complained about my behaviour.
Until I was eleven years old, people treated me like a disturbed child. There was talk of confining me in the psychiatric clinic, but my parents were too poor. In the end, to restore some calm to the village, the clan all had to chip in to send me to school.
It was there, in front of a mirror in the school toilets, that the Voice started speaking to me. It assured me that my status as an orphan was nothing for me to be ashamed of, that the prophet Muhammad had not known his father, and nor had Isa Ibn Maryam.7 It was a marvellous voice: it soaked up my pain like blotting paper. I spent most of my time just listening to it. Sometimes I went out into the desert on my own just to hear that voice and no other. I could talk to it without fear of being mocked by gossips. That was when I understood I was destined to become a legend.
At school in Sabha, then in Misrata, my classmates drank in my words to the point of intoxication. It was not me who bewitched them with my speeches, but the Voice that sang out through my being. My teachers could not bear me. I defended the dunces, objected to the low marks they gave me, started strikes, cried foul, turned the poor kids against the well-off ones, openly criticised the king; none of the schools’ suspensions and expulsions made any difference.
When I entered the Military Academy my vocation as a troublemaker only intensified. In spite of the regulations and charges. I quickly started to infiltrate various secret protest groups and began to dream of a great revolution that would elevate me to the level of a Mao or a Gamal Abdel Nasser.
‘Brotherly Guide,’ a voice calls from the other side of the door. ‘The general requests you to join him. He is waiting for you downstairs.’
7 Jesus Christ in the Koran.
9
‘The first section of the convoy has just arrived,’ Abu-Bakr announces as I come downstairs.
‘How many vehicles?’
‘Twelve. With fifty well-equipped troops.’
‘What about my son?’
‘He won’t be long, according to Lieutenant-Colonel Trid.’
At the mere mention of his name I feel myself reviving.
‘Is Trid here?’
‘In the flesh, Brotherly Guide,’ a voice to my left thunders.
The lieutenant-colonel gives me a regulation salute. I am so happy to see him that I feel like hugging him. Brahim Trid is the youngest lieutenant-colonel in my army. He is only thirty, but has countless acts of bravery to his credit. Short, handsome, his moustache looking almost out of place on his adolescent features, he embodies the qualities I have wanted to instil in all my officers. If I had a hundred men of his calibre, I could outwit any army in the world. With his noble demeanour, uniform without a crease and freshly polished boots, he appears to float above the war and its chaos. The dust on his battledress sparkles like fairy dust. Intrepid, of extraordinary intelligence, Lieutenant-Colonel Brahim Trid is my own personal Otto Skorzeny. I have tasked him with several missions impossible and he has carried out every one of them with rare panache. It was Trid I entrusted with the training of the Azawad Malian dissidents, the recruitment of the Mauritanian revolutionaries, my destabilisation manoeuvres in the Sahel. With the evacuation of part of my family too, taking them to safety in Algeria. Not once has he let me down. His keenness, tenacity and valour set him apart from the officers of his generation. His mere presence among us is a relief. Even Mansour, to his surprise, is smiling.
‘You were rumoured to be dead,’ I tell him, careful not to let my pleasure show too much.
‘Well, the rumours are mistaken,’ he says, spreading his arms to show that he is fighting fit.
‘How did you manage to find us?’
‘He who loves will eventually find, Brotherly Guide. Your aura is my pole star.’
‘Seriously.’
‘The Benghazi rebels are so disorganised, any group could slip through without being discovered. I followed them to the city and sneaked between two roadblocks to get to District Two. Colonel Mutassim’s men escorted me to point 36, and I made it the rest of the way with my eyes closed.’
‘You have seen my son?’
‘Yes, sir. He is doing a fantastic job. He has repelled an attack from the east and destroyed our munitions dumps. I left him regrouping. He supplied the eleven vehicles I’ve brought with me.’
‘How is he?’
‘Extremely well. He asked me to tell you that he will be an hour or two late, but that he has the situation in hand.’
He clears a table of the glasses standing on it, lays out a staff map and gives us his briefing.
/> ‘The situation is complicated but not insurmountable.’
