by Simon Pare
I couldn’t think of anything more reassuring to say. The old Frenchman growled to no one in particular, “I’ve made some coffee.”
Just then, as I was giving my father-in-law a grateful nod, the telephone rang.
Mine.
The man who was about to turn my life on its head didn’t sound like an ogre. He asked me very politely, “Good evening. First of all, Bismillah, in the name of God… Am I speaking to Si Aziz?” stressing the traditional Algerian Arabic formal Si.
“Yes,” I replied, letting out a sigh of relief. This voice was too ‘normal’ to be the one I dreaded. “And you are…?” I added with a hint of irritation. “I’m sorry, it’s just that…”
I wagged my finger at the petrified group composed of Meriem, my mother-in-law and Mathieu as I continued talking.
“…I’m expecting an important phone call and…”
He gave a short, almost friendly chuckle.
“No, no, there’s been no mistake, my friend. I am your important phone call… We need to talk.”
I felt my heart skip a beat and then suddenly start pounding again. My saliva had taken on a revolting consistency.
“What about?” I replied softly, pressing my mobile phone hard against my ear as if to absorb the violence of the words the man was about to inflict on me.
“About your daughter, of course. Because you do have a daughter… Shehera, isn’t it? She is young and… so pretty… But she doesn’t dress decently. Sharia law foresees strict penalties for that… It’s all very unfortunate…”
Meriem, her eyes standing out on stalks, had realised. “Is it him?” I nodded, careful not to show the terror that was taking hold of me.
“Hello. Are you still there? (The man once more gave a light, almost jovial chuckle.) Of course you are, my friend!”
I had trouble unclenching my teeth.
“Yes, I’m here… Are you… Is my daughter with you?”
A few seconds’ silence. Meriem had brought her ear up close to the mobile. Tears had stuck a strand of hair to her cheek.
The voice resumed, “Yes, your daughter is with me… with us, to be more precise.”
I groaned, “What gives you the right to detain my daughter?”
The man guffawed, but still without any aggression. “You’re a bit of a jester. Still insisting on your rights in such a crazy country?”
“Do you want money?”
“Ah, my dear Aziz, is it because you spend so much time with monkeys that you come up with such lame jokes? Money – as if you had any! As you can imagine, we’ve done some prior research. And anyway, we’re no heathens; we love God and our intentions are not that mundane.”
“Let my daughter go! Or else you’ll be sorry, you…”
“No insults, please, or else…”
I heard the sound of a chair, then some quick footsteps, a door being opened, an incomprehensible exclamation, then the smack of a hand…
A slap! I immediately realised.
“Help!” squealed a woman’s voice. No; a girl’s voice.
“Stop bawling, will you! See this telephone – your father’s on the other end.”
“Dad, help me. Save me, dad, he’s…”
There was the sound of a second slap, after which the screaming diminished to a sob. I felt like a huge hand was kneading my guts to make me throw up.
“Stop it… Shehera… My girl…”
I bent my knees – to plead with the stranger.
“Please, don’t hit her! Please…”
Meriem had raised her fingers to her cheeks and scratched herself.
The man didn’t bother replying. I could hear my daughter’s moaning through his noisy breathing. There was the same series of noises, but the other way round this time. The stranger must have sat down on the chair again.
“Have you… have you understood?”
His breathing contained a hiss of restrained anger.
“I’m just a good bookkeeper: you insult me, she pays! I hit her with my bare hand. I could have chosen a stick, a metal bar, or a knife, to sharpen it on her soft skin. Will we be a little more polite from now on, my dear sir?
“Yes,” I assured him tamely. “Take mercy on her! Sorry…”
I felt a shooting pain in my head, like after an appalling binge: he’d mentioned a knife! I felt about as wretchedly ‘convincing’ as the young soldier begging his killers for mercy! This was no nightmare; my interlocutor was talking quite casually about stabbing my daughter!
“Sorry I lost my temper. It won’t happen again, but please don’t lay another hand on her.”
“That all depends on your goodwill.”
