Infidels

by Abdellah Taïa

  It was only when I found myself standing in front of his bed—empty, this time for good—that a slightly crude question crossed my mind.

  What did he die from? What was his illness?

  “He’d had cancer for several years. Widespread cancer.”

  I didn’t dare pursue my curiosity to its logical conclusion.

  What was that old man doing in the same room as Mahmoud?

  Mahmoud had told me he was in hospital because of a car accident. He’d received a blow to the head. The doctors kept him under observation, just in case.

  I’d believed him. I’d always believed him.

  The death of the old gentleman helped me to finally understand. Mahmoud suffered from the same problem. Widespread cancer.

  Allah is visible and hidden. Mahmoud too. He showed his inner truth and threw a veil over his profound suffering, his illness.

  The old man’s bed remained empty until the very end.

  I slept as much as possible in the arms of my sweet and desperate patient.

  I wasn’t afraid.

  I continued to sing. The ninety-nine names of Allah. River of No Return by Marilyn Monroe.

  I discovered a passion in myself. Two passions. Love, reinvented. The ability to take care of another person. Assist him. Be him.

  Without ever having learned how, I became a nurse. I knew what to do, naturally. Knew the right tone. The selflessness. The necessary attentiveness. Discreetly I watched the other nurses at the hospital. I envied them. I stole the things I didn’t know from them to give to Mahmoud. To bring relief. A little relief. Love. More and more. And I accepted that I’d never really know everything about Mahmoud. Here. On this earth. In this life.

  I’d found my place in Brussels. A small place. At last. A vocation. To touch. To heal. Take someone’s hand. Feel their pulse, listen to their breathing. Draw closer to a heart. Listen to it. Follow its rhythm. Enter its mystery. Mahmoud’s overwhelmed me. I was ready to follow him everywhere. To the end. Beyond the seventy thousand veils. Explode. Explode with love.

  The two of us. Spreading the light. Entering into the light. Into the white. Into the farthest depths of darkness.

  I’ve made my decision. I won’t leave him. I’ve been growing attached to him. Since the beginning. Every day and every night a little more. I’ll scream. I’ll love. I’ll become ill. Am already ill. Ill, and I’m leaving too. Mahmoud isn’t forcing me. I’m leaving of my free will. With Mahmoud, I speak Arabic. I’m reunited with an origin. God. I give him the language. He takes it. He changes it. He returns it to me.

  I was lost.

  I found the way. Faith. Love. Death. Vengeance. The ultimate union. The sublime explosion.

  In the terrible blackness of Brussels, I found Mahmoud. He is in me. He knows where to go. Where to sleep. Where to die. As brothers.

  I followed him. I follow him. I have a brother. We are Muslims. Very soon we’ll mount the winged horse Buraq. Flee Brussels. Go to the end of love. Stop doubting. My hand in Mahmoud’s, to join my mother.

  Long before going into hospital, Mahmoud had carefully planned everything. His illness would not prevent him from going to the end of his mission. To plant a bomb where he was told to do so. Therefore, go to North Africa. Casablanca. Blow up. Destroy. Shock. And through this extreme act, speak. Make others speak. Leave a legacy. A message. Which?

  I don’t know if he was right to want to carry out an attack. I knew, however, that at some point we are forced to challenge, spit hard, stop being polite, stop being small. Do service. Sacrifice. Die violently for others. For Islam and its glory?

  Mahmoud said:

  “Not only for Islam.”

  For us, then? And who else?

  I meditated on these questions for an entire sleepless night. Had I understood everything about Mahmoud and his mission? Did we have the same concept of Islam? Was I ready, confident and sincere, to go with Mahmoud to the end of his road of no return?

  I couldn’t answer that. And Mahmoud wasn’t going to help me. But the blackness of Brussels was more than I could bear. The lack of my mother, great, immense. I had to find her by going down the same road as she had. Avenge her through an act of love. Avenge her on this earth that had hurt her so much. Morocco.

  Inside me, everything was confused.

  At Mahmoud’s side, I saw clearly. I was going.

