Yasmina Khadra: The African Equation

‘There’s an African proverb that says: “He who doesn’t know that he doesn’t know is a disaster.”’

‘What does that mean?’

‘Exactly what it says, but I assume you’re not one for riddles. Don’t you see, Claudia? What happened to me in Africa has at least taught me something, something that may seem like nothing to you, but to me is very important.’

‘I wish you’d enlighten me.’

‘Sorry, I’m all out of enlightenment.’

I leant across her thighs and opened the door for her.

She pursed her lips, sniffed loudly and got out.

I switched on the engine and drove off.

The wind blew along Schaumainkai. The neon signs streaked the river with different colours. A few islands of greenery stood out on the soot-black river banks. I walked as far as Theodor-Stern-Kai, wandered through Niederrad, then returned to the river. I couldn’t accept what Claudia had done, let alone forgive it … I felt alone. My legs were like lead, my breath like fire. Jessica’s ghost was pursuing me. It had been limping behind me since I had got out of my car. I was downcast, but I kept going, swept along as I had been the day I decided to confront the valley of shadows rather than rot in Gerima’s jail. I had the feeling I was changing …

Lost in his own thoughts, a man sat on a bench, talking to himself and watching his cigarette end burn out at his feet as if watching a caterpillar die. His coat was torn at the shoulder and through the tear you could see part of his sweater. He didn’t look up when I passed him and continued to mutter and box the air. Like him, I despaired of finding a cure for my depression. I sat down on another bench and threw my head back, and my mind was invaded by a plethora of images like a speeded-up film, flashes of Jessica on the beach, in the forest, coming out of a hotel, lounging on a sun-drenched terrace, hailing a yellow taxi, sitting on a plane, kissing me on the lips. The images followed one after the other, led to more flashes, collided with another reel that was out of control. My skull was seething with noises, voices, laughter, smashing glass, the clicking of high heels on marble floors, waves rolling on white sand. I started to feel dizzy. Why? … The man on the next bench jumped. I realised I was shouting.

The next day, I left my house for my home in the country. The peace of the countryside and the freshness of its groves would cheer me up, I thought … I was wrong. My ‘exile’ merely made things worse.

The days went by, all totally empty. I didn’t want anything. I didn’t know what to do with my time. I sometimes spent the whole day sitting in an armchair, staring at the wall. I felt adrift, a stranger to myself. Sometimes I found myself standing with my nose up against the window pane, looking at the rain-drenched grove without seeing it. Whenever a hiker crossed the clearing, I would rush out to see him, but by the time I got outside, he would be gone; only his boot prints in the mud proved to me that I hadn’t been dreaming. One morning, a car stopped at the end of the path. I had hoped it was Claudia; it wasn’t Claudia. I realised how unfair I had been to her … The solitude was worse than the misunderstanding. The day before, I had gone for a walk among the trees. The gloomy weather infected my mood. By the time I got back to the house I was in a terrible state. I lit a fire and sat down so close to the fireplace that my clothes steamed. In a flash, I saw again the old man standing in front of his burning hut like a lost soul at the gates of hell, and I grew afraid of my shadows, which the fire projected around me in a tremulous dance. On the table, alongside an apple core and a dirty plate, I lined up ten bottles of beer and started knocking them back one after the other, at regular intervals, until I could no longer see clearly. Then I walked all over the house. A comb left lying about, a nightdress, a piece of jewellery forgotten on the dressing table: any trace of Jessica was a torment. Without her, I was nothing but the raw expression of my widowhood, my interrupted mourning, my grief — a grief that was irrational and unrestrained. My legs unsteady and my mind numb, I went to the bedroom. The bed, once so narrow, now seemed more vast and arid than the desert. I fell asleep and woke up a few minutes later, sure that I would not close my eyes again before daybreak. A recurring image kept passing in front of me: in a funeral urn overflowing with ashes, a haughty vulture posed phoenix-like on a pile of cigarette ends. I tried to grasp the symbolism of that surreal image, but couldn’t. I hugged the pillow to me, in the absence of another person, and let myself be overcome by the sweet lethargy of depression.

*

After a week, I returned to Frankfurt. As crumpled as an old sheet. Sick. My hair sticking up on my head. My furrowed cheeks covered in beard. A neighbour must have told Claudia, because she showed up within the hour.

‘What are you doing to yourself, Kurt? … And now you’re even smoking! Your house stinks of cigarettes. Look at yourself, you’re an absolute state.’

I knocked back my drink and threw the glass at the wall. Startled, Claudia raised her arms to protect herself. I laughed, amused by her bewilderment, swaying in the middle of the living room, defying the portrait of Jessica that I was daring to confront for the first time since my return from Africa.

‘I have a beautiful house, don’t I?’ I asked her. ‘It cost me a small fortune. And what about these curtains, what about these sofas? Even a prince would envy me. And what about me, aren’t I handsome? Is there anything wrong with me? I’m healthy, I have style, and I’m of sound mind. Any diva would fall into my arms like a shot.’

‘Kurt,’ she begged me, ‘calm down, please.’

I stumbled over a pouffe and almost fell flat on my back.

I declaimed:

We were lovers

We were two volcanoes

Burning with a thousand fires

From summer to spring

We were but one season

We were lovers

‘Kurt, for heaven’s sake …’

‘What’s heaven got to do with it? It’s what happens down here that matters, on this filthy earth where everything decays … I need reassurance, Claudia. Am I still handsome?’

‘Of course you are.’

‘Then why do I hate myself so much?’

‘What are you talking about?’

‘I’m talking about her,’ I screamed, sweeping away with my hand the photograph of Jessica, which fell to the ground and smashed. ‘I’m talking about Jessica, Jessie, my other half, my dream that went up in smoke … How could she do that to me? In Africa I saw people who were nothing but skin and bone, who had nothing to eat and nothing to expect, and who fought for every second of life. People who’d had their lands stolen from them, people who were persecuted, reduced to the level of their own beasts of burden, chased from their squalid villages and wandering among bandits and disease, and yet, just imagine: poor and helpless as they were, they didn’t give up one scrap of their wretched existence. And Jessica, who had everything to make her happy, everything , a beautiful house in a wonderful city, lots of friends, money in the bank, a luxurious office, a job with a major company, and a husband who wouldn’t have let a speck of dust touch her, what does she do, what does she do to us? She deliberately takes her own life! And why? Over a promotion …’

Claudia picked up the photograph, put it back in its place, and ran her finger over the star-shaped crack in the glass. Then she walked around the armchair that was between us, took my hand, and pressed it to her breast. I hated anyone to feel sorry for me. What she assumed was part of a nervous breakdown was only legitimate, clear-headed disapproval; and this misunderstanding, rather than bringing us together, placed a thick barrier between her and me, leaving us engaged in an absurd dialogue of the deaf. I had the feeling I was making a spectacle of myself to a blind woman.