The African Equation (8 page)

During the stop, tied as I was to a root, I didn’t manage to catch a glimpse of Hans.

A ragged man was crouching at the top of a hill – God knows where he’d come from. At the sight of the convoy, he picked up his bundle and ran down the slope, gesticulating wildly … The pick-up swerved to the side and headed straight for him. He had now reached the edge of the track. Instead of slowing down, Joma accelerated and charged at him. Surprised by the vehicle’s sudden detour, the stranger just had time to move back to avoid being hit. He fell backwards. Around me, the pirates shrieked with laughter and slapped their thighs … The poor man started to pick himself up from the dust, and at that moment the jeep, which was behind us, now also left the track and hurled itself at him. At first dumbfounded, he realised that he wasn’t out of trouble yet and still, by some extraordinary reflex, had to perform a superhuman feat of acrobatics to dodge the wheels passing a few inches from his head. Disoriented, he dropped his bundle and set off at a run straight up the hill, without turning. His headlong flight merely increased my kidnappers’ hilarity. There was something so indecent in their exaggerated laughter it was
beyond my understanding. They were laughing proudly, as if the impunity they allowed themselves instilled in them an overwhelming sense of courage and invincibility. They were also laughing because they noticed that their attitude shocked me as much as their murderous attempts to knock a man down. Much to my despair, I realised that these men who held me captive, these men who would decide my fate, these men devoid of conscience, weren’t content with trivialising the deliberate act of killing, they also claimed it as a right.

My eyes went from the kidnappers to the poor wretch clambering up the hill. I was incapable of distinguishing the horror I felt from the pity. At that moment, the pirates and the man were part of the same human misery. Any protest on my part was doomed in advance: there was nothing I could say or do … I thought of my previous life, so delightful and easy that it seemed like a joke. A sanitised life, as well timed and ordered as a musical score, where every day began and ended in the same way: a kiss when I woke, another when I got back from work, another before switching off the light in the bedroom, with
I love yous
at the end of every phone call and text message – in short, the ordinary happiness you take for granted, as unquestionable as a fait accompli … Oh, that happiness, the philosopher’s stone, the domestic dream, the earthly paradise of which you’re both the baleful god and the privileged devil … that damned happiness that rests on so little but overrides all other ambitions and fantasies … that happiness which, when you come down to it, has only its self-delusion as protection and its innocence as an alibi … Had I suspected how vulnerable it was? Not for a moment … Then, one evening, one
ordinary
evening, no different
from any of the thousands of evenings that went before it, everything turns upside down. What you’ve built, what you were sure was yours, suddenly vanishes in the blink of an eye. You realise you were sleepwalking along a wire. Overnight, the dashing Kurt Krausmann who used to be so concerned that the creases in his trousers were straight, the solemn and serious Dr Krausmann wakes to find himself in the back of a clapped-out pick-up, surrounded by ragged-looking killers, in the middle of an unknown country where the death of a man is worth no more than the act that causes it … How sad it all was!

The sun was just starting to go down on that second day when we reached a plateau from which the rays ricocheted off as if from a mirror, dotting the surrounding area with false oases. It was a stony, charcoal-grey land, that was turning completely into desert. Strips of undergrowth indicated the place where a river had once flowed. There were a few scrawny trees here and there, their branches lifted to the sky like arms raised in surrender, but still no villages anywhere to be seen.

We spent the night in a ravine, and very early the next day the convoy headed due west to a new station. This time, the hiding place seemed to have been discovered and looted by other bandits, leaving nothing but empty jerry cans and sacks that had been ripped open. As the place was no longer safe, Moussa ordered his men to carry straight on to the next station. A blazing sun pursued us all the way there. The pick-up was like a furnace. I was dripping with sweat, my back burnt by the slatted sides and my feet by the floor. Exhausted and discouraged, forced to continue
on their way without food or drink, our kidnappers resigned themselves to the bumpy terrain. Some dozed, their mouths open, their weapons between their thighs. As for Blackmoon, he remained on alert, keeping a close eye on me as if I were the only thing that mattered.