  We felt no contradiction, then. Inside us, it all seemed true. Obvious. What other Muslims said, what they were going to say and do, judge us, cast aspersions on us, predict damnation for our souls, did not interest us. Did not concern us.

  We were free now.

  Free Muslims.

  In the Brugmann Hospital room that protected us from the outside world, we prayed in earnest. Side-by-side. Facing Mecca. Facing my mother. Facing God. Accompanied by His ninety-nine names.

  We recited the same suras of the Qur’an. The same phrases. The same magic words. Our movements synchronized. Standing. Doubled over. Standing again. Kneeling. Prostrated. Arms joined over the heart. Eyes open. Closed. Five times a day. Sometimes more.

  Mahmoud said the doctor had told him there was nothing more they could do. He was cured.

  Really?

  One day, we left.

  The mission awaited us. I knew exactly what we would do. Carry out a suicide bombing somewhere in Casablanca. Kill ourselves. Certainly kill other people with us. Innocent people? But only Mahmoud knew the details, the steps to follow, the where and how.

  Casablanca isn’t far from Brussels. Just three hours by plane.

  Mahmoud took care of everything. To reassure me, he told me it wasn’t the first mission he’d been assigned in a city he didn’t know at all. He knew where to go. How to get by. Get across Casablanca unnoticed. He had two addresses. One for the hotel where we’d stay a night. The other for a cyber café.

  I trusted him, of course. Always. I continued to take his hand. Even in Morocco. He guided me in my own country. I didn’t know anyone there anymore.

  Casablanca had eight million Moroccans inside her, in her belly. They came from everywhere. Rif. Atlas. Fez. Taouirt. From Errachidia. Chaouia. Doukkala. Arabs. Berbers. Drunks. Power-mongers. Prostitutes. Lots of prostitutes. Lost souls. The jungle. Madness. Injustice everywhere, day and night. Arrogance. Perversion. The Money King. Crime as Law. Nothing romantic. Everything dirty. Everything rotten. Everything disappearing, collapsing. Everything failure. Everything closed. Including God’s doors. Everything was murder. Murders. Casablanca was a vale of grief. More than any other place in Morocco, the city was permeated by deep and incurable sorrow. Hope no longer existed. Free, open Islam no longer existed. Love was unknown, alien and desperate.

  That was our mission, to make people see love. Through death. Through an extreme act. Perform an action to make people think. To stand firm against the plague spreading through Morocco. Banality. Narrowmindeness. Confinement. Submission. Mired in falsity and ignorance. The programmed destruction of individuals, of people like my mother Slima who dare one day to try for freedom, resistance, a different road.

  To rise up against an entire country.

  An entire people.

  Finally, to try to ask the real questions. Who brought us to this point, this state of collapse, this misfortune, this self-negation, this infectious blindness? Who is preventing our souls from taking flight and writing another History with a new messenger? Who is blocking us, turning us to stone and denying us the right to be what we are: men, standing?

  The hotel where we were supposed to sleep the first night no longer existed. In its place was a gaping hole.

  We went to the Hassan II Mosque. A grandiose monument, empty, adrift by the sea.

  We hid inside.

  It was there, in the darkness, in the night by the raging sea, that Mahmoud told me everything.

  And, in detail,
the plan for carrying out our mission.

  How to prepare ourselves for death.

  Perform our ablutions. The last ones. The ones for death.

  The Hassan II Mosque was haunted. Its jinns were not Muslim. Its smell was strange, icy, cold, terrifying.

  We were cold.

  Mahmoud shivered all night. My arms and legs were not enough, I could not pass on what little heat that remained in my body. He was afraid. His teeth were chattering. He hadn’t really recovered from his illness as he’d claimed.

  I asked him to recall the ninety-nine names of Allah. To bring them to the front of his mind. Before his eyes.

  He did.

  I did the same.

  In the black vastness of the mosque, I began. Quietly at first. Then more loudly. I said a name. He said the next one. Until the end.

  And then we started again.

