Mathias Énard - Street of Thieves

After two weeks, I stopped fasting, angry with myself, but what the hell, it was better not to pretend. I spent more time at the office, because the air-conditioning made working more pleasant: at my place, even with no shirt on, I was sweating onto my keyboard. I pictured my combatants suffering from thirst in the summer, in the trenches, the mud must have dried and crusted, the number of men killed was alarming, each one had a name, a place, sometimes I would consult the database to find all the ones who’d died in the same place, as I typed I could glimpse the extent of the catastrophe, Verdun, the Somme and the Chemin des Dames led the list of massacres, and after work I would look at documentaries about World War I on the Internet: the hell of the bombs, the life of the trenches, the terrifyingly cynical military decisions. I reconstructed, with the documents we were digitalizing, the campaign of Belkacem ben Moulloub and many others: Journal of marching and operations of the 3 rdRegiment of Algerian Infantry Corps, November 1914. November 5, ’14: At 1 o’clock German attack on the front at the most advanced sections. This attack was stopped by our fire. At 6 o’clock violent German attack on the entire front of the 2 ndbattalion. The undersigned used almost all his ammunition, he withdrew but stuck to the old trenches along the route occupied by him on the 3 rd. The 3 rdBattalion set up in its connecting trenches facing north. The 12 thCompany is sent as reinforcement but cannot completely verify the momentum of retreat. Heated battle all day. The reinforcements arrive too late: the enemy saw the weak point and attacked with very superior forces. But the Germans couldn’t cross the Yser Canal. 6 November ’14: At 5 o’clock violent gunfire on the entire line accompanied by violent cannon fire. No troop movements. The 9 thCompany has three killed by raking fire, among them Belkacem, he won’t see the end of the war, he won’t return to Constantine.

I received a second message from Bassam, this time I was absolutely sure it was him:

Ramadan karim, Lakhdar khouya ! Here we’re suffering, but we’re holding strong.

The email was sent from an equally strange, but different, address, a Robert Smith or something like that.

Still mysterious.

Sometimes, to clear my head, late at night, I’d go swimming at one of the beaches on the other side of the airport; the Atlantic was cold and turbulent, it was pleasant, I thought hard about Judit and dreamed she was coming to join me on the spur of the moment, or that I was leaving to visit her. She was on vacation somewhere in Spain with her parents, and didn’t write much, just a text from time to time, from her cellphone. I was afraid she’d dump me, that she’d get tired of me or meet someone else.

I had to leave. I was fed up with Tangier.

I had decided to talk to Mr. Bourrelier about it, he might have an idea — after all, thriller-seekers have to help each other out. I asked him if by any chance he might be able to get me a job in his business in France. He opened his eyes wide: in France! Really, if we’re set up here it’s because it costs less, it’s not to send our workers to France! Anyway, isn’t she in Spain, your girlfriend? (He had gone back to tutoyer -ing me when we were alone.) I agreed, saying I didn’t speak Spanish very well, and in any case, with a Schengen visa, you could go anywhere.

“No luck,” he said, “if you had done the Revolution in Morocco, you could have landed by the thousands in Ceuta or Tarifa like the Tunisians in Lampedusa. Then Zapatero would have slipped you papers to send you north, as a gift to Sarkozy, like Berlusconi. . It’s too bad. .”

That made him crack up, the bastard.

“Actually, that would have been a good solution. But the Revolution is over here. The Constitutional reform has been adopted, and the elections are about to take place to elect a new government.”

“And you’re happy?”

“I don’t know. All I want is to be free to travel, to earn money, to walk around quietly with my girlfriend, to fuck if I want to, to pray if I want to, to sin if I want to, and to read detective novels if I feel like it without anyone finding anything to object to aside from God Himself. And that’s not going to change right away,” I said.

He looked at me gravely; I suddenly felt as if he were taking me seriously.

“Yes, that fight isn’t won yet.”

“All young people are like me,” I added. I suddenly felt emboldened. “The Islamists are old conservatives who steal our religion from us when it should belong to everyone. All they offer are prohibitions and repression. The Arab Left are old union members who are always too late for a strike. Who’s going to represent me?”

Jean-François suddenly seemed to be concentrating on something.

“You know, in France, I’m not sure they’re any better off on the political front. Plus, with the crisis. .”

He seemed to be thinking.

“Listen, for your travel plans, I might have an idea. I’m not promising anything, but I’m good friends with one of the directors at Comarit. They have lines for Spain, but also for France. At least you could see the country. I’d hate to lose you, but if you have your heart set on seeing the sights, here, outside of books, you’re not going to travel much.”

All Tangier natives knew about Comarit, a shipping company, because its name was written in big letters on the ferries entering the port from Tarifa or Algeciras. I didn’t quite see what I could do on a ferry, I had no knowledge of the sea, but this conversation gave me hope. Speaking frankly with Mr. Bourrelier had made me realize who I was: a young Moroccan of twenty from Tangier who wanted nothing but freedom. I wrote a long letter to Judit telling her this story and the possibilities that went with it, she replied almost immediately with Siiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii! I felt my heart glowing.

THATnight I was again captive to my nightmares. I dreamed I was slapping Judit, very hard, I was beating her because she was jealous of Meryem; I was hitting her with all my strength, and she was shouting, she was screaming and struggling between blows, but she wasn’t running away — after a while I rejoined Meryem in her bedroom, began to caress her, undress her, I put my hand between her legs, it was warm, then I turned toward an old Sheikh who was there, next to the bed. That’s normal Lakhdar, he said, death warms corpses up after a certain amount of time, it’s like that, and I said it’s annoying, all this blood coming out from there, and he replied but it’s from you, this blood, and I looked at my penis, a red liquid was streaming from the urethra, continuously: the more excited I got from Meryem’s burning body, at the contact of her remains, made incandescent by being long dead, the more blood spurted out; I penetrated Meryem, my sex was consumed by hers; her eyes were still closed. Judit had replaced the Sheikh by the side of the bed: she said yes, yes, like that, that’s good, you see, you’re filling her, that’s good, look, and in fact the blood was coming out of Meryem’s motionless lips, overflowing from her nostrils onto her white teeth, I was terrified but I couldn’t stop, I moved in and out of her in a clinging warmth.

I woke up with my belly sticky from semen, my heart pounding.

I told myself I was crazy, that I had come down with some terrible mental illness; I curled up in the night like a dog, moaning with anguish.

THEsole material trace of my childhood still left is two photos I’ve always kept in my wallet: one of Meryem when she was little, on vacation in a village, sitting against a tree, and another of my mother with my little sister Nour in her arms. Nothing else. I’ve often wondered what would have happened if, instead of always running farther away, instead of trying to escape the consequences of my actions, I had returned home, if I had insisted, if I had tried to impose myself on them at all costs, to repent, accept all the punishments, all the humiliations; I’ve often wondered if they would have ended up taking me back, if I could have found a place with them. Of course the question shouldn’t be asked, I have to accept my travels, which are another name for Fate.