The African Equation

by Yasmina Khadra

  Find an echo in you.

  Africa, my Africa

  You have put death in one of my hands

  And wrongdoing in the other

  And you have stolen my masters,

  My saints, prophets and apostles

  Leaving me only my eyes

  To weep over the insult

  Your children inflict on you

  Every day that God makes.

  What will become of me

  In the shadow of your ravens?

  What can I hope

  When I can no longer dream?

  Perhaps to end up

  Where everything began

  Between a tombstone

  And a cancelled vow.

  ‘Incredible, isn’t it?’

  I shrugged my shoulders.

  Bruno put the book down, rummaged in the satchel, and pulled out a wedding photograph. It showed a party taking place on a large patio hung with Chinese lanterns. Surrounded by tipsy guests, Joma posed solemnly beside his bride. Curiously, even though for two days and two nights I had been trying to shake off the crime I had committed, I found myself wanting to know a little more about my victim. Deep inside, I knew the idea was senseless, but driven by a morbid curiosity, like a murderer returning to the scene of his crime, I took the photograph from Bruno. The low quality of the image made it hard to distinguish much about Joma, who was barely recognisable among the guests. We then turned to a number of articles cut out of a poorly produced local newspaper. The texts were full of misprints; all of them praised in fulsome style ‘the force of an exceptional poet’. A somewhat more sober article included an interview in which Joma told how he had gone from being a penniless village tailor to becoming a bard. In the same interview, he expressed the opinion that ‘with the Word we can overcome adversity’. In another cutting, there was a photograph, stuck between a crossword puzzle and a game of spot the difference, showing Joma receiving a trophy from the hands of an African lady in traditional costume, with a few lines by way of caption relating the ceremony. Next, we came across a small item reporting a bomb attack which had left two children wounded and a woman dead, the woman being ‘the young wife of the poet Joma Baba-Sy who received the Léopold Senghor Prize two weeks ago’. This last sentence was underlined in red. The article had been carefully preserved in a plastic wallet.

  ‘Life is strange,’ Bruno sighed, putting things back in the satchel.

  I went to look for my clothes.

  We loaded up the pick-up. Bruno wasn’t too keen on resuming the journey. He looked at the drinking trough, the marabout tree, the offerings hanging from the branches, the tranquillity of the place, and suggested we spend the night here, arguing that since it was a sacred site, there was no risk of being attacked and that with a little bit of luck someone might turn up. The dromedary droppings weren’t fresh, but the well looked as if it was often used. I would have been happy to agree to his suggestion, and was about to do so when we heard a whistling sound. ‘What’s that?’ I asked. Bruno frowned. A quick glance around revealed nothing suspicious. Immediately, there was a swirl of dust close to us, followed by another soon after. Bruno shoved me inside the cab, started the engine, engaged the gear stick and set off at top speed. The pickup’s rear window exploded. ‘Get down!’ Bruno screamed at me as he accelerated. There was a sharp noise, and the windscreen cracked into a spider’s web pattern. Somebody was shooting at us! The pick-up wove in and out among the stones and the wild grass to avoid the bullets, leapfrogged on the uneven track, jumped several metres into the air, before falling again in a din of mistreated metal. The engine was being pushed to its limit. In our wild flight, we crashed straight into something; the pick-up skidded, almost overturned, but somehow righted itself. The impact had been unusually violent, and my head had hit the ceiling light. Now I clung to my seat and the dashboard. After a dizzying race, Bruno realised that the steering was going awry. A strange noise, like the grinding of defective gears, was coming from the right-hand side of the bonnet and getting louder with every bend. Stopping was out of the question. We had to get out of the sniper’s range as quickly as possible. A few kilometres further on, the vehicle became uncontrollable. The wheel that had been hit was becoming gradually looser, making it virtually impossible to steer. Bruno parked on the side of the track to assess the damage. He peered under the bonnet while I kept a lookout, my legs trembling and my heart pounding fit to burst. Apart from the dust that was settling in our wake, there was no threat in sight. Bruno joined me. His downcast expression told me that the damage was catastrophic. He informed me that the ball joint and the shock absorber had taken a major hit and that the shaft drive wouldn’t last much longer. Not having the right tools or any spare parts to do an emergency repair, we got back in the cab and set off again, very slowly, and very aware of how much the vehicle was swaying. Bruno drove extremely cautiously, concentrating on the road, dodging the stones and ruts as if he were carrying nitroglycerine. Sweat dripped from his chin. We managed to cross a river bed but when we reached the opposite embankment the vehicle suddenly tipped forward and stopped. There was nothing more we could do. The shaft drive had broken and the wheel had come away from its stump … We were stuck.

