The German Mujahid

MALRICH’S DIARY, 15 DECEMBER 1996

It’s a miracle I made it to Aïn Deb. My God this has been some adventure. As soon as we came down the steps of the plane at Houari Boumédienne International Airport, Algiers, all the passengers — men, women and children — were rounded up herded into the middle of the runway where we waited for more than an hour as driving rain and freezing wind whipped at us. The men were coughing, some of the older, weaker ones collapsed, the babies were crying, their mothers pleading with them to be quiet, desperately trying to comfort them. There was a lot of whispering. We were soaked to the skin. It’s one thing to read about it, to hear about it, you have to picture two hundred people with all their luggage, utterly terrified, standing on the tarmac in weather like this watched over by a mob of guards invisible in their oilskins. An hour later, a black car pulled up carrying four cops in dark green raincoats and dark glasses.

Doors slamming, bang, bang, bang, bang, they all got out. Special agents. Something was obviously about to happen, these guys were completely terrifying. The leader put up his collar, pushed his sunglasses back off his forehead and began to circle us silently, slowly, very slowly, staring intently at each of us in turn, though we had no idea why. He’d say to someone, “You, stand over there. . and you. . and you. . You, step forward. . and you. . you go over and stand with them. . You there, stop trying to hide, get out here.” He glowered at the women too, to one he said, “Take off your glasses!” to another woman, “Pull up your hood!” to an old man who’d fallen down, he barked, “Get up!” Just his voice had me shitting bricks; it was flat, unemotional, colder than you could possibly imagine. Obviously no one had ever dared to disobey this guy — he could be at home in bed or sitting behind a desk and all over the country people would meekly obey him. When I think that Com’Dad has to argue his case, then take it before a judge, I realise that there’s something not right with the system in Algeria. Or maybe the system in France. I was the sixteenth to be pulled out of the line. He looked at me, never blinking and said dismissively: “You, over there with the rest of them.” After me, he picked out five more. Mostly young guys. The rest of the passengers were led to a stunted little building with a huge sign on the front saying in three languages: Hall d’Arrivée. Bienvenue en Algérie. Arrivals Hall. Welcome to Algeria. And something in Arabic, which I can’t read or write. Our fellow travellers had already forgotten our shared nightmare — not one of them turned to say goodbye or to pity us, they were smiling, pushing and jostling to get away as quickly as possible. They were lucky. Some time later, when the water was up to our ankles, a covered military truck screeched to a halt in front of us. The head guy gave some order and the special agents told us to hand over our passports, our tickets, our hand luggage and get into the truck. I couldn’t believe it, I was shaking I was so scared, it looked like we were going to be deported. Back in France I’d never been scared of the cops, actually I got a buzz out of winding them up, watching them try to work out how to play things. Now, I was paralysed, I couldn’t think, it felt like I would never move again even if they suddenly said it was a joke and we were all on candid camera. Then the truck started up and zoomed towards this place that looked like it was an old cargo hold. Huge rusting hangars separated by paths a hundred metres wide, stuff lying around everywhere, loose concrete slabs, an armoured car parked under a water tower and everywhere you looked sandbagged army posts, each manned by two soldiers hugging a machine gun. Not another living soul. Nobody seemed to breathe, all you could hear was the howl of the wind, the hammering of the rain, a shriek of rusted metal that set your teeth on edge. Just the feel of the place had me squirming. The driver turned the truck into one of the hangars and slammed on the brakes, which squealed like scalded cats. He kept his foot to the floor, revving the engine hard for a long time, then cut the ignition. The hangar almost exploded with the sudden terrible silence that dropped on it like a bomb. A silence like that can turn your bowels to water. I’d never have believed that silence sound could be so deafening. It’s insane, it’s like saying someone is alive and dead at the same time. And that’s what we were, more dead than alive. Some of them were hacking like they were about to cough up their lungs, others were grey and pasty, my eyes were watery with acid tears. I wondered for a minute if the driver was trying to exterminate us with the exhaust fumes, but since he was in the hangar with us, I figured he probably wasn’t, he was just getting the oil out of his engine. I mean, no one would be stupid enough to gas themselves, flammable gasses stink so badly you can smell them a mile off, it’s not like roses. A Sonderkommando who forgets to get out of the gas chamber in time doesn’t last too long. The hangar was so big and so ramshackle that it would have taken thirty trucks a whole week to eliminate us, as Rachel would put it. By then we’d have died of starvation. Or madness. I thought about poor Rachel, this was how he died, his lungs dried up, his heart bruised, his body broken. Alone in his garage. More alone than anyone in the world. After that, everything happened quickly. We were ordered to get out, the truck drove off and the door of the hangar slammed shut with the boom of an atomic bomb. They left us in the dark without a word, without a look. At first everyone panicked, but we could hear nothing except the wind shaking the hangar and the rain gushing in waterfalls from the roof, but then we calmed down and huddled together in a corner to keep warm. A couple of people started smoking furiously like this was their first cigarette of the day, or their last. An hour later we were half dead from cold, from hunger, from thirst. And this was just the beginning.

