by Simon Pare
“Forgive him, Aziz. Tahar was good man, but his times were not.”
Aziz feels like lying down in an icy pit that would freeze all sensation inside him and banish the agitation of billions of suddenly freewheeling neurones: one finger, two fingers, three fingers… Rather than a thousand and one nights, his little Sheherazade has only the fingers of her two hands as an hourglass measuring the time she has left to live.
The father feels alone on earth. And then he corrects himself, full of self-contempt: it is his daughter who is alone on earth, prisoner of a different loneliness, the loneliness of a madman ruined by fifty years of sorrow.
If Shehera dies, Aziz would willingly kill the whole world. Like the village constable’s son. Then a little voice whispers to him: Well now, you’re making quick progress along the path of understanding – isn’t that precisely what the kidnapper wants you to do in memory of his child?
Aziz almost knocks the sugar dispenser over when the mobile phone rings next to him. Almost immediately there is a second, more smothered ring. Aziz forces himself not to look at Mathieu, who suddenly rummages in his pockets. The Algerian’s hand grips the small device just as it and Mathieu’s mobile, which he has pulled feverishly out of his jacket, both stop ringing.
“A message,” Mathieu says dully.
“A message,” repeats Aziz in a choked echo.
“Time passes, but my anger is like a mountain. Fear and obey,” the father reads out.
“Time passes, but my anger is like a mountain. Fear and obey,” Mathieu reads in turn.
“Why has he sent us the same message? Does he know we’re together?” Aziz asks, feeling his hair stand up on end in horror at the message’s almost Koranic solemnity.
“That’s what he suspects. He’s watching us. Maybe he even lives on the estate?”
“…and that now we both know what he requires us to do?”
Mathieu gets up, leaning heavily on the back of the chair nearest to him.
“It’s time, Aziz. I’m ready.”
“Time for what?” his interlocutor stammers in panic. “I’m not really going to ki…”
“You’ve already killed, so don’t make such a fuss about it.”
“But I didn’t know the other guy. And he was a shit too.”
“Oh yeah, because you know me, do you? Did you have the slightest idea about what I was like before today’s conversation? I’m a shit too, as well as being a rotten deserter who lost one country without gaining another. Even so, I’ve had my fair share of luck.”
Mathieu’s voice is almost jaunty. A smile flickers in his eyes.
“Tahar… Then Latifa… A wife who loves me after having loved the person who showed himself more brotherly to me than a brother… How many so-called decent people have enjoyed such blessings? After all the harm I caused, I admit I didn’t deserve it. But since when has justice ever shuffled the cards of life fairly? So if fate gives me a chance to pay back a part of what Tahar and Latifa have so generously offered me…”
The old man pats his companion softly on the shoulder.
“Your daughter is their granddaughter, a part of them. So it’s less difficult if…”
The figure crumples into an awkward, dislocated pose.
“Now get a move on, Aziz. I’m going on a bit; I’m scared. Help me to go through with it. Latifa mustn’t suspect anything. If I see her, all my courage will leak out of me like piss from a newborn baby. The great cowardice of love will be all I have left.”
While my father-in-law was conversing with me about his fear, I felt as jittery as if my own fear had turned into a vindictive mutt snapping at my calves. The stark reality colonised my mind and almost immediately darkened it – this man with the service record of a jackal was agreeing to die for my daughter and had made me responsible for executing him!
“Mathieu, I…”
“Let’s go before the women wake up.”
From the corridor we heard the sound of a muffled conversation coming from Shehera’s bedroom. Mathieu pushed me towards the front door of the flat.
“Don’t make a sound,” he whispered in my ear. “Or they’ll guess we’re up to something.”
We went down the stairs without exchanging a word, with him preceding me despite his laboured step. I felt like touching this strange individual on the shoulder and expressing both my anger and my gratitude. I didn’t dare.
