Chourmo (23 page)

I closed my eyes.

Pavie.

I screamed like a madman. Letting out all the rage that was in me. As if a red-hot iron had been plunged into my heart. And all the most horrible images I'd ever seen paraded before my eyes. Mass graves. Auschwitz. Hiroshima. Rwanda. Bosnia. A scream of death. The scream of all the fascisms in the world.

Enough to make you throw up.

Really.

I put my head down and jumped.

Saadna didn't know what hit him. I landed on him like a cyclone. The chair toppled over and he went down with it. The rifle fell out of his hands. I seized it by the barrel, raised it, and hit him as hard as I could on the knee.

I heard it crack. And that made me feel better.

Saadna didn't even cry out. He'd fainted.

I
woke Saadna with a pail of water.

“You bastard!” he yelled.

But he couldn't move an inch. I grabbed him by the neck and dragged him to the armchair. He leaned his back against one of the armrests. He stank of shit. He must have crapped himself. I picked up the rifle again, by the barrel, with both hands.

“Your bad leg, Saadna, that was nothing. I'm going to shoot you in the other knee. You'll never be able to walk again. I think I'll break your elbows too. You'll be no better than a worm. All you'll want is to die.”

“I've got something for you.”

“It's too late to make deals.”

“Something I found, in Serge's car. When I took it apart.”

“Tell me more.”

“Will you stop hitting me?”

I couldn't have hit him again with as much violence and hate as I had before. I felt drained. As if I was one of the living dead. Nothing circulating through my body anymore. Just vomit where the blood should have been. My head was spinning.

“Tell me, and then we'll see.”

Even my voice wasn't the same.

He looked at me. He must have thought he'd hooked me. To him, life was just a succession of plots and schemes. He smiled.

“There was a notebook stuck to the spare tire. In a plastic bag. This is something big, I tell you. A lot of things written in it. I didn't read all of it. Because I don't give a shit about all that Arab stuff. Islam, that kind of thing. They can all croak, as far as I'm concerned! But there are lists of names and addresses. From all over the projects. Like some kind of network, you know. False papers. Money. Drugs. Arms. I'll give you the book and you can split. Forget everything. Forget me. No need for us to have anything to do with each other ever again.”

I'd been right to think there was a notebook. I had no idea what Serge had been mixed up in, but I knew him, he was conscientious. When we worked together, he noted everything down, every day.

“Think you're clever, do you, Saadna? I just have to hit you and you'll tell me where that fucking notebook is.”

“I don't think you can, Montale. You may think you've got balls because you're full of hate. But in cold blood, you're not worth shit. Go on, hit me . . . ”

He offered me his leg. I avoided looking him in the eyes.

“Where is this notebook?”

“Swear. On your parents.”

“What makes you think I'm interested in your notebooks anyway?”

“Man, it's like a fucking phone book. Just read it, and then you can do what you like with it. You can eat it, you can sell it. I tell you, with that book, you've got them all. Just take one page, and you can make them pay!”

“Where is it? I swear I'll split if you tell me.”

“You got a smoke?”

I lit a cigarette and stuck it between his lips. He looked at me. Obviously, he wasn't sure he could trust me completely. And I wasn't sure I didn't want to throw him in one of the oil drums, along with the tires.

“Well?”

“The drawer in the table.”

It was a thick exercise book. The pages were covered with Serge's fine, cramped handwriting. I read at random: “The militants make thorough use of the welfare field, which has been neglected by the local authorities. They claim to be pursuing humanitarian aims, such as leisure activities, educational support, the teaching of Arabic . . . ” Farther on, I read: “The aims of these agitators far exceed the fight against drug addiction. They are preparing for urban guerilla warfare.”

“Do you like it?”

The second half was like an address book. The first page opened with this comment: “North Marseilles is full of young North Africans ready to be suicide bombers. Those who manipulate them are known to the police (see Abdelkader). Above them there are others. Many others.”

For La Bigotte, just one name. Redouane. What Serge had written confirmed what Mourad had told me, though there were more details. All the things Redouane hadn't told his brother.

