Instilling moral character wasn’t my father’s line. When he found out I’d have to repeat sixth grade, he clicked his tongue against his palate and said, in a tone that would resound inside me for a long time, “Even with an embroidered saddle on his back, an ass remains an ass.” I’d expected a regular sermon, or maybe a life lesson illustrated with striking examples and the names of people who started out with nothing and became celebrated and rich because of their devotion to school and concluding with words chosen to awaken me to my responsibilities, but instead all I got was scathing contempt. No blow, no threat, no punishment. Just a quick metaphor whose disdain doomed me, without recourse, to perdition.
Driss had been held back too. His mother had wept at the news. She was a wounded woman, shriveling up in her convalescence. I’d never heard or seen her raise her voice or her hand to her kid. She took the blows fate dealt her with startling stoicism, unable to dissociate her son’s screw-ups from her own sense of guilt, persuaded that if Driss was unhappy, it was because she hadn’t known how to hang on to his father, an ethnic Belgian she’d loved with all her heart who hadn’t hesitated to leave her when she was eight months pregnant and take up with one of their mutual friends.
“What happens when you repeat a school year?” I asked Driss.
“Your parents feel bad.”
“You think my father suffers because of me?”
“I couldn’t say. I don’t have a father.”
There was sorrow in his voice when he spoke that last word.
Rayan came across us unexpectedly while we were sitting on the curb, twiddling our thumbs. The suit he was wearing had a glossy finish and he’d put gel in his hair, close-cropped except for a pretty strand that fell over his forehead. Being proud and handsome was his right. He deserved all the joys in the world: he was going on to middle school, his report card adorned with enthusiastic comments. First in his class. The congratulations never stopped.
As a reward, his mother had bought him a computer.
“I’ve got enough change to buy movie tickets for all three of us,” he offered.
“And after the movie, can we go and see what Moka’s gang is up to?” I asked, because Rayan wasn’t usually allowed to venture into or even near the parc des Muses.
“Why not?” he chirped. “School’s over, no?”
A sunbeam woke me up. My neck hurt, because I’d fallen asleep with my head on the sofa’s armrest. Daylight flooded the living room. It must have been around noon. Rayan had left for work. I took a shower, made myself some coffee, and, sitting at the kitchen table, I thought about what I ought to do with my day. Trying to reach Lyès was too risky. The situation currently prevailing in the country made radio silence mandatory. The gym where the members of the charitable association Fraternal Solidarity regularly met must have been under close surveillance by the police.
I realized that I still hadn’t resumed praying since my trip to Saint-Denis. That wasn’t serious. In the eyes of the Lord, I was a martyr. Though my mission had failed, my valiant intentions had been in no way compromised.
As I brought the coffee cup to my lips, my eyes fell on the photograph of Rayan hanging on the wall in a silver frame. Rayan was staring at the lens with luminous eyes.
You want to clink glasses with your bosses, marry an infidel, live without God and without restraint? It’s your choice. We made ours, Driss and I…Your mama always dressed you up, groomed you, wiped your ass. Driss didn’t have anything like that. Me neither…Have you ever been so far outside yourself that you saw yourself, really saw yourself, somewhere else? That you stood at a window, say, and looked out at the street, and saw, of all people, yourself, sitting on the curb across the way? I’ve done that. Every night, while my family was asleep, I leaned against the window like a specter and watched the kid sitting on the opposite curb. It was a hell of a sight, Rayan. A hell of a shitty goddamn sight. I didn’t even feel any compassion for the kid sitting on the sidewalk. I felt contempt for him. It’s terrible to feel contempt for yourself, you know? I’d wait for the kid to go away and disappear from my view. He didn’t go away. He preferred staying there, in the rain, mocking me. In the end, I was the one who would back off. I’d return to my bed and try to sleep. But how could I close my eyes when I’d stare at the ceiling and there I was, me again, suspended in thin air? I was the dregs of humanity, a fucking slum dweller with no future and no clue which way to turn, waiting for the dawn to come so I could run and remake myself in a mosque. And the mosque did more than give me refuge, it recycled me, the way you recycle trash. The mosque gave visibility and a countenance to the untouchables that we were, Driss and I; it took us out of the gutter to display us as luxury products in the show windows of the most beautiful buildings. That’s it, that’s the truth, Rayan. The mosque gave us back the RESPECT we were owed, the respect that had been confiscated from us, and awakened us to our own hidden glory…No, Rayan, no a thousand times, it’s not for you to judge Driss. You’re not in his league. Nobody’s in his league.
