The Dictator's Last Night. Yasmina Khadra

lips at the prospect of the riches of my territory. But what alarm bells could I ring? In vain I warned other Arab leaders, those pleasure-seeking gluttons who only listen to the fawning and simpering of those who owe them favours. There was a full complement of them at Cairo, lined up like onions, spying on each other on the sly, half of them so conceited they could not stop behaving like constipated patriarchs, the other half too thick to be able to look serious. Arrivistes who thought they had really arrived, comic-opera presidents unable to shake off their country-bumpkin reflexes, petrodollar emirs looking like rabbits straight out of the magician’s hat, sultans wrapped in their robes like ghosts, disgusted at the blathering eulogies the speakers were trotting out ad infinitum. Why were they there? They cared for nothing that did not concern their personal fortunes. Busy stuffing their pockets, they refused to look up to see how dizzyingly fast the world was changing or how tomorrow’s storm clouds of hate were gathering on the horizon. The misery of their subjects, the despair of their youth, the pauperisation of their people, were the least of their concerns. Convinced that hard times would never trouble them, they ‘dealt with it’, as the saying goes. And they had nothing to fear, because they never stuck their necks out or played the tough guy. At the last summit of the League, while they hid their feelings behind their condescending smiles, I warned them: what had happened to Saddam Hussein could happen to them too. In private they laughed up their sleeves at me. And Ben Ali … my God, Ben Ali! That creep in his big shot’s suit, flexing his muscles to his henchmen, then folding like a pancake at the first envoy sent by the West! He sat right in front of me, red in the face from stifling his giggles. I amused him. I should have stepped off the stage to spit in his face. Wretched Ben Ali, dressed to the nines, so proud of his pimp’s paunch and willing to prostitute his country to the highest bidder. I have never been able to stand him, him and his mannered, pumped-up foppishness. I detested the way he cut his hair and his cheap charisma.

      I was at Saif al-Islam’s the evening it happened. I was playing with my grandson in one corner of the living room. Saif was standing in front of the TV, his arms folded, stunned by the spectacle on the giant screen. The demonstrations in Tunis were getting bigger and bigger. The crowd was wild and hate was written on everyone’s face. Foaming mouths were screaming for the death penalty. The police were scattering like rats at the inexorable advance of popular fury. No amount of ultimatums or tear gas could stem the human tide.

      I paid little attention to the commotion that the Tunisians were making. All the same, I was delighted to see Ben Ali challenged by his citizens. That evening I was the one stifling my giggles while he, in his quavering voice, begged his people to return to their homes. His panic was a treat. It filled me with pleasure. Ever since his bizarre inauguration I had known that he would only fly higher in order to fall further. A gangster elevated to the rank of rais! I was almost ashamed to have him as a fellow leader.

      Suddenly Saif punched his fist into his other hand in a gesture of disbelief.

      ‘He’s gone … Ben Ali’s cleared out.’

      ‘What did you expect, my son? The man is just a pig in shit. He would mistake a cow’s fart for a gunshot.’

      ‘It’s unbelievable!’ Saif swallowed indignantly. ‘That’s not how it works. He can’t leave now.’

      ‘It is always time to leave for those who do not know how to stand up for themselves.’

      Saif could not get over it. He kept punching his palm, astounded and outraged at once by the speed of the rais’s departure from the scene.

      ‘He shames us all, all of us. He has no right to throw in the towel. An Arab chieftain should never give up. That wet rag is humiliating every single one of us.’

      ‘Not me!’

      ‘Dammit! He’s the one in charge. He only has to frown to bring everyone back in line. What are his police and army doing?’

      ‘What little girls in uniform usually do.’

      ‘What a disgrace for a leader!’

      ‘He has never been a leader, Saif. He was no more than an upwardly mobile pimp, ready to bolt at the first sign of trouble. A street thief would know how to behave with more honour than he does.’

      Saif went on cursing. I picked my grandson up in my arms and turned my back on the TV. Arab revolts have always bored me. Their bark is worse than their bite.

       4

      I hear a car arrive.

      Is it my son Mutassim returning with the convoy?

      I dash into the corridor and down the stairs. The ground floor is deserted. Footsteps are hurrying to the building’s emergency exit.

      In the courtyard a requisitioned vehicle backfires before its ignition is switched off. It is a pickup, in a pitiful state: crazed windscreen, smashed side windows, bodywork like a sieve, a flat tyre, a wheel practically on its rim with shreds of rubber flapping on the side.

      The driver opens his door but stays slumped over the wheel, with one foot on the ground and the other on the floor of the cab. Soldiers drag two bodies from the back seat. The first has a smashed skull, the second’s mouth is gaping, his eyes rolling upwards. A third man, sitting next to the driver, groans.

      Abu-Bakr approaches the vehicle, Mansour behind him.

      ‘Where have these men come from?’

      ‘They’re the reconnaissance unit, General,’ a captain tells him.

      ‘Unit? I only see one vehicle.’

      ‘The other two copped an RPG,’ the driver explains in a dying voice. ‘No survivors.’

      ‘What do you mean, no survivors?’ Mansour thunders. ‘And kill your lights, you idiot. D’you think you’re on the Champs-Élysées?’

      The driver turns off his headlights. His movements are clumsy and slow.

      ‘What about Colonel Mutassim?’ I say to him.

      ‘He went on past point 34.’

      ‘Did you see him go through enemy lines?’

      ‘Yes, sir,’ he says, breathless as if about to faint. ‘We escorted him to the edge of the district, then covered him when the rebels tried to stop him.’

      ‘You stand to attention when you speak to your rais,’ I admonish him.

      The driver is collapsing over the steering wheel. He gathers all his last strength to raise his head a tiny bit to groan: ‘I can’t stand, sir. I’ve taken two rounds in my groin and some shrapnel in my calf.’

      Mansour gestures to two soldiers to remove the wounded man on the front seat.

      ‘What happened?’ Abu-Bakr asks.

      The driver writhes, takes a deep breath and gabbles, as if afraid he will pass out before finishing his report, ‘When we were sure Colonel Mutassim was not in danger, the sergeant tried a sortie between points 34 and 56 to locate the new enemy lines. We got four kilometres past their defences without meeting any resistance but on the way back we drove into a trap. Infantry attacked us with rocket launchers. Two vehicles blew up. I don’t know how I made it back.’

      ‘Why did you come here?’ I shout at him. ‘And without switching your lights off. The enemy is bound to have followed you. They will know where we are now because of your idiocy.’

      The driver looks stunned by my reaction.

      ‘But where could I have gone, sir, with three wounded men with me?’

      ‘To hell, you imbecile! You never place the headquarters in danger. I warn you, if we have been discovered I shall have you shot.’

      The captain helps the driver out of the pickup, puts an arm around his waist and drags him to the aid station. The other soldiers stay where they are, by the vehicle, as if they have been turned to stone.