Coming out of a stony maze, the jeep overtook us and forced the two pick-ups to fall into line behind it. Chief Moussa got out and lifted the binoculars to his eyes. He pointed to something in the distance. Joma took the binoculars from his hands, looked through them for a long time, then nodded. ‘Village at nine o’clock!’ Moussa said, getting back in his jeep. The three vehicles veered south and headed straight for the village, which was actually nothing but a ragged settlement.

Alerted by the humming of the engines, swarms of kids emerged from the huts and started running at top speed towards a stony column to take shelter. The youngest of them, naked from head to foot, stumbled and fell. He must have hurt himself badly because he lay there on the ground without moving. Two small boys stopped and yelled at him to get back on his feet then ran back to help him up, and disappeared again quickly behind the rocks. The pirates’ three vehicles moved into a small open space surrounded by half a dozen huts, most of them deserted. Moussa was the first to get out. He fired in the air to flush out the inhabitants, but without success. His men plunged into the huts, screaming like animals. Some came out empty-handed, others with wretched pieces of booty: a foul-smelling pancake, an opened sachet of powdered milk, an old blanket. An old man was sitting outside his hut, his body propped up on an ancient stick. Dressed in an overcoat as old as the world, his skull hairless, his
expression opaque, there he sat, calmly, paying no heed to this bandit raid, as if he had spent his whole life being robbed. Beside him, on a tattered mat, an old woman was watching the agitation around her without really seeing it. In her ageless face, her two eyes were so eroded by trachoma they were almost extinguished. The loincloth she was wearing barely concealed her nakedness. Her withered breasts, which seemed to have suckled whole generations, hung over her skeletal sides like two dried marrows. In the poverty of their configuration, there was a kind of topography of misfortune. Two of the pirates rushed into the hut and brought out a bleating goat. The old couple didn’t move, didn’t even turn to look. They sat there, immutable, like two stuffed animals.

I was shocked by the shameless way the thieves were robbing people as destitute as these, and even more by the old couple’s detachment as they watched themselves being relieved of their only goat, probably the only thing they owned, without saying a word, without making a gesture, as if it were the slightest of misfortunes, a mere formality.

Moussa ordered his men to withdraw. The vehicles drove around intimidatingly in the middle of the empty huts, a few shots were fired in the air to celebrate this pathetic raid, and the convoy set off again. I don’t know why, but when the pick-up drove past the old couple sitting dazed on the threshold of their hut, I showed them my tied wrists – maybe I was trying, through this superfluous reflex, to ask their forgiveness for being the reluctant witness to such a despicable act. One of the pirates, who had noticed my gesture, gave an ironic grin, as if to say: What could you have done if your hands had been free, except hide your face?

On the fourth day, we came out onto a plateau of cosmic emptiness, without a trace of greenery, without one drop of water, without a single patch of shade: an expanse of burning stones, where the reflections were as sharp as a razor, a land from just after the Big Bang, still engorged with fire, which had kept its original ochre hue like the first layer of sediment from before the first rains, the first grass, the first stirrings of life.

Two birds of prey were whirling in the sky. The false majesty of their circling did not augur well. On a bare hillock, a group of vultures were swarming around a shapeless form. Was it an animal or a human being? The vultures took turns dipping into their prey, as calmly and shamelessly as partygoers savouring a well-deserved meal. The largest of them turned to the convoy, in no way bothered, even though the track was very close. I clearly made out its hairless neck and blood-smeared beak. Suddenly, I thought I saw an arm move amid the wings.

‘There’s a man there,’ I yelled at the driver. ‘Stop, there’s a man being eaten by vultures, and he’s still alive …’

My kidnappers woke with a start and instinctively grabbed their weapons, expecting an enemy attack. Joma just kept on driving.

‘Stop, please! I tell you there’s an injured man …’

Joma glanced at me in the rear-view mirror and tapped his temple with his finger.

‘I’m not imagining things. I saw him move. He’s alive … Stop right now …’

On the hillock, the vultures moved their wings in a
dance of death, and again I thought I saw the arm move. I threw myself at the back of the cab, and knocked on it.