Meriem shook my arm, her face distraught. “Ask him what he wants, for the love of God!”
The stranger must have heard this because he asked, “Who else is with you, apart from your wife?”
“My parents-in-law.”
“The Frenchman who pretends he’s an Arab and his whore, right?”
“Erm… (I felt myself blushing as I lowered my gaze so that my parents-in-law were no longer in my line of sight.) Erm… yes.”
“Perfect, perfect… (This news seemed to overjoy him.) Put us on loudspeaker and tell them to come nearer.”
I was shaking so much that I could hardly press the button.
“Fine,” he started, “you have probably told the police. That’s normal – you are good parents. But tomorrow, Aziz, immediately it opens, you will go along to the police station and apologise for the false alarm. You eventually found your daughter at a friend’s house and to punish her you’re going to send her off to rot for a while with your parents in some douar out in the sticks. It’s up to you to make it sound plausible. All of you will have to act normally. Most importantly, keep going to work and wait for further instructions there. Any trickery and we won’t think twice about cutting your daughter up into bits and dumping them on your doorstep. But before we kill her…”
His mouth simulated an obscene kissing sound, followed by a clicking of his tongue.
“I don’t need to spell it out to you. Especially as this pretty thing has what it takes for a few games…”
“Sir… How… how old are you?”
Holding her out-turned palms towards the telephone, Meriem asked this question like a prayer. There was no response, just a ‘hum, hum’, perhaps of surprise.
“Sir, my daughter’s still scared at night. She’s moody and there are lots of things she won’t eat, even if she’s hungry. Sometimes when she’s upset, I tell her a story, just like when she was very small. You see, she might seem big for her age, but she’s still a child. Don’t… don’t do anything to her, for the love of all you hold most dear… for the love of God…”
She gripped the back of the armchair and continued.
“We are good Muslims, sir, we observe Ramadan and we have put our names down this year for the pilgrimage to Mecca. If you order us to, I swear on my soul that my husband and I will fast all this year and the following years and that we will offer what little we have to the mosque of your choice. In the name of the God that we all love, both you and ourselves… Look, if you give me back my daughter, and if you so request, I will cut off my arms and legs in exchange…”
The same silence greeted my wife’s absurd supplication – untrue, grotesque and heartbreaking for me in its utter sincerity. Two thin scratches ran under the tip of my wife’s chin. Her shoulders slumped. I knew then – and I had never known it with such clarity – that I loved this grief-maddened woman more than life itself; that I loved the little girl who found herself in the antechamber of hell with the same strength; and that if I lost either of them, the lowest, mangiest dog on this planet would be worth more than me.
Meriem’s voice faltered.
“Why us?”
“Hello, madam. You’re… the girl’s mother, am I right? How are you? All right? Were you trying to trap me with your question about my age? Dangerous that, you know, behaving like… like a slut!”
The perky kidnapper seemed to be hoping for some reaction from Meriem. Then, with false fatalism, he said, “Why you? Call it rotten luck, madam, or better: destiny. My destiny, your destiny. You know full well that God wrote one out for each and every one of us even before poor Adam was born.”
He chuckled, delighted with this stroke of inspiration. “And, as with the size of our arseholes, He doesn’t ask for our opinion! I know quite a lot about destiny, believe you me. Now goodnight. Try and get some sleep because tomorrow is going to be a long day. Aziz, I’ll call you about nine o’clock. Make sure you’re at work. And don’t forget – your daughter’s life depends on your silence. The longer it lasts, the longer she lives. Don’t underestimate us; our brothers are everywhere, trust me. Even in the police! On the other hand, don’t go hoping you can trace us through this telephone number. You know full well that mobile phone chips are as easy to find as oranges in any souk in this country; no identity papers required and no formalities! Till tomorrow then…”
And he added hurriedly, as if he’d almost forgotten, “Allah Akbar… God is great, great is His might and great is His wrath!”
