Abduction (12 page)

“A rubbish tip, spring-cleaned and with added roof and door. My ex-wife's new husband wanted to get rid of me as fast as he could. All the same, I think he felt a bit ashamed about kicking out someone like me. In return for a few banknotes, he persuaded the council worker to ‘forget' this rubbish tip. Anything goes in this crazy country, you know that, as long as you pay the right price.”

Moh turned his head to the right and, using it like an index finger, pointed with his tongue.

“You see those bin bags over there by the car park? They're piled up around a construction just like mine. It's the new tip but, as you can see, it's not really any use. People prefer to chuck their rubbish any old place; it's as if having cleaner surroundings would annoy them! At least I use mine as a villa. All right, it's true there aren't any windows, nothing but a badly made door, but I only shut myself in at night. I don't take up much room, as you can see; I can live in next to nothing.”

His head was still nodding furiously (
Ha ha ha, don't forget he's a Mediterranean, he gesticulates with his head for want of hands.
) Once more his mouth produced a shrill laugh, too cheerful by half.

“When I say I come in… what I mean is that my son puts me inside in the evening and shuts the door until the next day, except for Friday when it's the people from the mosque who take care of me, pamper me and feed me before they help me pray. The imam has threatened any locals who try to steal from me or do me any harm with reprisals. He dreamed that I was sent by heaven to test the believers in the neighbourhood. According to him, I am of indubitable social and religious usefulness.”

His eyes shone with mocking pride.

“What time does your son come?”

“He always comes in the morning to open the door, wash me and help me set out my goods. In the evening, he's here around 7 o'clock to count the till and feed me. When he hasn't got school, he sometimes drops in at lunchtime.”

“And you sleep alone?”

“Yes, until (as he laughed, he clicked his tongue against his palate) the imam or some accommodating Muslim comes up with a new wife for me.”

“How old are you, Moh?”

“Forty-four and a few months. Do you want my star sign too?”

Something evil had moved within me, like a venomous snake raising its head to put an end to this idiotic dialogue with its prey.
Time you shut up, you dwarf. Your smile is forced, you feign cheerfulness because you're scared that people will be put off by your appearance and shrink from talking to you. But I'm sure you spend your nights weeping over the injustice of your fate. This evening I will come and put an end to your mother's blunder and we won't even need to bury you in the rubbish because you'll already be there.

I felt a kind of dizziness at such a hideous emotion. I blinked with the violence of this discovery: a part of me about the size of a hazelnut had just murmured gleefully at the thought of taking another person's life.

The handicapped man had fixed me with eyes brimming with anxiety.

“Ah, I'm boring you with my chatter…”

And as if he were afraid that I might flee, he hurriedly added, completely out of context with what had gone before, “Please wait. I have to tell you what my son's called.”

He contemplated me with a disturbingly fierce glint of defiance.

“My son's called Yacine. When I gave him that name, I didn't know that he would deserve it far more than I bargained for. You know the Surah
Ya-sin
from the holy Koran, which is called that because it begins with two separate letters – the letters
Ya
and
Sin
. No one knows why God chose to put them all on their own. We will find out, it seems, at the end of time when we are born again to be judged. Long time to wait, don't you think?”

The limbless man was interrupted by a long and whistling cough. He smiled awkwardly by way of apology. Some saliva dribbled from the corners of his mouth. For a second, I thought about getting up and wiping it away.

“You see, doctor, my son is a real mystery. How, at his age, can he be so considerate towards his runt of a father and never lose patience? Everything has a heart, and it is claimed that the heart of the Koran is this mysterious Surah
Yasin
. As you can imagine, I am too ignorant to dare to express an opinion about God's plans…”

The cigarette seller had tears in his eyes. The trap had just sprung shut on me: I had let him talk too long about his cursed offspring.

“…But it's simple as far as I'm concerned – my boy Yacine is my heart of hearts!”