  For an hour, maybe a little more, these sacred names reassured us, helped us to stop feeling the icy cold of the mosque, the emptiness of this mosque so loved and hated by Moroccans.

  It was going to be a very long night. And apart from reciting the magical names, I didn’t know what to fill it with, how to make it less harsh.

  What could I do to help Mahmoud?

  We sat on the ground facing each other. I could barely see him. But I sensed his warmth, his smell, his shadow.

  I searched for his left hand. I found it. I took it, squeezed it in mine.

  He searched for my left hand. I helped him find it, take it in his, talk to it.

  The two of us formed a circle now.

  I brought my head close to his. He did as I did.

  He touched my forehead. I touched his.

  Our heads were joined.

  He entered me.

  I entered him.

  We stayed this way for some time, united, communing, waiting for what would happen next, what the night would bring. In the same direction. A single body.

  Suddenly he raised his head and without releasing my hand, he stood.

  He’d received a signal. An inspiration. Someone was speaking to him.

  Without thinking, I followed his movement toward the sky.

  I got to my feet at almost the same moment. I drew closer to him. He was cold again. His teeth chattered. I took him in my arms. He let me.

  He whispered in my ear:

  “Say your mother’s name!”

  Slima.

  “Five times!”

  Slima. Slima. Slima. Slima. Slima.

  He was inventing a ritual.

  Now I searched for his ear.

  “Say the name of your mother five times!”

  Denise. Denise. Denise. Denise. Denise.

  “Say my name now, my new name! Five times!”

  Mahmoud. Mahmoud. Mahmoud. Mahmoud. Mahmoud.

  “Now you say my name! The name I’ve always had! Five times!”

  Jallal. Jallal. Jallal. Jallal. Jallal.

  He bent down and kissed my feet. He gave each foot five kisses.

  He rose again.

  Now I bent down too. I found his bare feet. And I kissed them five times.

  When I stood up, he wasn’t there anymore. He’d disappeared into the darkness.

  A great fear invaded my entire being. An extreme solitude. An urgent longing to cry my heart out.

  I’m going to die alone. I’m going to die alone.

  A voice called out. It came from everywhere.

  “Turn around!”

  It was his voice, a little elated.

  “Raise your arms in prayer, and spin. Around and around in circles. Now spin around me.”

  Darkness and cold still reigned in the Mosque of Hassan II.

  I still didn’t see Mahmoud.

  “Where are you? Mahmoud, where are you?”

  After a moment of silence that seemed an eternity, the answer came from afar.

  “Spin, Jallal. Around and around. Spin like me. Around and around in circles, and come to me.”

  I raised my arms to heaven, to God. I still saw nothing. Mahmoud’s voice was my only guide.

  “Come . . . come . . . Around and around in circles . . .”

  I followed.

  I turned slowly, without moving from the place where I was standing.

  I felt nauseous almost right away. I nearly stopped and vomited.

  Mahmoud’s voice came again. In a trance. Soft. Violent. Female. Male.

  “Spin . . . Spin . . . Don’t stop . . . Around and around . . . And come to me . . . I’m coming to you . . . Spin . . . Open yourself . . . Open up . . .”

  I forgot my pain. I continued spinning. And moving across the floor.

  Suddenly the darkness no longer existed. Like Mahmoud, undoubtedly, I’d decided to close my eyes.

  We danced all night. We chanted the ninety-nine names of Allah without stopping. I searched for him. He searched for me. We brushed against each other. We met. We separated.

  Our voices guided us throughout the endless night. Our bodies no longer existed. Union was possible, Mahmoud was right.

  There were three of us. We were at the very beginning. Light would burst forth. A great explosion. A great echo. Two bodies. A single force.

  We climbed very high, beyond seventh heaven, and pushed past all the boundaries, all religions, all sexes. We became stones, clouds, stars, galaxies. We saw everything. Listened to everything. History was revealed to us. The Hand of God appeared. His face came closer to us. A breath of fresh air carried us along. Spinning had become our way of being, of communicating, penetrating each other. Spinning without stopping. Until the ultimate intoxication. The ultimate union. Death.

