The tram glides along the river. I allow the city to unfold before my eyes, all the way to the Bellevueplatz. When it stops, I don’t get off. Why should I? I look out the window. I’m looking for him. All we need is to see each other, one more time. All I need is for him to catch a glimpse of me, to see that I came, that I understood he needed someone to say goodbye to him today. All we need is a few seconds that will suddenly make our encounter something more than a night of sex in a hotel room, something more than all those nights when I kissed men I would never see again. All I need is for him to see me. I’m going to go back to my life, to my work at the British Museum, my meetings with UNESCO, my expert’s reports for Interpol, my life as an archeologist chasing after a multitude of stolen artifacts. I will go back to my nights of deep fear, those moments when I cannot help but think about my illness, the spot that is growing, the ugliness of my body as it begins to disintegrate (how soon? A year? Two?) . . . I will go back to all that, but knowing I have this vision I can hold before me, and it will do me good, it will help to assuage the terror and the melancholy. I will have this man, on the Bellevueplatz, the image of this man, in the cool morning, and the line of poetry he gave me, as if he knew: “Body, remember, not only how much you have been loved . . . ”
Sweet moments. I could spend the entire day here. As every tram stops, out spills a small crowd of men and woman, all rushing to get out, all in a hurry. For a few seconds they surround me then they scatter and the tram goes on its way, until the next one comes to immerse me again in the busyness of humankind. I drink my coffee slowly. I don’t have much time left before I will have to stand up, cross the street, and go into the building across the way, where Auguste is surely already waiting for me with France, orders, faraway countries and the names of men to kill.
And then all of a sudden, just as I am about to get up, her face appears there in front of me, in the tram. She is at the window, staring out at me. This is why she came, I can tell. She won’t get off. She is going to stay there at the back of the tram, facing the window. I stand up, take a few steps toward her, why, I don’t know . . . Then the tram gives an initial judder to set off again, making that shrill little sound so that pedestrians will get off the rails, and then slowly she raises her hand, in a sort of gesture—of what? And we gaze at each other again, until the tram is completely out of sight. She didn’t get off. Why would she have? To come and drink a coffee? Have a talk? Only for us to constantly bump up against the lives we cannot share, because it would take too long, be too fastidious, because the pleasure of being together stems precisely from the fact that we have managed to avoid all of that? She came so we could look at each other, long and slow . . . She has understood that I cannot give more than that. Her voice, the story of the bulls of Apis, the long column of blue smoke emerging from the mouth of the tomb for four hours, the beauty of her body, it all inhabits me again. To say farewell, that is why she came. Farewell, yes, she has said as much with her hand, that vague gesture, her two big eyes that seem to have seen everything and fear nothing, farewell, now I know for certain that everything can begin.
And then, at that very moment, everything begins. He can tell. He sees the soldier running toward him down the central path of the encampment, past the tents that have been pitched there for eight months, and as he runs past, the other soldiers come out, look up, freeze. They all sense that something is about to happen, that the news the running soldier has brought to Hannibal is important. He remains motionless, ready to receive the news, there among his people, these rough men who have already fought the Olcades, the Vaccaei, and the Carpetani to unify Hispania, until finally the messenger speaks: Saguntum has fallen. There it is: the siege of the city is reaching its end. Eight months of slow, patient strangulation, to reach this day. Everything begins now. Crossing the Strait of Gibraltar was nothing. The land was so close. There was no border to cross and the ships landed easily. Crossing the Pyrenees will be nothing, either. Even if the mountains are high, there are passes, and they will find them. They will get help from the local population, and if they are tight-lipped, they will burn their feet until they talk. No, it is with the fall of Saguntum that everything begins. And Rome, perhaps, does not yet know this. Rome, so reluctant to come to the help of this city, her ally. Rome, not at all wary of this man, because they know only the name of his father, Hamilcar, who ventured as far as Sicily on pirate raids, but they are about to learn the names of his sons: Hannibal, Hasdrubal, and Mago. Rome will learn those names and she will weep and tremble and wake at night, and eventually she will understand that she is much in need of allies and that it was a mistake not to offer to help Saguntum. But for the time being, Rome does not know. Hannibal alone has received the news: Saguntum has fallen. The march can begin. He will leave Hasdrubal to reign over Hispania, and he will cross the Pyrenees. All around him the soldiers are shouting with joy. And the people everywhere will soon learn that Saguntum could not count on Rome’s help. Alliances will unravel. That is what is needed: for Rome to face them on her own, and then they will devour her. Now the soldiers regroup and surround him, forming a dense crowd. The rebels from the Balearic Islands, who go around with their chests bound in leather straps; the Numidian horsemen, who are the craziest, the bravest; the Iberian foot soldiers he managed to rally to his army; the Libyans who play their citharas with a smile on their faces: they all acclaim him, in their own language, with their heavy, cutthroat joy. For the first time they sense that the young man who is there in front of them and whom they have promised to obey is not some little warlord, but a conqueror, that what they will be called on to take part in will not be a series of mercenary raids, but a page of History, because this is how History is written—who could ever doubt it?—with a weapon in one’s fist, in serried ranks around three brothers. And what they may be sensing at this moment is the inspiration of Alexander the Great, because they know they are about to set off down endless roads, the way Alexander did with his armies, they are about to pursue conquests that no one could ever have imagined before they did, and so they cheer, Hannibal, Hannibal . . . They can sense that they are about to be penetrated by History, whether they are dead or alive, glorious or crushed. They know they are about to begin their march, Hannibal . . . Hannibal . . . and that the world will never be the same . . .