Redouane's two sponsors in North Marseilles were Nacer and someone named Hamel. Both, according to their files, had been militants since 1993. Before that, they had been stewards for the Islamic Youth Movement. Hamel had even been responsible for security at the big pro-Bosnian demonstration at La Plaine-Saint-Denis.

An extract from an article in the
Nouvel Observateur
gave an account of this demonstration. “Among those on the platform were the cultural attaché of the Iranian Embassy and an Algerian named Rachid Ben Aïssa, an intellectual with links to the Algerian Brotherhood in France. Rachid Ben Aïssa is not a minor player. He organized many conferences, during the 1980s, at the Iranian Islamic Center on Rue Jean-Bart, in Paris. It was there that most of the members of the terrorist network led by Fouad Ali Salah, the brains behind the bomb attacks in Paris in 1986, were recruited.”

Before leaving for Sarajevo, as part of the Seventh International Brigade of Muslim Brothers, Redouane had followed a number of commando survival courses at the foot of Mount Ventoux.

A certain Rachid (Rachid Ben Aïssa? Serge wondered) was responsible for organizing these courses, including the provision of accommodation in self-catering cottages in the village of Bédoin, at the foot of Mount Ventoux. “Once someone has followed these courses,” Serge had written, “there is no turning back. Those who try to pull out are threatened. They are told about the fate reserved for traitors in Algeria and are shown photographs. Photographs of men who have been bled like sheep.” According to Serge, these “commando courses” were held at the rate of one every three months.

“The man who went with these young recruits to Bosnia was named Arroum. This Arroum had powerful patrons. As a member of the Lowafac Foundation, whose main office is in Zagreb, he was accredited, on every one of his missions to Bosnia, by the United Nations High Commission for Refugees.” In the margin, Serge had written: “Arroum arrested March 28.”

Redouane's file ended with these words: “Since his return, has only taken part in operations against heroin dealers. Apparently not yet considered reliable enough. But should be watched. Very much under the wing of Nacer and Hamel, both hard liners. May become dangerous.”

“What was Serge working on? Some kind of investigative article?”

Saadna gave a nervous laugh. “He'd gone over to the other side. Not exactly voluntarily, but . . . He was working for the cops. Security branch.”

“Serge?”

“When he was dismissed, the security branch pounced. They had a file full of testimonies from parents. Complaints. About the kids he'd been fucking.”

The bastards, I thought. That sounded like their methods. To infiltrate a network, of whatever kind, they'd stop at nothing. They were good at using people. Mobsters who'd turned state's evidence. Algerians who were in France illegally . . .

“What happened?”

“Well, I don't know if it was true, about the kids. What I do know is that the morning they showed up at his place, waving their file, he was in bed with another faggot. A boy, still in his teens. Maybe even a minor. Imagine that, Montale! It's disgusting! He could have gone down for it. Mind you, if he'd been sent to Les Baumettes, he'd have gotten himself laid every night.”

I stood up and picked up the rifle again. “Another remark like that, and I'll break the other knee.”

“I'm just saying,” he said, with a shrug. “It doesn't exactly matter now.”

“Precisely. How do you know all this, anyway?”

“Four Eyes put me in the picture. We get along well, him and me.”

“Was it you who told him Serge was staying here?”

He nodded. “Not everyone was happy about Serge stirring the shit. Four Eyes isn't interested in going after the guys in that notebook. They're just doing the housekeeping, he says. Clearing out the dealers, that kind of thing. Helps to keeps the statistics down. It's to his advantage. And when the fundamentalists are in power in Algeria, he says, we'll be able to put all the Arabs in a boat and send them back to their country.”

“What does that asshole know about it?”

“It's what he says. He's not completely wrong, if you ask me.”

I remembered the National Front leaflet in Redouane's Koran. “I see.”

“Word was out there was a squealer in the projects. Four Eyes asked me to check it out. Well, you can imagine, that wasn't too hard. He was right here . . . ” He laughed.