Lost in my reveries, I saw neither streets nor people.
I was a dead man walking, wandering in the fog.
Was it Driss’s absence or the fact of having been left to my own devices that erased the world around me? I was so alone and so unhappy. I needed someone to talk to so I could prove to myself that the walls escorting me were indeed made of stones and bricks, that the ambient sounds had nothing to do with the diffuse thoughts rolling and bumping around inside my head.
I felt as empty as a plastic bag swollen with wind.
I wasn’t walking, I was floating.
I’d thought about calling Zahra and asking her to meet me, but I was afraid she’d be under surveillance. My twin sister was all that remained to me on earth. I adored her, and she felt the same about me. We were so intensely close that she could detect the least of my worries. The rest of my family didn’t count for very much in my life. My mother was too miserable to represent anything in my eyes. I felt more pity than affection for her. As for my father, he’d dwindled into hardly more than a stranger. I didn’t like anything about him. He was the incarnation of all that I couldn’t bear.
I found myself standing in front of Issa’s bakery—he was an influential member of the Association. He was serving an old lady. When he saw me through the front window, he asked me with his chin to continue on my way.
What way was that?
Everything in this town, where I had grown up without maturing, turned its back to me.
Night swooped down on me like a bird of prey. I had eaten nothing all day. I took a seat in a kebab shop and ordered a sandwich and a soda. A group of young North Africans were talking about the Paris attacks and the psychosis that had taken hold in Brussels. They complained about ethnic profiling and excessively zealous cops. A tall fellow in a tracksuit was dominating the conversation: “So the result is, we get screwed,” he concluded. “I’ve got a high school degree plus some university, and I’m still severely unemployed because I don’t have the right face to work. Those raving lunatics have made everyone afraid of us. We have to keep a low profile and creep along with our heads down…”
“I walk with my head high,” his right-hand neighbor replied. “I don’t see why I should hunker down just because a bunch of mental defectives fuck things up.”
“They bring hchouma on us,” the tall fellow reminded him.
“What shame? We don’t have to feel guilty for what those crackpots did.”
“They claim to be followers of Islam.”
“That’s what the media want people to believe,” said a myopic pipsqueak, wiping his eyeglasses on his shirttail. “Islamism isn’t Islam, it’s an ideology, not a religion.”
“Farid’s right,” lamented a bald man, tirelessly digging around in his ear with a match. “Those nutcases are waging a holy war against non-Muslims. It’s only natural that we’d be singled out.”
“It’s not natural,” the neighbor on the right objected. “Stop jumping to conclusions. Personally, I don’t give a fuck about those zombies. If it was up to me, I’d gouge the eyes out of the first guy with a beard who crossed my path.”
“Hey,” a customer in the depths of the bar cried out. “I have a beard and I don’t pray.”
“In that case, shave.”
“I can’t. My face is covered with acne.”
A small, skinny man who hadn’t said anything so far called for attention by tapping a finger on his table. “Let’s raise the level, cousins,” he said pedantically. “What’s happening is the logical outcome of a process as old as the herd instinct: exclusion exacerbates feelings, hurt feelings provoke frustration, frustration generates hatred, and hatred leads to violence. It’s mathematical.”
“Violence against who?” asked the tall fellow in the tracksuit, getting angry. “Against you and me? Why? For a better world? Those psychopaths have made it worse than before. There aren’t dozens of solutions to this problem. If people aren’t happy here, all they have to do is go back to their village. They’ll find more mosques than schools down there. They’ll be able to pray until they drop dead.”
