‘Rais …’
‘Have I been at fault where my people are concerned?’ I yell at him.
‘God alone is infallible,’ he blurts out.
Suddenly, it is as though I no longer recognise where I am or where I have come from. I am beside myself, no longer there, outraged, violated, crucified on burning altars. Without knowing what I am doing, I draw myself up in front of my Guard commander, hands like claws, ready to tear him to pieces. An uncontainable fury has sucked all the breath out of me. I am suffocating.
‘You piece of shit!’
‘You promised not to lose your temper, Rais.’
‘Go to the Devil! Yesterday you were stuffing yourself at my banquets, and today you have decided you want to bite the hand that fed you. Suddenly the soldier is full of remorse and begging for absolution. You did your duty, you cretin. There is no such thing as scruples for anyone who defends their country. Collateral damage is part of war. Emotions have no place in affairs of state and mistakes do not count … What do people actually condemn me for? The Lockerbie bombing and UTA 772? It was the Americans who started it. They bombed my palace, killed my adopted daughter. They launched their cowardly Operation El Dorado Canyon against my aerial strike force at Mitiga. Not to mention the embargoes, my being demonised and ostracised on the international stage. Did they think I was going to thank them for that? … What else do they condemn me for? The killings at Abu Salim?6 All I did was rid our nation of some appalling vermin, a bunch of crazed visionaries who had dedicated themselves to terrorism. They were mutineers who threatened the country’s stability. Do people have any idea of the chaos those savages could have caused if they had got out? Look how Algeria descended into horror the very night that thousands of prisoners broke out from Lambaesis. Everyone knows what happened: a decade of terror and massacres. I was determined that my country would not suffer the same fate.’
I thump my fist on the couch’s armrest.
‘Our country was in the firing line, Mansour. Every day. Our enemies were trying to undermine every initiative we took, by every possible means. Including our own officials. Remember the brothers I took under my wing, the brothers I showered with medals and promotions, privileges and honours. They were treated better than kings. My largesse was not enough. They wanted even more, they wanted my head on a silver platter. You think I was wrong to execute them? You think I did the wrong thing? Everything has its price, Mansour. Loyalty as much as betrayal. The crocodile never softens when you wipe its tears. It was them or me, the Crusaders’ interests or Libya’s interests. When I think how my gallant comrades-in-arms, the ones who risked their lives helping me overthrow that good-for-nothing king Idris, let themselves be enticed by the imperialists’ promises and did not hesitate to plot against me, against the Libyan people, against the eternal homeland … when I think about those traitors I tell myself I was not harsh enough, I should have been fiercer, more cruel. It is because my paternal side got the better of my sovereign’s implacability that I have an insurrection on my hands today. I should have liquidated half my people so that the other half could be safe, so that every man could live untroubled wherever he found himself, whatever he was doing.’
I seize him by the collar and lift him up. My saliva spatters his face. He is at arm’s length, trembling, not knowing where to look. He would slip down like a rag doll if I let him go.
‘Look where we are now. The coalition is all over us. Countries that have never had a problem with us are burying us under their bombs. Even Qatar came to the party. And what do the Arab nations do? Where are they? They toast our plight. They make preparations for our funerals.’
‘What were you expecting?’ he suddenly rails, knocking my arms away. ‘That they’d come to your rescue with trumpets and flags?’
I am shocked. Mansour Dhao has dared to raise his voice, and his hand, to me. He has hurt my wrists. I step back, disbelieving. He stares at me with a baleful expression, his face flushed, his nostrils twitching.
‘I don’t give a shit about the Arabs,’ he thunders, his mouth foaming. ‘It’s you yourself who made them behave that way towards us. You scorned them, lambasted them, humiliated them. You called them flea-ridden animals led by fawning curs. It’s completely logical for them to be delighted by our collapse.’
I remain speechless, not knowing any more whether I am dreaming or hallucinating. It is the first time since I was at the Academy that an officer has treated me disrespectfully. I am close to becoming apoplectic.
Mansour does not recover his composure. He is trembling with fury and rancour.
He points at the window.
‘What’s happening out there, Rais? What’s that, that noise? The people serenading you?’
He rushes to the window and jabs his finger at the cloth covering the panes.
‘What can you hear, Rais?’
‘What am I supposed to hear, moron?’
‘Another version of events. A different tune from the toadying of your arse-kissers and the honeyed reports of your staff officers. The fairy tales are over — all the “it’s going swimmingly” and the “tout va très bien, madame la marquise”. Out there is a raging populace …’
‘Out there is Al-Qaeda—’
‘How many Al-Qaeda are there? Five hundred, a thousand, two thousand? So who are the thousands of savages who are ravaging our cities, murdering our old people, disembowelling our pregnant women and smashing in our children’s skulls with their rifle butts? They are Libyans, Rais. Libyans like you and me, who only yesterday were acclaiming you and today are calling for your head.’
He rushes back, like a boomerang.
‘Why, Rais? Why this turnaround? What happened to turn the lambs into hyenas, to make the children eat their father? … Yes, Brotherly Guide, we were at fault. We behaved badly. You were undoubtedly thinking of the good of the nation, but what did you know of the nation itself? There’s no smoke without fire, Brotherly Guide. We haven’t got our backs to the wall by accident. The massacres and destruction going on out there aren’t happening by magic, they’re the direct result of our mistakes.’
I am so shocked by the words of my commander of the People’s Guard that my knees threaten to give way beneath the weight of my indignation. I never believed anyone could talk to me like that. Unused to being contradicted, and even more so to being reprimanded by my subordinates, I feel myself shattering into a thousand pieces. Everyone understands how vulnerable I am, everyone knows I am extremely sensitive to comments which, when they are disobliging, make me so furious that I could drink the blood of him who is ill-mannered enough to make them.
Has Mansour taken leave of his senses?
I turn round and slump on the couch, with my head in my hands. Should I have Mansour shot on the spot? Should I kill him myself? A blast of white-hot emotion surges up in me.
‘I’m not judging you, Rais—’
‘Shut your mouth, you dog.’
He kneels in front of me. His voice suddenly calms down. He says in a conciliatory tone, ‘All the silence on earth will not stop the truth coming out, Rais. I’m not blaming you, I’m telling you. I don’t know if we will be alive tomorrow, Muammar my brother, my friend, my master. I could not care less about what happens to me or my family. I don’t matter, I am completely insignificant. I’m afraid for you, not for anything else. If harm comes to you, Libya will never get over it. This beautiful country, which you have built by yourself against all the odds, will crumble like an old and rotten relic. They’ve already burnt your green flag, and replaced it with a flag of blood and mourning. Soon the national anthem you chose for us will be replaced by some comic-opera tune devoid of meaning. People are toppling your statues, defacing your portraits, looting your palaces. It’s an apocalypse, Brotherly Guide. And I don’t want to be part of it. Without you the boat will founder on unknown shores, its wreckage will be scattered across the waves, and there will be no trace left of what it once was. Without you the tribes will dig out their weapons that have lain dormant through centuries of bitterness, unsatisfied revenge and unpunished betrayals. There will be as many states as there are clans. The people you have joined together will rediscover their divisions, and this land you have constructed will turn into a dumping ground for every renunciation of revenge, a graveyard for every oath and prayer—’