Khalil

by Yasmina Khadra

  A flood of anger brought on a migraine. I clutched my head in both hands to prevent it from falling to pieces.

  * * *

  —

  I pulled myself together, but my mouth was once again filled with vile secretions. After organizing my thoughts a bit, I cut the electrical wires that linked the mobile phone to the charge and very cautiously removed the detonator, taking care not to warm it between my fingers so it didn’t go off in my hand. Once I had the mechanism defused, I rolled up the belt in a sheet and hid the whole thing in a storage closet, at the bottom of a trunk filled with old, worn-out shoes and other relics.

  In Yezza’s room, the telephone started ringing again.

  I didn’t answer it.

  Through the window, I gazed out at the street, which was streaming with rainwater, and kept my eyes peeled for a suspicious presence. Some shops were open; three men chatted under a store awning; a deliveryman loaded some boxes into his van.

  Hunger was consuming my belly. Apart from some croutons in a plastic bag destined for the trash, a bit of butter, and what was left of a dried-up onion, I could find nothing edible in the refrigerator.

  I ate every one of the croutons before calling my sister to ask her to get something for our dinner.

  “You haven’t left yet?”

  “The friend who was coming to pick me up had an accident.”

  “There are buses and trains that go to Brussels.”

  “I’m broke.”

  “No kidding.”

  “I lost my wallet in the reception room. I called the place and told them, but they couldn’t find it.”

  I heard Yezza snort and growl with displeasure. “There’s a little money in the drawer of my nightstand. Take only what’s strictly necessary, understand?”

  “I can’t go out. I’ve got a cold.”

  She hung up on me.

  I took a shower. The water didn’t put out the blaze in my head.

  Wrapped in an old bathrobe, I lay down on the sofa and stayed there, holding the suspect cell phone in my hands. I tried to activate it, but it didn’t light up. I figured that the battery must be dead, which could maybe explain why I was still in the world, much against my will.

  4

  “Why did you turn on the washing machine?” my sister asked when she came home. “You could have waited for me. I’ve got some stuff that needs washing too. Electricity costs a lot.”

  She put her grocery bag on the kitchen table and went to her room to pack her suitcase, snapping at me over her shoulder: “That’s my bathrobe you’re wearing, you know.”

  “I don’t have anything to put on.”

  “That’s not a reason.”

  I watched her throw some underwear, a dress, some stockings, a blouse, and a black scarf into her bag. “Where are you going?” I asked her.

  “To Brussels.”

  “Is something wrong at home?”

  “Mother asked me to go to Paris with her.”

  “To Paris?”

  “Aunt Najet lost a daughter in the terrorist attacks.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I don’t know the details. I think our cousin was killed at a concert. Mama was bawling on the telephone. You’d think she was the one who lost a daughter. She’s never been able to stand her sister, and now she’s making such a big deal out of this. I had to hang up on her.”

  “Which of the two cousins is dead?”

  “What difference does that make? One or the other, it’s the same drama, no?”

  She spoke in staccato tones, without a trace of emotion, as though reciting a text she didn’t like.

  After closing her suitcase she left the room, jostling me as she passed, visibly annoyed at having to leave me behind in her apartment.

  “You’re taking a bus?”

  “My boss is driving me.”

  “And you’re coming back when?”

  “Stop nagging me with your questions. You’re getting on my nerves.”

  “Don’t tell anybody I’m here.”

  “Just don’t make yourself at home. You’re not the one paying the bills. And I don’t want to find you here when I get back, okay?”

  “I intended to leave in any case. Tomorrow morning at the latest. I have to do an internship in Antwerp, and I don’t want to miss it.”

  She went out, slamming the door.

  Through the window, I watched her disappear into an old sedan that pulled away with a bang from the exhaust pipe.

  * * *

  —

  I didn’t eat anything that evening. A deep malaise had taken the place of my hunger. I stayed on the sofa, staring at the ceiling, confined inside my sister’s pathetic two-room apartment. I would have felt less cramped in a grave. Yezza had neither a TV nor a radio. Maybe it was better that way. I needed not to hear anything. I didn’t want to think about my aunt or about any dead person on earth. War is a lottery where collateral damage, stray bullets, miscalculations, and losses from friendly fire are part of the deal. In this kind of to-the-bitter-end confrontation, death and life are strictly a matter of destiny—that is, of God’s will. There’s no room for crises of conscience, and the benefit of the doubt is forbidden. Whether you die for your convictions or because you were in the wrong place at the wrong time changes nothing. My cousin lost her life while reveling at a concert. I’m alive, even though I was supposed to die. Such are the whims of destiny. No one escapes his or her own.

  * * *

  —

  I spent three days shut up in my sister’s apartment, counting the minutes and running to the window every time a car came to a sudden stop in the street outside. I was completely cut off from the world, with only a ghost and the same questions for company. What were the brothers thinking about me? I could hear Ali the driver crying out, “I told you he was chickenshit, I knew it. Driss had to escort him to the RER station. I’m sure he got the hell out of there as soon as Driss turned his back.”