“Here we go again!” the oldest of them replied, a thirty-something with a swarthy complexion and fingers yellowed by nicotine. “Why do you want them to go back to a country that doesn’t represent very much in their eyes? They’re Belgians. They were born here, they went to school here, they grew up here. This is their village. What you’re saying is exactly the kind of thing that makes them detest their adopted country. How do you suppose they can assimilate if they’re threatened with being sent back to their home village every time a sand nigger does something stupid? Ethnic Belgians never do anything stupid, is that it? We have to stop using this far-right rhetoric once and for all. A country isn’t built on its identity, but on its citizenship.”
“They never wanted to assimilate,” the long guy in the tracksuit persisted. “We’re children of immigrants, all of us. Sometimes people say things that hurt us. All you have to do is take a look at those preening neo-Nazis on TV who allow themselves to parade in public squares and swear to kick our butts. Is that what’s made us terrorists? We’re not even good Muslims. We try to earn our bread and pretend we haven’t heard a thing. We’re not going to tar all Belgians with the same brush because of a handful of rabid racists, are we?”
“They don’t have any problem tarring all Muslims with the same brush,” the neighbor on the right objected.
“I agree with Lounis. Terrorists and racists are Siamese twins. The terrorists have already gone into action, yes, but the racists are just biding their time before they begin operations too. Still, we can keep things in perspective. We don’t accuse all Westerners of bigotry.”
The tall fellow jumped in again. “I’m for packing those morons in the hold of a cargo plane and jettisoning them over their douars. It’s the only way we’ll have peace. Every individual who sports a beard ought to be brought to the pound and then shipped off to his native kennel on the spot.”
“I’m telling you, I have a beard to hide the pimples on my face.”
“I don’t give a fuck. Either shave or get lost.”
I turned to the tall guy, restraining myself from grabbing him by the throat. “Why don’t you set the example?” I snapped at him. “You first. Go back to your shitty village.”
“I’m a Belgian. And I don’t break anybody’s balls.”
“You’ll never be a full-fledged Belgian, my boy. Never. Want proof? You’re in a low-rent diner that caters to the Muslim community, nibbling questionable sandwiches, ranting with other fake Belgians, and talking behind your people’s backs. Instead of playing the volunteer capo, take a look around and tell me if you see a blond head in this rathole. And if you have just a little presence of mind, raise your eyes a bit and explain to me the point of these so-called high-risk zones, the flood-prone areas where your community’s penned up like contaminated cattle. Then lift your head above your ghetto and look at what’s being done to Iraq, Syria, Yemen, Libya. Look at how Muslims are treated in China, Myanmar, Chechnya, and even in our cemeteries.”
“That’s what I do from morning to night, and I see nothing but atrocities, vandalism, massacres, and terror attacks carried out in the name of God. I see the prophets scratch their own faces in contrition and the devil soil his trousers every time these head choppers unsheathe their sabers.”
“They shed blood in their mosques, take their cities hostage, and dynamite their archaeological sites,” the swarthy thirty-something added.
“According to you, who’s massacring the Iraqis, who’s depopulating Syria?” the tall fellow went on. “Who’s exterminating minorities in Islamic lands and turning thousands of bewildered families into refugees exposed to all sorts of dangers? Who decapitates children in the public square, who executes innocent people so it’ll be easier to subjugate the others? Who plunders and extorts a lot of sorry bastards after seducing them with lying sermons? Go on, tell me, shed some light. Tell me who rapes mothers before their daughters’ eyes, mothers-in-law and daughters-in-law together, and widows in front of their orphans, in the name of Allah the most gracious and most merciful?”
I pushed away my paper plate and stood up.
Before leaving the kebab shop, I fired a parting shot at the tall guy: “What’s happening in Muslim countries is a necessary evil. You can’t make the world stand up straight without getting rid of those who bow their backs.”
Only when I reached the street did I become aware of how imprudent I’d been to reveal my opinion so forthrightly to strangers. But it was too strong for me.
I was wondering where I would spend the night when Ramdan, a mason who ran the Association’s canteen in his spare time, surged up behind me. Pretending to speak into his telephone, he addressed me in a low voice: “Follow me at a distance, but don’t hurry.”
I followed him to a small disused workshop where two characters were waiting for us, one of them straddling a crate, the other leaning in a corner in the background, his arms crossed on his chest like an executioner. Ramdan didn’t consider it necessary to make introductions.
