My watch says five o’clock.
Engines are revving up in the school precinct.
With a finger I pull back the tarpaulin covering the window to look outside.
‘You can pull it down, sir,’ Lieutenant-Colonel Trid says. ‘We haven’t got anything to hide any more.’
‘Really?’
‘Let me do it. You might get dirty.’
He asks me to step away before tugging at the tarpaulin, which falls in a cloud of dust.
Outside, day has no need to break. District Two, with its smoking ruins and burning buildings, is a step ahead of it.
Sirte’s pyres might be mistaken for spears of sunlight, but it will not stop night from following day.
Here and there sub-machine guns start chattering at each other again. Men are reawakening to their drama. Night has brought them no wiser counsel.
In the sky, a harbinger still of deadly storms, drones are drifting in lazy circles, vultures in search of the dying.
Everything gives the impression that the town is merely picking itself out of its rubble in order to fall back into it any minute now. Dawn, bled white this morning, only exposes a filthy, festering wound.
‘We are not going to make it out this time, Colonel.’
‘Why do you say that, sir?’
‘My instinct has gone dead. There is a strange silence inside me, and it is a bad sign. I shall not surrender, but I shall not see another day break.’
‘I’ve often been trapped, sir. Thought it was all over. In Mali, once, near Aguelhok, the army had surrounded us. I was with the leader of the Azawad rebels and three of his lieutenants in a hut, without food or water, with a handful of ammunition and our prayers, convinced that these were our last hours on earth. Then a sandstorm blew up. We got out of the hut and slipped straight through the enemy lines.’
‘There will be no sandstorm today.’
I walk back to the couch and slump onto it.
‘We are going to lose the war, Colonel.’
‘It’s Libya that will have lost you, Brotherly Guide.’
‘It amounts to the same thing.’
‘In one sense.’
‘And the other?’
He does not answer.
‘There is only one sense, Colonel. The one that describes our destiny. We are merely actors; we play roles that we have not necessarily chosen and we are not allowed to consult the script.’
‘You have made history, Rais.’
‘False. It is history that has made me. When I glance over my shoulder, to take stock of my life, I realise that nothing is the result of my will, or of my military accomplishments, or the strokes of luck that have got me out of trouble. I tell myself, why complicate life if everything is preordained? There is someone up there who knows what He is doing … But in the last few days I have begun to wonder whether He has already turned the page. Perhaps He has chosen another pawn to play with.’
I pick up the Koran and replace it immediately.
‘You see, Colonel? Even the most wonderful fairy tales, when they are reinvented as soap opera, end up being boring. That must be what has happened to the One up there. He has lost His train of thought where I am concerned. He does not even feel like knowing the end of the story any more.’
The lieutenant-colonel holds out the bar of chocolate.
‘There’s magnesium in it, sir. You need to keep your strength up.’
‘I am not hungry.’
‘Please …’
‘I am a mystic. Fasting suits me perfectly. It helps keep my mind clear when things refuse to go right.’
He does not press the point and goes back to sit on his chair.
This lad is outstanding. He has class, depth, an Olympian calm that keeps increasing his stature in my eyes, and – the rarest of virtues – he is entirely natural. He is aware of the great esteem in which I hold him, but that special favour has not spoilt him. Others would have taken endless advantage of it; he tucks it away in his heart like something precious, a holy gift that he could not expose to the air without damaging it.
‘What would you like to have accomplished that you have not had the opportunity to achieve yet, Colonel?’
He reflects for a moment or two, then, in a barely audible voice, he says, ‘To be loved madly.’
‘Are you not loved enough?’
‘My wife complains that she has married a ghost because of my continual absences, and my comrades are all wildly jealous of me. Every time I go on a mission they pray I won’t come back.’
‘That is normal with your comrades. They are cross with you for overtaking them and detest you because they know they will never be half the man you are. But that cannot be the case with your wife. If she is jealous, unlike your colleagues she is also praying day and night for you to come home to her.’
‘She knows I’m faithful to her.’
‘No one knows that kind of thing. However much we trust the one we love, when they are not there doubt stalks us everywhere, like our shadow.’
‘I haven’t been unfaithful to her once in eight years of marriage.’
‘It will come. You are handsome, as brilliant as it is possible to be, and ahead of all your intake. Any woman would fall for you. Women are more dazzled by rank than muscles.’
‘Not all, Brotherly Guide.’
‘How do you know? There are bedroom secrets that faithful husbands can never dream of.’
He raises his hands in surrender.
‘I hope there’s nothing for me to dream of.’
‘That does not depend on you.’
He has run out of arguments and laughs.
His good mood calms me a little.
‘Apart from being loved, what else would be your dearest accomplishment?’