  Cursing, I climbed a hillock. When I reached the top, my heart almost failed: in front of us stretched the same labyrinth that had been driving us mad for days. My legs gave way and I fell to the ground. My elbows planted on my knees, my face in my hands, I looked left and right, and saw nothing but perdition. Something told me that the desert was aware of our desperate state and that when it had squeezed the last drop out of us, it would close its fist over us and reduce us to dust which the winds would then disperse among the mirages.

  ‘What are you looking at?’ Bruno asked, flopping to the ground beside me.

  I pointed to the dereliction around us. ‘I’m looking at the loneliest place on earth.’

  ‘There are two of us,’ he said. ‘And we’re still alive. All is not lost. We just have to take the drama out of the situation.’

  ‘I don’t have the formula for doing that.’

  ‘The formula is in here,’ he said, tapping with his finger on my temple.

  His gesture annoyed me.

  Bruno let his gaze wander over the rocky ridges in the distance, then picked up a stone and weighed it in his hand. ‘Have you ever been face-to-face with your own death, Monsieur Krausmann?’

  I didn’t reply, considering the question ridiculous and inappropriate.

  ‘The loneliest place on earth,’ he went on, ‘is when you’re facing a firing squad. You don’t know what it’s like. It’s then that you realise how long eternity lasts. It lasts the space of time between two commands: “Aim!” and “Fire!” What came before and what will come after don’t matter.’

  ‘You’re not going to tell me that happened to you.’

  ‘But it did. I was twenty-four. With a rucksack on my back and a compass in my hand, I thought I was Monod. I’d crossed the Tassili, the Hoggar, the Tanezrouft, the Ténéré. Not even Rimbaud travelled as much as I did. It was a wonderful time. Nothing like the mess things are in now.’

  He put the stone down and let his memories flood back.

  ‘What happened?’

  He smiled and opened his eyes wide. ‘A military patrol picked me up on the shores of Lake Chad. The sergeant immediately accused me of spying. That’s the mindset around here. If you aren’t a hostage, you’re either a mercenary or a spy. After some pretty rough questioning, I was court-martialled and sentenced to death the same day I was arrested. The trial was held in the refectory, surrounded by soldiers having their meal and the clatter of knives and forks. The judges were a sergeant and two corporals. I found the procedure a bit hasty and the solemnity of the court somewhat grotesque, but I was young, and in Africa the grotesque is commonplace.’

  He started tracing little circles in the sand with a distracted finger. His face became blank.

  ‘They came for me early in the morning.
They had to drag me because I couldn’t stay upright. I wanted to scream, to struggle, but I just couldn’t react. I was shaking like a leaf when they tied me to the post. It was only when I finally looked up and saw the firing squad that I realised how alone I was in the world. The whole universe had been reduced to the barrel of a rifle. The horror of it! My blood was beating louder than war drums in my temples. And it was so silent in that shooting gallery you could have heard a match being struck anywhere for miles around …’

  ‘I can imagine.’

  ‘You can’t. It’s beyond imagination. When the sergeant cried, “Take aim!” I ejaculated. Without an erection. And when he cried “Fire!” I shit myself. I didn’t hear the shots, but I really felt the bullets go through me, pulverising my ribcage, bursting open my innards. I collapsed in slow motion. I think it took me an eternity to reach the ground. I lay there in the dust, shattered, looking up at the pale sky. I didn’t feel any pain. It was as if I was gently drifting away like a puff of smoke. And just as I was about to give up the ghost, the sergeant burst out laughing. Then the firing squad also started laughing. Next, the rest of the platoon came out from behind the embankment, splitting their sides and slapping their thighs … The sergeant helped me to my feet. He told me he’d never laughed so much in his life.’

