Europa Editions
214 West 29th St., Suite 1003
New York NY 10001
[email protected]
www.europaeditions.com
This book is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people, or real locales are used fictitiously.
Copyright © 2014 by Editions Albin Michel, Paris
First publication 2015 by Europa Editions
Translation by Alison Anderson
Original Title: Le Colonel et l’appât 455
Translation copyright © 2015 by Europa Editions
All rights reserved, including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form.
Cover Art by Emanuele Ragnisco
www.mekkanografici.com
ISBN 9781609453169
Fariba Hachtroudi
THE MAN WHO SNAPPED
HIS FINGERS
Translated from the Italian
by Alison Anderson
To you, my Del
I didn’t sleep a wink all night. A sleepless night in a pale, wakeful sleepwalker of a city. The country has been covered in snow for three months. The sun hasn’t gone down in four months. It floods the expanse of crystallized ice. Diamonds for cutting throats. I loathe this mass of ice with its blinding clarity, its unhealthy reverberations.
It is six o’clock in the morning. I leave the center and take the train at six-thirty. A heavy mist smothers the desolate horizon of this rotten suburb. A lunar landscape, fraying as far as the capital. The fog calms me, penetrates me, engulfs my being. I become blurred, I merge with my surroundings. This suits me perfectly. I can no longer stand clarity. Precision frightens me. Definite outlines oppress me. I vacillate, stagger. Even when I’m sitting down. It’s intoxicating.
The central station is deserted. At eight-thirty I arrive outside the closed doors of the Office for Refugees and Stateless Persons. The building is a fifteen-storey skyscraper, a beehive. With hundreds of little offices. The office for asylum seekers and stateless persons is on the sixth floor. The one where I have an appointment is located on the left in a long corridor. I know my way by heart. I could get there with my eyes closed, walking backwards. You go in through a creaking sliding door. There is a Formica table on the right as you come in with three chairs, including the one for the presiding official. The only one with an adjustable back. If I were clever with a pencil, I could draw the dog-eared map that is taped to the wall on one side, the worn-out coat rack, the plastic cups, the half-filled bottle of water, the files—including my own—piled on the table. This office is actually an interrogation room that does not say its name. Prison, cell, cage, solitary, I know all that.
Killing time. Half an hour until the doors open. I’m stamping my feet to keep warm, chanting your name. Vima, Vima, Vima. I miss you, Vima. Yes, more than our little Urania. More than our fine son. Not as little as all that, Urania? A regular young lady, you tell me? Sixteen years old, already. And as pretty as a picture? I don’t doubt that. But not as pretty as you. She will never be as pretty as you. Sixteen years old! I’ve been gone for five years? I can hardly believe it. How have I managed. So far from you. From the warmth of your body. I dream of it day and night. Your breasts. Your hips. The small of your back. What did you say? The boy is a full head taller than you! Already a man. Your little man, since my escape? He had better look after you the way I did, better than I did. Otherwise—watch out. Tell me instead about yourself . . . About yourself, my joy and my pain. I miss you more than I miss them. Why shouldn’t I say as much? Since it’s the truth. I promised you I would never lie again. You remember, don’t you? You made me swear on the heads of our children. Lying is our calamity, you said. The country is sick with it. You said, Those damned tricksters with their muddled brains have abused us, they’re monsters. And you added, Their deception has turned you into an assassin. Don’t you remember? You were right. An assassin . . . In spite of myself. I was a murderer, blessed by the Supreme Commander, and saved by you. It’s true. I was like them, for years I lied to you. When you found out that I hadn’t really resigned from the Army. That I wasn’t really a businessman. That everything was hypocrisy and counter-truths, you exploded. You leave them for good or I’ll leave you, you said. You despised me, you were horrified that I was working for the country’s prisons, the most terrifying on earth. I tried to explain to you. That I had no choice. That you don’t question the orders of the Supreme Commander. That you can’t say no to him, ever. It’s a lifelong privilege, where your life is at stake. They tell you as much already on the first day. To belong to the faithful, to be admitted among the holy of holies, is a profession of faith. You no longer belong to yourself. That’s the ultimate, irreversible prerogative. A commitment you make on your own. What did you expect? That I would unveil the secrets of the Circle? And sign your death warrant at the same time? No, I kept my mouth shut the way I should. I told you, The less you know, the better. Your safety depends on it. Yours, and the children’s. And then you looked at that damn CD. And you found out. It changed our life. I begged you to listen to me, in spite of my lies. Or, rather, because of my lies. I begged you to understand me. To give me some time. I told you, I have to make myself scarce if I want to get away from those murderers. I have to go far away. Beyond reach. Otherwise they’ll kill me. All the more reason, get out of here right now, you replied. Do you realize, you were telling me to get out. You were driving me away, without a regret. You gave me that dark look, your lips pursed. I had never seen you like that. I would never have dreamt you could be so determined. Leave. Go away. Flee. To freedom. Cleanse yourself of all this filth. And then I’ll come and join you . . . Maybe. Otherwise I’ll leave you. I don’t want my children to have a murderer for a father. Dear lord. You were ditching me. When I think about it. You were threatening a Colonel from the Circle. A guy who could cause both the meek and the mighty to shit in their pants! A high-ranking officer from the Army of the Theological Republic—and you had him on his knees. A member of the Supreme Commander’s inner circle.