  I’d prefer any degradation to the shame of being a deserter.

  To clear my head, I washed the dishes that were piled up in the sink, did a load of laundry that had been forgotten in a basket, and imposed some order on the clutter my sister was reluctant to deal with. In the storage closet, I found a better hiding place for my bomb belt, as well as for some things of mine I’d neglected to take with me after my various sojourns in Mons. In a shoebox, along with some yellowing postcards, a broken gold bracelet, a watch with an unsealed dial, and some coins dating from before the introduction of the euro, I discovered a package of old letters, never opened, whose stamps bore an image of King Hassan II. I realized that I was invading my sister’s privacy, but instead of getting hold of myself, I took malicious delight in satisfying my curiosity.

  On the fourth day, at my wits’ end, I called home, praying that my father wouldn’t pick up the phone. Zahra answered the call.

  “How are things with the family?”

  “Mama and Yezza are in Paris. Papa didn’t go with them. He’s taken to his bed. You know about Anissa?”

  “Yes.”

  “It’s horrible.”

  “Life’s like that…Has anyone been asking for me?”

  “No. Where are you?”

  “Antwerp. Job training. You’re sure nobody’s been trying to reach me?”

  “We haven’t had any callers. Why? Are you expecting someone?”

  “I asked a friend to pass by the house and pick up some clothes for me. This training period might last longer than I thought, and I don’t have enough things to wear.”

  “What should I put in your bag in case your friend stops by?”

  “Don’t bother. I think I’ll be coming home soon.”

  When I hung up, I was less tense than before.

  * * *

  — />
  My big sister wasn’t pleased to find me still in her apartment. Disgusted, she took off her niqab in the hallway before hurrying to the bedroom to unpack her suitcase.

  I don’t remember seeing her prostrate herself on a prayer rug or step over the threshold of a mosque since she suffered her first nervous collapse. I think she wore the face veil as a sign of mourning. Something inside her had died, and she insisted on reminding herself of that loss every time she had to go out into the open air.

  At war with herself, Yezza considered her family, her neighbors, and the whole world false allies; her nasty temperament was both her protective shell and her way of blaming herself for still being in a place where no one could find favor in her eyes.

  “My internship was canceled,” I told her.

  “You intend to wait for others in my house?”

  “I’m totally broke, and I don’t know many people around here…”

  She shot me a black look. “I thought one of your friends just got married somewhere close by.”

  “He’s off on his honeymoon.”

  She pulled some crumpled bills out of a small purse and practically threw them in my face. “A bus for Brussels leaves every—”

  “You’re kicking me out?”

  “Take it any way you want. This is my apartment, and I need to be alone.”

  I feigned hesitation and then stuffed the money into my pocket. “How were things in Paris?”

  “How do you think?”

  “And our mother?”

  “She’ll get over it.”

  Then she asked me to leave her room because she wanted to change her clothes.

  * * *

  —

  I returned to the street like a soldier entering enemy territory. Resolved to do battle. I was even a little ashamed of having gone to ground at my sister’s place. I couldn’t have cared less about getting arrested. What risk was I running, me, a dead man reprieved? Being put behind bars? The prisons were overflowing with my brothers.

  Only one question tortured me: how to convince Lyès that my mission had failed because the bomb maker had botched his work. I was carrying, I thought, incontrovertible proof of my claim: the phone I’d found in my bomb belt. Lyès would be able to see for himself that I wasn’t a coward.

  After the misunderstanding was cleared up, I intended to demand an explanation. Why had they tried to vaporize me from a distance? Imam Sadek declared that of all martyrs, suicide bombers were the ones the Lord blessed the most. To die in combat for the Cause is a privilege, but to sacrifice yourself in a suicide attack is the most prestigious act of faith; it’s worth, all by itself, a thousand battles. I was destined for Firdaws, to which only prophets and saints were admitted.

  I took the intercity bus for Brussels. There were about a dozen passengers on board: a couple with three little blond girls, identically dressed; an emaciated old man, white as a bone; an enormous lady sitting in the front; a few silent men; and a young North African acting laid-back, the visor of his cap pulled down over the back of his neck, earphones in his ears. “The showboating, gym-shoes-wearing, flesh-piercing generation,” Lyès would say indignantly. “As useless as briars drying in the sun.”

  The whole trip, the young North African stayed curled up in his seat, his head dancing, indifferent to the landscape rushing past on both sides of the bus. His nonchalance, his hobo’s clothes, his ridiculous cap, and his grotesque haircut sickened me.

  * * *

  —

  The shock waves radiating out from the attacks in Paris struck Belgium with full force.

  The atmosphere in Brussels was suffocating. Perplexity deformed the features of many a face, and suspicion disfigured many others. At the bus station, draconian security measures were in place. Bags were searched, identity papers checked, ethnic profiling applied.

