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When I opened my eyes we were all three sprawled on the embroidered cloth, our limbs intertwined, naked apart from a few pieces of tulle and lace. My mouth was pasty, cramps racked my muscles. The young woman with the Venetian blond hair was sleeping on her belly, completely naked; the one with the black hair was sleeping on her back, her long penis lying across her thigh. I brushed against it with the backs of my fingers, but the girl didn’t wake up. I rose, sat on the edge of the wide bed, and took off the pump that had remained on one foot all night, along with the silk stocking. Despite the acid pain running through my head, a great feeling of peace and plenitude filled my body. Around us, other girls were sleeping as well, scattered over the sofas and thick carpets, naked or half-clothed. Many of them had hard-ons in their sleep, one of them, a very slim little girl with a huge chest, was absent-mindedly caressing her breast and letting out little yelps. There was no sign of my friend. I got up and wandered through the silent house to find the bathroom where I urinated for a long time, seated on the toilet. Then I removed my makeup and took a shower, stretching with pleasure under the hot stream. My running clothes were still lying in the corner and I quickly slipped them on after drying myself off. In the living room, my two companions were still sleeping, snuggled against each other now in the middle of the green and gold field of the large cloth. The girl with the cropped hair had turned onto her side and their buttocks fit together, the thin, sinewy bottom of the blond girl half hidden beneath the more muscular buttocks of the other. My sneakers made no sound on the carpet and I awoke no one on my way out. I went downstairs, crossed through the house and opened the back door to pass into the hallway; as soon as I closed it, I began to run, zipping my jogging suit up to my neck. I didn’t count my steps, they fell one after the other, firm and regular like my breath, I guided myself as well as I could in the indistinct light, trying to guess the curve of the hallway, anxious not to bump into a wall. From time to time, when it became too dark, I held out a hand to guide me, but sometimes my fingers found nothing but emptiness, an intersection perhaps or just a recess, I faltered but didn’t stop, struggling to keep going. When my hand banged into a metallic object, I knew right away it was a doorknob, I stopped short to grasp it and opened the door. The light, beyond the threshold, dazzled me, I blinked and shielded my face with my arm. The air was like a furnace, already my face was covered with sweat, I quickly took off my jacket to wipe myself with it, before tying it around my waist. Then I looked around me. I found myself at the edge of an expanse of red earth, on which were scattered groups of round huts, with earthen walls and thatched roofs. People were coming and going, most of them women and bands of children, a few men as well, all with black skin and short, curly hair, dressed in bright colors that often clashed. A few tall palm trees rose between the huts; further on stood a vast wall of vegetation, where the brilliant green of the mango trees stood out from the darker tints, green-grey or yellowish, of the other trees. Bird sounds filled the air, children’s shouts burst out; sometimes too the barking of an invisible dog resounded. The air was heavy, electric. A woman, sitting in front of a blackened pot simmering on a little fire in the shade near a hut, gestured at me with her wooden ladle to approach. Near her, on a woven straw mat, a little baby was sleeping, a naked girl with just a colored cord around her hips. The woman pointed to another stool and handed me a tin spoon and a steaming bowl filled with red beans. I was very hungry and I cheerfully devoured the dish, thanking her with a smile and a few words; she answered in a language that I did not understand, encouraging me with a gesture to keep eating. It lacked salt but that didn’t matter, I swallowed spoonful after spoonful and scraped the bowl. I was still sweating copiously, the damp heat stuck my soaking clothes to my body. A gust of hot wind shook the palm trees and the woman raised her head. I looked too: heavy black clouds were covering the sky above the forest. Already the first drops were splattering the ground, throwing up particles of red dirt; the woman gathered the baby in its mat and then grasped the pot, gesticulating for me to follow her under a thatched roof erected over some posts, like a hut without walls. There were three little chairs and wooden stools there and we took our places in silence as outside the rain advanced with a hum, increasing in volume until it drowned out all other sounds. Everything had suddenly grown dark. The baby woke up and began to cry. The woman rocked it, then abruptly freed from her blouse a fat, round, flaccid breast that the infant greedily took hold of, suckling with all its strength. The rain was hammering the earth