AFRICA
Then Jalal, one of the guards at Bab al-Azizia, fell in love with me. Or, at least, he thought he’d fallen in love with me. He’d throw me ardent looks, smile at me as soon as he saw me near the kitchen, and compliment me often. I so much wanted to matter to someone. I didn’t know that he was thought to be gay. He let Gaddafi sodomize him, but I was so ignorant that I thought this was just a shocking but perhaps common practice among men. The Guide had very many male sexual partners, including members of the upper ranks of the army.
I needed tenderness, and the thought that a kind, softhearted man would show me any affection filled me with a deep warmth. Then he increased the moments of contact, would brush against my hand in passing, whisper that he loved me and even that he dreamed of marrying me someday. “Didn’t you notice that I’ve been watching you since the day you arrived here?” No, I hadn’t noticed, consumed as I was by my misery and loneliness. And besides, any bonds of friendship or support were strictly forbidden in our space.
Jalal grew bold and went to the Guide to declare that he intended to marry me. Gaddafi sent for both of us together. He sniggered, a look of derision on his face. “So you’re claiming to be in love, are you? And you have the nerve to tell me about it—me, your master! How would you even dare love someone else, you whore? And you, you pathetic creature, how dare you so much as look at her?” Jalal squirmed. We were both looking at the floor, as pitiful as eight-year-olds. The Guide threw us out. Jalal, though he was a guard, was kept away from the house for two months.
Mabrouka came charging into my room. “You rotten wench! You’re thinking of marriage when you haven’t even been here three years yet! You’re obviously nothing but trash!” Amal, too, came to read me the riot act. “Really, my pet, they’re right. You can’t be in love with that queer! He’s not for you!” Their words only reinforced my attraction to him. Jalal was sweet. And he was the first man to tell me he loved me. What did the scorn of these deranged people matter anyway?
A few months later they announced that the Guide was going to make a grand tour through Africa. Two weeks, five countries, visiting a horde of heads of state. Much was at stake, that was clear; I felt it in Mabrouka’s agitation. And the entire household would travel with him. Gaddafi’s “daughters,” dressed in their lovely uniforms, were to be a special credit to him. Myself included! So, at five o’clock in the morning on June 22, 2007, I became part of a great convoy heading for the airport of Mitiga. No waiting, no formalities whatsoever. The gates were wide open and the cars went directly onto the tarmac to drop us at the foot of the steps of the plane. Half the plane was filled with girls in khaki, beige, and blue uniforms. Blue was reserved for the Special Forces, the real women soldiers—heads high, stares icy, their training evident. Or so I was told. Like Amal, I wore khaki. A fake soldier. A real slave. In the back of the aircraft I noticed Jalal, and I was happy. The Guide was traveling in a different plane.
We disembarked in Bamako, the capital of Mali, and I could never have imagined the welcome we received—pure frenzy! The red carpet was laid down for Gaddafi, who strutted out in a white suit with a green map of Africa sewn over the chest. The president of Mali, various ministers, and a host of officials were competing to pay their respects to the “King of kings of Africa.” And there was the crowd—joyful, excited, almost in ecstasy, singing, screaming, dancing, and shouting, “Welcome, Muammar!” There were folklore groups, traditional dancers, and people wearing Dogon masks, all of them shaking and swaying. I couldn’t believe my eyes. Mabrouka quickly took control of the situation and signaled us to assemble at one side and get into a group of 4x4s that were ready to take us away, driven by our usual Libyan chauffeurs. It seemed that all of Bab al-Azizia was on the move. The crowd had gathered on the route of the convoy and kept on waving and chanting Gaddafi’s name. I was flabbergasted. How was it possible for him to be so loved? I wondered. Were they sincere? Or were they as brainwashed as everyone in Libya?
We arrived at the Libya Hotel, where Sana, a woman from the Department of Protocol, made us wait in a room where we were able to smoke quietly. And then we left again in a convoy. Almost a hundred vehicles, tents, and food—utterly insane logistics. The roads were blocked off, the Africans were applauding as we passed, and the girls inside the cars were laughing. It was a cheerful atmosphere, almost like a carnival. I felt like I was at the movies. But while we were smiling back at the crowds that greeted us, I couldn’t help but think how madly ironic a situation this was. We’d been let out of our basement to be shown off in the sun and contribute to his glory!
I had no idea what our destination was, or who the presidents, ministers, and ambassadors whom we met were. No idea of the Guide’s personal affairs. We followed, like a royal entourage, without asking any questions. The early part of the journey was grueling, for we drove almost a thousand kilometers from the north to the south of Guinea to Conakry, the capital. The only thing the girls around me were curious about was where we would stay. They were hoping for luxury hotels with nightclubs and swimming pools. But it quickly became clear to me that I wouldn’t have that luck. While Amal and the others went off to a hotel, Mabrouka signaled for me to follow the master, who was staying in an official residence, a kind of château. I had to share my room with Affaf, another girl, but in the middle of the night I was summoned to the Guide. He wasn’t sleeping, was pacing naked around his room, looking somber and anxious. He kept turning, picking up his red towel, wiping his hands on it, concentrating and ignoring my presence. At dawn, he finally hurled himself at me.