The Commander with the silver beard, whom I loved like a father, at the beginning of my career. Why did he choose me from among so many others? Why did he take me under his wing? Why did he want me by his side? I’m an ace when it comes to the latest technology and I’m a crack shot. And he is the most despised of men, surrounded by enemies. Tough men, who dream of getting rid of him. He knew this. He could tell. He admitted as much, one week before I ran away. The paranoia of the tyrant? Go figure.
I went to meet him in the little salon where he receives his loyal followers. A great honor. His eyes were shining with a strange fire. His gaze wandered, drifted, and vanished inside him with constant regularity. Never landing anywhere. The gaze of someone who is alienated, a terrible gaze, suddenly gentle in absence. He asked me to come closer, while he combed his beard with an index finger as stiff as a piece of wood. He spoke through his nose, in a scarcely audible whisper, as if he were afraid of indiscreet listeners: As soon as you finish with the prisons I will appoint you head of my personal guard. I was petrified. I would much rather go on slaving away in the country’s prisons. But how to admit it? I protested. Vehemently. I stood up to him. It’s impossible. I can’t accept it, My Lord. I am not worthy of it. I do not have the necessary experience nor the strength of character required by this honor, which I in no way deserve. He smiled. Magnanimous. Asked me if I intended to disobey him. No. Of course not. I stammered, Far be it from me, the thought of such an affront. I begged him not to overestimate me. I preferred to remain one of his humble servants. At a loss for arguments, I began to weep. Sobbing my heart out . . . I was trembling. I was weeping, to
hide my panic. To think I had confronted enemy tanks and bombs without flinching. He placed his fingers, curled like hooks, around my head and whispered, You have my absolute trust, my boy. Your tears are an offering I gladly accept. This madman believed I was weeping tears of love. Indeed, who would dare to weep in his presence for any other reason? His claws, screwing my skull on my neck, unscrewing it, bending my neck. I let myself go on his shoulder and burst into sobs. Tears of helplessness. A raging tide of tears, and His Holiness was upset. Now he began to snivel in turn. The madman was consoling me. Caressing my cheek, whispering in my ear, I no longer trust the people around me. You will be my protector.
It beggared belief. Grotesque. He was placing his trust in me. I had the trust of the most powerful man in the country and I was going to run away. To go over to the other side. I was weeping like a mental retard when I could have killed him. Snapped his neck, just like that, in a fraction of a second. If you had been safe, you and the children, I would surely have done just that. I would have been a hero. The savior of the nation. The man who had rid the country of the vile Supreme Commander.