Four Eyes had really taken me for an idiot, back there at the station house. What must have bothered him was seeing me at La Bigotte. That wasn't part of the plan. There might be something behind it, he must have thought. Serge and I might still be a team. Just like the old days.

All at once, I realized why they'd kept so quiet about Serge's death. A guy working for the security branch who gets whacked, and there's no publicity. It doesn't make any waves.

“Have you told anyone else about the notebook?”

“It's starting to hurt,” he said.

I crouched beside him. Not too close. Not because I was afraid he'd jump me, but because of the foul smell coming off him. He closed his eyes. It must indeed be starting to hurt. I lightly pressed the butt of the rifle against his broken knee. The pain made him open his eyes. There was hatred in them.

“Who did you talk to, scumbag?”

“All I did was tell Four Eyes where he could hit the jackpot. A guy named Boudjema Ressaf. Expelled from France in 1992. A GIA militant. Serge spotted him in Le Plan d'Aou. It's down there in the book. Where he's staying, everything.”

“Did you tell him about the notebook?”

He lowered his head. “Yes, I told him.”

“He's got you by the balls, right?”

“Yeah.”

“When did you call him?”

“Two hours ago.”

I stood up. “I'm surprised you're still alive.”

“What do you mean?”

“The reason Four Eyes isn't going after the fundamentalists, you asshole, is because he's in bed with them. You told me that yourself.”

“You think so?” he spluttered, trembling with fear now. “Give me a drink, please.”

Fuck, I told myself, he's going to shit himself again. I filled the glass with his foul wine and handed it to him. I had to get out of there as soon as possible.

I looked at Saadna. I wasn't even sure you could still class him as a human being. Slumped against the armchair, bent double, he looked like a boil full of pus. Saadna knew what my look meant.

“Look, Montale, you . . . You're not going to kill me, are you?”

We both heard the noise at the same time. The noise of a bottle breaking. Flames rose from a heap of old metal, on the right. Another bottle exploded. The bastards were throwing Molotov cocktails! I crouched down and walked in that position to the window, with the rifle in my hand.

I saw Redouane running toward the bottom end of the scrap yard. Nacer couldn't be very far. Was the other guy, Hamel, here too? I really had no desire to die in this rat hole.

Nor did Saadna. He crawled toward me, groaning. He was sweating profusely. He stank of death. Shit and death. The two things his life had consisted of.

“Save me, Montale,” he said, sniveling now. “I have lots of money.”

All at once, the scrap yard went up in flames. I saw Nacer coming. I made a dash for the front door and cocked the rifle. But Nacer didn't bother to come in. He hurled one of those damn bottles through the open window. It fell and smashed at the far end of the room. Where Saadna had been sitting a few minutes earlier.

“Montale,” he cried. “Don't leave me.”

His shack was on fire now. I ran to the table, grabbed Serge's notebook, and slipped it inside my shirt. I went back to the door and opened it slowly. But I wasn't expecting anyone to shoot at me. Redouane and Nacer must be some distance away by now.

The heat caught me by the throat. There was a terrible burning stench in the air. Something exploded. Gasoline, I guessed. The whole place was about to blow.

Saadna had dragged himself as far as the door. Like a worm. He caught hold of my ankle and squeezed it in both hands, with a strength I wouldn't have suspected. His eyes seemed to be popping out of his head.

He was going crazy with fear.

“Get me out of here!”

“You're going to die!” I grabbed him by his hair and forced him to raise his head. “Look! You see, this is what hell is like. Hell for scum like you! Your whole stinking life is coming to eat you up. Think of Pavie.”

I struck him hard on the wrist with the rifle butt. He screamed and let go of my ankle. I jumped away and went around the outside of the house. The fire was spreading. I threw the rifle into the flames, as far as I could, and started running, without stopping.

I got to the canal just in time to see Saadna's dump disappear in the flames. I thought I heard him scream. But it was only in my head that he was screaming. Like in a plane when you've just landed and your ears are still ringing. Saadna was burning, and my ear drums were bursting with his death. But I didn't feel any remorse.