“Get rid of them,” I ordered him.
“They’re reliable.”
“I don’t know them, so they have no business being here. Rules are rules, Ramdan.”
I waited until the two tough guys were in the street before returning to the point: “You thought you were going to scare me with your pit bulls? Let me remind you that I wasn’t in Paris to take selfies under the Eiffel Tower. I went there to die, and I should be dead. Maybe I really am dead, who knows? Maybe I’m only a ghost.”
“Why are you getting so agitated, my brother? You told me to get rid of my companions, I got rid of them. Now relax.”
“Not until I see either the sheikh or Lyès.”
“What planet do you live on, my brother? The country’s been turned upside down. Nobody’s available, not for anyone. Everybody has to lie low, keep quiet, and wait for things to settle down.”
“As far as I’m concerned, it’s an emergency. I must speak to a high-level official. I have to let leadership know it wasn’t my fault that I didn’t carry out my mission in Paris. I didn’t back out at the last minute.”
“Lyès knows that.”
I felt like I’d just been clubbed on the head. “Lyès knows?”
“The sheikh and Imam Sadek know too…You have nothing to blame yourself for in that regard, Khalil. Nobody doubts your courage.”
I couldn’t get over it. I clapped my hands to my ears and told myself I hadn’t heard right.
Ramdan frowned, surprised that I wasn’t jumping for joy. “Well, what? You feel reassured, right?”
“Reassured? You think it’s as easy as that? I’ve been in a total daze, as a matter of fact. Just moping around, at loose ends. I sleep with one eye open, and never very well. I shit my pants every time some hotshot driver slams on the brakes in the street. And you, you drop this news on me like it was some simple little misunderstanding, nothing more. Besides, what is it that they know, exactly, Lyès and company? Because I don’t have the slightest idea.”
He tried to put his hand on my shoulder.
“Please don’t touch me. Just explain what’s going on. I feel like a cuckold—I’m the last to know what’s happening.”
Ramdan stared at me for a minute before clearing his throat. He sniffed, turned to the left and then to the right, wiped the corner of his mouth with his calloused thumb.
“Are you hiding something from me? Come on, spit it out.”
He waggled his chin and then said, in a toneless voice, “They gave you the wrong vest.”
“No kidding. I got sent to the front with defective ammunition.”
“Things like that happen. In the heat of the moment, they mixed up the belts and gave you the wrong one. The sheikh and Lyès asked me to convey their apologies to you. They would have liked to apologize in person, but priorities have to be respected. France and Belgium are on the heels of a brother whose behavior, unlike yours, was inexcusable. He wimped out like a pussy and left his belt and his cell phone at the scene of the attacks. He couldn’t have done a better job of putting the enemy on his trail. The problem is, nobody knows where he’s hiding or who he’s with, and that’s why the cops are carrying out raids and doing ID checks everywhere. Every section of the city is sealed off.”
I felt my knees buckle under my weight. I wanted to pound on the wall until my wrist broke.
Ramdan started kneading the tip of his nose. He didn’t know what to do with me anymore. “Relax, Khalil,” he said. “You’re guaranteed safe.”
“What do they want from me?”
“Nothing at the moment.”
“I’m fed up with running around in circles.”
“You just have to grin and bear it. But know that you’re not alone. Lyès requests that you act like nothing’s the matter.”
“Which means?”
“You behave normally. Of course, you avoid the Association. You stay in your corner and make as little noise as possible. You can go home if you want, no problem. If the police come looking for you, don’t put up any resistance.”
“Has someone informed on me?”
“Like who? The emir, the sheikh, the imam? Me? Nobody but the five of us knows you were in France.”
“So why do you say the police might come looking for me?”
“The cops are bringing in anybody who knew our shuhada who fell in Paris, everyone from close friends to slight acquaintances: parents, neighbors, buddies, the corner grocer, former teachers, the mailman. That’s the procedure. I expect to be called in too. Many of our people have been questioned and released. Not one has been taken into custody. The services are doing their job, that’s all. If they come looking for you, you cooperate the same way any good citizen would. You two were thick as thieves, you and Driss. It’s normal that the cops would be interested in you. You’ll say yes, it’s true, Driss was your friend, you’d known each other since you were kids, but you knew nothing about his projects.”
