Everything I know about Algeria, I know from the media, from books, from talking to friends. Back when I lived with uncle Ali on the estate, my impressions were too real to be true. On the estate, people played at being Algerian beyond what truth could bear. Nothing forced them to, but they conformed to tradition with consummate skill. Emigrants we are and emigrants we will be for all time. The country they spoke of with such emotion, such passion, doesn’t exist, the tradition that is the North Star of their memory still less so. It’s an idol with a stamp of tradition on its brow that reads “Made in Taiwan”; it’s phony, artificial and dangerous. Algeria was other, it had its own life, everyone knew its leaders had pillaged the country and were actively preparing for the end of days. The Algerians who still live there know all too well the difference between the real country and the one we live in. They know the alpha and the omega of the horror they are forced to live through. If it were left to them, the torturers would have been the only victims of their dirty deeds.
On 25 April 1994, the bled was the lead story on the eight o’clock news: “Fresh carnage in Algeria! Last night armed men stormed the little village of Aïn Deb and cut the throats of all of its inhabitants. According to Algerian television, this new massacre is the work of Islamic fundamentalists in the Armed Islamic Group. . ”
I jumped to my feet and screamed, “Oh God, this can’t be happening!” What I had most feared had happened, the horror had finally found us. I slumped back, shell-shocked, I was sweating, I felt cold, I was shivering. Ophélie rushed in from the kitchen shouting, “What is it? What’s the matter? Talk to me for Christ’s sake!” I pushed her away. I needed to be on my own, to take it in, to compose myself. But the truth was there before my eyes, in my heart, my parents, faces, immeasurably old, immeasurably scared, pleading with me to help them, stretching out their arms towards me as ancient shadows brutally dragged them back, threw them to the ground, shoved a knee into their frail chests and slit their throats. I could see their legs judder and twitch as terrified life fled their aged bodies.
I had thought I understood horror, we see it all over the world, we hear about it every night in the news, we know what motivates it, every day political analysts explain the terrifying logic, but the only person who truly understands horror is the victim. And now I was a victim, the victim, the son of victims, and the pain was real, deep, mysterious, unspeakable. Devastating. Pain came hand in hand with an aching doubt. First thing the next morning, I phoned the Algerian Embassy in Paris to find out if my parents had been among the victims. I was transferred from one office to another, put on hold, and I held, breathless, gasping, until finally a polite voice came on the line.
“What was the name again, monsieur?”
“Schiller. . S,C,H,I, double L, E, R. . Aícha and Hans Schiller.”
As I listened to the rustle of paper, I prayed to God to spare us. Then the polite voice came back and in a reassuring voice said: “Put your mind at rest, monsieur, they’re not on the list I have here. . Although. . ”
“Although what?”
“I do have an Aícha Majdali and a Hassan Hans, known as Sid Mourad. . Do those names mean anything to you?”
“That’s my mother. . and my father. . ” I said, holding back my tears.
“Please accept my condolences, monsieur.”
“Why aren’t they listed as Aícha and Hans Schiller?”
“That, I’m afraid, I couldn’t say, monsieur, the list was sent to us by the Ministry of the Interior in Algeria.”
Rachel had told me nothing. I never watch TV and my mates don’t even know it exists. We’d never dream about sitting in a dark room watching pictures and listening to people prattling on. If I did hear about the massacre it was only in passing, and I didn’t give a toss. Aïn Deb, Algeria, didn’t mean much to me. We knew there was a war on there, but it was far away, we talked about it the same way we talked about wars in Africa or the Middle East, in Kabul, in Bosnia. All my friends are from places where there’s a war or a famine, when we talk about that shit we never go into detail. Our life is here on the estate, the boredom, the neighbours screaming, the gang wars, the latest Islamist guerrilla action, the police raids, the busts, the dealers, the grief we get from our big brothers, the demonstrations, the funerals. There are family parties sometimes, they’re cool, but they’re really for the women. The men are always downstairs, standing outside the tower blocks counting the breezes. If you go at all, it’s only to say you went. The rest of the time we’re bored shitless, we just hang around on corners waiting for it to be over.
Sometimes, we’ll get a little visit from Com’Dad — that’s what we call Commissioner Lepère. He always pretends like he didn’t know we’d be there: “Hey guys, I didn’t see you there. . I was just passing. . ” Then he’ll come over, lean against the wall with us and chat like we’re old friends. Meanwhile we’re standing there wondering if he’s come to phish or philosophize. Both, my brothers, both. Sometimes we’ll feed him a scrap, some bit of bogus information, sometimes we’ll make out like we’re thinking aloud about careers in the service of humanity and the environment. We have a laugh and then say our goodbyes, American style, high fives all round. Com’Dad even buys us all tea at Da Hocine or a coffee at the station bar. Poor bastard thinks it’s a good way of getting in with us. It is so lame. But at the same time we pretend to our mates that we’ve got Com’Dad right where we want him, that we’re always feeding him false information and getting him to pull strings for illegals on the estate. As for Com’Dad, he’ll turn up uninvited at whatever’s going on, he’s there at every party, wedding, circumcision, excision, he pops round to celebrate when people get on a course, get out of prison, get their papers, and he never misses the slaughtering of the sheep at Eid. He always leads the procession at funerals. He’s part of the new school of policing: to know your enemy you have to live with him, live like him.
In Rachel’s garage I found newspaper reports of the Aïn Deb massacre, some from here, some from the bled, Le Monde, Libération, El Watan, Liberté. . There was a big pile of them. Rachel had highlighted the stuff about us. It ripped my heart out just reading it. There was something sick about it too, the journalists talking about genocide like it was just another story, but their tone was like: “We told you so, there’s something not right about this war.” What fucking war is right? This one’s just wronger than most. And you end up imagining all the horror, the shame piled up on the grief. I had a film of it playing in my head for days, it made me sick to my stomach. This sleepy old village in the middle of nowhere, a moonless sky, dogs starting to bark, mad staring eyes appearing out of the darkness, shadows darting here and there, listening at doors, shattering them with their boots, inhuman screams, orders barked in the night, terrified villagers dragged out into the village square, kids bawling, women screaming, girls scarred with fear clinging to their mothers, trying to hide their breasts, dazed old men praying to Allah, pleading with the killers, ashen-faced men parleying with the darkness. I see a towering bearded man with cartridge belts slung across his chest ranting at the crowd in the name of Allah, then cutting a man’s head off with a slash of his saber. After that, it’s chaos, carnage, crying and screaming, limbs thrashing, savage laughter. Then silence again. A few groans still, soft sounds dying away one after the other, and then a sort of heavy, viscous silence crashing down onto nothingness. The dogs aren’t barking now, they’re whimpering, heads between their paws. Night is closing in on itself, on its secret. Then the film starts up again, only more graphic this time, more screams, more silence, more darkness. The stench of death is choking me, the smell of blood as it mingles with the earth. And I throw up. Suddenly I realise I’m alone in Rachel’s house. It’s pitch black outside, the silence is crushing. Then I hear a dog bark. I imagine shadows slipping through the streets. I calm myself as best I can and I sleep like the dead.