We were just leaving the unusually deserted pavement in front of the block of flats when my phone rang again. I opened my mobile, my eyes surveying the innumerable openings in the estate’s peeling façades, some of which were still lit despite how late it was.
“Aziz, put it on loudspeaker so your father-in-law can hear.”
I jumped, before spinning round as if someone had tapped me on the back.
“Are you on the estate? Are you watching us?”
“You’ll have to answer your own question. How many buildings and windows are there in front of you? Then again, I might be sitting in a car or on a flying carpet (he burst out laughing) with a pair of binoculars. Have you put it on loudspeaker?”
“Yes,” I murmured. “Please, how is my daughter?”
The voice on the telephone snickered.
“You mean, is she still alive?”
I swallowed with difficulty while Mathieu strained to hear the loudspeaker.
“Yes.”
“Still – that’s the right word! Don’t worry, I still need her.”
“Have…”
I stopped, unable to ask my question.
“No, I haven’t… hmm…cut off anything else.”
The same mocking cackle escaped him.
“Not yet… Unless you and the old man choose not to obey me anymore. In which case…”
I interrupted him.
“We will obey you.”
“Then one of you must die before dawn. Work it out between yourselves, but only one of you will return to the flat alive. Otherwise the little girl will feel the full force of my anger.”
“We’ll work it out.”
I had the impression that I’d been thrown back to ancient times and was speaking to a man-eating divinity demanding a human sacrifice. I felt like prostrating myself on the pavement and begging at the top of my voice for mercy from this evil, fantastical god making his mad utterances over a mobile telephone.
“Listen, we’ll do whatever you ask, but will you release the girl?”
“Huh, is that old Mathieu prattling on? Are you ready for the great leap into the unknown, you little shitbag?”
Mathieu took the mobile from my hand. Lit by the feeble light of a functioning streetlamp, his face appeared waxy and incapable of expressing the slightest emotion.
“I think I know who you are…”
“Oh really? So the old fart’s suddenly become clever overnight, has he? And who do you reckon I am?”
“Melouza…”
A silence followed, such a long silence that I grabbed the telephone from Mathieu’s hands and stuck it to my ear to check that the line hadn’t been cut off. The kidnapper was still there; his breathing was still audible despite the crackling.
“Check out the turd the beast has just deposited!” the stranger resumed. “But it doesn’t really matter who I am now. What does matter, hmm, hmm, is that I’m the one who decides.”
“Why do you want to take revenge on the girl? She hasn’t done anything to you, has she? Her grandfather died long ago…”
A scream saturated the loudspeaker.
“Don’t interrupt me, motherfucker! Another word out of you two and you’ll hear the little whore squeal. You are only here to obey, and that’s all. Understood?”
“Understood,” I articulated, then bit my lip. Mathieu stood there motionless, his face blank. Already dead, I thought fleetingly.
“Don’t even think about looking for me on the estate. The slightest doubt and I’ll cut the girl to ribbons. I’ve got a whole set of knives, some of which, alas, are not very
sharp. The knife-grinder doesn’t come round here that often, you see…”
He lowered his voice, ‘compacting’ it as if he himself feared that he might start shouting.
“I’m going to tell you a secret: I’m not scared of dying. Quite the opposite. I’m old now. It’s exhausting; life ends up like a canker in the middle of your arse – whether you scratch it or not, it just makes things worse, right up until the day when you shit your insides out through your own arsehole as you scream with pain. So, if you really push me by acting smart, you’ll find out how I long for death!”
I nodded hurriedly in a sign of submission, as if he could see me through the mobile phone. But the fucker really could see me – with the omniscience of God and his little pal, the devil!
“Only one of you has the right to live, the other will have to die before morning. And I want irrefutable proof, my lambs! I’ll call you later.”
I shut the lid of my phone, avoiding looking Mathieu in the eye. My father-in-law touched me on the shoulder.
“Let’s go to my car, please.”