He draws circles on the map with a coloured pencil to show our position and those of our enemies.
‘The bulk of the rebel forces is stationed to the west. This sector is occupied by the Misrata militia. One section is advancing along the coast, the other is moving up from Sidi Be Rawaylah on the ring road in the direction of intersection 167. On that side everything’s sealed by Al-Qaeda and the February 17th Martyrs Brigade … In the east the ungodly mob from Benghazi are advancing along the Abu Zahiyan road. The two groups are trying to join up at intersection 167 to isolate Bir Hamma.’
‘Do they know our position?’
‘I don’t think so.’
‘What is your plan?’
‘We’ve got two options to try to break the blockade. The first is to punch through to the east. The dogs from Benghazi are more interested in destroying and looting than consolidating their front.’
‘No,’ the defence minister says, ‘it’s too risky that way.’
‘Everything is risky, General, and everything is feasible.’
‘Not when the rais is with us.’
The lieutenant-colonel acquiesces.
He moves on to his plan B.
‘This afternoon a tactical withdrawal was observed along this thick line, which marks the rebels’ initial front line. The enemy has pulled back by two or three kilometres towards the south-east and south-west, which leaves us a no man’s land wide enough for us to move through as we wish. According to my reconnaissance units, the line from Bir Hamma to Khurb al-Aqwaz can be taken.’
‘It may be an ambush,’ Mansour objects. ‘The gap is too obvious for it not to be a trap. If we let ourselves be drawn into a funnel, the enemy could take us in a pincer movement and destroy us. We wouldn’t even be able to retreat if the Misrata militia has taken intersection 167.’
‘We aren’t facing a regular army,’ the lieutenant-colonel insists. ‘It’s just a human flood overturning everything in its path. To the west the Islamists are going through the city with a fine-tooth comb. To the east, despite the anarchy in the Benghazi ranks, stragglers could intercept us all the way and we don’t know the exact numbers of their forces. There are thousands of them roaming the streets looking for convoys to loot. The south is the only breakout route left to us.’
I approve of the lieutenant-colonel’s choice – not because his arguments are irrefutable but because my intuition does not let me down. It was I who opted for the southerly withdrawal this morning. If I did not recall doing so earlier, it proves that it was the Voice who spoke for me. What I decide is what God wants. Did I not escape the bombing that targeted my residence at Bab al-Azizia the night I was celebrating my beloved grandson’s birthday with my whole family, a raid that cost the lives of my sixth son Saif al-Arab and his three sons? I emerged from the debris without a scratch. The perils I have faced during my reign, the non-stop plots and assassination attempts, would have got the better of anyone else. God watches over me. I do not doubt it for a second. In a few hours the blockade will open before me like the Red Sea before Moses. I shall pierce the enemy lines as easily as a needle pierces cloth.
‘All we have to do is wait for Mutassim,’ I conclude. ‘As soon as he comes, we shall withdraw.’
‘Four o’clock is the most favourable time,’ the general ventures.
‘Out of the question,’ I interrupt him. ‘There is no favourable time, Abu-Bakr. We need to get out of this wasps’ nest as soon as possible. The coalition’s warplanes will be dropping their bombs on us at any moment.’
‘I agree,’ Mansour says.
‘It makes no difference whether you agree or not,’ I shout at him. ‘I am in command here. Prepare to withdraw. Mutassim will not need to leave his vehicle. As soon as his convoy approaches, we form up in column formation and we head out. I do not want anyone to know that I am with my troops.’
The lieutenant-colonel picks up his map, folds it carefully and replaces it in his briefcase.
‘You may go now, Colonel Trid. You need to get your breath back. You are a remarkable officer,’ I add, glancing scornfully at the general and Guard commander. ‘You deserve my respect.’
The young officer does not turn away. With a mischievous smile he says to me, ‘I didn’t come empty-handed, Brotherly Guide.’
He snaps his fingers. Two soldiers push a bound prisoner into the room. He is wearing a flapping pair of jogging pants torn at the knees and a nondescript sweater. His complexion is greyish-brown, he has the physique of a flabby bear, and his face bears the marks of a beating. His eye, ringed with a thick purplish bruise, is swollen and horribly closed. His white hair and jowls put him in his fifties.
