This woman, whom no one ever spoke of again, still wandered among Mohammed’s childhood memories. Where was she now? Had she died? Gone home? He had no idea, and wound up thinking that the woman was eternaclass="underline" she would never die. This one memory had convinced him — and to Mohammed this was obvious — that skin colour and poverty ganged up easily to reject a human being whose sole crime was not being white and rich. Racism horrified him. The first time he’d heard someone called a raghead was in a train where a conductor was yelling at an elderly Algerian man who couldn’t find his ticket. Without knowing what the word meant, Mohammed could tell it was insulting, unkind. The Algerian had stood up and begun taking off his clothes as if he were going to be frisked. All right, all right, the conductor had grumbled. These ragheads never understand anything!
Mohammed would have loved to move out of his apartment building in the projects, but that would create other problems and mean living farther away from his children, so he put up with his daily hell and tried to keep his kids from succumbing to racism. You have to understand, he told them, these Africans may be quite different from us — they’re poorer, there are more of them — but they aren’t bad people, so be tolerant.
Poverty, insecurity, and overcrowding left no room for dialogue or tolerance, however. People felt helpless and completely fed up. There wasn’t a single French family left in the building. All who could leave had fled, and the police simply let the projects stew in their own juice.
Mohammed had always dreamed of a house, a big, beautiful house where his whole family could be together in happiness, harmony, and mutual respect. A house nestled among trees and gardens, awash in light and colour, an open, peaceful house where not only would everyone feel content but all conflicts and difficulties would be resolved as if by magic. It would be a little bit of paradise amid the soft rustle of trees and the murmuring of water. A stubborn dream, but he knew that one day he would make it come true. He never spoke of it to anyone, not even his wife, who would have taken him for a gentle madman, off in his own world with his head in the clouds. Mohammed kept his thoughts and fantasies to himself. He wasn’t much of a talker. At the dinner table, he’d complain about rising prices and a salary that wasn’t enough anymore: Before — a long time ago — I was able to save money, but now I don’t understand how it can go so quickly. Then he’d fall silent.
Alone on his prayer rug, Mohammed mumbled a few more short verses from the Koran. Then he began to sense something holding him fast, preventing him from standing up. He felt heavy, as if he had a weight on his back. He tried to move but couldn’t manage to stretch out his legs. He bowed his head again and immediately felt overcome by a slight drowsiness. The fly killed itself, all on its own, drowning in a glass of tea. What an idiot, Mohammed thought.
The wall was talking to him. He leaned forward: that same voice again, speaking to him in his dialect. He relaxed. He opened the Koran and pretended to immerse himself in it. Even though he couldn’t read it, he loved the company of this book. He loved its calligraphy, its binding of green leatherette, the whole aura of its importance. It was the only book he’d taken with him on the day he’d left Morocco. It was wrapped in a piece of white cloth that had been cut, following tradition, from his father’s shroud. This book was everything to Mohammed: his culture, his identity, his passport, his pride, his secret. He opened it delicately, pressed it to his heart, brought it to his lips, and gently kissed it. He believed that everything was there. Those who can read find within it all the wisdom of the world, all its explanations.
Not only did Mohammed sincerely believe this, but an alem, a Muslim sage, the imam of the main mosque in the département of Yvelines, had absolutely confirmed it: Allah created the universe; he sent his messengers to speak to men and women; he knows what each of us is thinking; he even knows what we don’t know, what is buried within us, so you see, the Koran is the key to all Creation. It is no accident that more and more people throughout the world are embracing Islam! Our numbers are constantly growing, and that’s what frightens America and its friends, you know: we have a treasure, and this upsets them. They want to see Muslims wallowing in destitution or with bombs strapped to our waists, so that’s Islam to them — poverty or a bomb! They’re envious of our religion’s success around the globe! You heard about that dog who drew our prophet — may the blessing of God be upon him! — with a turban stuffed with bombs? Can you believe that? They’re just provoking us: they want to humiliate us, make fun of us, but God is waiting for them, and they will crawl on their bellies before him, begging for mercy, terrified of spending all eternity in hell, for God is great, and his word is the only truth!
Mohammed would have liked to reply but hadn’t the courage to tell the imam, for example, that it was imbeciles like him who praise jihad, babbling of paradise and martyrdom, yes, retards like him who send floundering young men who can’t find their own way in life off to die, because liars and hypocrites like him push youngsters into the arms of death, saying: You’ll be real martyrs, as true and good as the ones in the days of the Prophet, and you’ll be buried in clothes soaked in the blood of sacrifice, not in the shroud of an ordinary death! You will go straight to God, who awaits you in paradise! Make your ablutions in preparation, for it is better to enter the house of God cleansed in readiness for eternal prayer.
Mohammed had heard about that business with the cartoons, but he’d paid no attention. He was profoundly convinced that the Prophet was a spirit, not a face that could be drawn. It was only common sense. As usual, he kept his thoughts to himself. There was nothing to see in Mohammed’s face except immense sadness, a kind of pernicious resignation he could not throw off. He would have liked to lose himself in reading, to discuss different interpretations of the Koran, but he knew he was condemned to the ignorance that had stuck to him since childhood. His heart’s delight was to see his children doing their homework at the dining-room table just before dinner. He watched them with love and a touch of envy. He adored going with them to the stationery section of the supermarket to buy their school supplies and never missed this yearly ritual that so excited them. He would take the day off to satisfy all their requests. At home he helped them put covers on their notebooks and textbooks. He had put up shelves to hold their books, which he often tidied up and kept dusted for them.
He may not have known how to read the Koran, but he knew that Allah condemns hypocrites and murderers. He had learned the book by heart, like all country children. He recited it mechanically, made the occasional mistake, told God he was sorry, and started over again at the beginning of the sura,* plunging on all the way to the end, for any hesitation or interruption would make him lose his place. Only the imam of Yvelines was able to quote a verse and pause to provide commentary.
The imam had memorised the book, which he claimed to have studied in Cairo, at the venerable university of al-Azhar. Perhaps this was true; there was no way to challenge him. No one had seen this imam arrive. He had appeared out of the blue and surrounded himself with an entourage of young delinquents determined to go straight. He called them “my children.” He had a big car, wore lovely white robes, scented himself with sandalwood oil, and did not live in Mohammed’s slum neighbourhood. Rumor assigned him two wives along with between ten and a dozen offspring. He addressed people in classical Arabic and sometimes in French, which he mangled. Moroccans looked at one another and wondered: Just who does he think we are? Where did he come from? Who’s paying him? People figured he must be receiving money from wealthy countries.