He places his hands over his nose and reflects. His eyes are bright as he says, ‘My grandfather was a shepherd. He had no education, but he had a very good philosophy of life. I’ve never known anyone so comfortable with their poverty. The smallest thing could make him happy. When luck was on his side, for my grandfather everything was good. You had to see things as they were, not as you wanted them to be. In his eyes, just being alive was an extraordinary stroke of luck and no hardship could take that away. I remember he did nothing apart from look after his sheep, just vegetated and wore the same rags summer and winter. When I went to find him to suggest that he came and lived with my little family at Ajdabiya, in a nice villa that overlooked the sea, he just shook his head. Nothing in the world could have made him want to leave his tent that he’d pitched in the middle of nowhere.’
‘He was wrong.’
‘Maybe, but he was like that, my grandfather. He had decided to feel good the way he was, never going to much trouble. He was happy and rich in the joys he shared with the people he loved. Every morning he was up at first light to watch the sky catch fire. He said he didn’t need anything else … That’s the feat I’d like to have accomplished, sir. To be like my grandfather: a man never annoyed by anything, who possessed just the modest happiness that came from feeling comfortable with a life of complete frugality.’
‘I shall never understand how some people can pretend that resignation is the same as humility.’
I find the lieutenant-colonel touching in his naivety and wonder what will become of him. I would like him to survive this. He is so young, so handsome and authentic. He embodies the Libyan army I dreamt of, the officer who would outlive me, to carry on my teachings and deliver eulogies to my glory at every commemoration.
‘Do you know van Gogh, Colonel?’
‘Of course. He sliced off his ear so that the red on his canvas would be as vivid as his pain.’
‘Someone once told me that he mutilated himself because of a romance that went wrong.’
He opens his arms.
‘Every genius has his own fantasies, sir. You said yourself that there is no truth except death, and that it is lies that shape life.’
‘I do not remember having said
such a thing.’
‘Many other quotations will be attributed to you in the future, Brotherly Guide. Just as we attribute anonymous poems to Al-Mutanabbi. It is part and parcel of mythology.’
‘Do you believe that people will remember me?’
‘For as long as this country is called Libya.’
‘And what will they remember about me?’
‘You will have followers, and a mass of detractors. The former will revere you, the latter reproach you for everything you have accomplished, because they have done so little with their lives. One thing is certain, that you will be missed by the majority of our people.’
‘I do not think so, Colonel. That people you speak of has no more memory than any hothead – how otherwise do you explain that it seeks my downfall after what I have done for it?’
The colonel runs his hand through his hair. A lock of hair flops onto his brow, emphasising a little more his young centurion’s charm. He contemplates his spotless white hands before speaking.
‘When I was doing a course at Vystrel Academy, near Moscow, I made friends with some of the Russians there. They were young officers or young cadres, straight out of university. They went around with the latest mobile phones, drove the most fashionable 4×4s, wore perfume from Dior and designer clothes and had dinner in chic restaurants that they’d booked online with their sophisticated laptops. They were today’s people, rich and in a hurry. They hadn’t known the period of scarcity, the chorni khleb, the endless queues outside shops whose shelves were practically empty, the institutionalised spying at post offices and prison sentences for wearing a pair of jeans you’d bought on the black market. Yet when they drank so much vodka that they couldn’t tell a fork from a rake, they went on and on about how bad everything was, how the country was going to the dogs, how the state structures were pathetic and the oligarchs’ corruption intolerable, and how much they missed Stalin’s iron hand … It’s the same everywhere, Brotherly Guide. In Chile they miss Pinochet, in Spain they miss Franco, in Iraq Saddam, in China Mao, the same way they miss Mubarak in Egypt and Genghis Khan in Mongolia.’
‘What image will they have of me? Will I be their guide or their tyrant?’
‘You’re not a tyrant. You did exactly what needed to be done. There are two sorts of people. People who work with their heads and people who need a big stick. Our people needed a big stick.’
I cannot agree with him.
I acknowledge that I treated those who became dissidents without mercy. How else could I have responded? To rule over people requires a culture that is compatible with a single medium: blood. Without blood, a throne is a potential gallows. To protect mine, I took a leaf out of the chameleon’s book: I walked with one eye looking ahead, the other behind, my step calibrated to the millimetre, my speech moralistic and as unhesitating as lightning. The moment I melted into the background, I became part of the background …
‘The only people I clamped down on were traitors, Colonel. I loved and protected my people.’
‘You shouldn’t have, Rais. You cosseted them too much and it made them lazy and cunning. They wallowed in their sense of entitlement to the point where they couldn’t be bothered to shoo a fly off a cake any more. They thought work, knowledge, ambition were a waste of time. Why worry about anything when the Brotherly Guide is there to think for everyone? The average Libyan has no idea of how generous you’ve been to him. He’s just taken advantage of you. He thought he was a little prince and expected it to last for ever. From the moment he sees that people are working so he doesn’t have to, operating his machines so he can knock off, why should he wait for a lunch break? He gets tired just looking at his Africans working like dogs for him. Now he’s trying to prove he’s worth more than he was originally valued at, and so how does he do it? By biting the hand that fed him. If you’ll allow me, sir, I think you should have treated your people the same way you treated your dissidents. They are not worth the time and concern you have lavished on them, sir. They’re a nation of shopkeepers and smugglers who only know how to do dodgy deals and doss around. Tomorrow’s Libyans will miss you the way that they miss Stalin in Russia, because with the gang we’ve got here, knocking our cities flat and lynching its heroes in public, our grandchildren are going to inherit a country that’s been handed over to puppets and incompetents.’