I’m going to let you in on a secret. It was not because of your threats that I ran away. I would never have let you get away with them. You couldn’t leave me. I would have killed you first before taking my own life. No, I ran away to hide my weakness from them, my Achilles’ heel. Maybe you don’t know Achilles? A mate from Russia, a fugitive like me, half hoodlum half poet, told me the story of Achilles. A magnificent story. I’ll tell it to you when you come. What was I saying? Yes, my weakness, my absolute love for you was going to destroy us sooner or later. Because of you I was in their sights, already in my early years in the Army, long before my meteoric rise. Our commander in chief, the terror of the subordinate officers, didn’t like women who went where they pleased. Women had to stay at home. The wives of his subordinates in particular. A wife who was at university had no business with a guy from the Army. I was the only one who had such a wife. He took every opportunity to jeer at me. This gentleman’s lady wife is studying physics, he would say ironically. Madame is a scientist. Yessiree! If she’s so clever, why doesn’t she go and work at our family firm’s Center for Nuclear Research? Why isn’t she in the service of the Supreme Commander? That’s not her specialization? Oh, yeah, she’s into astrophysics. What sort of rubbish is that? The science of galaxies, stars, and all that stuff? Oh, yeah? Maybe she’s actually a poet? A subversive? The kind of woman who is cluttering up our prisons? And he began singing, with that leering face of his, Madame beep beep physics, beep beep madame physics! Everyone burst out laughing. Me louder than anyone. I was barking. Croaking. What could I do? He had his nose in my glands. Sniffing my sweat. My love was bound to smell of fear. A poisonous odor. My fear for you poisons me. And the bastard could tell. I had to swear on all the saints that if necessary I would kill my wife and my children to safeguard the Theological Republic and the grandeur of our leader, the Supreme Commander, the representative of divine governance. So I swore. So much it was practically an overdose. The poison made me sick. Do you remember that fever that almost killed me? My temperature that wouldn’t go down. The doctors couldn’t figure out what was wrong. An evil spell has caused this fever, said my poor old mother. You can’t make it better with aspirin, only with faith. I prayed, prayed, and prayed, swearing I would never lie again. Never again would I lynch you on the altar of the Book. I was caught in a vice. You could tell, too, that disaster was imminent. You’d been badgering me for years. It was all you ever said. Resign. Over and over, Resign, relentlessly. Resign, leave the Army. It was your refrain, you served it up at breakfast, at dinner, in bed. Even when I was making love to you. And then one fine morning they offered me a new position in the High Security section. Which would require a radical change of status, said the Commander’s envoy. It’s the Commander who nominated you, but it’s top secret. Which means it calls for anonymity. I would have to resign from the Army. Unofficially, of course, the emissary reassured me. We have to make the country secure, beginning with the prisons, he said. My job would be to determine our needs in sophisticated, high-performance, reliable materiel, then acquire it and oversee the installation. A purely technical job. I would swap my cap and my military uniform for the sort of business suit the CEO of an import-export company would wear. A cover, and a dream opportunity to satisfy you, with an easy conscience. You’ve been hiding behind your little finger, is what you said, when you saw through the trick. Yes. For lack of choice. Yet again. I might not believe in a miracle, but I thought at least in the meanwhile I would have a reprieve . . . I will never forget your childish joy when I told you the good news. It was a time when quite a few military men were getting involved in business. Retired, disabled men, avid or disappointed soldiers . . . Like everything else, the businesses run by former soldiers were under state control. The Commander’s inner circle granted preferential treatment. But you were unaware of such details, my poor love. You weren’t interested. You trusted me. You took my word for it when I explained that my partner was a former officer, now retired, who had the capital required to start the business.
You were thrilled at the thought that from then on you’d be seeing me in a business suit and not a uniform. You were happy. I was over the moon. I wore the suits you picked out for me when I visited prisons in the country to determine our requirements in materiel. And the fact those prisons were filled to overflowing had nothing to do with me. The prisoners’ conditions under detention was not my problem. Nor was the fate meted out to the politicals, who were systematically tortured behind closed doors in the maximum-security sections. I don’t believe I was a coward or a bastard. Merely powerless. But I respected the limits I had set myself ever since I came back from the front. I was a soldier, a military man, and that was what I would remain. I didn’t get my hands dirty. I didn’t kill. I didn’t torture. I had never hurt a flea, and I never would. And I kept my word. That is not the case with the careerists who make the rules nowadays. Insipid little guys who’ve come back from the front and who’ve made their careers and filled their bank accounts by agreeing to do away not with the enemy on the battlefield but with our own children in the streets of the capital. Not I. That’s what I told myself deep within. And I confess I was pretty proud of myself, until you messed everything up. In short, it wasn’t your threats that made me decide to run away and leave everything behind. It was the Commander, and my imminent appointment as head of his personal bodyguards. I would be forced to flee or forced into a corner. The crap businessman would have to change his clothes and proudly display his military stripes. No more putting on acts. I was playing with fire. My terror at being unmasked, by you or someone else, was poisoning my life. In either case your safety would be compromised. You were quicker than them. There was nothing surprising about that. You are a thousand times more intelligent. But I helped you to go about it. I may have been a straw man sort of businessman, an actual agent for Security and Intelligence in the service of the country’s prisons, but that straw man had had enough of the national sport, the art of dissimulation the leaders are so good at.
