The Orange Grove (9 page)

“I couldn't,” Aziz replied at once.

“You'll do it in your own words, very simply. Just the basics. It will take only a few minutes.”

“I can't do that, sir.”

“Do you want to think about it?”

“That's not necessary.”

“I could help you.”

“I couldn't!” Aziz cried, in a way that ended the discussion.

“I shouldn't have asked that of you. Please forgive me. Don't worry, I'll find a solution. Sony won't die. See you tomorrow, Aziz.”

Aziz left without saying good-bye.

Mikaël had been rehearsing that day in the school auditorium, a flexible space that could accommodate a hundred spectators. The
scenery, lighting, and costumes were conceived and executed by students in theater design, whom Mikaël supervised in collaboration with his colleagues. The class had just rehearsed the play on the set for the first time, and the day had been rather arduous. The choral sections were too slow, and a good half of Mikaël's lighting cues had to be reworked.

After Aziz left, Mikaël stayed by himself for a long while, in the middle of the set. The entire playing space was a Plexiglas floor covered in sand. About fifteen lights had been installed under this floor. The light shone from below, illuminating the layer of sand, rendering it burning hot or cold, depending on the scene. Dawn and twilight were evoked through these desert ambiences. In the course of the action, paths of light appeared in the sand, disturbed by the movements of the group. The floor was transformed into a luminous canvas, conveying to the public its cruel mystery or signs of hope.

Sitting in the sand, swathed in shadow, Mikaël was haunted by the mercenary he'd created. Was he not simply a monster? Mikaël wasn't naive. He hadn't written this text just to
make his students think. He was asking himself the same questions about evil. It was too easy to accuse those who committed war crimes of being assassins or wild beasts. Especially when those who judged them lived far from the circumstances that had provoked the conflicts, whose origins were lost in the vortex of history. What would he have done in a comparable situation? Would he, like millions of other men, have been capable of fighting for an idea, a scrap of earth, a border, or even oil? Would he, too, have been conditioned to kill innocents, women and children? Or would he have had the courage, even if it meant risking his life, to refuse the order to shoot down defenseless people with a burst of machine gun fire?

“I didn't tell you everything, sir.”

Mikaël gave a start. Lost in his thoughts, he hadn't noticed Aziz returning to the hall. Mikaël made out his silhouette among the rows of seats.

“I can't see you very well. Turn on the console near you.”

For rehearsals, they placed a theater console in the center of the hall. It was more practical for adjusting the lighting and music cues. When
Aziz turned on the console, the stage floor lit up for a moment, dazzling Mikaël.

“It's beautiful!”

“What, Aziz?”

“The set. That light coming through the sand. It's like it's raining in reverse.”

“Yes, a rain of light rising from the ground. That's it exactly.”

Aziz repeated, “I didn't tell you everything, sir.”

“About what?”

“About Soulayed.”

“What do you mean?”

“The thing I saw in his mouth, you remember?”

“You want to talk about your premonition?”

“Yes, that thing . . . it was a lie.”

“Come here. Come up on the stage.”

Aziz came to sit in the sand. His face, transformed by the lighting, seemed older, harder.

“Soulayed was just a liar, sir. He lied to us the day he took my brother and me away in the jeep.”

“What do you mean?”

“He told us the mountain was mined, he told us that God had guided our steps that day. It
was a lie. There never were any mines on that mountain. Nor had God broken our kite string. It was only the wind. And what we saw on the other side of the mountain was not military warehouses. It was a refugee camp. Soulayed manipulated our father. He manipulated us all.”

“That's horrible.”

“Yes, it's horrible.”

“I'm sorry, Aziz.”

“Soulayed did nothing but lie to us, sir. Because of him, Paradise is a field of ruins and my brother is a murderer.”

“Don't say that, your brother was only a child.”

“I have the right to say it.”

“Don't accuse him of having been a murderer. That is incomprehensible.”

