At the end of the fourth day, Captain Gerima gave in to panic. He gathered his men, started up the beaten-up old lorry that had been gathering dust beneath a makeshift shelter, checked his troops’ weapons and ammunition, ordered Joma to keep an eye on the fort until he returned, climbed into a pick-up and set off in a south-easterly direction. A strange silence fell on the region. Through the window, I saw the two vehicles head out across the valley at breakneck speed. When the dust had settled, I felt as if my heart were being squeezed like a lemon. Bruno hadn’t moved from his corner. He had heard the captain’s orders bouncing off the walls, the commotion in the yard, the clatter of rifles and the rumble of engines without paying any attention to them. Now that the captain had left, I walked up and down by the door, waiting for someone to come and tell us what was going on. Only Joma, Blackmoon and three or four disorientated pirates were left in the fort; they all looked distraught. They couldn’t grasp the turn that events were taking and felt frustrated. In the general confusion, I realised that we hadn’t been given anything to eat for twenty-four hours.
I went back to my mat and curled up.
Night arrived as abruptly as an uninvited guest, and then it was morning again. A static morning, empty and pointless. Bruno continued to hide under his mosquito net. I resented the way he had abandoned me to my solitude and the downward spiral that went with it. Having nobody to talk to any more, I feared that I too would sink into depression. There was no other way out in that kind of mental confinement. Sooner or later, you were bound to slump …
And the endless waiting reducing my living space to an obsession … Oh, the waiting, the void that sucks us in! And the incessant flies! They emerged from out of nowhere, buzzing, unbearable, invincible; they were like all the ordeals we were going through put together. I’d push them away and they’d attack again, intrepid and stubborn, like hundreds of insane leitmotivs. It was as if they had replaced the air, as if they were born from the boredom itself, as if they were the expression of the desert’s measureless ignominy. They would survive erosion and apocalypse; they would still be there when everything else was gone.
The minutes stretched like shooting pains, trying to tear me apart. There is no worse torture than waiting, especially when there is no certainty as to where it will lead. I had the impression I was fermenting. I couldn’t keep still. My bed was made of thorns. I no longer dared look through the window or go out in the yard. I was afraid of every moment, afraid it would reach out and scratch me. What did I actually think about? I haven’t the slightest idea. I don’t think I was even thinking. My brain worked only intermittently. My sense of touch had grown vague. I no longer felt things in the same way. Everything irritated me, everything bothered me. I was worried. My anxieties were too much for me. I couldn’t handle them. I was shooting off in all directions. Doubts had anaesthetised my faculties. It was as if I were looking through panes of frosted glass. And what I had dreaded happened: the great dizziness took hold of me so swiftly I had no chance to register what was happening. Vague memories hovered around me, appearing and disappearing in the gloom, like ethereal souls. I would reach out my hand to an image; it would wilt between my fingers and scatter into a multitude of spirals. It had started! Except that I had no idea where it would lead me. I was aware of every noise, of every second that passed, and at the same time I had no control over the way things developed. I was slipping surreptitiously into a parallel world. I saw everything and understood nothing. I knew Bruno wasn’t asleep, that he was only pretending; I knew I was finding it hard to regulate my breathing; I knew above all that, like a wandering spirit squatting in my body, the dizziness that had replaced me would lead me to the edge of an abyss and I would never find my way out again …
The grille squeaked, and a figure came in and put a tray down on the floor. I stood up, went out for my ‘walk’ … A hand tried to stop me, but I shook it off. I crossed the yard, heading for the gap in the rampart that looked out over the valley, that valley that seemed a place of utter perdition … ‘The prisoner’s getting away!’ a guard cried. Someone worked the breech of a rifle; I sensed that I was in the line of fire, felt it on the back of my neck like a burn, and waited for the shot, which would be immediately followed by my flesh exploding; it would be sure to hurt, but I wouldn’t cry out … ‘The prisoner’s getting away!’ I also heard Bruno’s voice: ‘Don’t be a fool, come back!’ I was walking on shifting sands. The rampart was twenty metres away, ten metres … ‘Let him go,’ Joma ordered. ‘Get back to work, I’ll deal with him …’ I went through the gap, tumbled down a steep path, and walked straight ahead, across the valley. The burning stones spurred the soles of my shoes. I walked. Without turning round. The sun beat down, cascaded over my shoulders like lava. The sweat steamed on my face, blinding me. I walked, walked … The soles of my shoes were nothing but molten lead; there was not a single tree to give me shade. The mouth of hell was breathing into my throat, setting my lungs on fire, turning my head into a brazier; I started to sway, but didn’t stop. I tried to speed up, but my legs wouldn’t follow me; I felt as if I were pulling a rock. After a few kilometres, my last strength abandoned me. I was a shadow swept along by its own laboured breathing. A jeep came up behind me and drew level. All I could see was its bonnet bumping along on my right. When I stumbled, it overtook me by a length and had to slow down to be level with me again. Joma was at the wheel. ‘Where do you think you’re going?’ he said. ‘You aren’t in Trafalgar Square, you’re in the desert. There are no tempting shop windows around here, no street performers in the square, no pigeons to come and eat out of your hand …’ I dragged myself on, hallucinating, gasping for breath, but determined. ‘You’re not going anywhere, old man. In front of you, and behind you, there’s only madness and death. Sooner or later you’re going to pass out, and I’ll be forced to tie you to the back of the jeep and take you back to the starting post.’ Joma didn’t try to bar my way; he drove slowly by my side, amused and curious to see just how long I could stay upright.
