The African Equation

by Yasmina Khadra

  I went back to my mat and curled up.

  Night arrived as abruptly as an uninvited guest, and then it was morning again. A static morning, empty and pointless. Bruno continued to hide under his mosquito net. I resented the way he had abandoned me to my solitude and the downward spiral that went with it. Having nobody to talk to any more, I feared that I too would sink into depression. There was no other way out in that kind of mental confinement. Sooner or later, you were bound to slump …

  And the endless waiting reducing my living space to an obsession … Oh, the waiting, the void that sucks us in! And the incessant flies! They emerged from out of nowhere, buzzing, unbearable, invincible; they were like all the ordeals we were going through put together. I’d push them away and they’d attack again, intrepid and stubborn, like hundreds of insane leitmotivs. It was as if they had replaced the air, as if they were born from the boredom itself, as if they were the expression of the desert’s measureless ignominy. They would survive erosion and apocalypse; they would still be there when everything else was gone.

  The minutes stretched like shooting pains, trying to tear me apart. There is no worse torture than waiting, especially when there is no certainty as to where it will lead. I had the impression I was fermenting. I couldn’t keep still. My bed was made of thorns. I no longer dared look through the window or go out in the yard. I was afraid of every moment, afraid it would reach out and scratch me. What did I actually think about? I haven’t the slightest idea. I don’t think I was even thinking. My brain worked only intermittently. My sense of touch had grown vague. I no longer felt things in the same way. Everything irritated me, everything bothered me. I was worried. My anxieties were too much for me. I couldn’t handle them. I was shooting off in all directions. Doubts had anaesthetised my faculties. It was as if I were looking through panes of frosted glass. And what I had dreaded happened: the great dizziness took hold of me so swiftly I had no chance to register what was happening. Vague memories hovered around me, appearing and disappearing in the gloom, like ethereal souls. I would reach out my hand to an image; it would wilt between my fingers and scatter into a multitude of spirals. It had started! Except that I had no idea where it would lead me. I was aware of every noise, of every second that passed, and at the same time I had no control over the way things developed. I was slipping surreptitiously into a parallel world. I saw everything and understood nothing. I knew Bruno wasn’t asleep, that he was only pretending; I knew I was finding it hard to regulate my breathing; I knew above all that, like a wandering spirit squatting in my body, the dizziness that had replaced me would lead me to the edge of an abyss and I would never find my way out again …

  The grille squeaked, and a figure came in and put a tray down on the floor. I stood up, went out for my ‘walk’ … A hand tried to stop me, but I shook it off. I crossed the yard, heading for the gap in the rampart that looked out over the valley, that valley that seemed a place of utter perdition … ‘The prisoner’s getting away!’ a guard cried. Someone worked the breech of a rifle; I sensed that I was in the line of fire, felt it on the back of my neck like a burn, and waited for the shot, which would be immediately followed by my flesh exploding; it would be sure to hurt, but I wouldn’t cry out … ‘The prisoner’s getting away!’ I also heard Bruno’s voice: ‘Don’t be a fool, come back!’ I was walking on shifting sands. The rampart was twenty metres away, ten metres … ‘Let him go,’ Joma ordered. ‘Get back to work, I’ll deal with him …’ I went through the gap, tumbled down a steep path, and walked straight ahead, across the valley. The burning stones spurred the soles of my shoes. I walked. Without turning round. The sun beat down, cascaded over my shoulders like lava. The sweat steamed on my face, blinding me. I walked, walked … The soles of my shoes were nothing but molten lead; there was not a single tree to give me shade. The mouth of hell was breathing into my throat, setting my lungs on fire, turning my head into a brazier; I started to sway, but didn’t stop. I tried to speed up, but my legs wouldn’t follow me; I felt as if I were pulling a rock. After a few kilometres, my last strength abandoned me. I was a shadow swept along by its own laboured breathing. A jeep came up behind me and drew level. All I could see was its bonnet bumping along on my right. When I stumbled, it overtook me by a length and had to slow down to be level with me again. Joma was at the wheel. ‘Where do you think you’re going?’ he said. ‘You aren’t in Trafalgar Square, you’re in the desert. There are no tempting shop windows around here, no street performers in the square, no pigeons to come and eat out of your hand …’ I dragged myself on, hallucinating, gasping for breath, but determined. ‘You’re not going anywhere, old man. In front of you, and behind you, there’s only madness and death. Sooner or later you’re going to pass out, and I’ll be forced to tie you to the back of the jeep and take you back to the starting post.’ Joma didn’t try to bar my way; he drove slowly by my side, amused and curious to see just how long I could stay upright.