now and I watched the woman and her baby in silence, listening to the croaking of the toads that rose from the edge of the forest. Suddenly a shadow appeared in front of the shelter and shouted a few guttural words. The woman’s face contorted, she hugged the child to her, the shadow had bent down to enter the shelter, when it straightened up I saw it was an armed soldier, his head covered in short braids and his chest and arms decorated with ill-assorted objects, jewelry or fetishes. He was shouting and waving us outdoors with his weapon, the woman had slipped from the chair and was seated on the ground, the baby still clutched in her arms, the man, without warning, started kicking me, I fell to the ground and he kept beating me until I began to crawl outside to escape him. The rain soaked me immediately, I tried to stand up, leaning on my hands, but a violent blow on my back sent me flying into a puddle. Dazed, groggy, my mouth full of mud that I spat out in vain, I curled up on my side, pain shooting through me like a burn from a red-hot iron, unable even to haul myself out of the puddle. Blurry, barely distinct, the green rubber boots of the man filled my entire field of vision, I rolled onto my shoulders as the green and brown figure, veiled by the rain, towered above me shaking his rifle, behind me the woman was screaming as well, I followed the soldier with my eyes as he joined her, she was convulsively clutching her baby, the man tore it away from her with a brutal gesture and sent it flying into a bush, the woman cried out and rushed toward the bush; but a violent rifle butt blow to her stomach made her double over, and she fell to the ground where the man kicked her in the head. I didn’t see any more, something or rather someone had grabbed hold of my hair and was pulling me in the mud, I screamed and tried to grasp his arm, and got battered with blows for my trouble; I was suffocating, half smothered in mud and terror, finally I managed to rise to my knees as a relentless hand, twisting my arms behind my back, tied them together at the elbows. Then I was hauled to my feet and with a great shove propelled forward. It was almost night now, the rain blinded me and I could see nothing, a final blow threw me to the ground again near other people whom I could hear but not see. I twisted around to get back onto my knees, blinking frantically, I was surrounded by several heads, boys and girls, all looked very young and were shouting or crying in their language. The cord dug into my elbows and I could feel my hands growing numb. Little by little the rain grew lighter, a grey slice of sky appeared behind a cloud and shone a hesitant gleam on the scene. We were surrounded by soldiers, all looked like the first one, two of them were knotting ropes around the hips of the seated children, another came to tie me up in the same way, further on more soldiers, brandishing their automatic rifles, were pushing half a dozen men toward an immense solitary mango tree in the middle of the expanse of red earth, they stood them with their backs to the trunk and tied them together, the men let them without struggling, from where I was I couldn’t hear if they were protesting or not, the rain was still falling a little and the croaking of toads filled the evening, the failing daylight drew gleams from the puddles scattered over the expanse, one of the soldiers picked up a big stick lying there and, with calm, precise, methodical gestures, smashed the heads of the men tied to the tree. Already other men were kicking us to make us stand up; I realized that we were all tied to each other to form a human chain, I seemed to be the only adult there, all the others looked like children or young adolescents. Two soldiers were standing near me: “Please,
s’il vous plaît, bitte, por favor, min fadlikum, pozhaluysta, molim vas,” I mumbled idiotically in all the languages I knew, waving my arms behind my back. One of them glared at me with very red eyes; the other barked a few words, and the first took out a knife and came forward to cut the ropes digging into my elbows. My hands and forearms were blue, I no longer felt them at all, I struck them against my thighs and a horrible tingling filled them, almost unbearable, a burning pain also pulsed through my elbows where they had been tied and I massaged them as well as I could, clenching my teeth to avoid groaning. A little further away, a young girl was thrashing about on the ground and shouting. A soldier tried to stand her up but she resisted, striking the muddy ground with her feet and screaming with all her strength. Finally the soldier let her go and stood up, took the rifle from his shoulder, and crushed in her head with a few blows from the butt, stopping only when the girl had completely ceased twitching. Then he detached the rope from her hips and tied it again to reform the human chain that was already getting underway with shouts and blows, leaving the corpse stretched out in the mud, blood and splattered brain staining the puddles, still pricked by the last drops of rain.