Some women were keeping my mother company, sitting on mattresses placed on the floor. My mother looked like a hallucination. Wrapped in a black veil, she was sitting with her back to the wall so that she wouldn’t crumple. She had scratched her face; her eyes resembled two bloodstains. She didn’t have the strength to make me a sign. She looked at me absently, as if I reminded her of something she couldn’t pin down.
I rushed to my twin sister’s bedroom. Zahra wasn’t there.
Yezza pushed me into the neighboring room and said, “You’ve come to admire the fine work your brothers did?”
“Where is she?”
“There’s nothing for you here. This house has disowned you. We’re going to need a ton of incense to purge the place of your stench.”
“Where’s Zahra?”
“Get out of our house, Khalil. Clear off! Nobody here wants to see you.”
“I’m asking you for the last time, where’s Zahra? What hospital?”
“If you don’t disappear, I swear I’ll alert the neighborhood. I’ll let everybody know what a monster you are.”
I seized her throat hard with both hands; I wanted to make her choke on her words, one by one.
“You can shout it from all the rooftops in the world if you want. I’m not afraid of anyone. If you’re so determined, let’s go down to the police station together, and you can watch me tell those cop bastards what I think of this shitty life they’re so crazy about. Now tell me where Zahra is if you want those witch’s eyes of yours to remain in their sockets.”
She kneed me in the groin.
I didn’t let go of her.
“Get out of my house!” a loud voice rang out behind my back.
My father—or rather, what was left of him—was swaying on his cane, his complexion ashen, his features fashioned out of papier-mâché. A ghost would have been a more substantial presence. He trembled in every limb, but his eyes still penetrated in that way I loathed and feared.
“I don’t want to see you ever again. I disown you, and I curse the day you were born under my roof. Now go away. Go back to your legion of demons and congratulate them for the evil they’ve just done to you, to you, their brother, in front of the charlatan who has substituted himself for the Prophet.” All of a sudden, he burst into tears. “Zahra, my darling, my child, my only happiness, is there where the last speck of affection I had for you lies, there where the joys of this world come to an end.”
* * *
—
When I came to, night had fallen. I didn’t know where I was or how I’d wound up in that little public garden with the naked trees. If my legs had walked for hours, my soul hadn’t followed them. My father’s quavering voice was still audible inside my head, and his sobs, one by one, punctuated my grief, like a faucet leaking in the dark.
The buildings I was facing offered me no clues. Was I in Brussels? Or in Ghent? In hell, or in a bad dream? I was totally bewildered. My shoes were soaked with water and mud. Where had I been walking? I remembered nothing. I felt as though I’d passed through the Valley of the Shadow.
“May we ask what you’re doing here, monsieur?”
“…”
“Are you ill?”
“…”
The flashlight ran its halo over my body.
“Do you have your papers on you?”
Their voices ricocheted against my temples. The ground seemed to ripple under my feet. I had a strong urge to vomit.
“Stand up, please.”
Hands touched me, examining me.
“He’s carrying his papers.”
“Let’s see them.”
I could vaguely distinguish two silhouettes fussing around me.
“Don’t move. We’re going to call in for a routine verification.”
I heard a voice spelling my first and last names, reciting my date and place of birth, as well as my address in Koekelberg.
I sat back down and let my head hang.
They gave me back my papers.
“Go on home, monsieur. It’s three o’clock in the morning.”
Their footsteps moved off.
“You think he’s drugged up?”
“He’s not even drunk.”
“So what the hell’s he up to outside at this hour?”
“As far as I know, there’s no curfew yet.”
“All the same.”
“All the same, what? Everyone’s free to spend his nights where he wants in this country.”
The car doors slammed. The revolving roof lights faded away into the darkness. I curled up on the bench, thrust my freezing hands between my thighs, and shut my eyes.
* * *
—
The brothers were steadily entering the apartment I shared with Hédi. Some of those who turned up felt no inhibitions about flaunting their legionnaire’s beard and their satiny kamis. In order to keep local residents from informing the police of the traffic, which might have appeared fishy, Ramdan spread word to the people of the housing estate that my twin sister had been among the victims in the Brussels metro. Neighbors I didn’t know didn’t hesitate to come and offer me their condolences. The majority of them were non-Muslims. They didn’t stay among us long, no doubt driven off by the incense sticks burning in every corner of the living room and by the readings from the Quran playing on a compact stereo system someone must have brought.
The following night, the sheikh did me the honor of granting me a private audience in Issa the baker’s secondary residence. He kissed my head, wrapped his holy hands around mine, and invited me to sit across from him.