  I didn’t know how long I’d been walking. I could no longer feel the ground beneath my feet. My skull was rattling. I felt like throwing up. My eyes were like a broken mirror, a kaleidoscope; in front of me, the valley fragmented before darkening and sinking into a sea of soot.

  I emerged from the fog, groped around me. Was I still alive? Thin filaments of light fell from the ceiling, revealing part of the place. I was confined in a space some two metres square, with a hatch above me perforated with lots of little air holes. My shoes, my trousers and my shirt had all been removed. I was stark naked and lying in my own vomit. I vaguely heard voices, sporadic noises which sounded over the thumping of my heart in amplified staccato. I tried to get up but not a single one of my muscles responded; my whole body was one horrendous pain.

  The heat was unbearable. Unable to sit up, I lay there on the floor, hoping to conserve the little energy I needed to hold on. Soon, the filaments of light faded; I no longer knew if it was night or if I had fainted.

  The hatch lit up and darkened again twice. Nobody came to see how I was. There was a ghastly taste of modelling clay in my mouth. I imagined nauseating food, and found myself chewing it. In the silence of my hole, the sound of my jaws was like that of two stones being rubbed together. I thought of my mother, saw her silhouette on the wall. She had close-cropped hair, which was not the way I remembered her, a face like a convict’s and a stoical look in her eyes. Smells from time immemorial came back to me: the smell of the soap my mother used to wash me; the smell of the maple syrup pancakes that I loved. Then the smell of my childhood was drowned out by others, the smells of analgesics and chloral hydrate and damp sheets and grim wards at the end of interminable corridors. Outside, the noises and the voices faded again with the holes in the hatch. I wanted to cry out, but I didn’t have enough breath to raise my voice, which stuck in my throat like a blood clot. I was hungry and thirsty … I caught a glimpse of Jessica’s smile. I think it was that smile that had once given me the strength to overcome my shyness. I had never been good at expressing my private emotions to the people I loved. My mother would have appreciated it; she had felt alone ever since, one evening after a big argument, my father had gone out to buy cigarettes and hadn’t come back. Maybe because my mother didn’t know how to smile. Otherwise, I would have told her of all the love I had for her. Just as I had managed to tell Jessica, in that lovely little restaurant in the fifteenth arrondissement in Paris called La Chaumière. We were sitting at a window table looking out at Avenue Félix Faure. Jessica was holding her translucent hands up to her cheeks. I found it hard to meet her intimidating gaze. We had only known each other for two days. It was the first time we had been alone together. She had finished her seminar that morning, and my conference was due to end the following day. I had left her a note at the hotel reception: I would be delighted if you would agree to have dinner with me. And she had. There are opportunities you don’t miss; if you don’t grab them, you can spend the rest of your life regretting them in vain. True luck only comes along once in a lifetime
; other pieces of good luck are merely combinations of circumstances. I don’t remember what we ate that evening. I was feasting on Jessica’s smile, which was better than any banquet. ‘Did you know I was going to accept your invitation?’ she had asked me. ‘I wouldn’t have dared leave you that note if I hadn’t,’ I had replied boldly. ‘Can you read thoughts, Dr Krausmann?’ ‘Only eyes, Fräulein Brodersen. Everything goes through the eyes.’ ‘And what do you see in my eyes, Dr Krausmann?’ ‘My happiness …’ At the time, I had found my declaration pathetically innocent and pretentious, but Jessica hadn’t laughed. I think she had appreciated it. Sincerity has no talent or refinement; and if it doesn’t have the elegance of flattery, it has at least the merit of its convictions. She put her hand on my wrist, and I immediately knew that Jessica was meant for me.