  Faith is beautiful. God calls out to us. We were sleeping.

  The next morning when I woke up, Mahmoud was staring at the explosive belts on the ground.

  “Don’t be afraid, Jallal. Come. Look. The belts will help us carry out our plan, our journey.”

  Where had he found them?

  While you were sleeping, I went to get them from one of our faithful. A sleeper agent. He lives in a miserable douar. The Chechnya shanty town. Do you know that douar? Have you ever heard of it?”

  I hadn’t.

  I went to the explosive belts and with no hesitation touched them.

  Then we went to the hammam. It was empty.

  I let Mahmoud wash me. I lay on the hot ground and gave my body to his hands. They knew what to do. Redrawing my body. My being.

  Then I did the same for him. I reproduced his actions detail for detail. His itinerary.

  We weren’t washing because we were dirty. We were preparing for the final journey.

  Before leaving the hammam, in a dark corner of the rest room, we got dressed and we put the explosive belts around our waists.

  It was Friday. We wouldn’t go pray. There was no point.

  Later, the prophets would pray for us. Somewhere in Casablanca, we had to go blow ourselves up. Burn. Pass on the message we’d received.

  Everything must be destroyed.

  We didn’t yet know exactly where and when to perform the sacrifice. Act of vengeance. Sound the alarm. Die of love.

  Mahmoud took me to a cyber cafe downtown, not far from the Café de France.

  It was 11:30.

  He logged on to a strange site. The words were written in Arabic letters but I didn’t understand them. Persian? Hindi?

  I was sitting next to him. I saw everything. And I understood. It was an Islamist website. I looked away for a moment. Now I had confirmation that Mahmoud had another mission. Apart from ours.

  He was sick. Dying. That’s why they’d chosen him.

  He knew Arabic. To keep me, he’d pretended not to. I was teaching him what he already knew, what he already mastered perfectly.

&
nbsp; Was he a traitor?

  Why had he lied to me? Why hadn’t he told me he was an Islamist, as I’d suspected for one fleeting moment? Why hadn’t he told me clearly and frankly that he’d been assigned a mission that had nothing to do with the plan we shared, our sublime explosion?

  Why was he using me this way?

  By following Mahmoud, had I unknowingly become an Islamist terrorist too?

  How could I keep following this path? With him? Without him? And what could I do with my disappointed, bruised heart?

  A thousand contradictory questions invaded my mind at that moment. I kept them to myself.

  Suddenly I was afraid of Mahmoud and all he’d never told me about his past.

  Who was he really? What had he really understood and retained about Islam? Was that what Islam was, this plan for terrorism, not for love?

  I lowered my head. An unknown sadness took hold of me. A dizzying uncertainty. An unfamiliar abyss. And also an urgent desire. To spit. Spit hard. From anger. Disillusionment. Distress.

  What was I to Mahmoud? Did he really love me? Was he the saint that I’d seen in him, imagined him as?

  He very quickly realized what was going through my head. The questions. The bitterness. The desire to flee. Give up. Close the door.

  While searching the Islamist website for the secret message, he took my left hand. Gentle. Love.

  I looked up at him. He looked at me, waiting for me, his tear-filled eyes watching over me.

  Bewitched by his aura, almost divine, and everything powerful and magnificent emanating from him, I closed my eyes to what I’d discovered about the ideology that stood between us. I forced myself to find my truth again, our truth. Our trust. The fond memory of the bed at Brugmann Hospital in Brussels, where we met and learned to reveal ourselves to each other, naked and sincere.

  How could I have doubted him, doubted his love for me? I was the traitor, not he. Not him. I was ashamed.

  Now it was clear. He was an Islamist terrorist. The real thing. Programmed that way for a very long time. But meeting me, without dropping the initial plan made with people I knew nothing about, his thinking changed. Exploding at my side took on another meaning. A friend and brother, he would accompany me right to the bitter end of my desire for vengeance on the people who had destroyed my mother Slima. He would return to the light with me. My mother’s light.