I feel both hurt and relieved by the lieutenant-colonel’s words.
‘What I like about you, my boy, even more than your courage, is your frankness. Not one of my ministers or concubines has ever opened my eyes to the reality you have just described. Every one of them flattered me that I had made, out of a rabble of Bedouins, the proudest people on earth.’
‘They weren’t lying to you. From a ragtag of tribes who were all hostile to each other you made a single body and a single spirit. But the real truth was more than that.’
‘Why was it hidden from me?’
‘Because it wasn’t nice, sir.’
At that moment the bedroom door opens with a crash. It is Mansour who has come to brief us, breathless and feverish, his face flushed. He informs us that the officer ordered to contact Mutassim has returned and that it is time for us to set out.
I turn to the colonel.
‘It is the moment of truth.’
14
On the ground floor there is general mobilisation. Soldiers are running in all directions. Officers are shouting to gee themselves up and manhandling the slower men, caught off guard by the turn of events.
I detest messes. One breeds another; they make my nervous tension worse.
I suspect the general of not having briefed his subordinates. I look for him in the mêlée but cannot see him anywhere.
Mansour brings over to me the officer whose return has sparked everything off. He is young, probably only just out of the Academy. He salutes me and practically falls over, unnerved by the expression I must have on my face.
‘Where is my son?’
‘He is on his way, sir.’
‘You have seen him?’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘Personally?’
‘Absolutely, sir. He handed over to me the twenty vehicles I’ve brought back with me and ordered me to tell you that we must leave at once.’
‘Why did he not come with you?’
‘He is commanding the third – the last – section of the convoy. At least thirty vehicles. It’s being slowed down by the two Shilka batteries.’
‘Is he safe and sound?’
‘Yes, sir. He says he’ll catch us up en route, after we’re clear of District Two.’
My armoured 4×4 is lined up in the courtyard. Lieutenant-Colonel Trid is organising the column, summoning the drivers and issuing orders about the procedure to follow.
‘There will be four cars in front for reconnaissance. I’ll be in the fifth vehicle, which will travel two hundred metres back. The rais will be in the sixth. On no account are you to stop if you are attacked. If I leave the convoy, you will follow me. Do not let me out of your sight for a second. You are there to ensure the rais’s safety at all times.’
The drivers click their heels and return to their vehicles.
Mansour and I take our seats in the armoured 4×4.
‘Where is the general?’
‘He went to see if his two sons had arrived,’ the Guard commander informs me.
‘Get him. I want him to travel with us.’
Someone runs to find the general. The minutes drag on. I swear in the back of the 4×4, thump the back of the driver’s seat.
Abu-Bakr finally arrives, panting and sweating.
‘Where did you get to, damn you?’
‘I was looking for my sons.’
‘Now is not the time. Get in the front; everyone is waiting for you.’
As soon as the general climbs into the 4×4, the convoy sets off.
We drive out of the school in an almighty roar. In their haste vehicles drive into each other, some scrambling onto the pavement to get t
o their place in the column as fast as they can.
The convoy sorts itself into a disciplined file as it turns onto the ring road that leads to the coast. As we reach the first junction, I realise I have left my Koran and my prayer beads in my room.
We drive, exposed, along the coast road, at the mercy of ambushes and air raids.
Rarely has the day been so radiant. Despite the pall of smoke from the fires, it has a dazzling clarity. It feels as though the sun has chosen the traitors’ side – it illuminates me like a target.
I am not calm, but I am not excessively concerned. I have no idea where they are taking me or what is waiting for me around the next bend, yet I do not have the feeling that it is essential to know either of these things. What would it change?
Mansour, on my right, is tense. He hugs his gun as though clinging to a rope that will pull him out of the chasm his silence has become. His fingers are white at the joints. Immense olive-coloured bags darken the skin under his eyes. I suspect he is praying as profoundly as he has ever prayed.
Inside the cabin the burbling of the engine is a gloomy sound.
The general looks in the rear-view mirror to see if there is any sign of the third section of the convoy, the one commanded by my son, in which he hopes he will see his two sons again.
‘Can you see anything?’
‘Not yet, Rais.’
‘Why did Mutassim want to overload himself with the Shilkas?’ Mansour grumbles. ‘They’re tracked and too heavy: they’re going to slow us down. In any case, what can 37s do against the coalition’s planes? Their range is nowhere near great enough. You could use them for hunting bustards, and that’s all.’
‘They’re better than nothing,’ the general says.
‘They’re not even credible as decoration,’ Mansour persists. ‘Those vultures carrying out the air strikes are using long-range weapons. They don’t have to come anywhere near our coastline.’
The Dictator's Last Night Page 10