  It was night again. I recognised it by its silence. A wild, sleepless night, full of self-disgust, which fled at the first glimmer of dawn. I felt myself leaving with it, piece by piece, my body jolted by muscular contractions. My nerves had become blunted; the moorings that had held me were coming loose. How many days had I been kept in this pit? Hunger and thirst made my delirium a premonition: I was dying … A funnel was sucking me into a swirling aurora borealis. I passed through a succession of rings of fire at dizzying speed. ‘Wake up, Kurt,’ said a voice from beyond the grave. ‘I don’t want to wake up.’ ‘Why don’t you want to wake up, Kurt?’ ‘Because I’m having a dream.’ ‘And what are you dreaming about, Kurt?’ ‘I’m dreaming of a world where joys and sorrows are forbidden, where a stone doesn’t mind being trodden on because it can’t defend itself or move away; a world so deeply silent that prayers subside, and a night so gentle that the day does not dare dawn … I’m dreaming of a motionless journey in space and time where I am safe from anxiety, where no temptation has any effect on me; a world where God himself looks away so that I can sleep until time stops turning.’ ‘What is this motionless world, Kurt?’ ‘My eternal kingdom in which I will be earth and worm, then earth and earth, and then infinitesimal dust on the breath of nothingness.’ ‘That’s not yet a place for you, Kurt. Go back to your fears, they are better than this sidereal chill. And wake up, wake up now before it’s too late.’ I woke with a start, like a drowning man thrusting his head out of the water at the last moment. I was in Essen, the town where I was born. In short trousers. Buried in the skirts of my mother who was taking me to mass. We were walking together along a narrow, colourless street. The church stood out against a gloomy sky. Inside, it was freezing cold. The rough vaults weighed heavily on the shadows, making the place of meditation as cold as a refrigerator. The penitent sat on rustic pews, praying. The pastor was preaching a sermon. I couldn’t remember his face, but his voice was clear in my memory. I was only six – I couldn’t remember or understand what he was saying and yet his voice emerged from deep down in my subconscious with amazing clarity and precision: ‘It is true that we are insignificant. But in this perfect body which age breaks down as the seasons pass and which the smallest germ can lay low, there is a magical territory where it is possible for us to take our lives back. It is in this hidden place that our true strength lies; in other words, our faith in what we believe to be good for us. If we can only believe, we can overcome any disappointment. For nothing, no power, no fate can stop us lifting ourselves up and fulfilling ourselves if we truly believe in our dreams. Of course, we will be called upon to go through terrible trials, to fight titanic battles that could easily discourage us. But if we don’t surrender, if we continue to believe, we will overcome any obstacle. For we are worthy only of what we deserve, and our salvation draws its inspiration from this elementary logic: “When two opposing forces meet, the less motivated of the two will fail.” So if we want to accomplish what we set out to do, let us make sure that our beliefs are stronger than our doubts, stronger than adversity.’

  For a fraction of a second, the pastor’s face appeared to me, and Hans’s voice shook me like an electric shock: Stand firm. Every day is a miracle.

  The hatch was raised. I covered my eyes with my hands to shield them from the sudden light and waited to recover my sight. Slowly, the configuration of the stones became clearer, then that of the walls. Something fell to the ground and rolled between my legs. It was an orange. A soft, battered orange, not much bigger than a prune. I picked it up greedily – I was aware that my gesture wasn’t exactly decent, but I didn’t care – and bit into it as if biting into life. Without peeling it. Without wiping it. When I heard it tearing beneath my teeth, when the acidity of the very first squirt of juice hit my palate, when the taste reconciled me with my senses – for all at once I recovered taste and smell and hearing – I realised that I was intact. I closed my eyes to savour every morsel. I think I took a good ten minutes, maybe a little more, to slowly chew the orange, without swallowing anything, to make the pleasure last as long as possible: a pleasure that was exaggerated of course, but which, at that moment, had the violence of an orgasm. I chewed it into little pieces, turning each piece over and over several times on my tongue until I had transformed it into a spongy paste that I began sucking again with delight; I had the feeling I was tasting a fruit that was like no other. When all that was left of it in my mouth was the distant taste of bitter pulp, Joma’s laughter brought me abruptly down to earth.