  ‘It was a fake execution.’

  ‘That’s right, a fake execution! Just a bit of fun for soldiers stuck in the middle of nowhere with nothing to do and bored out of their minds. “No hard feelings,” the sergeant said, patting me on the back. He gave me a packet of smuggled cigarettes by way of compensation and a kick up the backside to make sure I got out of his sight as quickly as possible …’

  ‘I hope you took legal action.’

  ‘Oh, of course,’ he said, ironically, getting to his feet. ‘Let’s go!’

  ‘No way.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘I’m not moving from here. I don’t know where we are and I’m fed up with it. You can go if you like. But I’m staying here until fate has pity on me. One way or another.’

  My decision was stupid, but I stood by it. What I said, I felt and demanded. I was at the end of my tether. It was like being on the edge of a precipice; in front was only the abyss, a sheer drop and the dreadful feeling that I was giving up. What mattered and what didn’t? The neurotic search for an unlikely salvation, or renunciation? I could no longer stand blaming myself. Bruno understood that I was going through a bad patch and was in no mood to be dissuaded. He didn’t insist, but went back to the pick-up to sort through the bags. He filled the two rucksacks with the bare essentials, placed them on a clump of grass along with the two canteens of drinking water and the automatic rifle, crouched in the shade of a shrub and took his head in both hands.

  Evening found us still in our separate spaces: I at my improvised lookout post watching the sun bleed itself dry, Bruno leaning back against his shrub. When the darkness reached my thoughts, I went back to the pickup, grabbed the jerry cans, poured petrol over the vehicle, struck a match and threw it on the bodywork. A swift flame spread through the cab and surged over the bonnet. Bruno shook his head sadly. He thought I’d gone mad. I hadn’t gone mad. I was aware how stupid my gesture must seem, but it was an act I’d thought through: I wanted to attract someone’s attention to us, and I didn’t care if that someone was a nomad or a bandit. I wasn’t afraid of being taken hostage again; the only thing I knew for sure was that I had no desire to wander in that damned desert until I died of thirst and exhaustion; I refused to end up a heap of anonymous bones surrounded by the carcasses of long-dead animals polished clean by successive sandstorms.

  Day dawned. All that was left of the pick-up was a heap of charred, smoking scrap iron licked in places by the odd flickering flame. We hadn’t slept a wink, on the alert for a figure or a shadow or a noise. Nobody had come, no military patrol, no marauding gang, no camel driver, no djinn. Bruno asked me if I was pleased with my little performance and if I had recovered enough to follow him. I put one of the rucksacks on my back, draped a canteen across my shoulder and set off after him.

  *

  We walked all morning in the fierce sun, spent the afternoon in the shade of a rock, and in the evening resumed our trek until late in the night. When I took off my shoes, scraps of skin remained stuck to them. I slept until midday.

  After two days of wandering, we collapsed in the middle of a stretch of scrub. We had used up half our reserves of water and our blistered shoulders could no longer bear any load. Bruno, who seemed to be holding out better than I was, suggested that I let him go off on his own to look for help. The state of my feet had slowed our progress, and the blisters were likely to become infected if left untreated. I promised him I’d be much better after a good night’s sleep.

  We had dinner and sank into the arms of Morpheus without even realising it.

