Boualem Sansal - The German Mujahid

Rachel wrote:

I’ve decided, I’m going to Aïn Deb. It is something I have to do, something I need to do. The risks don’t matter, this is my road to Damascus.

It’s not going to be easy. When I went to the Algerian consulate in Nanterre, they treated me like I was a Soviet dissident. The official stared me in the eye until it hurt, then he flicked through my passport, flicked through it again, read and reread my visa application, then, eyes half-closed, he tilted his head back and stared at a spot on the ceiling until I thought he was in a coma. I don’t know if he heard me call him, whether he realised I was worried, but suddenly, out of the blue, he leaned over to me and, just between the two of us, he muttered between clenched teeth, “Schiller, what is that. . English. . Jewish?”

“I think you’ll find the passport is French, monsieur.”

“Why do you want to go to Algeria?”

“My mother and father were Algerian, monsieur, they lived in Aïn Deb until 24 April, when the whole village was wiped off the map by Islamic fundamentalists. I want to visit their graves, I want to mourn, surely you can understand that?”

“Oh, yes, Aïn Deb. . You should have said. . But I’m afraid it’s out of the question. The consulate doesn’t issue visas to foreign nationals. . ”

“Then who do you issue them to?”

“If you get killed out there, people blame us. More to the point, the French government prohibits you from travelling to Algeria. Maybe you didn’t know that, or maybe you’re just playing dumb?”

“So what do I do?”

“If your parents were Algerian, you can apply for an Algerian passport.”

“How do I go about that?”

“Ask at the passport office.”

After three months of running around, I finally got my hands on the precious documents I needed to apply. Getting Algerian papers is without doubt the most complicated mission in the world. Stealing the Eiffel Tower or kidnapping the queen of England is child’s play by comparison. Phone all you like, no one ever answers, paperwork gets lost somewhere over the Mediterranean or is intercepted by Big Brother to be filed away in a missile silo in the Sahara until the world crumbles. It took me five registered letters and two months of fretful waiting just to get a copy of papa’s certificate of nationality. When I finally got the papers, I felt like a hero, like I’d conquered Annapurna. I rushed back to the consulate. The passport officer proved to be every bit as intractable as his colleague at the visa desk, but, in the end, officiousness had to defer to the law. God it must be degrading and dangerous to be Algerian full time.

At the Air France office they looked at me as though I had shown up with a noose around my neck ready to hang myself in front of them. “Air France no longer flies to Algeria, monsieur,” the woman snapped, shooing me away from her desk. I went to Air Algérie, where the woman behind the desk could think of no reason to send me packing, but she tossed my brand new passport back at me and said, “The computers are down. You’ll have to come back another day. Or you could try somewhere else.”

Only when I finally got the whole trip sorted out did I tell Ophélie and, as I expected, she threw a fit.

“Are you crazy? What the hell do you want to go to Algeria for?”

“It’s business, the company is sending me to assess the market.”

“But there’s a war on!”

“Exactly. . ”

“And you said you’d go?”

“It’s my job. . ”

“Why are you only telling me this now?”

“It wasn’t definite until now, we needed to find someone well connected in the regime.”

“Go on then, get yourself killed, see if I care.”

If sulking was an Olympic sport, Ophélie would be a gold medalist. At dawn the next morning, while the dustmen were making their rounds, I crept out of the house like a burglar.

The journey itself proved to be much easier than the consulate, the airlines and Ophélie predicted. Getting to Algiers was as easy as sending a letter to Switzerland. Unsurprisingly, Algiers Airport was just as I left it in 1985 when I came to bring Malrich back home. It was exactly how I remembered it, the only difference was the atmosphere. In 1985, it was low-level distrust, now it is abject terror. People here are scared of their own shadows. There’s been a lot going on. The airport was bombed not long ago, there’s still a gaping hole in the arrivals hall, you can still see spatters of dried blood on the walls.

I found myself out on the street, in the milling crowds, under a pitiless sun. What was I supposed to do now, where was I supposed to go? From my clothes, it was obvious I was a foreigner, so I didn’t go unnoticed. I hardly had time to wonder when a whole crowd of guys started sidling past me, staring up at the sky, down at their feet, doing their best to look as though they weren’t talking to me: “Hé, m’sieur!. . taxi?. . pas cher . . very cheap. . ” they whispered without moving their lips. Clandestine ventriloquists. I adopted the same tactic.

“How much to Aïn Deb?”

“Where?”

“Near Sétif.”

A yawning gulf opened up around me. Too far. . too dangerous. Some of the drivers turned their backs without a word, others looked at me accusingly. It seemed as if my trip was to end here when a young, friendly guy came up to me. Covert whispers were exchanged. He was prepared for take me and quoted me a fare with a string of zeroes — for what he was asking, I could have traveled from Paris to New York in a Cadillac — but danger has a price, and I accepted. I winked discreetly to let him know I agreed. My new benefactor whispered for me to walk some way behind him so no one would realise we were together. The car was parked outside the airport. I stopped short and stared at this rust bucket that looked like it was on its last legs. “Don’t worry,” he said, “I keep it like this to ward off the evil eye.” The car started first time.

The driver’s name was Omar. He pumped the accelerator, took off at a hundred miles an hour and, before I knew it, we’d left the city behind us. I decided to call him Schumacher. I told him that I was hoping to get to Sétif in one piece.

“Hé, m’sieur, we need to get to Sétif before dark — after dark is when they set up the fake roadblocks. Tonight, you sleep in a hotel, tomorrow you find a taxi to take you to your doaur . If I can find an honest Muslim, they will give me a bed for the night. . ”

“What do you mean I can get a taxi? I’ve already got a taxi right here, one I’m paying a small fortune for. . ”

“Hé, m’sieur, I cannot take you to some place I’ve never been to, a place where Islamists slit the throats of everyone in the village, you see what I’m saying?”

“Yeah, you’re saying you’ve ripped me off. But okay, I wouldn’t want your death on my conscience, my own will be more than enough, you can drop me in Sétif.”

Fear was hacking at my insides. The roads were so deserted it made my blood freeze. Not a soul, not a sound, nothing but the wind whistling around the car, the tires hissing softly like snakes. We passed military vehicles packed with young men armed to the teeth. Whenever Omar saw one, he would ease off the accelerator, look left, look right, look ahead, look behind, then, taking a deep breath and putting himself in God’s hands, he’d pull out into the other lane and go hell for leather until we passed them. “Don’t worry,” he smiled at me, “Those are real soldiers.” “What do we do if we run into fake ones?” I asked stupidly. “Nothing,” he smiled and flicked his thumb across his throat. We stopped once or twice for petrol, for coffee, for a piss. At the entrance to every village, there was a police roadblock. The routine ran like clockwork: first a machine-gun was trained on us and we were ordered to turn off the ignition, step out of the vehicle with our hands up, leave the doors open and walk to the blockhouse, keeping well apart. Next our papers were checked, then came the interrogation, the body search, the car search. Eventually we would be sent on our way with some helpful nuggets of advice about what awaited us down the road. “When you get to such-and-such a place, be careful. . If you see a child or a frightened woman hitchhiking, or if you see a man lying in the road pleading for help, put your foot down, it’s a trap.” Omar knew all about them, he told me stories as we drove. I have never been on such a terrifying journey, though the only people we met were genuine policemen and real soldiers — all of them as terrified as we were. We covered the three hundred kilometers from Algiers and Sétif in less than four hours, just like you would in France.