Boualem Sansal - The German Mujahid

We headed out and did the tour of the estate, rounding up the posse — Cinq-Pouces, Garcon-de-Café (we call him Bidochon) Togo-au-Lait, Manchot, who’s only got one arm, and Idir-Quoi, who can barely get a sentence out he stutters so badly — then we all went up to offer our condolences to Moussa’s family. There were crowds milling outside Block 22 and all the way up the stairs. We waited our turn. Fuck sake, it was tough. . You had to feel for Nadia’s mother, she just sat there, saying nothing, staring down at her hands clasped in her lap, whimpering like a cat that’s been run over, Moussa just stared at us and nodded, and we stared back at them, holding our breath. After that we went over to Christelle’s salon, where Nadia worked. The minute she saw us at the window, Christelle flinched and reached for the phone. Since I’m the only one with blonde hair, I went in on my own and told her why we were there. She came out and listened to us blethering on about how sorry we were. We didn’t know what to say. Besides, she was crying so hard she couldn’t hear a word anyway. It’s weird, offering condolences to people you don’t even know. When we saw her crying, we started crying, we looked like fucking idiots standing there trembling in the wind. Eventually we stopped crying and headed off to the cafeteria in the train station and held a meeting in the upstairs room. We had to do something, we had to show we had balls, we had to save the estate. The cute couple making out by the window left as soon as we piled in — there were eight of us and we did look pretty dodgy. The owner came over with his big backstabbing smile, brought us our drinks then went back and stood next to his panic button. Pretty quickly we all got angry. A bunch of the guys, that gimp Momo was one of them, reckoned there was nothing we could do, then there was Raymond (we call him Sting-Ray when he gets riled), who suggested we start a counter- jihad . One extreme to the other, same old, same old. I said, “We have to cut off the head, and the head, that’s the imam.”

Silence. Whispers. The imam, fuck, that’s heavy. .

“What the hell is with you guys? They’ve fucked every single one of us over — they fucked me up, and you Momo, and you Raymond, going around calling yourself Ibn Abû-some-shit, all ready to fly off and gun down a bunch of Afghans. And what about you, Cinq-Pouces, down at that mosque from four in the morning until midnight bowing and scraping. . ”

“I. . I. . I. . I think we sh. . sh. . should t. . t. . talk to our pa. . parents.”

“Idir, if you can’t think of anything sensible to say, then don’t say anything. Our parents will say we should talk to the police, the police will say we should talk to the judge, the judge will say we should talk to the government, the government will say that it has to be referred back to the mayors and you know what the mayors will say: fuck off!”

“So it all comes down to us?”

“Too right it does, Bidochon. . and the first thing is, nobody says anything to anyone about what we’re planning.”

“But what can we do? The jihadists are all over the estate — they’re the ones with the money, the lawyers, the connections, they’re the ones with friends in high places, all those ambassadors and shit. . ”

“Counter- jihad , it’s the only way. We give them a taste of their own medicine — set up our own cells, infiltrate the. . ”

“Yeah sure, all eight of us! And this counter- jihad , what religion were you planning to fight in the name of?”

“Hey Manchot! Are you with us here or are you dreaming about that missing arm again?”

I’ll stop there, I just wanted to give you an idea of the discussion. By the time we finished, we’d come up with three mutually exclusive angles: “We’re fucked and whatever we do we’re still fucked,” (Momo and his lot); “The only way to fight jihad is counter- jihad ” (Raymond and his lot) and “We need to waste the imam” (me and my lot). The last one is what I planned to put into action.

After the meeting, we headed back to my house and picked up a couple of six-packs at the supermarket along the way. The eve of battle was going to be a long night.

Thursday, 10 October

We spent the day just hanging out. The whole estate was in mourning. The men were hanging around outside, propping up the tower blocks. Little groups united in their grief and their passivity. What were they talking about? What were they thinking about? About Nadia? About what might happen to them? They probably weren’t thinking about anything. They looked like concentration camp prisoners waiting for time to pass, for something to turn up, waiting for the ground to open up and swallow them, for someone to come tell them to get home now because their favourite soap was starting. They looked so crushed, so sheepish, it disgusted me. The jihadists were down in their mosque making plans, their Kapos out patrolling the camp, looking at people like they were worthless prisoners. There was a fleet of cars parked outside Block 17, all brand new, all clean and polished, so they obviously didn’t belong to anyone on the estate. We were just about to head off when — surprise, surprise — Com’Dad comes out of the basement with a bunch of people, some guys from the city council, some from local organisations and some people I didn’t recognise. That evil fucking imam had his arm round Com’Dad’s shoulder, like they were best mates and he was just giving him a few gentle reminders. Fucking fuck. The French authorities in talks with the SS, and in their own bunker too — that takes balls! Because we know what Com’Dad is like, he’s new-school police, you make friends with enemies and you all play nice together. Fuck the rest of us, we’re dead, France is marching backwards with a truncheon up its arse.

Friday, 11 October

7 A.M. I’ve never seen anything like it. The whole estate is deserted: the esplanade, the alleys, the balconies, the car parks. Not a soul. Not so much as a shadow. Not even the old African guys in their Turkish slippers who sit out sunning themselves even when it’s pissing rain. If you wanted to make a movie about the end of the world, this would be the perfect film set. I never realised the estate was so ugly, so depressingly cold, so completely fucked up. Before all this happened, it all looked normal, everyone kind of liked the estate, we all came and went, we never noticed anything. Whenever I heard people complaining about the noise and the dirt, I felt like thumping them, it was like they were dissing us.

So there we were, the eight of us, looking like a right bunch of fucktards. We’d come to fight a war and the other side hadn’t even shown up. We’d been so sure how things would go down. The jihadists are pros, when they organise something, they’re up and out at dawn, straight after the first prayer— Fajr , they call it — they’ve got their Kapos running round from shop to shop, from block to block, dragging people away from whatever they’re doing and bringing them along in their wake. An hour later, everyone’s been rounded up, herded onto the esplanade, packed in like sardines, and after a few cries of Allahu Akbar over the speaker system, they’ve got them all fired up. By the time they turn them loose, there’s no stopping them.

8 A.M. Sick of waiting, we headed over to the mosque. It was closed. We were pissed off the jihadists had backed down. Were they the ones running scared now? Did they back down because of the support for Nadia and her parents? They’re better informed than the CIA, maybe they figured out people wouldn’t stand for it. Honouring a murderer, celebrating his crime and praising Allah in the same breath was going too far — the estate wouldn’t stand for it. It was a matter of decency.