We slept little, if you can call it sleep when you collapse on a bed for an hour at the most because your exhausted body abandons all control over itself. Until morning each of us retreated to a corner when our own fear became incapable of enduring the sight of the others’ fear.
Meriem’s teeth were chattering and she was making little whining sounds: “Shehera, give me back my little Shehera… Shehera…” I took her in my arms and rocked her, swearing that she had nothing to fear, that our daughter would be returned to us safe and sound, that I promised that from the depths of my heart, all of them fanciful oaths that she can’t have believed because she started weeping again and, no longer able to cope with my powerlessness, I followed her example.
I had never felt so incapable of assuming the role that it seemed to me was expected of a father: to protect, come what may, the life of his children and his wife. I was ready to offer up my life to save my daughter, but to whom? The man who had spoken to me on the telephone seemed as ordinary as he was unreal. Sometimes, when tiredness numbed my brain, I managed to persuade myself that no family as normal as our own could be caught up in an event as crazy as a kidnapping. Then a beating drum in my chest reminded me of the crushing density of reality.
We pushed a wardrobe up against the front door. I’m not sure who it was who whispered, “What if they come and get us as well?” However, we were gripped by shame (“I don’t want to be safe when my daughter isn’t!” Meriem screamed) and we immediately put the wardrobe back in its original place. The question of the police bothered us: should we inform them or not? “If this bastard is one of those GIA terrorists, we can’t take any chances. Those madmen couldn’t give a damn about death, either their own or their hostages. The police doesn’t care about hostages either. Any sign of danger and they’ll just start shooting!” Mathieu had spoken as if he was almost apologising for offering his opinion.
At one point, as he and I were clearing the table, he whispered to me, “I hope they’re just normal crooks and that they’ll demand a ransom. If that’s the case, maybe there’ll be room for negotiation? People are less unpredictable when they’re driven by a craving for money rather than for heaven.”
Mathieu anticipated my silent objection with a shrug of the shoulders.
“A ransom? The four of us could rustle up a tidy little sum, even if it means selling both our flats. I’ve got some savings and Latifa has a couple of pieces of jewellery.”
“But he told us that wouldn’t be enough. What’s more, we could pay the ransom and still find ourselves with a…”
I realised with horror that I’d almost said ‘corpse’. Luckily, only the Frenchman heard me. He shot me a slightly disdainful glance. I felt a taste of bile in my mouth at the realisation that this funny old man had just suggested selling everything he and his wife owned to save my daughter’s life, and she was just the teenage offspring of a daughter-in-law who was not sparing in her coldness towards him! I felt quite ashamed of my prejudices against him. I almost asked him why he was being so generous, but his grim expression put me off.
He curled his lips bitterly, as though he had heard my question.
“Your daughter is my granddaughter… well, almost…”
And then, after an awkward silence that seemed like the old man had a blank: “Her… her real grandfather, Meriem’s father, was my friend. If there is such a thing as friends, that is…”
He turned his back on me, bringing the confidences to an abrupt end. Of all of us, he was the only one who had maintained a semblance of calm. Until now at least: in the middle of the night, when Latifa succumbed to a new fit of despair, screaming and weeping, he gave his wife a good shake and ordered her to get a grip on herself at once because the danger was too great, he told her harshly, that the neighbours would call the police and that the girl would pay the price. As soon as he had gagged Latifa with this horrific possibility, the old man left the room and locked himself in the bathroom. A few minutes later, he came out again with red eyes, but close-shaven cheeks and carefully brushed hair.
He spoke to me in a hoarse voice.
“It’ll be dawn in less than an hour. Meriem and you should get some sleep. I’ll take care of Latifa. No point in wasting our strength when we’ll need it in the hours to come. I’ll stay by the telephone and, if anything happens, I’ll wake you up. Go…”
He pushed me authoritatively towards the bedroom. Just as I was about to close the door, he looked me straight in the eye.
“We’ll have a chat a bit later, but if you want my opinion, this guy knows us too well for us not to have bumped into him at some point.”
“What makes you say that? The phone numbers?”