  ‘Stand up in there! The convalescence is over. Get out of there, and be quick about it, you wimp.’

  Arms gathered me up, pulled me out of my hole, and dragged me across the burning ground. My clothes were thrown in my face and I was forced to get dressed. My lack of coordination made this latter operation an acrobatic feat. The sun burnt my eyes. I couldn’t tell my shirt from my trousers, and had to rely on my sense of touch. All the same, I somehow managed to put on my pants, and then my trousers. At the end of this bizarre gymnastic exercise, I presented myself to Joma, who, very proud of the state he had reduced me to, declared, ‘Now, Dr Krausmann, you have some small idea of what it means to be an African.’

  Bruno let out a curse when Joma threw me into the jail. I fell face down, my nose in the dust. Joma turned me over with his foot, bent over me like the angel of death gathering up a lost soul, grabbed me by my shirt collar, and finally let go of me, exhausted by his own abuses.

  Bruno was shocked. ‘I suppose you’re pleased with yourself, Sergeant-Major Joma.’

  Joma cracked his neck joints and retorted, ‘I never wear stripes or medals. I leave those accessories to clowns and veterans.’

  ‘Where do you think you are? Abu Ghraib?’

  ‘We can’t afford that kind of luxury hotel.’

  Bruno got up on his knees and cried, ‘You’re nothing but a monster.’

  ‘Thanks to you, Mr Civilised Westerner. We learnt everything from you people. And when it comes to such skills, I don’t think the pupil can ever surpass the master.’

  With a gesture of his head, he ordered his men to follow him outside.

  As soon as the door was closed, Bruno ran to me and lifted my head. From the distressed, incredulous way he looked at me, I realised what a sight I must be.

  ‘Good Lord, you look like a zombie.’

  He dragged me to my mat, wedged a cloth behind my back, and helped me to sit against the wall. I wanted to get up and walk about to relieve the aching of my stiff muscles, but I had all the energy of a dehydrated old slug. My bruised body didn’t have a single tendon that worked. Like someone who has been exorcised, I had the impression that the demonic entity that had possessed me was my own soul and that all that remained of me now was an empty shell.

  ‘Give me something to eat …’

  Bruno ran to fetch me a piece of meat. I tore it from his hands and bit into it with the feeling that I was fighting over every mouthful with my hunger, that my hunger and I were Siamese twins, that I was the mouth and it was the belly, that it was robbing me of the taste of flesh, and I was robbing it of the meat’s nutritional strength. Bruno had to calm me down. He advised me to go easy and ta
ke my time chewing. When I finished gnawing at the bone, he ran to fetch me a piece of bread and what remained of some gelatinous soup. I gulped them both down in one go.

  ‘Bloody hell, where have you been?’ sighed Bruno with pity.

  He handed me his flask. I knocked back the entire contents and immediately fell asleep.

  7

  Loud voices rang out in the yard. Bruno, who was standing by the door, motioned to me to come closer. Gathered in the doorway of the command post, the pirates were squabbling, all making a noise at the same time like farmyard animals, each one shouting louder than the others to make himself heard. Some were within an inch of coming to blows. On one side, there was Joma, who was trying to handle the situation, and Blackmoon, sitting on the steps, his hands on the handle of his sabre and his chin on his hands; on the other, the four remaining pirates, all in an excited state. The tallest, who was almost white-skinned, had a falsetto voice that cut through his comrades’ protests. He was waving his arms about in all directions, calling the sky, the fort, the barracks, the valley, to be his witnesses. I couldn’t understand what he was saying in his cabbalistic jargon. Bruno translated the most forceful statements for me: things were getting nasty, he said. A very thin man in a tracksuit tried to get a word in edgewise and was immediately taken to task by a boorish fellow with a talismanic necklace and a mouth big enough to gobble an ostrich egg. He was so furious that he was dribbling from the corners of his mouth. He stood up on tiptoe to dominate the others and pointed to a wing of the fort, a gesture that the thin man dismissed with his hand, provoking even more bedlam than before.