Abou Seif gets up and starts running through the fields as though he were possessed by a demon: “No, no, noooo…”
“Abou Seif… Abou Seif…”
He’s on all fours. At the foot of his bed. His wife looks down on him, tries to grab on to him so she can lift him up.
“I tried to restrain you,” she explains, “but you’re too heavy. You didn’t hurt yourself, did you?”
“I’m not completely awake, am I? It’s those damned dreams again. They’re making a jackass out of me…”
“What bad dreams?”
“Don’t get near me, will you. I want to know whether I’m awake or if this nightmare is still going on.”
“You’re awake, my dear.”
“Prove it.”
“I’m telling you, you’re awake.”
“I don’t believe you.”
“Come on, you must be kidding. You had a violent dream and fell out of bed.”
Since he refuses to take her word for it, she finds a small carafe and starts to sprinkle him with ice-cold water. “Do you believe me now?”
Abou Seif lets the water trickle down his face, down to his waist, down his pajama pants. He is attuned to its coldness, its flow… With his fingertips, he feels his wet skin, gives himself a pinch, is distinctly aware of his nails biting into his chest… there’s no doubt about it: He’s awake.
“What time is it?” he asks.
“Five o’clock.”
“When is that damned sun going to come up?
“Go back to sleep, love. We have a long trip this morning. You’ll need all your energy.”
Abou Seif remembers. This stimulates him.
“I’ll take you wherever you want to go, but I have no intention of going back to sleep. Sleep is untenable for me right now.”
He staggers into the living room, falls into an armchair, and turns the radio on. He is slightly comforted by Cheb Mami’s crystal voice. Unable to remain still, he goes towards the kitchen, finds some cheese in the fridge, and bites into it voraciously. He goes back to the bathroom. For a split second, he’s afraid of getting near the sink. He gets ahold of himself, and, with a firm grip, turns the faucet on, gets undressed, jumps in the shower, hums a little tune. Soon, a bubbly soap rises from his hairy chest. He’s thinking of the road trip that awaits him, of all the shortcuts he needs to negotiate; he smiles as he thinks of that good old mother whom he misses and whom he can’t wait to see again.
He quickly puts his bathrobe on and returns to the living room. The radio is sizzling. The bathroom door slams shut behind him. Someone has turned the shower on. Torrents of water inundate the hallway.
“Nora…”
He opens the door, and stops dead in his tracks: Nora is lying on the floor with her arms crossed and her guts flying. Duhv! duhv! duhv! The floor shakes. A quiet crowd has gathered in the staircase. In one fell swoop, a ragtag mob begins to swarm excitedly all over the foyer. The walls disappear again.
“Have you bloody well finished!” Abou Seif roars. “You no longer exist. You’re dead and buried.”
A blistering hand scorches his shoulder.
“Let go of me,” Abou Seif demands as he tries to wrench himself free. “Let go of me.”
“It’s just me,” Nora tells him as she shakes him by the shoulder.
Abou Seif finds himself back in bed, with his wife watching over him benevolently. “No,” he nods as he pushes Nora’s hand away and leaps out of his covers. He is pale; his hair is disheveled; his knees are rubbery. “You’re not going to get me this time, you old witch.”
“But what on earth are you talking about?”
“Don’t even get near me!”
In a complete frenzy, he looks all around and finds the candelabrum.
“It’s me, Nora.”
“You’re not Nora. And I’m not fully awake. I’ve had it up to here and I’m going to squash you all, you bunch of scum, you.”
Caught in a tenebrous spiral, he throws himself onto his wife and starts to bang, bang, bang…
Outside their window, the sun rises and turns a deaf ear to Nora’s cries. Slowly, the city awakes. A truck growls somewhere. The early birds are making a groggy but steady ruckus. Abou Seif stares at the bloodstained candleholder now punctured with bone fragments. The phone rings, seven times in fact. Abou Seif continues to stare at the candleholder.
“I know it’s that wretched dream,” he says, crouching over his wife’s inert body. “I’m not going to let them do it to me again. I’m going to just wait here until I wake up once and for all.”
He waits, waits, waits…
He’ll wait a long time.
The new day has now fully engulfed the room. Its light ricochets off the furniture. The children’s screams smash against the window. Nora is no longer bleeding. The brownish pool in which she cowers has now coagulated. Abou Seif releases the candelabrum, which falls to the floor, hits his ankle, and rolls under the bedside table. “This isn’t happening,” the penitent grouses belligerently. At last, he realizes exactly what is happening to him and he holds his head in his hands.
About the author
A former Algerian army officer living in exile in France, Mohammed Moulessehoul, aka Yasmina Khadra, has had five novels translated and published in the U.S., including The Sirens of Baghdad (Nan A. Talese ‘07), and The Attack (Nan A. Talese ‘06). Wolf Dreams (Toby ‘06) may be of interest to readers of this story, for it too deals with a participant in the Algerian Civil War.