“I learned many things thanks to Dalimah's husband. My father had told us over and over, with contempt, that our aunt had married an enemy. At first, I feared the man. I couldn't help it. I had no choice, though, but to go and live in his house. And I was also ashamed. After all, if I'd been the one to leave with the belt, I could have killed his relatives or neighbors. I imagined so many terrifying things. In time,
I realized that my uncle was not a dog, as my father had said, but rather a good man who had fled his country because he could no longer endure the bombs and the attacks, the massacres and the lies. When I announced that I wanted to become an actor, my aunt was agreeable, but he wasn't. He tried to talk me out of it. He wanted me to become an engineer like him. He told me that with my accent, no one would give me a role. That I wouldn't be able to work in my new country. That I was too different. I insisted. I said to him, ‘But Uncle Mani, that's what I want to do most in the world. I'm going to work hard and, you'll see, I'm going to succeed. And no one, no one will be able to tell where I come from, no one.' He didn't want to listen. So I talked to him about voices and stars.”

“Voices and stars?”

“Don't think I'm crazy, sir. But every night I look at the sky and I think of my brother. I search for him in the sky.”

“And have you found him?”

“No. My brother has disappeared from the sky. But I can't help myself. I keep searching.”

Aziz took a bit of sand and watched it run
slowly down through his raised fist. The grains glimmered when struck by a ray of light.

“I told my Uncle Mani that I would die if I didn't become an actor.”

“You really told him that?”

“Yes.”

“That was perhaps a bit much. How old were you?”

“I'd just turned fourteen.”

“And you already knew you wanted to become an actor?”

“Yes.”

“And the voices? You talked to your uncle about the voices you heard, those of Halim and your grandfather, didn't you?”

“No, they disappeared when I arrived here. But others took their place. Many others. It's those I mentioned to my uncle. I said to him, ‘Uncle Mani, don't tell Aunt Dalimah, but I hear voices. As if they were sleeping in the sky and my gaze brought them out of their slumber. They whisper, murmur, fill my head with their suffering. They're as numberless as the stars that make holes in the night. When I close my eyes,
the voices light up in my head.' My uncle said I had too much imagination. All that would disappear when I had a good job, when I found the woman of my life, and when I had children in my turn.”

“And?”

“I insisted. I told him that I felt as if dozens of people were living inside my head. ‘Uncle Mani, maybe you're right and I have too much imagination. But how can I have less? It's as if I were always carrying around a little town inside me. I hear children playing, laughing, sometimes singing, and then there you are, I don't know why, they start to cry. After that I hear other voices, women and men the age of my parents, and others with the tired voices of older people, and all those voices panicking, lamenting, moaning, and crying with rage in a single howl. And you know what I think, Uncle Mani? All those voices, they want to be heard, and not just as ghosts in my head. If I become an actor, I'll be able to bring them into the world, give voice to them. Give voice, Uncle Mani, do you understand? A voice that everyone will be able
to hear, with real words and real sentences. Otherwise they'll dwindle away inside me and I will become a ghost.'”

“Aziz, you really do have a lot of imagination. You told your uncle that?”

“Of course, sir. I had no choice.”

“Why?”

“Because it was the truth.”

“And how did your uncle react?”