The helicopter lifts up and away from Kalafgan. Inside, the soldiers are restless, cannot stop talking. He would like to ask them to be quiet. He hears them say that his pulse is getting weaker, that he has lost a lot of blood. He hears them referring to the wound in his leg and his face distorted by blows. He can feel them handling him. He cannot tell whether he is still lying flat on the floor of the helicopter or whether they have hoisted him onto a stretcher, just as he cannot tell whether they have already jabbed his arm with a dose to ease the pain and calm his body. He can feel the thick warm contact of his own blood. On his neck. On his leg. He would like to tell them to be quiet and leave him alone, not that he wants to die, he thinks he will live, that’s the way it is, but he would still like to have time to hear the women weeping the way mourning mothers have wept for centuries, with powerful sobs in their throats preventing all speech, as if they were animals, bundles of flesh from which some part had been recently amputated. He wants to listen carefully and hear that chant because it feels as if it is up to him to echo it. He is the one who should be rising in the sky and drowning out the sound of the blades, and he knows that with each passing second the women will be farther and farther away. They must already be tiny, far away, almost invisible, still weeping, but to no one but themselves, weeping over the children they will not find, who only a few seconds ago were playing in the schoolyard and are now buried under the rubble. He would like to hear their voices and perhaps give the men of Kalafgan the chance to throw stones, to shoot, even, if they have weapons, and never mind if they damage the helicopter or destroy it, never mind if it means dying there, that would be the closest thing to justice. There is someth
ing repulsive about the ease with which he is getting away. He wants to confront the women again, and their hatred, why not . . . The blows, the spitting, it is already all so far away, and will never come again—that scene, as he saw it only a few minutes ago, is vanishing, the flames are slowly dying, the stones grow cold, the rubble is turned over, dug through, and body parts are found and buried, piously. Soon the women will weep only when night comes for them. The scene fades, is already almost completely erased, and he stays here, with his ravaged body, with the blood sticking to his trousers, his eyes swollen from the beatings, his lips split. It’s so strange . . . Only a few minutes ago he was running through the streets of Kalafgan, sheltering his face with his arms to try to fend off the blows, and it seemed the voices around him would never let him go. And now it is all so far away. He remembers the instant when everything in him surrendered, when the blood in his eye, in his mouth, was no longer of any importance. He remembers the moment when he accepted death, and he did so without hatred, probably because of the women’s weeping, or because he has killed too often not to recognize his enemy’s right to take his life. He remembers that instant and yet the men surrounding him are saying that name he thought he no longer needed: “Sullivan?”, and so he has taken refuge in a place where he cannot be reached, where knowing whether he is bleeding or not doesn’t matter anymore, where knowing whether he will ever use his leg again does not worry him, a place above everything, where the helicopter is flying gracefully through the sky and the chant of the weeping women still has time to resonate, because it is the only thing, in this moment, that the world must hear: the grief of the vanquished mothers.
2Bandit.
II
ARGOS
Are you ready to go?” He hadn’t heard his uncle’s voice in a long time. The memory resurfaced all of a sudden, as if it had been lurking there in some corner of his memory, just waiting for the time and the opportunity, as if, above all, all those words from the past had decided to remind him of their existence in the form of an enigma that, for the time being, he didn’t understand at all but which, he could tell, was going to lead him to a point where any man would question his own certainties. The taxi is driving slowly toward Charles de Gaulle airport. The sky is clear. He watches the city he is about to leave unfolding before his eyes. “Are you ready to go?” He remembers the day he was asked this question. The day before his first mission. His uncle had invited him over for dinner. They had talked about poetry and politics. The old man had a mischievous air about him when he talked about all the upheavals in the world, as if, unlike others who saw only chaos, he actually managed to find meaning in all the international tension and unrest and tragedy. And then, during dessert, there in the half-empty restaurant, he had put his question to Assem. At first Assem had answered somewhat gullibly, with a frank “yes.” Then the old man took his time. That wasn’t what he was referring to. “Do you remember Agamemnon?” he asked. And Assem can still hear his voice as if his old uncle were sitting there with him in the taxi that is now on the A1 northbound freeway. How is it that today, suddenly, he remembers that conversation, and so clearly? If someone had asked him yesterday whether he recalled a single word he exchanged with his uncle ten years ago in that little restaurant in the 14th arrondissement, he would probably have said no, but this morning it’s all coming back to him, and in detail. Where had those images, those scenes been hiding? Where in his memory were they, initially inaccessible then surfacing with the clarity of a recent event? The old man had talked about Mycenae. Yes. He remembers. It’s as if the further in he ventures, the better his recall. “Everyone knows about the Trojan War, but you’d think no one has ever really thought about it properly . . . What does the myth tell us?” He had let his uncle talk, and the old man took his time. He had evoked the long days without wind. The Achaeans with a worried, impatient