Yasmina Khadra: The Sirens of Baghdad

“You were talking to yourself just now,” he says.

“I do that sometimes.”

“What was the topic of your conversation?”

“I can’t remember.”

He nods and goes back to contemplating the city. We’re on the hotel terrace, a sort of glass alcove overlooking the main thoroughfare in this part of town. There are a few wicker chairs and two low tables; in one corner, there’s a sofa, and behind it shelves with books and brochures.

“Don’t ask yourself too many questions,” the doctor says.

“I no longer ask myself questions.”

“A man who isolates himself often has unresolved issues.”

“Not me.”

Dr. Jalal had a long career as a teacher in European universities. He made regular appearances in television studios, bearing witness against the “criminal deviationism” of his coreligionists. Neither the fatwas decreed against him nor the various attempts to abduct him sufficed to silence his virulent attacks. He was well on his way to becoming a leading figure among those who castigated the doctrines of armed jihad. And then, without any warning, he found himself in an ideal position for the fundamentalist Imamate. Profoundly disappointed by his Western colleagues, aware that his status as useful raghead was outrageously supplanting any recognition of his scholarly accomplishments, he wrote a tremendous indictment of the intellectual racism rampant among respectable coteries in the West and performed some incredible pirouettes in order to gain admittance to Islamist circles. At first, he was suspected of being a double agent, but then the Imamate rehabilitated him, made him their representative, and gave him a mission. Today, he travels to Arab and Muslim countries to lend his oratorical talent and his formidable intelligence to jihadist directives.

“There’s a whorehouse not far from here,” he proposes. “Feel like dropping in and getting laid?”

I’m flabbergasted.

“It’s not really a whorehouse, Madame Rachak’s place, not like the others. It serves a very restricted, very classy clientele. When you’re there, you’re in distinguished company. You drink together and pass joints, but nothing ever gets out of hand, if you see what I mean. Then you take your leave. All very discreet. As for the girls, they’re beautiful and inventive, real professionals. If you’re inhibited for one reason or another, they’ll straighten you out in no time.”

“That’s not for me.”

“How can you say that? At your age, I never passed up a piece of ass.”

His crudeness flusters me. I can’t believe an educated man of his stature is capable of such crass vulgarity.

Dr. Jalal’s about thirty years my senior. In my village, the idea of having this sort of conversation with an older person is unimaginable and has been so since the dawn of time. I remember a single occasion, in Baghdad, when I was out for a walk with a young uncle of mine, and someone cursed as we passed. At that instant, if the earth had opened under my feet, I wouldn’t have hesitated to jump in and hide myself.

“So what do you say?”

“I say no.”

Dr. Jalal feels sorry for me. He hangs over the wrought-iron railing and flicks his cigarette out into the void. Both of us watch the red tip tumble past one floor after another until it hits the ground and scatters in a thousand sparks.

“Do you think they’ll join us one day?” I ask him, hoping to change the subject.

“Who?”

“Our intellectuals.”

Dr. Jalal gives me an oblique look. “You’re a virgin, is that it? I’m talking to you about a whorehouse not far from here—”

“And I’m talking to you about our intellectuals, Doctor,” I reply, firmly enough to put him in his place.

He grasps the fact that his indecent proposals have upset me.

“Are they going to join our ranks?” I say insistently.

“Is that so important?”

“For me it is. Intellectuals give everything a sense. They’ll tell our story to others. Our combat will have a memory.”

“What you’ve gone through isn’t enough for you?”

“I don’t need to look behind me in order to advance. The horrors of yesterday are what’s pushing me on. But the war’s not limited to that.”

I try to read his eyes, to see if he’s following me. The doctor stares down at a shop and contents himself with wagging his chin in acquiescence.

“In Baghdad,” I say, “I heard a lot of speeches and sermons. They made me mad as a rabid camel. I had only one desire: I wanted the whole planet, from the North Pole to the South Pole, to go up in smoke. And when someone like you, a learned man like you, expresses my hatred for the West, my rage becomes my pride. I stop asking myself questions. You give me all the answers.”

“What kind of questions?” he asks, raising his head.

“A lot of questions cross your mind when you’re firing blind. It’s not always our enemies who get taken out. Sometimes there’s a cock-up, and our bullets hit the wrong targets.”

“That’s war, my boy.”

“I know that. But war doesn’t explain everything.”

“There’s nothing to explain. You kill, and then you die. It’s been happening that way since the Stone Age.”

We fall silent, both of us gazing at the city.

“It would be a good thing if our intellectuals would join our struggle. Do you think there’s any possibility they’ll do that?”

“Not many of them, I’m afraid,” he says after a sigh. “But a certain number will, I have no doubt. We have nothing more to hope for from the West. Eventually, our intellectuals will have to face the facts. The West loves only itself and thinks only of itself. It throws us a line so it can use us as bait. It manipulates us and sets us against our own people, and then, when it’s through toying with us, it files us away in its secret drawers and forgets us.”

The doctor’s breathing hard. He lights another cigarette. His hand trembles, and for a moment his face, illuminated by the flame of his lighter, crumples up like a rag.

“But you used to be all over the television—”

“Yes, like some sort of mascot,” he grumbles. “The West will never acknowledge our merits. As far as Westerners are concerned, Arabs are only good for kicking soccer balls or wailing into microphones. The more we prove the contrary, the less they’re willing to admit it. If, by some chance, the Aryan inner circles feel forced to make some sort of gesture toward their homebred ragheads, they choose to anoint the worst and belittle the best. I’ve seen that happen close-up. I know all about it.”

It’s as though he were trying to consume his entire cigarette in a single drag. The glow lights up the terrace.

I hang on his words. His diatribes express my obsessions, reinforce my fixed ideas, and energize my mind.

“Others before us have learned this lesson, to their cost,” he continues, his voice filled with chagrin. “They thought they’d find a homeland for their knowledge and fertile soil for their ambitions in Europe. And when they saw they weren’t welcome, for some stupid reason they decided just to hold on as well as they could. Since they subscribed to Western values, they took for granted the ideals people whispered in their ears: freedom of expression, human rights, equality, justice. Bright, shining words — but how many of our geniuses have been successful? Most of them died with rage in their hearts. I’m sure regret still gnaws at them in the grave. It’s clear that they strove and struggled for nothing. Their Western colleagues were never going to allow them to achieve recognition. True racism has always been intellectual. Segregation begins as soon as one of our books is opened. In the old days, it took our leading intellects forever to notice this fact, and by the time they adjusted their sights, they were off the agenda. That won’t happen to us. We’ve been vaccinated. As the old proverb says, He who possesses not gives not. The West is nothing but an acidic lie, an insidious perversity, a siren song for people shipwrecked on their identity quest. The West calls itself ‘welcoming,’ but in fact it’s just a falling point, and once you fall there, you can never get back up completely.”