“They won’t believe me.”
“So what? They have no proof against you. And you have an ironclad alibi. You spent the night of November thirteenth to fourteenth in bed with Fattoma, the Association’s cook.”
“Why dirty that good woman’s reputation? And mine as well? What will the neighborhood people think?”
“Nobody’s going to shout the story from the rooftops.”
“I refuse. We have to find something else. I have a lot of respect for Fattoma. She doesn’t deserve to be dragged through the mud. Have you thought of her children?”
“They’re too little. And besides, it’s just so you’ll have an alibi. Fattoma has agreed.”
“You forced her to agree, all of you. No pious woman would accept—”
“Are you deaf, or what? It’s just so you’ll have a cover if you need one.”
I considered briefly, and then I shook my head. “No, it’s not right, I can’t do it.”
“Those are the orders. And orders are given to be carried out exactly. I’m not the one who makes the rules, Khalil. They come down from above. After all, what you’re objecting to is nothing but a customary precaution. And it’s possible that no one will come for you.”
“The best thing for me to do is to leave the country.”
“Don’t you dare. That’s an automatic giveaway.”
“But I have to go hole up somewhere.”
“And suppose they nab you at the airport, what are you going to tell them? You’re leaving on vacation? Even if you manage to board the plane, they’ll be waiting for you when you land. No matter what shithole you pick, they’ll find you. Remain in Brussels and act normal. If they summon you to the police station, you respond, ‘Present.’ ”
“How am I supposed to remain in Brussels? I’m on the street.”
“But you’re staying with Rayan, aren’t you?”
“Are you spying on me now?”
“We’re watching over you.”
“Yeah, that’s it, watching. When it comes to keeping watch, I’m afraid I’m the only one who never shuts his eyes. And the worst part is, I don’t even know where I’m going to sleep tonight.”
“Go back to Rayan’s.”
“We had a falling-out.”
“You shouldn’t have.”
He passed me an envelope. “This is from the emir. It’s enough to keep you going for a week or two, enough time for things to improve. Find yourself a hideout to wait in. If you don’t, you can stay in this workshop.”
“Why not the hotel? I need a shower and a minimum of comfort.”
“If there’s one place you absolutely must avoid, it’s the hotel. The services have all hotels under surveillance.”
He left me standing in the middle of the room and hurried to rejoin his two goons in the street.
I spent three nights straight in the workshop, curled up on cardboard boxes, dueling with my doubts and my suspicions, which kept me up past dawn. I examined my conversation with Ramdan from a great many different angles without finding any that was reassuring. There were too many gray areas. That tale about the wrong vest didn’t hold water. A mistake of such magnitude, at such a crucial moment, simply could not be made. It was impossible. The stakes were momentous, the consequences considerable. I was firmly convinced that I’d been given the right belt, equipped with a cell phone that had only one reason to be there: to take me out remotely. The same way Driss and the other two brothers had probably been taken out. How else to explain only one person dead and a few wounded at the stadium, when they had counted on causing absolute carnage? If access to the Stade de France was being strictly controlled, the brothers could have waited for the end of the match and attacked the fans as they exited. Blowing themselves up with practically no one around made no sense. I couldn’t get it through my head. I knew Driss well enough to bury him without a grave. He wasn’t the kind to rush things or do a sloppy job. He would have waited for the match to end. Hadn’t he promised to kill more people than I did?…The more I tried to swallow the pill, the larger it seemed. I trusted nobody. Especially not Ramdan. How could I give credence to a man willing to put pressure on an irreproachable mother of a family, and moreover a widow, and make her pretend to be an occasional prostitute? No ironclad alibi could justify such an affront. Not for the good Cause, and not for any person. The integrity of a mother can’t be negotiated. Ramdan was nothing but a bootlicker, a creep, a hypocrite. Someone in authority could spit in his face and he’d be delighted. He disgusted me. Everything disgusted me.
On the fourth night, while I was roaming the streets, a car pulled up, drew even with me, and stopped. A door opened in front of me.
“Come on, get in,” Rayan said.