expression on their faces. The days went by and the wind did not rise. It was becoming obvious that the gods refused to let them leave. Every morning in Mycenae the men hurried to the highest point at the top of the city, near the palace walls, and stared at the mountains all around them, trying to feel even the slightest breeze on their faces, but there was nothing . . . The tension was rising. What did the gods want? And then came the sacrifice of Iphigenia. Agamemnon leading his daughter to the altar, and then she, to the stupefaction of all the warriors gathered there, took her own life. The wind, a few seconds later, like a response from the heavens; the wind blowing down from the mountains, causing the flags to snap. The old man spoke excitedly. Assem remembers how it was. How there was no one left in the restaurant, and they were alone just the two of them, with Mycenae. The Achaeans were shouting for joy. The Achaeans made ready to board their ships. All the men were converging onto the plain of Argos. A great procession emptied the city of Mycenae. Everyone was celebrating the departure. It wouldn’t be long until the warriors returned covered in gold. It wouldn’t be long until Menelaus’s honor was avenged. “You understand what the myth is saying?” He would give anything to hear his uncle’s voice again, there at his side. How he had loved his uncle, the man who had raised him. He didn’t know how to reply, so the old professor from Sciences Po continued his story. According to the myth, before they had even made landfall in Asia Minor, before they could even see the walls of Ilium, Agamemnon had lost. He had had to kill his daughter. What victory could be worth such a sacrifice? Even if he managed to raze Troy to the ground, even if he crushed his enemies and reigned for centuries, had he not been defeated right from the start? “Are you ready to go?” That was what his uncle had asked. And now he understands better. You do not go into battle with the hope of returning intact. “Remember Mycenae . . . ” Already upon departure, blood and mourning. Already upon departure you must accept the fact that you will be cut off from what is dearest to you. Already upon departure you can be sure there will be no complete, joyful victory. Now, in the back seat of his taxi, he thinks of the wind. The wind of Mycenae, synonym of death. He thinks of those warriors boarding their ships, eager for a fight, who failed to notice that something had already been lost, there behind them. His uncle was right. He has experienced it so often. With every mission he has left a part of himself behind. So now, in the back of his taxi, he wonders what part of himself, this time, he will have to sacrifice to the wind.
She arrived in Paris that very morning. She feels more and more like leaving London and moving here. She would have to go on traveling back and forth between the British Museum and UNESCO, but she would like to try. Perhaps the memory of her conversations with Marwan has something to do with it . . .
When she steps into her little office at UNESCO, she already knows she won’t be staying there. Two days from now she has to be in Baghdad. The Iraqi president has decided to reopen the National Museum, which has been closed for years. Sending a powerful signal. To show that Iraq is getting back on its feet, reclaiming its history. The director of UNESCO will be going, and she has been called on to go with her. She won’t have time to enjoy Paris, or any time to think about her trip to Zurich and the man she met there. Her life is made up of moments like this, quick, intense, breathless. She feels a wave of enthusiasm: the museum is going to reopen. For years she’s been hunting down stolen artifacts, all over the world. It’s a stubborn, patient occupation, and she has applied herself to it with a vengeance. She recalls the day she stood helplessly watching as the museum was looted. In 2003, when the Americans entered Baghdad. She was very young at the time, she was with her fellow history students, and the pillage took place right before their eyes. There was nothing they could do. The Americans didn’t lift a finger, they just let the thieves go in and out, smashing and stealing. Perhaps that is the day her vocation was born, in those hours of rage when she and her classmates watched the looters coming and going. Not her vocation as an archeologist, but as a hunter of lost objects. She thinks back now on all the hundreds of hours she has spent since that day searching for a trace of the stolen mosaic
s and statues and vases. Whenever an airport found an artifact in a collector’s baggage, she was the one they called to come for the evaluation. A long struggle, twelve years already. But in a few days she will be rewarded: the National Museum is going to open its doors and the artifacts will once again be in their place.
Who fired the first shot? No one knows, but they all heard it. There. For kilometers. The first shot of what will turn out to be a mass slaughter. At five o’clock in the morning on this day when one country is going to kill another . . . Haile Selassie has given the order to attack and the Italians hurry to rouse themselves. Short phrases, rumors circulate: “It’s started . . . They’re attacking . . . ” And in an hour, perhaps, the news will reach Marshal Badoglio himself. An aide-de-camp will wake him with the greatest possible dignity: “Marshal,” he will say, looking straight ahead so that his gaze will not fall on the flaccid flesh protruding between the open buttons of the Marshal’s pajamas, “Marshal, the battle has begun.” The first shot and already thousands of men are running across the plain. Haile Selassie is toward the rear, standing straight in his European uniform. He will fight to the end. He will send reinforcements to Ras Kassa if necessary. But for now he has to wait, give the warriors time to run, to get closer to the enemy lines. The clamor reaches his ears. He wishes he could run with them, feel them all around him, share their sweat.
Hear Our Defeats Page 3