“With another truth. Uncle Mani said to me: ‘My dear Aziz, I see what you're trying to say. Yes, now I see it. Those voices you've just been describing to me, I can guess where they come from. Not just your head, I'm afraid. I think it's time I told you the truth about your brother. I never knew him. All I know about him, I've learned from your aunt Dalimah and from you. But I want you to know that for me, you are Amed and you are Aziz. You are both. Don't seek your brother any longer, because he is in your heart.' Then my uncle took my hand and held it in his own. ‘Listen to me, Aziz, I have verified everything you've told me about Soulayed. I've talked to important people I trust. I've written to others. I've also searched through
the newspapers from those days. I still have a lot of contacts back home, especially journalists. I can assure you of one thing: there never were mines on the mountain. Everything Soulayed told you was false. Your brother never went to the other side of the mountain. That was not his mission. There was no military camp to blow up. On the other side of the mountain there was just a poor refugee camp. The day they took away your brother, they went south, in the same direction they'd taken Halim. No one will ever know what they really told your brother before abandoning him to his fate. He must have crossed the frontier through a secret tunnel. I can't confirm it to you. But what is certain, and nothing can erase the history of our countries, is how your brother died. He blew himself up, surrounded by a hundred children. Children, Aziz, children your age. There were dozens dead and as many wounded, seriously maimed. Those children were participating in a kite-flying competition. They'd been brought together beforehand in a school where they were attending a puppet show. I had no intention of revealing that to you today. I've talked about it often with your aunt Dalimah.
We knew that one day or another, you'd learn about it. I was amazed at first that you'd not been told about what happened when you were still back there. I imagine they did everything they could to hide this information from you. A little while ago, when you spoke to me about the voices you were hearing, I couldn't help thinking about those sacrificed children and their parents' wrenching anguish. I think you are bearing within yourself their grief for all those dead children. I think that's what you're hearing and that's what is making you suffer. It's perhaps your brother's last message, sent when he activated the detonator. Not everything can be explained. Not even war, you can't explain it when it kills children.' That's what my uncle revealed to me that day.”

Aziz got up and kicked at the sand. A cloud of dust and light rose from the floor, filling the stage.

“My brother was a murderer. I can't tell his story the way you want. It wouldn't help anything. It would save no one, certainly not a child. Find something else for the scene.”

Mikaël didn't know how to answer. Words caught in his throat.

“My brother is a murderer of children, sir!”

Aziz stood in front of Mikaël as if waiting for something. Mikaël observed him for a moment. With the scattered dust, the space around his body had taken on a porous, evanescent cast. Mikaël stood as well, wanting to take Aziz in his arms, to embrace him. He should have done so. Aziz just needed to be comforted.

Instead, Mikaël insisted that Aziz reverse his decision. He had to tell his story. It was the best solution. His brother's suicide attack, whether it took place in a school full of children or in a military camp, changed nothing where war's logic was concerned. In both cases, it was a matter of destroying the enemy and its means to attack and to defend itself. Mikaël heard himself uttering these words, and he found himself hateful. He couldn't think clearly, his reasoning tied him up in knots, and his arguments rang false. There was a difference between killing innocent children and blowing up military warehouses.
Anyone could see it. But without being aware, Mikaël was placing himself in the position of the mercenary character he'd created. What was there in Aziz's story that would touch him? What would persuade him to spare the child? Why would a man conditioned to kill listen to this story about a switch between twin brothers?

One question followed another and Mikaël feared that every possible answer would turn out to be another illusion. His play now struck him as pretentious and vain. He fought against the fear that his entire theatrical project would collapse like a house of cards before Aziz's story and this undeniable fact: his brother, a nine-year-old child, blew himself up surrounded by children his own age.

Mikaël went to turn off the console and turned on the house lights. He could no longer bear this lighting, shot through with shadows. He asked Aziz to come and sit in a seat next to him. For a long time they stared into the void in front of them, the great gaping stage mouth with its potential for lies and truth.

“Why did he agree to carry out such an
unthinkable act? That's the question you must have asked yourself hundreds of times. Am I right?”

Aziz stared straight ahead. Mikaël waited a moment for him to reply. Aziz seemed absent.

“You're not fair when you accuse your brother of being a murderer. How can you know what was going on in his heart when he saw what was lying in wait for him? He was deceived until the very last moment. I don't know, perhaps he was drugged . . .”

“You don't know what you're talking about, sir.”

“You're right, I know nothing. I dared to write a play about war in complete ignorance of what it involves, of what it provokes. What business did I have doing that?”