‘What little girls in uniform usually do.’
‘What a disgrace for a leader!’
‘He has never been a leader, Saif. He was no more than an upwardly mobile pimp, ready to bolt at the first sign of trouble. A street thief would know how to behave with more honour than he does.’
Saif went on cursing. I picked my grandson up in my arms and turned my back on the TV. Arab revolts have always bored me. Their bark is worse than their bite.
4
I hear a car arrive.
Is it my son Mutassim returning with the convoy?
I dash into the corridor and down the stairs. The ground floor is deserted. Footsteps are hurrying to the building’s emergency exit.
In the courtyard a requisitioned vehicle backfires before its ignition is switched off. It is a pickup, in a pitiful state: crazed windscreen, smashed side windows, bodywork like a sieve, a flat tyre, a wheel practically on its rim with shreds of rubber flapping on the side.
The driver opens his door but stays slumped over the wheel, with one foot on the ground and the other on the floor of the cab. Soldiers drag two bodies from the back seat. The first has a smashed skull, the second’s mouth is gaping, his eyes rolling upwards. A third man, sitting next to the driver, groans.
Abu-Bakr approaches the vehicle, Mansour behind him.
‘Where have these men come from?’
‘They’re the reconnaissance unit, General,’ a captain tells him.
‘Unit? I only see one vehicle.’
‘The other two copped an RPG,’ the driver explains in a dying voice. ‘No survivors.’
‘What do you mean, no survivors?’ Mansour thunders. ‘And kill your lights, you idiot. D’you think you’re on the Champs-Élysées?’
The driver turns off his headlights. His movements are clumsy and slow.
‘What about Colonel Mutassim?’ I say to him.
‘He went on past point 34.’
‘Did you see him go through enemy lines?’
‘Yes, sir,’ he says, breathless as if about to faint. ‘We escorted him to the edge of the district, then covered him when the rebels tried to stop him.’
‘You stand to attention when you speak to your rais,’ I admonish him.
The driver is collapsing over the steering wheel. He gathers all his last strength to raise his head a tiny bit to groan: ‘I can’t stand, sir. I’ve taken two rounds in my groin and some shrapnel in my calf.’
Mansour gestures to two soldiers to remove the wounded man on the front seat.
‘What happened?’ Abu-Bakr asks.
The driver writhes, takes a deep breath and gabbles, as if afraid he will pass out before finishing his report, ‘When we were sure Colonel Mutassim was not in danger, the sergeant tried a sortie between points 34 and 56 to locate the new enemy lines. We got four kilometres past their defences without meeting any resistance but on the way back we drove into a trap. Infantry attacked us with rocket launchers. Two vehicles blew up. I don’t know how I made it back.’
‘Why did you come here?’ I shout at him. ‘And without switching your lights off. The enemy is bound to have followed you. They will know where we are now because of your idiocy.’
The driver looks stunned by my reaction.
‘But where could I have gone, sir, with three wounded men with me?’
‘To hell, you imbecile! You never place the headquarters in danger. I warn you, if we have been discovered I shall have you shot.’
The captain helps the driver out of the pickup, puts an arm around his waist and drags him to the aid station. The other soldiers stay where they are, by the vehicle, as if they have been turned to stone.
Squeezed into an armchair, Mansour Dhao inspects his fingernails and meditates on his anxieties. Now and then he talks to himself, one of the first signs of mental illness. Watching him deteriorate is hard to bear. I need my closest supporters to display a certain amount of restraint. There is no difference between a man who surrenders and a man who refuses to fight. I would go so far as to say that if the first has the courage of his cowardice, the second lacks any courage at all.
This man in the throes of giving up, this human derelict, utterly adrift, disgusts me. I consider him the dregs of humanity.
In the room we are using as our crisis centre, General Abu-Bakr Yunis Jabr is studying a staff map, with broad patches of sweat on his shirt and under his arms. It is clear to me that he is merely going through the motions in a role he is no longer capable of performing. From time to time he clears his throat, pretends to study intently some detail on the map, leans his whole body across the table, his cheek resting on his hand to show me how much he is concentrating. His little show lacks all credibility, but he has the excuse of not wanting to exasperate me.
All three of us are looking out for Mutassim’s runner. Without news of the colonel we are unable to stop ourselves falling apart. Every minute that passes takes away another piece of ourselves.
My nerves are hypersensitive. To be cut off from the world, stuck here like a vegetable waiting for a sign from my son who cruelly refuses to show himself, is intolerable. My fate rests on the throw of a coin that hangs suspended in the air, as sharp as a guillotine blade.
Mansour stops inspecting his nails. He looks right and left, seeking who knows what, then wriggles in his chair, apparently asking himself where he is. When he finds his bearings, he buries himself in his seat again, holding his temples with thumbs and middle fingers, shaking his head enigmatically. Then, slowly emerging from a long inner turmoil, he turns his attention back to the general, commenting in a sarcastic voice, ‘Do you see anything in your crystal ball?’
‘What crystal ball?’ the general grunts, not turning round.
‘Your map. You’ve been stroking it for the last half-hour; it must have given you the answer by now.’
‘I’m studying the various possibilities for a withdrawal southwards.’
‘I think we’ve known the route since this morning. Put it another way, south is south, and it’s the only way we’ve got now.’
‘Yes, but the enemy’s centre of gravity changes by the hour. According to our reconnaissance units—’
‘You mean those two or three patrols we’ve got? They’re just yomping about in the dark, if you want my opinion.’
‘You can keep your opinion to yourself. You’re not going to teach me my job.’
Mansour goes back to contemplating his nails, which he gnaws incessantly. His head hunched between his shoulders, he grumbles, ‘We shouldn’t have left the palace.’
‘You don’t say,’ the general answers him.
‘We were all right in the bunker. We had places to sleep and food to eat and we were protected from air raids and artillery. Look where we are now. A single chopper could wipe us out.’
The general puts his pencil down on the edge of the table. He has guessed that the commander of the People’s Guard is seeking to provoke him and so is doing his best to avoid confrontation. It was his plan to evacuate the palace. He did not need to persuade me; it was what I thought too. Every residence where I was supposed to have taken refuge was destroyed by coalition air strikes, including my relations’ houses and my children’s. In this vile manhunt NATO had no hesitation in dropping its bombs on my grandchildren, shamelessly murdering them, without remorse.
‘We ran the risk of getting trapped underground,’ the general argues, momentarily impressively calm.
‘You think we’re safe here?’ Mansour insists.
‘At least no one has pinpointed us here. We also have greater room for manoeuvre in case of an attack. If we’d stayed underground at the palace, all the rebels would have had to do is break through the reinforced concrete with a pneumatic drill or a digger, run a pipe through the hole and switch on a generator to gas us.’