He said to me, “We’re all put to the test, Brother Khalil. No one knows when or where or how his flame will go out. That margin, that leeway is the Lord’s domain. God only takes back what He has lent us. We own nothing on this earth. Not our fortune, not our own progeny. He who accepts his lot will have understood the purpose of his earthly existence. He will say, ‘In every circumstance, I return to God,’ and the Lord will give him the strength and the courage to overcome what he couldn’t prevent. As for him who rebels against the misfortune that strikes him, he only adds to his sorrow, and no comfort can be of any use to him. Let us thank God for both the good and the ill that He lavishes upon us in order to enlighten us about ourselves. Suffering awakens us to our vulnerability, and the transience of our joys to the flimsiness of what we cannot preserve. We all belong to God, and all of us will be restored to Him. All that will remain, above the absences, above the finite, is the face of the Lord.”
Had I heard that before? I didn’t think so.
I watched his lips moving in his wise, handsome face and perfectly understood each of his words, but they didn’t resonate in me. Usually, tears filled my eyes when he spoke in that tone, pervaded by sadness and forbearance. The soundness of his words was deeply moving, for he himself was all emotion. He knew how to speak to hearts and souls. But that night, his words passed straight through me, leaving me untouched. In reality, nothing affected me. I had sunk into a kind of catalepsy. I saw shadows swaying around me and heard their voices, though they never called to me—an invisible wall separated their world from mine. The more people came to share my grief, the less I wanted to admit that I was in mourning. I was in total denial.
Lyès had “cut short an important mission” to be at my side. He knew my twin sister. He’d paid out of his own pocket for the reception hall where we’d celebrated Zahra’s wedding four years earlier.
He stayed with me the first two days. Comforting me and praying for the repose of my sister’s soul. In the evening, he waited until the other visitors had left and then invited me to read the Quran. He chose a surah, and the two of us recited it in low voices. Sometimes Hédi joined us. The Tunisian had a magnificent voice, so sweet and penetrating that Lyès and I fell silent and listened to him declaim ent
ire chapters.
“You have to go and pay a visit to your sister’s grave,” he exhorted me constantly.
For Lyès, it was imperative that I go to the cemetery in order to see for myself that Zahra had left us. “That will help you make your peace with grieving,” he said.
He charged Hédi with driving me there.
The first time I saw that horrid field, bristling with tombstones, I took one look and fled away.
* * *
—
Before returning to his mission, Lyès invited me to dinner at his sister’s. She lived in the suburbs, in a squat, ugly little house that smelled like worm-eaten wood and laundry detergent. Lyès’s sister had prepared everything in advance; she turned the place over to us and disappeared. The table was loaded with spicy, brightly colored dishes: lamb shank tagine with apricots, couscous with fresh vegetables, roasted pepper salad, grilled liver kebabs, chicken skewers—an ample palette of Moroccan culinary art was on display.
I couldn’t manage to swallow so much as a mouthful.
Lyès was disappointed: “Samra went to a lot of trouble for you. She went to the market very early this morning and spent the day at the stove. What’s she going to think if you don’t eat?”
“She’ll understand.”
There was a silence I found interminable. I saw Lyès’s hands pass from the fork to the spoon, from the knife to the glass, without really touching them.
“Khalil…”
“Yes.”
“Khalil…”
“Yes, Lyès, I’m listening.”
“But I’m not hearing you.”
“What do you want to hear?”
“I want to hear what you’re saying to yourself at this moment.”
“What do you think I’m saying to myself?”
“I wonder. I’m your emir. It’s my responsibility to know what’s in your heart and in your head, what’s become of the oaths you swore, whether you’ve changed your mind, what you’re turning into.”
“You find I’m not the same person anymore?”
“That’s for you to tell me.”
I lowered my head; he grabbed me by the chin and obliged me to look him in the eyes. “You must pull yourself together, Khalil. Zahra is with her Creator…You yourself had chosen to leave this world before she did.”
“That’s not the same thing.”
“It is the same thing. Whether one dies today or tomorrow changes nothing. We’re only ephemeral shadows. One day, we’re here, another day, we’re here no more. That’s the reason why we must prepare ourselves to separate from the people who are dear to us. Our good luck, Khalil, is to know that beyond the darkness, there’s a universe of light and beauty. To reach it, we must travel through a lot of obscure, unlit territory, which is to say misfortune, grief, mourning, all the suffering God has us undergo to test our faith. Do you think that the Lord is cruel, Khalil?”
“…”
“The Lord, in His infinite goodness, loves us as much as He loves the prophets and the saints. He conceived of a difficult existence as a means of strengthening our convictions. It’s through our patience that He perceives us and judges us. Life is just an examination, nothing more. And happy is he who gains admission to the green pastures of the Lord.”
I was somewhere else. A place where no balm was capable of assuaging my pain.
“I’ve postponed your departure for Marrakesh. I can’t send you in this state. Look at yourself, you can barely raise your head. Everything’s ready down there. Zakaria’s just waiting for you. Do we have to cancel the whole thing?”
“Why cancel it?”
“You’re the pivot of the operation, Khalil. If you don’t feel you can…”
“If I don’t feel I can, what? My mission is one thing, the sorrow I’m suffering from is another.”
“The Council doesn’t want to take any risks.”
“Did I make you run the smallest risk in Paris?”
“You weren’t in the same state of mind you’re in today.”