Then the tsunami. A bit sooner than I had planned. 455 was the one who brought it on. You ordered me to leave you and go abroad, and you knew nothing about the Commander’s proposal. I obeyed. To keep you out of danger, my love. In those days, I didn’t care what happened to 455. In those days, I wasn’t thinking of redeeming myself. It was you who wanted it for me. But now I tell myself I can look you in the eyes again with my head held high. Ever since I arrived in this fucking country I haven’t lied a single time. Not just to honor my promise. I thought, foolishly, that I could get by without lying. I told myself, You’re in a free country. No need to wheel and deal to get by. No need to tell fibs. To embroider my life and deceive others, to lead people up the garden path. I told myself, If you tell the truth about all the shit things that have been done by you and by your superiors, you’ll earn if not their respect then at least
a chance to benefit from their bullshit human rights. Yeah, right. Five years they’ve been stringing me along. Five years of asking me the same old questions. Five years they’ve been recording, copying, recopying the same answers. Then they start again. Over and over. They never get tired. There is always some point that needs clarifying. Some missing element. They have nothing better to do. Yuri was right. He told me that lies make the world go round. And have done so since the dawn of time. There’s no reason for anything to change. He said, It would have been better if you’d stayed the schizo you were, rather than become the dumbass you are now. And you’ll remain a dumbass as long as you cling to your worthless ideas. He said, The world is amoral. There is no truth or justice. There are only transactions and compromises that are more or less ingenious, more or less unfair. Secret deals that suddenly become plain to see. It’s like the story of the clown with his big red nose who wants to play the lion tamer. You get me? I said yes. But I have my own opinion on the matter. Every time I ask him if he’s lying when he claims he’s being persecuted by Putin, he dodges the issue. I insisted, Were you really an advisor to that billionaire who’s in prison? He burst out laughing. The only explanation I got was his same old theory about people being different. Poets are the rare schizos who can do without truth as easily as they can do without lies, he said. They make up stories, they transgress, they know how to change, save the world from its misery, from lies, they are the mirror of the truth. But am I an authentic poet? That’s the question! The only question worth asking, you great dumbass! I might as well confess I never really know when Yuri is lying. But I take everything he says at face value.
So I stamp my feet out here in the cold and I dream. I chant your name. My talisman. Who knows. Perhaps they’ve summoned me here to tell me it’s all over. No more questions. No more points to be clarified. No more doubts about me. Tell me there will be no more sordid detention centers for asylum seekers. No more temporary beds. No more no man’s lands where people vilify my existence. No more subhuman status. No more temporary papers. Maybe they’re going to tell me that at last I have the right to real documents that will allow me to work. To bring you over here. You’ll have no trouble finding a position that’s worthy of you. You’re so good at what you do. They’ll be blown away. You’ll be a star . . . I can see you running one of their research centers. I stamp my feet and daydream. Fantasies. You in my bed and me inside you. In a little while, maybe I’ll hear the magic words: Mr. 43221, your file is closed. Your case has been settled. The authorities, and God the father along with them, believe you. The appeal judge has handed down his decision: accepted! You have the right to become a citizen. The right to our documents. To our freedom. To our security. The right to live without trickery, without nightmares, terror, or the obligation to flatter anyone. The right to give the finger to the Supreme Commander, to forget him, to loathe him along with everything else. For you it’s the light at the end of the tunnel.
The Man Who Snapped His Fingers Page 1