They throw him at my feet. He falls to his knees and I see a deep gash bleeding on the back of his neck.
‘Who is he?’
‘Captain Jaroud, General Younis’s aide-de-camp,’ Trid says, proud of his trophy.
‘Is he not a little old for the job?’
‘Correct. This coward was a corporal, then staff sergeant and the general’s personal driver. He was promoted to officer rank by Younis without attending a military academy.’
I push the prisoner away with my foot. He stinks so badly that I hold my nose.
‘Did you find him in a drain?’
‘I picked him up hitchhiking on the ring road,’ the lieutenant-colonel says ironically.
‘I was trying to find you, sir,’ the prisoner moans. ‘I swear.’
I look at him in disgust.
‘Because General Younis had dismissed you?’
‘I’m not important enough for anyone to be that interested in me, sir.’
‘Why did he betray me?’
‘I don’t know, sir.’
‘He thought he saw an opportunity to get in with the rebels and save his career,’ Mansour says.
‘His ambitions were outrageous,’ the minister adds.
I prod the former aide-de-camp once again.
‘Have you swallowed your tongue?’
A guard hits him hard on the back of the neck.
‘Answer the rais.’
The prisoner gulps several times before quavering, ‘General Younis was jealous, sir. He didn’t like you. Once I surprised him in his office with his arm outstretched and a revolver pointed at your picture.’
‘And you kept it to yourself.’
He bows his head. His shoulders heave with the pressure of a muffled sob.
‘You could have warned me.’
‘The general must have dangled the prospect of greater status in front of him,’ the lieutenant-colonel remarks.
Mansour gives him a look that warns him not to intervene.
The renegade sniffs, wipes his nose on his shoulder. He does not have the strength to raise his gaze to my face. The same guard jabs him with the barrel of his rifle.
‘The rais asked you a question.’
‘I was scared of him …’ the prisoner admits. ‘To be aide-de-camp to a vulture like him is like expecting to be devoured raw at any moment. He could sense things that were happening miles away and he read people’s minds like a book. If he had the slightest suspicion he reacted instantly. And he was ruthless. I felt in danger every time he looked at me. The only way I could function with him was by taking antidepressants.’
‘How did he die?’
‘Like a dog, sir.’
‘How do dogs die?’ the minister of defence asks. ‘I had one once. He died of old age, surrounded by my sons’ affection. Is that how General Younis ended up?’
‘Was he really killed, or was it a cover-up? He was invited to the Élysée palace by Nicolas Sarkozy, after all. That is a big deal. Younis is an impressive negotiator. I feel sure he saved his skin. Perhaps as we speak he is in some tax haven somewhere, making the most of his fortune?’
‘He was executed, sir. There’s no doubt about it.’
‘Were you there?’
‘No, sir.’
‘He wasn’t there, but he knows something about it,’ the lieutenant-colonel informs me, despite being reprimanded by Mansour. He crouches next to the traitor, grabs his ear and forces him to raise his head. ‘Tell the rais what happened, you son of a rat. You were at your boss’s side when he was summoned to that sham trial. Tell him what you saw and heard that day, nothing more.’
‘I’m thirsty,’ the turncoat groans.
The minister sends for someone to bring water.
Having quenched his thirst, the prisoner tells the story without stopping. According to him, General Abdul Fatah Younis had observed the balance of power beginning to shift dangerously towards the faction of the February 17th Martyrs Brigade commanded by the Islamist Abdelhakim Belhadj, a hardline activist who had spent six years locked up in my gaols. Despite the enormous support the general had brought to the rebellion, his operational powers were being whittled away. Relegated to the position of a mere adviser to the National Transitional Council, he felt that the hothouse atmosphere was rapidly becoming stifling and that he needed to take charge of things again, but they had only left him his eyes to weep with. The French did not like him; they had used him as a common pawn in their negotiations and were ready to drop him now that he had no more than a walk-on part and no influence on events. As for the Americans, his fate was sealed: the general was, at worst, a dead man walking, at best a war criminal to be packed up and delivered to the good offices of the International Criminal Court.