Yasmina Khadra - The African Equation

‘They didn’t put me through anything, Monsieur Krausmann. I wanted to be one of them and I shared their depravity along with everything else. I did it of my own free will and I don’t have any regrets. I have an almost religious veneration for Africa. I love its highs and lows, its pointless ordeals and its absurd dreams, its miseries as splendid as Greek tragedies and its frugality which is a doctrine in itself, its exaggerated effusions and its fatalism. I love everything about Africa, from the disappointments that punctuated my wanderings to the mirages that deceive those who are lost. Africa is a certain philosophy of redemption. Among these “wretched of the earth”,’ he went on, drawing inverted commas with his fingers, ‘I’ve known happy moments, and I’ve also shared their worries to the full. These people have taught me truths about myself I would never have suspected in Paris or anywhere in the West. I was born in Bordeaux, in a pretty crib, but it’s in Africa that I’ll die, and it doesn’t really matter if I end up in a mass grave or on some godforsaken dirt track, without a hearse or a gravestone.’

‘Strange,’ I said.

‘I see a country where others see a continent, and in this country, I’m myself. As soon as this piracy business is over, I’ll go off along the “forgotten trails” to catch up with the joys and sorrows I’ve missed because of my confinement.’

‘I wish you courage, Monsieur Bruno.’

‘Courage, Monsieur Krausmann, means believing in yourself.’

And already he was gone, a long, long way away, his eyes closed and his hands crossed over his chest. That was Bruno all over: whenever he praised Africa, he became a poet and guru at one and the same time, and an unbridled lyricism swept him away; without warning, his mind was no longer there, and in the suddenly silent jail, all that remained was his exhausted body, as stiff as a dead man’s.

*

Three days later, Joma came rushing out of the captain’s office, yelled for someone to fetch Chief Moussa, then, catching sight of Bruno and me in the yard of our prison, screamed, ‘Hey, you two, get back in your quarters, and be quick about it!’

‘It isn’t time yet,’ Bruno protested.

‘There’s no fixed time. Do as I say!’

‘Do as I say!’ Bruno aped him half-heartedly. ‘We aren’t your soldiers.’

Joma kicked over the barrier and rushed at us. I didn’t even have time to stand up. Joma grabbed me by the neck and flung me into the cell. I got up and walked back to defy him. He raised his eyebrows, amused by my sudden burst of pride, brought his face close to mine and breathed his drunken breath in my face.

‘Want to hit me, do you? … Go on, then, show me what you’re made of, pretty boy.’

Seeing that I held his gaze, he pushed me away with his hand, seized the grille and, with a single movement, lifted it and hung it from the hooks cemented into the doorway.

‘What strength!’ Bruno said ironically.

‘Oh, yes,’ Joma retorted, padlocking the door. ‘That’s life. There are those who have guns, and those who can only watch and weep.’

‘For how long, Joma, for how long?’

‘That’ll depend on how brave you are, assuming you’re brave at all,’ Joma replied. ‘“If you wish to fight the gods,”’ he quoted, ‘“Fight them and perish!”’

‘Sophocles?’ Bruno ventured, mockingly.

‘Wrong …’

‘Shakespeare?’

‘Why does it have to be a white man?’

‘I’d be tempted to say Anta Diop, but he wasn’t a poet.’

‘Baba-Sy,’ Joma said proudly.

‘Who’s he? I’ve never heard of him.’

A shudder ran through Joma. He put on the last padlock and rejoined his men, who were running in all directions. Orders rang out, the engine of the sidecar motorcycle roared, and the pirates rushed into their barracks and came out with weapons and baggage. Captain Gerima appeared in the doorway of the command post, his belly sticking out of his trousers and the American army belt around his neck. His eyes shone with a malevolent joy. His hands on his hips, he watched part of his flock getting into the back of a pick-up parked under a canopy. Chief Moussa appeared, spick and span in a made-to-measure paratrooper’s uniform, his boots polished and his beret pulled down over his forehead. He saluted the captain, who returned the salute with lordly nonchalance. The two colleagues walked a little way together, as far as the well, conversing in low voices, then retraced their steps. Chief Moussa took leave of his superior with a click of his heels and ran to join the men crammed into the pick-up.

‘Are they going on a raid?’ I asked.

‘I don’t think so,’ Bruno said. ‘They don’t usually have to lock us up.’

The pick-up manoeuvred round and headed for the infirmary. From the door of our jail, we couldn’t follow it. I went to the window that looked out on the valley and waited for something that might tell me what was going on. Ten minutes later, I saw the sidecar motorcycle set off in front. When the pick-up reappeared on the other side of the rampart, my heart leapt in my chest: in the middle of the pirates crammed into the pick-up, I saw Hans, his hands tied behind his back, pinned to the bed of the truck.

The ground almost gave way beneath my feet.

The transfer of Hans plunged Bruno and me into a kind of daze. We had been half expecting it and, now that it had happened, we felt that we had been caught off guard. We were so upset we couldn’t find words to comfort each other. Bruno retreated behind his mosquito net, and I was so dismayed I couldn’t put my thoughts in order.

The sun had not yet set when two guards, rifles at the ready, disturbed our meditation. It was rare for food to be brought to us with firearms aimed at us. Blackmoon placed a tray in front of me with a metal plate on it, in which soup had congealed. He deliberately stepped on my toes and, having attracted my attention, made a sign with his eyes to indicate that the piece of bread that came with the soup had something in it for me.

The pirates left, padlocking the grille. I heard their steps shuffling in the yard before being lost in the noises of the fort. I bent over the slice of bread and tore it with my fingers; a piece of paper was hidden inside. I took it out, unfolded it very carefully and recognised Hans’s feverish handwriting.

His little note was short: two sentences scribbled in pencil and set out on two lines:

Stand firm.

Every day is a miracle.

Against all expectations, it was Bruno who cracked first. His thick shell, formed through forty years’ experience in Africa, shattered into pieces. With a kick, he sent his meal flying against the wall, threw himself on the grille, shook it angrily and then collapsed exhausted on his bundle of cloths. When the noises of the fort faded, he got up and started pacing up and down the cell, breathing harshly, like a wild beast looking for an opening in its cage.

The previous day, at nightfall, the pirates had lit a fire and danced like mad gods to music blaring from a huge radio cassette player. Laughing as he watched them writhing about, Bruno had found them brilliant. ‘Do you realise what a sensation they’d be on the Paris stage?’ he had cried, as enchanted as a groupie in the presence of his idol. I had asked him what our kidnappers were so happy about. ‘The end of the civil war, probably,’ he had replied. Actually, it was the transfer of Hans Makkenroth they were celebrating!

The sun had been up for some time when Bruno decided to show signs of life. He stared at the grille as if trying to blow it up with his eyes, then hoisted himself to his feet, shuffled over to the door, his legs like cotton wool, and grabbed hold of the grille in order not to collapse.