I stood up, overcome with anger at my clear defeat. I would never have the courage to seize this man by the throat, plunge the point of my screwdriver into it and hold it there until the death rattle came. I hated the miraculous teenager whose mere existence had just saved his father's life.

My hands were itching. With shame, with despair.

So you don't want to do away with an innocent person? A big word that! Look at them, all these people around you, so profoundly, so spectacularly
innocent
, as if by vocation; examine their
innocent
gestures, listen to their
innocent
conversations and their
innocent
arguments! You'd think that no one had ever killed anyone in Algeria in all these long years, that no one had denounced a neighbour who talked too much, that no one was getting ready to kill people in an attack or a fake roadblock tomorrow! And see how, still armoured with the same
innocence
, they throw themselves at today's amnestied prisoners and yesterday's mass murderers, how seductive they find them with their hennaed beards, their big, melancholy eyes and their rhetoric about the Eden of promiscuity that awaits the Obedient!

The mastiff careering around in my mind interjected:
Aziz, you are a downright chicken. Where are you going to find someone this easy to eliminate now? You want to stay clean? Well, stay clean, but it's your daughter who'll be sullied! First blood, then sperm, and finally decapitation…

Without another glance at Moh, I looked at my watch. I had wasted half an hour of the scarce time the kidnapper had granted me. Hastily I walked off, my jaws clenched, incapable of responding to the shopkeeper's invitation to have another cup of coffee, this time with some extra-special cardamom someone had brought him back from Morocco.

I mumbled, “Sip your shitty coffee with some poison instead!”

I immediately felt like gulping down a few swigs of that merciful drink and dying right there, on this spit-spattered pavement – because I couldn't see how I might save my child.

I
got back in my car and put my useless bag down beside me. I looked at it in amazement. And, having not once invoked the heavens since my childhood, I started praying, like a coward, like a villain. “Dear God, forgive me, free my daughter, but do not ask me to kill an innocent. I do not have Abraham's mad obedience; I am only the basest kind of man. Have mercy, have mercy!”

This prayer did nothing to diminish my terror. Worse: I felt as ridiculous as a chicken destined for the dinner table begging the farmer to spare it.

I took out my phone. I realised that the back cover had moved slightly and that the battery had come out of its housing. The telephone had therefore been off, probably ever since I'd put it back in my pocket. I pushed the battery back inside in a panic, cursing my negligence; I should have either changed phone or put a strip of sticky tape on the lid to stop it slipping.

The screen showed some waiting messages. I checked my voicemail. The first was from Meriem. In a strangled voice, she asked me whether the… (she didn't dare name him) had rung and if I had any news about Shehera. The second was also from my wife. “Why aren't you answering, Aziz? Call me… I'm dying of fright… Call me, please…”

Her voice was exasperated and at the same time on the verge of tears.

My soul melted with shame. I almost interrupted the succession of messages.

“…So you think not answering your dearest friend on earth is funny, eh? Why are you doing this? …”

I stiffened when I heard the third message.

“…I am extremely disappointed in you, Aziz, extremely disappointed. I shall call again in nine minutes. If you do not pick up in nine minutes' time, then nine will only be eight, and eight will only be seven… Speak to you soon. Hey, my boy, don't try and be clever, and most importantly don't tell you-know-who about our plans.”

The menu came up again. I looked at my watch in horror. I was shaking so hard I couldn't work out how to get back to find out when the message had been recorded.

“Aziz… (Meriem was sobbing) What have you done? … The man rang me… He said that you had disappointed him a lot… that his disappointment always has a price… What does he mean? … Aziz, I called your office… Your colleague said you'd left the zoo (A hiccup interrupted her moaning)… Come home… My daughter, I want my daughter…”

I hung up again. I stood there, not moving, taking short gulps of air, refusing to grasp what my ears had heard.
Nine minutes, one finger; eight minutes, another finger… How many minutes would it take until she lost all her fingers?
It was like the relentless teacher during my childhood dictating a mathematical problem about taps that kept on running, trying desperately to fill up bathtubs riddled with holes. But in this case the water was replaced by my daughter's blood. I shook my head to break off this obscene calculation, but to no avail.

