‘You’re exaggerating …’
‘I swear it’s the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth,’ he laughed, raising his right hand. ‘My father used to say: “Nations can’t survive without myths and young people can’t bloom without idols.” When those two points of reference are missing, things are a mess. African rulers refuse to admit that. That’s why they’re sending their people back into the Stone Age.’
I refrained from hazarding the slightest opinion on that subject.
‘Would you mind if I took everything off?’ he asked. ‘It’s hot, and I like to sleep naked.’
‘Put the air conditioning on.’
‘The electricity is supplied by a generator. It’s strictly rationed, and is switched off at ten o’clock, in other words, in the next fifteen minutes.’
Without waiting for my permission, he took off his loincloth, and his ebony body made a sharp contrast with the white sheets.
‘What’s your favourite kind of music, Dr Krausmann?’
‘Classical, obviously.’
‘I suspected as much. Of course, that’s quite natural for a descendant of Beethoven … I like everything. From Mozart to Alpha Blondy. I don’t discriminate on grounds of race or morality. It was when man detected a sound and a rhythm in noise that he discovered himself. And that made him superior to the other creatures. I love musicians. I love singers, from sopranos to choirboys, from baritones to rappers. Do you see, Dr Krausmann? Music is the only talent that God envies men.’
‘I agree with you, Dr Orfane.’
He increased the volume of the stereo and closed his eyes. ‘Are your parents still alive?’
‘My mother died years ago,’ I said.
‘Oh, I’m sorry. And your father?’
‘Do you mind turning off the light?’
‘Of course not. What about the music?’
‘No, leave it on, please.’
‘You’re lucky. The stereo’s connected to a car battery. Generator or not, at Orfane’s place, it’s always party time.’
‘Good night, Dr Orfane.’
‘Good night, Dr Krausmann. I put a pair of trousers, a shirt and clean underwear out for you on the chair. We’re pretty much the same size, so they should fit you.’
‘Thanks.’
‘You have quite a few boils and your complexion’s a bit off. We’ll have to take a look at all that tomorrow morning.’
He switched off the light.
Despite my tiredness and the softness of the sheets, I couldn’t get to sleep. My brain was whirring. I wasn’t thinking about anything specific, but every image, however vague, kept me in suspense as it spread through the maze of my insomnia. I thought of the most absurd things, only dismissing those connected with the ordeal I had been through. I had no desire to twist the knife in the wound. I didn’t have the strength. I wanted to fall into a sleep so deep that I would achieve oblivion. But my twisted muscles prevented me from unwinding. I lay on my right side, my left side, on my back, on my stomach, my head under the pillow, on my forearm, but it was impossible to get to sleep. I imagined myself at home, in my scented bed; the absence of Jessica stoked my obsessions. I thought about Frankfurt, my surgery, my patients. There was no way to loosen the hold my anxieties had over me. In desperation, I stared up at the ceiling and listened to the damp, bloodless night ponder its nostalgia in the shelter of darkness. Orfane started snoring and muttering in his sleep. I got out of bed, went outside and sat down on the steps of the cabin. There was a big golden moon in the middle of the sky, so close that you could clearly see the outlines of its craters. Some shadowy figures were moving about near the tents. I felt like a beer but didn’t dare go and look for one in the fridge. The sickly-sweet breath of the desert blew on my naked torso. I sat there until my eyes began to blur with dizziness. I groped my way back to my bed in the dark. I think I fell asleep before my head hit the pillow.
The sun was at its height when I woke up. I put on the clothes Orfane had lent me and went to the office. Pfer offered me coffee and told me the fax had been sent and that our embassies would soon respond. I went back out to stretch my legs, but was intercepted by Orfane who marched me to the infirmary, gave me a thorough examination, and tended to my blisters and boils. On my way out of the treatment room, I came across Elena, who was tying up her laces next to her cabin. She looked rested and relaxed. Her face lit up when she saw me. She stood up and asked me from a distance if I had slept well. I told her I’d slept like a log. She threw her head back with a delightful laugh and confessed that, in her case, they’d had to send for a deep-sea diver to bring her up out of her coma. Elena was sublime, with her hair hanging loose down to her hips and her bronzed, finely featured Andalusian face. She was wearing faded jeans, an open-necked shirt that revealed the pendant around her neck, and bright-yellow espadrilles. ‘It’s my day off,’ she said, to justify her casual dress. ‘As there’s nothing in the way of entertainment, at least I dress relaxed.’ Jessica would never have tolerated jeans on her body, let alone canvas shoes on her feet. Jessica was strict about the way she dressed; everything had to be impeccably cut, her made-to-measure suits had not a fold or a thread out of place. She would spend more time trying on a dress in a high-end shop than a surgeon operating on a seriously ill patient. I had often suggested she dress less formally, but to no avail. Both at home and in the city, she was inflexible on the matter. True, the clothes she chose perfectly matched her diaphanous skin and gave her platinum-blonde hair the lustre of sunlight. Jessica, my God! Jessica … When I was small, on my way home from school, I would deliberately make a wide detour in order to walk past a magnificent house with a garden as beautiful as a dream. In short trousers, my satchel on my back, I would slow down to sneak a look at this residence, which compensated all by itself for the dullness of our suburb. I loved the glittering tiles on its roof, the sophisticated lines of its façade, the marble columns standing guard on either side of the flowery front steps, the monumental oak door. I wondered what the people who lived inside were like, what luxury and opulence they must be familiar with, and if, once night had fallen and the lights were out, their sleep gave them as much joy as the comfort with which they were surrounded. One day, coming back from school, I saw an ambulance outside the front door of the beautiful residence and neighbours on the pavement watching stretcher-bearers bring out a corpse. I learnt later that the wealthy old woman who had lived alone in that dream house had been dead for many days without anybody noticing … Thinking of Jessica, it was that splendid residence that came spontaneously to my mind. Behind my happy marriage, something had been decomposing without my knowledge. Just like that woman who had been so fortunate and so cruelly forgotten in her gilded tomb …