We got into his car, which was parked in a dark corner out of sight of any binoculars the kidnapper might have. I couldn’t open my mouth for fear that I might puke up my guts and my bile.
“Here you go.”
Mathieu thrust the pistol wrapped in the large handkerchief into my hands. I dropped it in surprise. The object fell at my feet.
“Hide it,” my father-in-law ordered. “Take your car and follow me at a fair distance. We’ll finish off this… chore a few miles away, in a field or something like that. Then you’ll go home without arousing any suspicions.”
Mathieu’s voice reached me in distorted form, as though I was at the bottom of a lake where sound had changed speed and consistency. I didn’t understand the rest of what he said. He gave me a furious thump.
“Do you hear me, Aziz? Now is not the time to waver.”
I turned my head slowly towards the driver.
“Do I… really have to shoot you?”
“There’s no other solution.”
I walked over to my car in a fog of unfinished emotions. We drove along the motorway, one behind the other, until Mathieu decided on an exit leading to an orchard.
We parked behind the orange trees. The old man hurried over to meet me. He asked me for the pistol and cocked it before handing it back.
“Aim at my head. Now, without thinking… And then take a photo… Good luck with your daughter.”
In the moonlight I saw the wrinkled face and the fine white hair. The frail torso was bent forwards in readiness for the impact of the bullet. Mathieu moaned timidly, with a grimace that might have been a smile.
“Son, my Algerian war is well and truly over this time. And none too soon, believe me.”
I stretched out my arm. A slight breeze set the leaves of the fruit trees swaying. A heartrending fragrance of ordinary happiness tickled my nostrils. I took a deep breath, thinking of my daughter. I started to pull the trigger. We looked at each other. The future dead man’s face had tensed, eyes popping. I fired.
There was no report. I glanced at my index finger, which had refused to move, and at Mathieu who had raised his elbow in a final attempt to shield himself.
My arm fell back to my side.
“I can’t, Mathieu. I’m too much of a coward.”
His throat hoarse and a little angry, Mathieu retorted, “It doesn’t matter. I understand. But it doesn’t make things any easier. If you start to feel pity, then your daughter is shafted.”
Running a weary hand through his hair, he sighed before waving me towards my car in a dismissive gesture as though I were a valet who couldn’t be trusted.
“Go back home. Keep the pistol – you might need it against that nutter.”
“And you?”
“I’ll deal with the rest… and the evidence.”
I got into my car, weighed down by shame and despair. Just as I was moving the gear stick, Mathieu tapped on the window. I leaned towards him. I would have liked to say one last word to him, that I was sorry that circumstances hadn’t allowed us to get to know each other better and to become – who knows – friends. I kept quiet, since such words no longer meant anything after the scene with the pistol. Stiffly, his face closed, Mathieu said, “Try to watch over your family.”
Then, his voice trailing gently away: “Watch over Latifa. She’s part of your family too. Promise me that.”
I got back to my flat, fighting off my relief at the thought that someone else was about to pay the price for my daughter’s life. Meriem and Latifa were waiting for me on the landing. Holding her phone in one hand, my mother-in-law called to me bitterly, “Where’s Mathieu?”
“I don’t know. I walked with him to his car. He couldn’t stand the tension, so he’s gone for a little drive.”
“A drive? In the middle of the night? It’s after three in the morning! How stupid is that? And why isn’t he answering his phone?”
While trying to calm her mother down, Meriem cast an inquisitorial glance at me. Her exhausted face creased with worry; she obviously knew that her husband was lying to her.
“Why didn’t you let us know beforehand? Things are bad enough without whims like this. Have you had any news about Shehera? Has he rung?”
She tapped on her mother’s arm as if she were calming a small child, studying me unkindly all the while. I felt myself turn pale as I explained that neither Mathieu nor I had thought it worth waking them.
“Mathieu would never have gone off without telling me!” Latifa protested. “Especially as late as this! What are you hiding from us, Aziz?”