  I left the area in a hurry.

  I called Rayan and asked him to put me up for two or three days, the time it would take me to “get things settled with my father.”

  “No problem, Khalil. I’ll see you at my place at six this evening.”

  “You can’t meet me now?”

  “I’m in Cambrai. I’ve got a whole work site here.”

  It was eleven forty-five in the morning. I didn’t know what to do with my day. I had six euros and sixty cents left from the money my sister had given me. I went to a fast-food place and ordered a portion of veggie pizza, a soda, and black coffee. Around one in the afternoon, I set out on foot for the neighborhood where Rayan lived. As I passed a mosque, I realized that I hadn’t prayed since Al-Asr on Friday, November 13. I decided to proceed on my way, for fear that the mosque and its surroundings might be under surveillance.

  A phone shop was open. I showed the suspect cell phone to the repairman. He tried in vain to activate it, turning it around and around in his hands, and then said, with a doubtful look, “It’s an old model.”

  “It has great sentimental value for me.”

  “That won’t fix it.”

  “I think the battery’s run down.”

  “I don’t believe I have a charger for this kind of device.”

  “Please, take a look and see what you’ve got. It’s a gift from my late father.”

  The repairman asked me to wait and disappeared behind a curtain that hung over the entrance to the back of the store. About five minutes later, he returned and said, “I’m very sorry, kid. The battery’s not the problem. Your phone is fried.”

  “What does that mean, ‘fried’?”

  “Well, fried. Beyond repair. What language should I say it in?”

  I thanked him and went back to wandering the streets.

  I felt simultaneously nauseated and exhausted, to the point that I fell asleep in a public garden, near three raggedy winos and a young homeless person who was panhandling in order to feed his German shepherd.

  * * *

  —

  Rayan found me in front of the entrance to his building on rue des Bogards. He showed me up to his two-room apartment, where he lived alone. The apartment was neat and arranged with taste. The living room was pretty big, furnished with an IKEA sofa, a chest of drawers, and a flat-screen television standing on a glass table. A huge photographic panorama of New York City in the 1930s took up half of one wall. Across from it was a bookcase, small and well stocked. The room, which opened onto a balcony, received a lot of light, and I was confident that the shower in the bathroom would have excellent water pressure.

  “Spotless as usual,” I said to Rayan.

  “My mother and I share the same housekeeper.”

  “Lucky you.”

  “Luck has nothing to do with it. Sometimes I take side jobs in private homes to boost my income.”

  He invited me to sit on the sofa.

  On the mahogany chest of drawers, a photograph of a smiling young woman was prominently displayed. She was a pretty, radiant blonde with the blue of the sea in her eyes.

  “Marie’s a switchboard operator in our company. We’re going to get engaged in January.”

  “She’s converted to Islam?”

  “She’s not obliged to do that.”

  “What do you mean, ‘not obliged’? You’re a Muslim, right?”

  “I love her and she loves me—that’s what counts.” He gave me a lopsided stare. “You’re not looking very good, you know. Are you having trouble getting over the events in Paris?”

  “Do I look like I’m so bad off?”

  “You look like you just came out of a haunted cave. Don’t get me wrong, I know it’s not easy. What happened in Paris—it’s just chilling. I’m still shivering from it. You have to be insane to get together with other madmen and massacre people that way.”

  “I don’t want to talk about that, Rayan…I have another favor to ask you.”

 
“You want me to drive you to Paris at three in the morning?”

  “I’m serious. I need a little cash. I lost my telephone and my money in Paris.”

  “I’m getting engaged soon, and I don’t have enough savings to—”

  “I’m not looking for some state-of-the-art smartphone. Just one of those cheap gadgets I can use to call my twin sister from time to time. I’m worried about our mother. My aunt, her sister, lost a daughter in the Paris attacks.”

  “A cousin of yours died in the Paris attacks?”

  “Yes.”

  “Oh my God! I’m really so sorry. I don’t know what to say. You have my deepest sympathy. I feel for you with all my heart.”

  He went into his bedroom and came back with an old cell phone.

  “It’s ancient, but it still works. You can buy yourself a rechargeable SIM card and call whoever you want.”

  “I don’t have enough money to buy a disposable razor.”

  He pressed his lips together, went back to his room, and returned with five twenty-euro banknotes for me.

  “I’ll pay you back as soon as I can.”

  “Promises, promises,” he said, laughing. “All right, I suppose you’re hungry. What do you say I order us up a couple of McDo meals? I have to run off soon to help a client put the finishing touches on his website.”

  “You’re the boss.”

  After we ate, Rayan went to his client’s place and I visited a phone shop. I bought a chip for my phone there and picked up some aspirin from a drugstore. Back at Rayan’s, I took a shower and then collapsed on the sofa. I grabbed the remote, but I didn’t have the nerve to turn on the TV. I needed calm. I was still obsessed by one single but sizable concern: How would I justify the failure of my mission to the emir?