  A baby was crying as day dawned. I thought I was dreaming, but Bruno had heard it too. He was sitting up, eyes wide, trying to see where the wailing was coming from. He put a finger to his lips, ordering me to keep quiet, and grabbed his rifle. The crying was coming from a thalweg. We walked around a low wall of undergrowth and slid along a slope, unleashing tiny avalanches of stones as we passed. A woman was crouching in a copse, cradling a baby that lay snuggled against her chest. Suddenly, she turned and saw us just above her. At the sight of the rifle, she hugged her child so tightly to her she could easily have suffocated it. Bruno made a gesture with his hand to reassure her, but she was so terrified by the weapon she didn’t even see it. He said something to her in a local language. She didn’t seem to understand. I told Bruno to lower his rifle. At that moment, ragged, ghostlike figures began appearing. Within a few minutes, we were surrounded by about forty women, children and men who had been sleeping in the long grass; our intrusion had woken them and, one after the other, they emerged from their hiding place, unsure whether they should surrender or run. Bruno put his rifle down on the ground and raised his arm in a gesture of appeasement. ‘We don’t wish you any harm,’ he said. They stared at us, more concerned by our physical degradation than by the weapon on the ground. Taking us for devils, the children hid behind their mothers’ ragged skirts. There was a movement at the back of the group, and they stood aside to let a white woman through. She was a sturdy woman in her fifties, as blonde as a haystack, and it was as if providence, with a click of its fingers, had restored my people to me. I would gladly have thrown myself into her arms if it hadn’t been for the fact that the expression on her face was one of suspicion and hostility.

  ‘Who are you?’ she asked in English, with a strong Scandinavian accent. ‘And what do you want with us?’

  ‘We’re lost,’ Bruno said. ‘We’ve been drifting across the desert for days now.’

  ‘If that’s the case, why are you armed?’

  ‘We were taken hostage, and we escaped. We have no idea where we are and we don’t know where to go.’ He held out his hand and let it hang in mid-air. ‘My name’s Bruno, I’m an anthropologist, and this is Dr Krausmann.’

  The woman looked us up and down, then said through clenched teeth, ‘Lotta Pedersen, gynaecologist.’

  She told her companions to go back to their places and motioned with her head for us to follow her. She led us over to where another, younger white woman was sleeping beneath a vault of branches. This woman, who seemed to be in charge of the group, greeted us with a degree of respect. ‘I’m Dr Elena Juárez,’ she said, shaking our hands. Three Africans joined us, two of them in white coats with red crosses on the breast pockets. She introduced them. The youngest was Dr Orfane. He was slim and rather handsome; his tin-framed glasses made him look like a matinee idol. The other two, Omar and Samuel, both in their early thirties, were nurses.

  Bruno briefly told them about our captivity, and about the way we had evaded our kidnappers before our stolen pick-up gave out on us. He omitted the tragic episode of Joma. In her turn, Dr Elena Juárez told us how, while her group was conduc
ting a vaccination campaign, she had found herself at the head of an army of refugees. Having dropped Lotta Pedersen and Dr Orfane in a tribal village, she had left with the two male nurses to make a list of the patients in a neighbouring hamlet. On the way, their Land Rover had been put out of action by an antipersonnel mine. Then they had been pursued by armed men across the scrub and only owed their salvation to the fact that night had fallen and their driver, Jibreel, had such a good sense of direction. When they got back to the tribal village, they had found the families in a state of shock. A rebel attack was believed imminent. They had to leave quickly. So it was that the medical group now found itself, after almost a week on the road, stuck with forty fugitives. I asked Dr Juárez if they at least knew where they were going; she assured me that the group had an excellent guide, in the person of the driver, and that in three or four days, barring any unforeseen incidents, they would reach their camp, a reception centre run by the Red Cross.

  ‘There were twenty-eight of us at first,’ Dr Juárez said. ‘Other fleeing families have joined us on the way. Unfortunately, two old women died of exhaustion yesterday.’

  A man whose eyes had rolled back jumped out in front of us. He was wearing a city suit that had seen better days, the jacket open to reveal a bare, hollow stomach. Wagging his finger, he called heaven to be his witness and declaimed in a sepulchral voice, ‘They came at dawn. They burnt down our huts, killed our goats, our donkeys and our dogs, then rounded us up in the square and started killing us, the fathers in front of their children, the babies in their mothers’ arms. If the devil had been there that day, he would have taken to his heels.’

  ‘It’s all right, Mr Obeid,’ Dr Juárez said, signalling to one of the nurses.

  The nurse took the man to one side, put an arm around his shoulders and walked him away, talking to him softly. Dr Juárez explained that the man was a teacher, the only survivor of a massacre that had wiped out his family, and that he intoned his complaint from morning to night, blaming the shrubs and the stones.