The telephone rang. I held my mobile up to my ear, my senses all at sea. The man tutted a dissatisfied
no no no
.

“Why did you turn your phone off?”

“I had a problem with the battery,” I stammered. “Please…”

“You understood my warning? The stuff about deadlines? It's very annoying, to tell you the truth. Deep down, I don't wish you any harm.”

His tone was so normal that I misunderstood him. I let out a sigh of relief. I heard an irritated snigger.

“Hey, don't get ahead of yourself! I told you I found it annoying, but not enough to forget my promises. Exactly fifteen minutes have elapsed since my warning. A first period of nine minutes and a second of eight. You've studied, so go ahead and calculate, given that the second period doesn't merit any punishment because it hasn't finished yet and because you're chatting away with me right now.”

I didn't react, my horrified mind refusing to bend to the madman's reasoning.

“Anyway, Aziz, it's not so bad! I've only removed one more finger, her left ring finger. Come on, no need to make a diplomatic incident of it! It'd be better if you kept your mind on our agreement if you want her to keep the most important part.”

His tone of voice was that of a doctor explaining learnedly to his patient that he has had to proceed with two or three unavoidable operations that were apparently unpleasant but had benign consequences.

My mouth uttered some garbled words.

“Pass… Pass me my daughter…”

“Why? Don't you believe me? And you're giving me orders now?”

His tone was puzzled, with just a hint of amusement – the cat taken aback by a rebellious mouse.

“No… no. Please let me talk to my daughter.”

“And will you do as you promised?”

I answered “Yes, yes!” and every nook of my soul was sincere.

“I'll see what I can do. Don't cut us off,” he said, then burst out laughing at his pun.

I was left standing there with my ear glued to the phone for a good minute. Then I picked up some moans that appalled me more than any scream.

“Is that you, Shehera?”

A feeble “Yes, Dad' answered me, and it was so painful that I knew the kidnapper wasn't bluffing.

I murmured, “Did he hurt you again, my girl?”

“Yes… It's bleeding… Dad, it… hurts so much… He gave me some pills, but they don't help one bit…”

Tears welled up in my eyes.
My baby, my tiny, tiny baby.
I had asked to be there when Shehera was born. The midwife had scowled at my request, muttering that it was a
haram
custom that invaded a woman's privacy. I objected that my wife had agreed. Surprised by my stupidity, the midwife retorted that she was talking about her own privacy and that she refused to touch a woman's private parts in the presence of a man! Nonetheless, the birth had taken place in my presence and my daughter had emerged from her mother's sex like some strange astronaut visiting the Earthmen. Beside myself with joy, I had seen the infant smile at me as I stroked its head.

And now my mischievous astronaut was gulping down pills because a demented man from a different and evil planet had cut off two of her fingers! The black bile of pity rose in my throat.

“I'm sorry… I love you, my girl… I'm sorry… so sorry…”

“Dad, he's definitely going to kill me… Just now, I begged him… Oh Dad, how I begged him… But he wouldn't listen…”

She added in utter amazement, “Is there really nothing anyone can do for me, Dad?”

She had formulated her supplication in a tone that said “
You are my father, after all. It's up to you to protect me!”
It was her heart-rending pre-adolescent voice, from back when she still thought me the most powerful man on earth.

It hit me with more glaring certainty than the sun – nothing, not even debasement through the worst kind of ignominy, was worth a jot compared to my daughter's suffering!

“I swear on my own life, Shehera, that I will set you free!”

I didn't hear her reaction. Instead I was rewarded with the kidnapper's approval.

“Not a moment too soon. Now there's a resolution I can second!”

He clicked his tongue.

“Now… A little patience while I leave your daughter's room… We need to talk.”