‘You have no hearts. You’re monsters. Stop, stop, you bunch of savages …’

Joma braked so sharply that the jeep behind us nearly crashed into us … The word ‘savages’ had slipped out. I couldn’t take it back or downplay it. I only became aware of how serious it was when it rang out over the noise of the pick-up, bearing as it did centuries of tragedy and trauma. I didn’t think it for a second but, through some dormant mechanism, I had said it. And Joma had heard it … He jumped out, ran along the side of the vehicle, grabbed me by my shirt collar and pulled me over the side. I fell on my stomach, face down. He took me by the hair and lifted me up. His face was distorted with anger and hatred.

He pushed and kicked me towards the hillock, without saying anything.

‘What’s going on, damn it?’ Moussa asked, coming to a halt by the side of the road. ‘Where’s he taking him?’

When we got within twenty metres of the hillock, Joma crushed the back of my neck between his fingers.

‘Where do you see an injured man? Where is this guy we
savages
are abandoning to the birds?’

The shapeless form in question was the carcass of a jackal. As for the arm I thought I’d seen move, it was only the jackal’s paw, which one of the vultures was busy tearing to pieces.

‘So, who’s having visions now?’

Joma fired a shot into the air, and the vultures flapped their wings but didn’t fly away – they were far too hungry to give up their feast.

‘Is there the body of a man in there, mister doctor?’

‘No.’

‘I didn’t hear that,’ he said, putting his hand to his ear.

‘I’m sorry. I thought …’

‘You thought what? That there was a man being eaten by birds or that you were surrounded by heartless savages?’

‘I was wrong.’

‘All down the line, cretin, all down the line. You don’t understand a damned thing about our continent … You’re in Africa now, and in Africa, you’re the savage.’

‘I’m sorry.’

‘Too easy. You can apologise to me on your knees. I did warn you: if you don’t want me to walk all over you, become invisible. Now get down on your knees and beg my forgiveness.’

I didn’t do as he said.

‘On your knees, you son of a bitch, or I’ll blow your brains out.’

The chief’s jeep left the track and came towards us.

Joma stuck the barrel of his rifle under my chin. I didn’t give in. I had no desire to give in. I heard Moussa shouting orders; Joma wasn’t listening. His eyes bulging, his mouth wide open, he was trembling with anger. The jeep came level with us and stopped. The chief jumped down, and put his arms out to calm his subordinate.

‘Don’t be a fool, Joma.’

‘The son of a bitch has to realise that the days of colonialism are long past.’

‘Put down your Kalashnikov.’

‘Not before he’s on the ground.’

The chief didn’t dare come a step closer. Joma’s finger was on the trigger. Sweat was pouring down his forehead.

‘On your knees!’

‘Do what he asks,’ Hans yelled at me in German. ‘The man’s not in his right mind.’

I couldn’t blink or swallow. But I wasn’t scared. I think my nerves must have given way, because I no longer had any awareness of the danger I was in. Let him get on with it, I said to myself, resigned. The situation was beyond my understanding, and I was tired, convinced that, sooner or later, this madman would shoot me. Everything in him condemned me. He had promised to cook me on a low heat until I melted in his mouth. And he would keep his word. His hatred was a programme he would not deviate from.

‘Please, Kurt!’ Hans cried. ‘Do as he says!’

The chief tried to approach, but Joma pointed his weapon at him and forced him to retreat.

‘Don’t interfere, Moussa. This is between him and me.’

‘Let me remind you he’s my hostage.’

‘I don’t give a fuck about that. I took up arms to defend principles, not to line my pockets. I guarantee that if he doesn’t grovel at my feet, I’ll settle his hash right now.’

The chief urged me to comply. I shook my head. The barrel this time was aimed at my forehead. A deep silence fell over the hillock. The men in the pick-up were standing, waiting to see my skull explode. Hans was petrified; his cries had exhausted him. Further down, on the track, the rest of the gang were motionless. Things were clearly getting worse and they were waiting to see how it was all going to end. In the sky, the two vultures circled in slow motion, their shadows skimming the ground like a bad omen.

‘I’ll count to three,’ Joma boomed. ‘One … two …’

Blackmoon, whom I hadn’t seen come up behind me,
kicked me hard in the shins and forced me to kneel. The irregularity of the procedure didn’t seem to bother Joma. All he cared about was seeing me on the ground.