I had no choice. There were too many rats in the workshop, and the cardboard I was sleeping on wasn’t thick enough to protect me from the cold and the hard floor.
Zahra was adamant: I’d received neither a registered letter nor a visit, nor had there been any sign of life from the friend who was supposed to pick up my stuff.
I spent my days shut up in Rayan’s place, tracking the stories on the TV news channels. The media talked of nothing but the escape of the brother who’d gone on the lam in Paris and abandoned his cell phone at the scene of the operation, thus handing the security services the key to dismantling an entire network. I didn’t know the fugitive. I didn’t remember our paths ever crossing. He wasn’t a part of our group.
When I’d get weary of straining my eyes looking at the plasma screen, I’d sleep. I still hadn’t started saying my daily prayers again. Something told me I could do without them. I should have already been dead, having died for God’s glory. I wasn’t in Paradise yet, but I didn’t have anything more to prove here below either. Although unsuccessful, my sacrifice exempted me from certain tasks that it was a believer’s duty to perform.
Around five o’clock in the afternoon, just before Rayan got home from work, I’d go to a café and stay there until nightfall before returning. I led my host to believe that I was knocking on every possible door, trying to find a job. My presence under his roof upset his habits. On several occasions, I’d caught him with the telephone pressed to his ear, apologizing to his fiancée because he couldn’t invite her over. The smile he shot at me openly betrayed the predicament I was putting him in. I’m sure that the desire to regain his privacy led him to persuade one of his clients, a Turk who had a furniture store on rue Heyvaert, to give me a job.
The Turk, a fussy, nearly obese man in his fifties, had a massive face, densely covered with freckles, and an enormous flaccid belly that quivered like a bowlful of Jell-O. He began by complaining about his business, which wasn’t going well, and about the bills stuffing his mailbox. These topics moved him to the very brink of blubbering. While Rayan was insistently vouching for me, the Turk scratched the back of his head and looked cunning. After sizing me up on the sly, he asked me if I had a driver’s license.
“Of course.”
“Do you have any experience driving trucks?”
“Depends on which ones. Vans, yes; tractor trailers, no.”
He resumed scratching his skull and then made a show of consulting a register on his desk. “Really, Rayan, you’re putting a knife to my throat. Because I can’t refuse you anything, here’s what I propose for your friend: thirty euros per delivery, setup included. Naturally, he’ll work off the books, and only when I need him.”
“Haven’t you been burglarized twice, Suleiman?” Rayan reminded him.
“Burglarized? Let’s not exaggerate. A lock was forced and two or three drawers messed up, but nothing was stolen. And besides, what have I got worth stealing? My furniture’s low-end, my safe’s empty. The police say it was some known felons who were looking for a hideout for the night.”
“In that case, why did you ask me to install surveillance cameras for you?”
“To discourage illegals from breaking in. I don’t want my shop to be a dormitory for thugs. Especially not right now, with all these terrorists running around left and right.”
“One more reason to hire a night watchman. Khalil would gladly accept the position if you could show a little more generosity.”
“I don’t need a night watchman. My alarm system works very well.”
“An alarm system can be neutralized.”
“That’s the opposite of what you told me before.”
“No security system is one hundred percent reliable, Suleiman, as you well know. Hackers prove it. A watchman’s a better deterrent.”
The storekeeper pursed his lips, looking skeptical.
“Please,” Rayan persisted. “I’ve never asked you for a favor before. Give him enough time to find a stable job. Khalil’s the only support his family has. He’s got an invalid father and five mouths to feed.”
Chance—or rather a sign from Heaven—caused the telephone to ring at that precise moment.
When the boss hung up, his eyes were shining. “Your protégé is blessed,” he said to Rayan. “I haven’t gotten such a big order all at one time since the beginning of the year: ten desks, ten wardrobes, forty chairs, and eight low tables.”
I was hired immediately. As a deliveryman and night watchman.
Rayan was happy for me and especially pleased that now he’d finally be able to welcome his fiancée into his home again. I didn’t blame him for getting rid of me; however, even though he’d taken me in and helped me find a job and a place to stay, I hadn’t been able to forgive him for the abominable things he’d said about Driss’s sacrifice.