Then, her voice going up in pitch: “Something’s happened to him, hasn’t it? Did he take his heart tablets at least?”
“I…”
My telephone rang. We glanced at each other, suddenly silent, once again reduced to our condition of boundlessly terrified beings.
“Answer it,” Meriem whispered in a voice I didn’t recognise.
She sucked her lips against her teeth. I felt like begging her not to clench them so hard, for I could see her teeth’s imprint on the flesh of her lips. As I took the accursed device out of my pocket, I mused that the devil no longer had to have recourse to the services of messenger demons, as he did in ancient legends. A simple, bottom-of-the-range mobile was more efficient.
“It’s me – Mathieu.”
“Who? I thought…”
“It’s really me (my interlocutor was talking in a low voice). Be quiet and listen: nothing has changed for the time being. But we need some proof for… For you too, by the way. I mean: you need an alibi. Pass me Latifa.”
I obeyed automatically; my brain span in search of a rational explanation and then just crashed like an ordinary computer overwhelmed by a programme. My mother-in-law’s physical transformation was miraculous. Behind the withering of old age, I caught a glimpse of the pretty young girl she must have been whenever a smile lit up her face.
“Is that you, Mathieu? I was so scared…”
She gave a little nervous laugh.
“You love me? I know you love me… But why are you telling me at three in the morning? Come on, come home quick. You know it’s dangerous for a Frenchman to be out and about in Algiers in the middle of the night…”
A furrow between her eyes like an exclamation mark joined the smile that still had not left her lips.
“You’re so odd, Mathieu… You don’t feel well? Don’t hang about on your way home, OK? We need you here… No, no news about the little one… Your heart isn’t hurting you? OK, I won’t worry… But you’ve never told me you loved me over the phone before… All right, all right, don’t get impatient, I’ll pass you Aziz… But why are you saying you love me again?”
The exclamation mark on her brow was now a gash. I sensed that my mother-in-law was trying hard to ignore the alarm signals sent by her intuition. Ashen-faced, her smile transformed into a snarl, she turned to her daughter to beg her for suppo
rt. But her daughter was staring obstinately at me. The old woman stood there with her arms hanging by her sides, shrivelling up before my eyes with the shock of her discovery: it was no longer one but two fears that had sunk their claws into her, and neither her heart nor her head knew which to combat first.
“Is that you, Aziz?”
“Yes.”
“There’s no one listening?”
I raised my bleary eyes to the two women.
“No.”
“The kidnapper rang me just after you left… To make up for the change of plan, he demanded that… it all takes place in front of him… Well, on the estate… at about six or seven in the morning, so…”
“Yes?”
“When there are people around… Otherwise he’ll dump Shehera’s body outside your block of flats.”
Caught in Meriem’s suspicious gaze, I found nothing to say apart from a fake-sounding Oh? accompanied by a feeling like I was vomiting inside.
“Our chap intends to have some fun. He says I fully deserve my fate; I shouldn’t have saved people who didn’t deserve to be… See, he admits it… without admitting it. He swore that he’s hiding so close by that he could count the hairs on our arses if it took his fancy.”
He broke off, overwhelmed by dejection rendered all the more terrible by the obscenity of these last words.
“He’ll tell me the objective in the next hour or two. In the meantime I’ve got to stay in my car… There’s definitely a method to this bastard’s thinking – if you can call it thinking!”
“And what is it, erm… do you think?”
“The objective? I don’t know. He repeated several times that everyone has to pay.”
My father-in-law let out a strange chuckle.
“I’ll soon find out what lies beyond the rainbow.”
“What?”
He adopted a more sententious tone of voice.
“It’s a nice day to die…”
The mobile resonated with the beginnings of a timid laugh that was so unexpectedly light-hearted that I felt a sob throbbing inside my chest.
A question almost slipped out of my mouth: What’s up with you, you old cretin? Been drinking? His breathing died away, rattled by another couple of bursts of that disconcerting laughter.