“Not only that… even if no one apart from your wife and mine knows my number. Actually, even you don’t have it. Of course (he pulled a slightly piqued face), we’ve had no reason to call each other, eh? And my phone has always been set up to hide my number from the person I’m calling. But that’s not what’s bugging me.”
“What is then?”
“I don’t know yet. Just a feeling. Go and get some rest; we’ll talk about it again later.”
“Do you think we can rescue her?”
“Yes…” he said, looking away too quickly. “Look at your hands, though. You’re no help to your daughter by skinning yourself.”
I almost asked him what right he thought he had to speak to me in that tone. He wasn’t my father, as far as I was aware! Nevertheless, my eyes followed my father-in-law’s gaze; red scratches crisscrossed the backs of my hands.
I opened my mouth wide to utter some stupid protest like I didn’t do that! Mathieu didn’t look round at me, probably out of charity.
I arranged my face into a neutral expression before facing the other panic – my wife’s. I felt a dual sensation of shame and fear: was I so incapable of keeping my cool in a situation that required so much of it? Could my little girl rely on such a cowardly father to help her?
Maybe I slept for an hour or two? I don’t remember having nightmares, but rather floating in a sort of treacle in which I seemed to be unconscious or rather dead to all sensation.
I half-opened one eyelid and half-saw my wife snuggled up tightly against me, something that hadn’t happened for donkey’s years. A hazy thought, soft and warm, spread through my body, a mixture of an admiring How beautiful she is! and a concupiscent I would love to lick the insides of your thighs, fair lady…
I groaned when the dagger of Shehera’s name appeared from nowhere and stabbed into my wildly imagining heart. I sat up, fizzing with such searing anxiety that it was as if I had just caught sight of a thousand-strong crowd chasing after me to tear me apart.
“My daughter…”
“Yes, Aziz?”
I’d been mistaken; Meriem wasn’t asleep. She cradled my head in her hands.
“H
ow is she, Aziz, can you tell me?”
Before I could answer, she reacted strangely: her hands caught my cheeks in a pincer grip. I didn’t dare move.
“It’s the first night she’s spent away from us. And in the meantime, we’re sleeping and… and…”
A dry retch, a grating at the back of her throat, prevented her from continuing. She pulled away from me abruptly. It must have been five o’clock in the morning going by the muezzin’s loudspeaker calling the faithful to morning prayers.
“Do you hear him?”
She repeated, “Hey? Can you hear the keeper of dawn?”
Her voice had taken on a more pensive, more irascible tone. She cleared her throat, started to speak twice and ended up bent over double, coughing dryly. I thought, “She has no more tears to wet her throat.” She turned on the night-light. The faint beam of light emphasised the rings around her wide, staring eyes and the scratches at the base of her chin.
“Where are you going?”
“I don’t know, but I can’t sit idly by any longer, waiting for someone to rape her, kill her and then dump her in the street somewhere!”
Contemptuous of both herself and me, she hurled, “Get up. No parent can breathe easily while their fourteen-year-old daughter is being murdered.”
She got dressed calmly, too calmly, while I watched her, unable to raise a single objection to this fundamental truth. She was right. Anything that happens to a child is its parents’ fault; for a child, God is above all mum and dad! I had been a child and I recalled my own unshakeable personal pantheon. Spitefully, I choked back a dry, convulsive sob.
Mathieu was already bustling around the living room. Latifa was on her knees, praying fervently. Meriem waited until the prayers were over to place a kiss on her mother’s head.
With ecstasy in her eyes, Latifa cried, “I’m sure He doesn’t know about this!”
“Who are you talking about mum?”
My mother-in-law clutched her daughter’s arm.
“God, for heaven’s sake! The Almighty doesn’t know about this because, honestly, He’d never have let something this cruel happen!”
As I sniggered silently at the paradox (“If He doesn’t know about this, then He isn’t God, stupid!”), I could see that Meriem was wondering about her mother’s mental state. She stroked the old woman’s hand, but refused to show any more emotion than that.
