‘When I was doing a course at Vystrel Academy, near Moscow, I made friends with some of the Russians there. They were young officers or young cadres, straight out of university. They went around with the latest mobile phones, drove the most fashionable 4×4s, wore perfume from Dior and designer clothes and had dinner in chic restaurants that they’d booked online with their sophisticated laptops. They were today’s people, rich and in a hurry. They hadn’t known the period of scarcity, the chorni khleb, the endless queues outside shops whose shelves were practically empty, the institutionalised spying at post offices and prison sentences for wearing a pair of jeans you’d bought on the black market. Yet when they drank so much vodka that they couldn’t tell a fork from a rake, they went on and on about how bad everything was, how the country was going to the dogs, how the state structures were pathetic and the oligarchs’ corruption intolerable, and how much they missed Stalin’s iron hand … It’s the same everywhere, Brotherly Guide. In Chile they miss Pinochet, in Spain they miss Franco, in Iraq Saddam, in China Mao, the same way they miss Mubarak in Egypt and Genghis Khan in Mongolia.’
‘What image will they have of me? Will I be their guide or their tyrant?’
‘You’re not a tyrant. You did exactly what needed to be done. There are two sorts of people. People who work with their heads and people who need a big stick. Our people needed a big stick.’
I cannot agree with him.
I acknowledge that I treated those who became dissidents without mercy. How else could I have responded? To rule over people requires a culture that is compatible with a single medium: blood. Without blood, a throne is a potential gallows. To protect mine, I took a leaf out of the chameleon’s book: I walked with one eye looking ahead, the other behind, my step calibrated to the millimetre, my speech moralistic and as unhesitating as lightning. The moment I melted into the background, I became part of the background …
‘The only people I clamped down on were traitors, Colonel. I loved and protected my people.’
‘You shouldn’t have, Rais. You cosseted them too much and it made them lazy and cunning. They wallowed in their sense of entitlement to the point where they couldn’t be bothered to shoo a fly off a cake any more. They thought work, knowledge, ambition were a waste of time. Why worry about anything when the Brotherly Guide is there to think for everyone? The average Libyan has no idea of how generous you’ve been to him. He’s just taken advantage of you. He thought he was a little prince and expected it to last for ever. From the moment he sees that people are working so he doesn’t have to, operating his machines so he can knock off, why should he wait for a lunch break? He gets tired just looking at his Africans working like dogs for him. Now he’s trying to prove he’s worth more than he was originally valued at, and so how does he do it? By biting the hand that fed him. If you’ll allow me, sir, I think you should have treated your people the same way you treated your dissidents. They are not worth the time and concern you have lavished on them, sir. They’re a nation of shopkeepers and smugglers who only know how to do dodgy deals and doss around. Tomorrow’s Libyans will miss you the way that they miss Stalin in Russia, because with the gang we’ve got here, knocking our cities flat and lynching its heroes in public, our grandchildren are going to inherit a country that’s been handed over to puppets and incompetents.’
I feel both hurt and relieved by the lieutenant-colonel’s words.
‘What I like about you, my boy, even more than your courage, is your frankness. Not one of my ministers or concubines has ever opened my eyes to the reality you have just described. Every one of them flattered me that I had made, out of a rabble of Bedouins, the proudest people on earth.’
‘They weren’t lying to you. From a ragtag of tribes who were all hostile to each other you made a single body and a single spirit. But the real truth was more than that.’
‘Why was it hidden from me?’
‘Because it wasn’t nice, sir.’
At that moment the bedroom door opens with a crash. It is Mansour who has come to brief us, breathless and feverish, his face flushed. He informs us that the officer ordered to contact Mutassim has returned and that it is time for us to set out.
I turn to the colonel.
‘It is the moment of truth.’
14
On the ground floor there is general mobilisation. Soldiers are running in all directions. Officers are shouting to gee themselves up and manhandling the slower men, caught off guard by the turn of events.
I detest messes. One breeds another; they make my nervous tension worse.
I suspect the general of not having briefed his subordinates. I look for him in the mêlée but cannot see him anywhere.
Mansour brings over to me the officer whose return has sparked everything off. He is young, probably only just out of the Academy. He salutes me and practically falls over, unnerved by the expression I must have on my face.
‘Where is my son?’
‘He is on his way, sir.’
‘You have seen him?’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘Personally?’
‘Absolutely, sir. He handed over to me the twenty vehicles I’ve brought back with me and ordered me to tell you that we must leave at once.’
‘Why did he not come with you?’
‘He is commanding the third — the last — section of the convoy. At least thirty vehicles. It’s being slowed down by the two Shilka batteries.’
‘Is he safe and sound?’
‘Yes, sir. He says he’ll catch us up en route, after we’re clear of District Two.’
My armoured 4×4 is lined up in the courtyard. Lieutenant-Colonel Trid is organising the column, summoning the drivers and issuing orders about the procedure to follow.
‘There will be four cars in front for reconnaissance. I’ll be in the fifth vehicle, which will travel two hundred metres back. The rais will be in the sixth. On no account are you to stop if you are attacked. If I leave the convoy, you will follow me. Do not let me out of your sight for a second. You are there to ensure the rais’s safety at all times.’
The drivers click their heels and return to their vehicles.
Mansour and I take our seats in the armoured 4×4.
‘Where is the general?’
‘He went to see if his two sons had arrived,’ the Guard commander informs me.
‘Get him. I want him to travel with us.’
Someone runs to find the general. The minutes drag on. I swear in the back of the 4×4, thump the back of the driver’s seat.
Abu-Bakr finally arrives, panting and sweating.
‘Where did you get to, damn you?’
‘I was looking for my sons.’
‘Now is not the time. Get in the front; everyone is waiting for you.’
As soon as the general climbs into the 4×4, the convoy sets off.
We drive out of the school in an almighty roar. In their haste vehicles drive into each other, some scrambling onto the pavement to get to their place in the column as fast as they can.
The convoy sorts itself into a disciplined file as it turns onto the ring road that leads to the coast. As we reach the first junction, I realise I have left my Koran and my prayer beads in my room.
We drive, exposed, along the coast road, at the mercy of ambushes and air raids.
Rarely has the day been so radiant. Despite the pall of smoke from the fires, it has a dazzling clarity. It feels as though the sun has chosen the traitors’ side — it illuminates me like a target.
I am not calm, but I am not excessively concerned. I have no idea where they are taking me or what is waiting for me around the next bend, yet I do not have the feeling that it is essential to know either of these things. What would it change?