During the day I met up with the rest of the group—Amal, Jalal, and all the others. They were in a magnificent hotel and the atmosphere was festive. I’d never seen anything like this before. Mabrouka had demanded that I go back to the château at night, but I couldn’t help following everyone else to the nightclub. With bright colored lights shining on them, the girls were smoking and drinking alcohol, dancing close with African men. Sirte and my family seemed very far away. I’d landed on a planet where there was no room for the values and beliefs of my parents. Where my survival depended solely on qualities or activities they abhorred. A planet where everything was upside down.
Jalal was watching me from afar. I caught his eye, and that was enough to make me happy. But he approached and advised me, “Soraya, the most important thing is that you shouldn’t drink,” which I really liked. He was sweet. The girls, on the other hand, kept on trying to convince me to drink. The music grew louder and louder; the club was packed, the atmosphere heated. Jalal kissed me. It was all completely unbelievable.
I slept at the hotel, in the room of one of the girls. Someone had called Mabrouka to ask for permission for me to stay away that night and, surprisingly, she allowed it. The master must have been busy. There were so many women who had followed him, and I know he collected more along the way. But the next morning it was action stations. “Uniforms, everyone at the ready, everything immaculate,” the protocol woman yelled. “The Guide is going to give a speech in a huge stadium. Everyone must play their part!” The 4x4s brought us to the Conakry stadium, which was filling up with hordes of people, young and old, families with children. There were orchestras, banners, and people in splendid suits and boubous. Before leading us to the official stage, Nuri Mesmari, the chief of protocol, spoke to us: “You are not soldiers, but you must act as if you were really in charge of the Guide’s security. Put yourself inside the skin of actual bodyguards. Look serious, focused, and attentive to everything that’s happening around you.” So I played at being a guard, mimicking Zohra, who had a forbidding expression on her face and looked around as if she were searching for terrorists.
When we came into the stadium, when I heard the roar of voices and saw the throng of more than fifty thousand people who were applauding Gaddafi and singing his praises, it took my breath away. Clusters of women were shouting his name and trying to get near him, touch his clothing, or even kiss him. It was wild. “You poor things,” I said to myself. “You’d do better not to be noticed. He is a dangerous man.” I was thinking of Mama, who might be seeing me on national television and would surely be moved, despite her loathing of Gaddafi. Maybe she’d say to herself that on this one day, at least, I was experiencing something pretty significant. But I thought of my brothers as well. What did they know? What would they think? That thought frightened me. I turned my head away and tried to hide my face. Their likely reaction made my blood run cold.
Gaddafi seemed bolstered by the crowd. He was calling out to them, smiling and laughing with them. He swelled with pride, shaking his fist like an athletic champion or the master of the universe. The other girls were fascinated, but I can assure you that I was not. Not for a second. This is what I saw written on his forehead, between his brown cap and his black sunglasses: “sick, mad, and dangerous.”
And on we went, driving for hours more to the Ivory Coast via Sierra Leone. At the next hotel I had to share my room with Farida and Zohra, which was no problem since the bed was enormous. Everyone was happy and getting ready for the swimming pool. I was dying to go swimming, never having seen a hotel pool like that. But the Colonel could call for me at any moment. “Just say you have your period,” Farida told me. “You know it’s the one thing he’s afraid of. But watch out, they do check! Put some lipstick on a pad.” I thought that was pretty clever. Two hours later Fatiha ordered me in her deep voice to go to the Guide’s residence. I put on a worried look and assured her I was much too tired. She raised her eyebrows as if I were trying to fool her. “I have my period.”
“Really now! Let me see.”
“You’re not actually going to check me out?”
“Show me!”
It was a humiliating action, but the sight of the pad, sprinkled with water and colored with lipstick, convinced her, and Farida went to the Guide by herself.
So, liberated and lighthearted, I joined the other girls—and Jalal—in the pool. There was music; there were drinks and hookahs. No one was confiding in anyone but it felt like a kind of small rebellion. For a few hours we were allowed some luxury. We were part of Gaddafi’s community, no longer the subhumans he saw us as, and the hotel staff attended to everyone’s needs. For once there was a small compensation for our daily suffering and humiliations, though it was just a fleeting illusion. But it served as a safety valve, and much later on I understood that these rather infrequent moments kept some of us from giving up on life entirely.
Suddenly I heard someone shout: “Soraya!” Fatiha had spotted me. She came toward me, beside herself. “You are supposed to have your period and you’re in the swimming pool?” I felt so sheepish that I couldn’t find anything to say. Then she hit me. “Liar!” Farida had betrayed me. I was brought to the residence immediately. The master’s punishment, they warned me, would match my trickery. But as I was waiting in a small room, Galina came to see me. “Soraya! How could you let yourself be fooled like that? Papa Muammar is in a rage and has ordered me to inspect you . . . My poor little love. You’re putting me in a horrible position. What am I going to tell him?” Nothing. She said nothing. Or rather, she lied to him to protect me. They left me alone the rest of the day.
The next day we continued on the final leg of our trip, traveling to Ghana for the meeting of the heads of state of the African Union in Accra. We were on the road for hours and hours, a journey that never seemed to end. The second night Fatiha came to “inspect” me. No trace of any period. She stared at me coldly, said nothing, but alerted Mabrouka, who gave me an enormous slap before bringing me to Gaddafi. What’s the use of going into detail? He slapped me, beat me up, spat on me, insulted me. I came out with a swollen face and they locked me up in a room, while Galina, I later heard, was instantly sent back to Libya. Mabrouka taunted me from the doorway: “You wanted to escape, did you? No matter where you may go one day, Muammar will find you again, and he’ll kill you.”