“You really think so? You believe I’ve changed since then?”
“I only believe what I see, Khalil, and you don’t look ready to go on your mission. You’re free to back out. I promise you, your decision will be respected. If you don’t want to go to Marrakesh, that’s your right. The operation will simply be carried out at a later time. Of course, that’s going to mess up our preparations, but it’s better to postpone the action than to botch it.”
“You’ve got me wrong, Emir. Before, I had a reason to die. Now I have two.”
“Are you sure about that?”
“As sure as I am that there’s nothing to keep me in this world anymore.”
On those last words, we parted. The embrace Lyès gave me lasted longer but was less intense than usual. Far from bucking me up, it only deepened my bitterness. Something told me Lyès had known from the first day, from the day of the attack, that my sister had been killed; I had a feeling that he’d hidden the truth from me, and that he’d moved up the date of my departure for Marrakesh to keep me from suspecting anything.
The following day and the three days after that, as soon as I woke up, I called a taxi and hurried to the cemetery and Zahra’s graveside. I stayed with her for hours, meditating and praying in the cold and the rain.
One afternoon, as the sun was opening up a rift in the thick bank of cloud, I heard the crunch of gravel behind me. It was Rayan, wearing a tight coat the color of charcoal. He was holding a white rose in his hand. His presence, in the midst of this cemetery where I found no rest, did me good.
“She was my great love when I was twelve years old,” he said.
He squatted down, ran his fingers over the ocher wound that had closed over my sister’s remains, and placed his flower on the grave. I waited for him to look up at me; he kept his eyes on the ground, lost in his memories: “One evening, your mother sent her out to buy some bread. I was in the bakery. Outside, rain was coming down in torrents. I had my umbrella with me. I spoke to Zahra and offered to walk her home. When we reached the stairwell, I pinned her against the wall and kissed her on the mouth. She scratched me before she ran away. I never dared to look her in the eye again.”
“She told me about what you did.”
“No, really?”
“We had no secrets from each other. She insisted that I should beat you up.”
“And you didn’t do it.”
“Driss thought it was a bad idea. He was afraid you’d stop letting us use your PlayStation.”
Rayan gave me a slight, sad smile.
I said, “I thought you didn’t want to see me anymore.”
“Sometimes what we think goes too far, Khalil.”
“What made you change your mind?”
“The benefit of the doubt.”
“So you’re still in doubt.”
“We’re not in a good place for this kind of discussion.”
“This isn’t a good place for anyone, Rayan. But we can have the discussion anywhere.”
“If I’ve come here, it was to be close to you. I expected you to run me off, and you haven’t. Which proves that you’re not a bad guy.”
“How would you know?”
“I rely on my intuition.”
“I’d prefer you to rely on your good sense.”
Rayan pursed his lips. Then he said, “I’m terribly sorry for your loss, Khalil.”
“That’s life.”
“I’d love to be able to comfort you, but words are inadequate in front of a grave.”
“Maybe that’s the reason why silence is essential in cemeteries.”
Rayan stood up and spread out his arms. I collapsed against his chest.
“It’s going to be all right,” he whispered to the back of my neck.
The quaver in his voice betrayed the sob he was trying to suppress.
* * *
—
We walked among the dead. A family was praying at the grave of a loved one, the women veiled in white, the men visibly despondent.
Rayan was clasping my arm. “I’ve been in Cambrai the past two weeks,” he said. “I came back this morning. My mother hadn’t wanted to tell me anything before my return. If I’d known, I would have come to the funeral.”
“I wasn’t at the funeral. I didn’t learn what had happened to my sister until four days later. In the street, from a neighbor. No one in my family tried to reach me. Everybody knew but me.”
He nodded sympathetically.
“The last time we were together, Zahra left very angry with me.”
“Nobody can foresee how things will end, Khalil, otherwise we’d be very careful not to offend the people dear to us.”
“Why did we have to part that way, my sister and I? We’d never quarreled before. It’s hard, really hard. I blame myself so much.”
He put his hands on my shoulders, the way Driss would take hold of us in the old days when he had an idea he wanted the two of us to hear.
“Suppose we go somewhere and talk about all that? I know a nice restaurant not far from here. The chef works miracles.”
Without waiting for my response, he pushed me toward his car. When I sat in the passenger seat, the dike that had been holding back my tears for four days and nights gave way, and I burst into sobs.
Rayan put his arm around my shoulders: “It’s all right, it’s all right, let yourself go. A good cry is what you need.”
He kept on talking to me, and then his voice began to fade while hiccups rocked me from head to foot. All I could hear anymore were my moans.
“…—lil, sit up now. First we’ll go for a little spin, okay? If you want, we’ll drive out into the countryside, maybe for an hour or two. What do you say, Khalil? And afterward, we’ll get something to eat and discuss all this with clear heads.”
“On the morning of the attack, I had a dream, an unusually violent dream, and I spent the rest of the day on the crapper. My sister’s death agony was on my stomach.”
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