Yasmina Khadra: The Sirens of Baghdad

I don’t answer him. It’s useless.

The minutes pass. I’m getting colder. Behind me, Shakir paces up and down; his coattail flaps noisily in the wind. He stops abruptly and cries out, “Here they come.”

Two sets of headlights have just turned off the highway onto the road leading to where we are.

Contrary to all expectations, Shakir puts a compassionate hand on my shoulder. He says, “I’m sorry it’s come to this.”

As the vehicles come closer, Shakir’s fingers dig deeper and deeper into my flesh, hurting me. “I’m going to tell you a little secret, my man. Keep it to yourself. I hate the West more than it’s possible to say, but I’ve thought about it, and I think you were right not to get on that plane. It wasn’t a good idea.”

The crunching of tires on gravel fills the air around the rock. I hear car doors slam and approaching footsteps.

I say to Shakir, “Let them be quick. I don’t hold it against them. In fact, I don’t hold anything against anybody anymore.”

I concentrate on the lights of the city, which I was never able to perceive through the anger of men.

YASMINA KHADRA is the nom de plume of the former Algerian army officer Mohammed Moulessehoul. He is the author of six books published in English, among them The Swallows of Kabul and The Attack , for which he was awarded the Prix des Libraires and was short-listed for the Prix Goncourt, Prix Fémina, and Prix Renaudot. He lives in Aix-en-Provence, France.