I didn’t know how long I’d been walking. I could no longer feel the ground beneath my feet. My skull was rattling. I felt like throwing up. My eyes were like a broken mirror, a kaleidoscope; in front of me, the valley fragmented before darkening and sinking into a sea of soot.
I emerged from the fog, groped around me. Was I still alive? Thin filaments of light fell from the ceiling, revealing part of the place. I was confined in a space some two metres square, with a hatch above me perforated with lots of little air holes. My shoes, my trousers and my shirt had all been removed. I was stark naked and lying in my own vomit. I vaguely heard voices, sporadic noises which sounded over the thumping of my heart in amplified staccato. I tried to get up but not a single one of my muscles responded; my whole body was one horrendous pain.
The heat was unbearable. Unable to sit up, I lay there on the floor, hoping to conserve the little energy I needed to hold on. Soon, the filaments of light faded; I no longer knew if it was night or if I had fainted.
The hatch lit up and darkened again twice. Nobody came to see how I was. There was a ghastly taste of modelling clay in my mouth. I imagined nauseating food, and found myself chewing it. In the silence of my hole, the sound of my jaws was like that of two stones being rubbed together. I thought of my mother, saw her silhouette on the wall. She had close-cropped hair, which was not the way I remembered her, a face like a convict’s and a stoical look in her eyes. Smells from time immemorial came back to me: the smell of the soap my mother used to wash me; the smell of the maple syrup pancakes that I loved. Then the smell of my childhood was drowned out by others, the smells of analgesics and chloral hydrate and damp sheets and grim wards at the end of interminable corridors. Outside, the noises and the voices faded again with the holes in the hatch. I wanted to cry out, but I didn’t have enough breath to raise my voice, which stuck in my throat like a blood clot. I was hungry and thirsty … I caught a glimpse of Jessica’s smile. I think it was that smile that had once given me the strength to overcome my shyness. I had never been good at expressing my private emotions to the people I loved. My mother would have appreciated it; she had felt alone ever since, one evening after a big argument, my father had gone out to buy cigarettes and hadn’t come back. Maybe because my mother didn’t know how to smile. Otherwise, I would have told her of all the love I had for her. Just as I had managed to tell Jessica, in that lovely little restaurant in the fifteenth arrondissement in Paris called La Chaumière. We were sitting at a window table looking out at Avenue Félix Faure. Jessica was holding her translucent hands up to her cheeks. I found it hard to meet her intimidating gaze. We had only known each other for two days. It was the first time we had been alone together. She had finished her seminar that morning, and my conference was due to end the following day. I had left her a note at the hotel reception: I would be delighted if you would agree to have dinner with me. And she had. There are opportunities you don’t miss; if you don’t grab them, you can spend the rest of your life regretting them in vain. True luck only comes along once in a lifetime; other pieces of good luck are merely combinations of circumstances. I don’t remember what we ate that evening. I was feasting on Jessica’s smile, which was better than any banquet. ‘Did you know I was going to accept your invitation?’ she had asked me. ‘I wouldn’t have dared leave you that note if I hadn’t,’ I had replied boldly. ‘Can you read thoughts, Dr Krausmann?’ ‘Only eyes, Fräulein Brodersen. Everything goes through the eyes.’ ‘And what do you see in my eyes, Dr Krausmann?’ ‘My happiness …’ At the time, I had found my declaration pathetically innocent and pretentious, but Jessica hadn’t laughed. I think she had appreciated it. Sincerity has no talent or refinement; and if it doesn’t have the elegance of flattery, it has at least the merit of its convictions. She put her hand on my wrist, and I immediately knew that Jessica was meant for me.