Kamel Daoud - The Meursault Investigation

I was in love with her from the first second, and I hated her instantly too, for having come into my world like that, tracking a dead man, upsetting my equilibrium. Good God, what a wretch I was!

So Meriem came in and explained herself, speaking in a soft, gentle tone that held us in thrall as though we were hypnotized. It had taken her months to locate the beginning of our trail in Bab-el-Oued, where practically no one remembered us. She was preparing a thesis — like you, in fact — on your hero and that strange book of his, wherein he tells a murder story with the genius of a mathematician examining a dead leaf. She’d wanted to find the Arab’s family, that’s what had led her to us after a long investigation on the other side of the mountain, in the country of the living.

Then, guided by I don’t know what instinct, Meriem waited until Mama left us for a few minutes before showing me the book. It was a short book in a pretty small format. The cover reproduced a watercolor of a man wearing a suit, hands in his pockets, half turning his back to the sea in the background. Pale colors, indecisive pastels. That’s what I remember about it. The title of the book was The Other , and the murderer’s name was written in severe black letters on the top right: Meursault. But I was distracted, unsettled by that woman’s presence. I ventured to look at her hair, her hands, and her neck while she was exchanging some courteous small talk with Mama, who’d come back in from the kitchen. Ever since then, I think, I’ve liked observing women from the back, I like the promise of a hidden face and a body you can’t discern. I even caught myself — me, who had no knowledge of the subject whatsoever — trying to think up an imaginary name for her scent. One thing I noticed right away was her lively, penetrating intelligence, which was combined with a sort of innocence. Later she told me she was from the east, from Constantine. She claimed the status of a “free woman” — and she accompanied that declaration with a look of defiance that spoke volumes about her resistance to her family’s conservatism.

Yes, right, I’m rambling again. You want me to talk about the book, about my reaction when I saw it? To tell you the truth, that episode … I don’t know how to start telling you about it. Meriem left, taking away her smell, the nape of her neck, her grace, and her smile, and I was already thinking about tomorrow. Mama and I were both dazed. We had just discovered, all at once, the last traces of Musa’s footsteps, his murderer’s name — which we had never known — and his exceptional fate. “Everything was written!” Mama blurted out, and I was surprised by the involuntary aptness of her words. Written , yes, but in the form of a book, and not by some god. Did we feel ashamed of our stupidity? Did we contain an irrepressible urge to laugh like fools, us, the ridiculous pair stationed in the wings of a masterpiece we didn’t even know existed? The whole world knew the murderer, his face, his look, his portrait, and even his clothes, except … the two of us! The Arab’s mother and her son, the pathetic Land Administration functionary. Two poor, pitiful natives who had read nothing and put up with everything. Like donkeys. We spent the night avoiding each other’s eyes. God, it was painful to find out we were idiots! The night was long. Mama cursed the young woman and then fell silent. As for me, I was thinking about her breasts and her lips, the way they moved like living fruit. The following morning, Mama shook me awake brutally, bent over me like a threatening old sorceress, and issued her order: “If she comes back, don’t open the door!” I had seen that coming, and I knew why she said it. But I was ready for her, I was prepared to respond.

As you will guess, my friend, I obviously did no such thing. I went out early, skipping the usual cup of coffee. As Meriem and I had agreed, I waited for her outside the Hadjout train station, and when I saw her arriving in the bus from Algiers, it was like a hole in my heart. Her presence alone wouldn’t be enough to ease my longing. When we found ourselves face-to-face, I felt clumsy and gauche. She smiled at me, first with her eyes, then with her wide, radiant mouth. I stammered as I told her I wanted to know more about the book, and we started walking.

And that lasted for weeks, for months, for centuries.

I’m sure you get it. I was about to experience what Mama’s vigilance had always managed to neutralize: incandescence, desire, dreaminess, expectation, the madness of the senses. That’s what French books of days gone by refer to as le tourment , “the pangs.” I can’t describe the forces that take hold of your body when you fall in love, which in my vocabulary is a hazy and imprecise word, a myopic millipede crawling up the back of something huge. The book, of course, served as a pretext. The book and, later, other books. Meriem showed it to me again and patiently explained, that time and all the other times we saw each other, the context it was written in, its success, the books it inspired, and the infinity of commentaries on every one of its chapters. It all made my head spin.

But on that particular day, the second of our acquaintance, what I mostly looked at were her fingers on the pages of the book, her red nails sliding across the paper, and I forbade myself to think about what she would say if I took hold of her hands. Which was, however, the very thing I wound up doing. And it made her laugh. She knew that at that particular moment, Musa wasn’t very important to me. For once. We parted in the early afternoon, and she promised she’d come back. But before going, she asked me what research she would have to do, where she should look, to prove that Mama and I really were the Arab’s family. That was an old problem for us, I explained, because we barely had a family name … The remark made her laugh again, but I was hurt. So then I headed for my office. I hadn’t even thought about how people would react to my absence! I didn’t give a damn, my friend.

And of course, that very evening, I began to read that wretched book. My reading progressed slowly, but I was held as if spellbound. At one and the same time, I felt insulted and revealed to myself. I spent the whole night reading that book. My heart was pounding, I was about to suffocate, it was like reading a book written by God himself. A veritable shock, that’s what it was. Everything was there except the essential thing: Musa’s name! Nowhere to be found. I counted and recounted, the word “Arab” appeared twenty-five times, but no name, not for any of us. Nothing at all, my friend. Only salt and dazzle and some reflections on the condition of a man charged with a divine mission. Meursault’s book didn’t teach me anything about Musa except that he had no name, not even at the last moment of his life. On the other hand, it let me see into the murderer’s soul as if I were his angel. I found weirdly distorted memories in there, such as the description of the beach, the fabulously lit hour of the murder, the old bungalow that was never found, the days of his trial, and the hours spent in his cell while my mother and I were wandering the streets of Algiers, looking for Musa’s body. This man, your writer, seemed to have stolen my twin Zujj, my own description, and even the details of my life and my memories of my interrogation! I read almost the whole night through, laboriously, word by word. It was a perfect joke. I was looking for traces of my brother in the book, and what I found there instead was my own reflection, I discovered I was practically the murderer’s double. I finally came to the last lines in the book: “… had only to wish that there be a large crowd of spectators the day of my execution and that they greet me with cries of hate.” God, how I would have wanted that! There was a large crowd of spectators, of course, but for his crime, not for his trial. And what spectators! Adoring fans, idolaters! No cries of hate ever came from that throng of admirers. Those last lines overwhelmed me. A masterpiece, my friend. A mirror held up to my soul and to what would become of me in this country, between Allah and ennui.