Yasmina Khadra - The Dictator's Last Night

Dashingly dressed in my uniform of a young communications officer, I went to her house to ask for her hand, with an assortment of cakes under my arm that I had bought at the best cake shop in the city.

I remember every detail of that day. It was a Wednesday, and I had been given special leave after my return from England, where I had very successfully completed nine months’ training with the British Army Staff. I was so happy that I could hardly walk straight along the road where she lived. It was lined with smart villas, and mimosa tumbled over the garden walls, laden with heady scents. Cars as big as boats sparkled in the sunshine. It was three o’clock. I was not walking, I was gliding, swept along by the beating of my heart.

I rang the bell at number 6 and waited for an eternity. Every minute seemed as long as a season. I was sweating under my braid, and as formal as I knew how to look, at attention, boots together, as handsome and proud as a centurion posing for posterity … An enormous black servant opened the gate and led me through a garden where the flowers were tended with great care. The path, paved with white stones, looked like a trail of cloud. It was the first time in my life I had found myself in a house belonging to a member of the Libyan bourgeoisie. The sumptuousness that greeted me plunged me back to thoughts of my humble beginnings, but I paid no attention. My career spoke for itself. I had started out at the bottom of the ladder and was overcoming the barriers of prejudice one by one. My family had spent everything it possessed in order for me to be the first child of my clan to go to school, and I was aware that such a sacrifice compelled me to succeed against storms and tides, to prove to the world I had nothing to envy anyone.

My old school headmaster had completely changed. I did not recognise him. He did not look anything like the sickly character with muddy trouser bottoms who had once vegetated at Sabha.

He stood waiting for me at his door, wearing a dressing gown with a fleur-de-lis design over a pair of dusky-red pyjamas. His slippers contrasted strongly with the bright red colour of his feet. The prayer beads he was counting between plump fingers told of the discreet wealth that accompanied a comfortable relationship with God.

He did not invite me into the living room that was visible at the end of the corridor, decorated with brocade and grand furniture. My officer’s tunic did not exempt me from certain customs. The master of the house invited me to be seated on a bench in the hall where he would usually receive routine visitors whom he judged unworthy to walk on his rugs. He did not offer me coffee or tea and paid no attention to my box of cakes or my feverish young suitor’s air. Something told me that I had rung the wrong doorbell, but my love for Faten refused to admit it.

Her father remained courteous: coldly, distantly, monotonously courteous. He asked me which tribe I was from. The Ghous clan meant little to him. From what he said, he appeared not to care for Bedouins very much. His time in Fezzan had reinforced his feeling of being a city dweller banished to some wretched hole that smelt of bread ovens and goat droppings. Now that he had a brother who was a diplomat, and a cousin who was an adviser to the crown prince Hassan Reda, the desert and its peasants were a distant memory.

‘I must admit I am somewhat surprised by your manner of proceeding,’ he addressed me formally.

‘I realise it is a departure from protocol, sir. My parents are aware of my approach but they live very far from here.’

‘Be that as it may, marriage is a serious matter. We have our customs. It is not for the suitor to turn up unannounced, alone, without witnesses.’

‘That is true, sir. I have come back from England and have only just been posted to my new unit. I had to beg my commanding officer for forty-eight hours’ leave. As I am passing through the city, I felt I had to grasp my opportunity.’

He stroked the bridge of his nose, half amused and half embarrassed.

‘How did you meet my daughter, Lieutenant?’

‘I was a pupil at your school, sir. I used to see her crossing the playground to go back home.’

‘Have you actually met?’

‘No, sir.’

‘Have you written to each other?’

‘No, sir.’

‘Is she aware of the feelings you have for her?’

‘I do not think so, sir.’

‘Hmm,’ he said, looking at his watch.

A disconcerting silence followed that was almost suffocating. Having reflected, he decided to adopt a flattering tone.

‘You’re young, healthy in mind and body. You have a fine career ahead of you.’

‘Your daughter will want for nothing,’ I promised him.

He smiled. ‘She has never wanted for anything, Lieutenant.’

I do not know why I was surprised to find myself taking an instant dislike to him, with his owlish face, his pince-nez from another era and his sepulchral delivery. I screwed up my courage and said to him in a voice that stuck in my throat for a long time afterwards, like a tumour, ‘I would be honoured if you would give me your daughter’s hand.’

His smile faded. His brow furrowed and the look he gave me almost wiped me off the face of the earth.

He said to me, ‘You are Libyan, Lieutenant. You know perfectly well the rules that govern our communities.’

‘I do not follow you, sir.’

‘I think you understand very well. In our society, just as in the army, there is a hierarchy.’

He got to his feet and held out his hand.

‘I am certain you will find a girl of your rank who will make you happy.’

I did not have the strength to lift my arm. His hand remained extended for a long time.

It was the saddest day of my life.

I went to the beach to see the sea hurling itself against the rocks. I felt like shouting until my shouts silenced the crashing of the waves, until the hate in my eyes made the waters recede.

‘You will find a girl of your rank who will make you happy …’ He had once been a minor official who could not make ends meet, who was more worried about the flies buzzing around his miserable dinner than about the kids having a crafty cigarette in the school toilets. He had swiftly forgotten the cheap sandals he wore, day in day out, the figure he cut drooling over a cake some grateful mother had baked him, the pathetic moudir 3 whose life was so meaningless that the garish bleakness of Fezzan gave him not a whisper of consolation. He had only had to marry his sister to an ageing vizier to discover, from one day to the next, that he had status, significance, a caste and rouge on his cheeks. You will find a girl of your rank, he had said, the upstart. A genuine disaster would not have destroyed me the way his nasal voice did, going round and round in my head, casting me to the absolute bottom of the pit.

I did not forgive the offence.

In 1972, three years after my enthronement as head of state, I looked for Faten. She was married to a businessman and the mother of two children. My guards brought her to me one morning. In tears. I kept her for three weeks, having her whenever and however I felt like it. Her husband was arrested for an alleged illicit transfer of capital. As for her father, he went out for a walk one evening and never came home again.

From that moment on, all women have belonged to me.

3 Headmaster.

Under the harsh Fezzan sun the clouds struggle to take shape, while an ochre wind blows over the burning stones. I am standing on a rock, a boy in his rags, and I am watching, in the distance, a black dot that appears then vanishes in the desert’s reverberating heat.

Is it a crow, or a jackal?

I put my hand up to shield my eyes.

The black spot starts to get bigger as it gets closer, sucked in by my gaze. It is my uncle’s kheïma .4 There is no one inside it. Apart from a double-headed Saluki busy sniffing its backside, and a peacock trapped in its plumage like a gnat in a spider’s web, there is not a living soul.