I got talking to Slim, the guy huddled next to me in this hell, he was a university student home to spend Christmas holidays in the bled with his family. I asked if he knew what was going on, but he had no idea. He said he flew Paris to Algiers all the time, but this was the first time they’d pulled him out of the line up. “Maybe I’m starting to look like a terrorist,” he laughed. He was an optimist. We talked about this and that. He was studying computer science at Jussieu and lived in some posh house in the sixteenth arrondissement with his uncle who’s a professor at Pitié-Salpêtrière hospital. Poor little rich kid. But Slim said it wasn’t like that at all, he said he had to live off some measly grant, he said all he got from his uncle was room and board, his travel card and a bit of pocket money. Oh, and on weekends his uncle would lend him his Mercedes 300 convertible with a full tank of petrol and enough money to cover his expenses. Slim bitched that he’d even had to work as a management trainee in a merchant bank run by some friend of his uncle to pay for his skiing holiday in Switzerland. Then he bitched about France, the cold, the discrimination, the crime rate, the cost of living, the filthy streets, the pig-headed police, the civil servants and on and on, the préfecture refusing to give him a ten-year resident permit for no good reason. Slim was a pain in the arse. He told me as soon as he finished his degree he was going to move to London and set up a department of international studies with his cousins so they could make some money out of Africa. I listened, I nodded, I understood, but I can’t help it, I’ve never been able to stomach spoiled brats. I said to him aunt Sakina was always saying to me: “Don’t be so ungrateful.” But Slim said it’s not him, it’s France that’s ungrateful. Slim is a royal pain in the arse. “There goes someone who thinks his shit doesn’t stink,” as Monsieur Vincent used to say whenever some guy showed up with a Ferrari, tossed the keys at him, stared at the ceiling and said, “Check her over for me!” With guys like that, small-time crooks bigging it up like gangsters, we’d push the car into a corner of the workshop and take our own sweet time racking up a bill fit for a king. Slim and I talked about this and that, talked about meeting up again in Algiers and in Paris. Neither of us figured we were going to be shut up in this hangar forever. When you don’t know what’s going on, it’s best to be optimistic.

An hour later, the special agents came back. They lined us all up in front and the head guy asked each of us a series of questions. When it came to my turn, he asked if my name was really Malek Ulrich Schiller, if I’d got my passport through the legal channels, if I really was going to Aïn Deb to see my family, if I was planning anything illegal and if I harboured any ill intentions. He was a bit thrown by my name, he said, “Your father is German, but you’re Algerian?” I explained that my father was a scientist, a Muslim, a hero, a veteran Mujahid, a respected cheïkh and a chahid. He pointed to his left and said, “Go stand over there.” A minute later my new best friend Slim joined me. An hour later, there were two groups, one on the right, one on the left. We eyed each other tearfully, resentfully, everyone thinking, it’s their fault we’re in this mess. The selection process finished, the group on the right were loaded back onto the truck and driven off. Where to, I don’t know. A cop came over to our group and said, “Follow me.” We trailed after him like sheep. He led us to the building marked Arrivals Hall, Welcome to Algeria. He said, “Now fuck off.” We didn’t need to be told twice. Still shaking, we went through the necessary formalities: immigration, customs, baggage check, body search, brief routine interrogation, sundry declarations, compulsory foreign exchange, payment of taxes and found ourselves outside, half dead from exhaustion, hunger, thirst, cold, humiliation, soaked to the skin but free and ecstatic to be free. I felt like I’d just done a thirty-year stretch. The sunlight hurt my eyes and aunt Sakina’s suitcase was ripping my arm out of its socket. For a long time I wondered what had happened to the other group. I can’t bring myself to believe that the cops tortured them, killed them, deported them. I’d rather believe they just locked them up and that their parents aren’t worried. Some day, when the war is over, when the camps are liberated, we’ll find out.

Slim phoned his parents and got them to come and pick him up. “They were convinced I’d been turned back at the border or murdered or something — it was complete panic, the old man was already on the phone to Paris,” he said, laughing. Slim is a spoiled royal pain in the arse. While we waited, we watched the comings and goings in the airport. The whole place was deathly silent. The people looked normal but maybe they were being extra careful. At one point we saw some cop dragging away a gang of young guys handcuffed together in pairs. They’d obviously thought they could just up and leave the country. They’ve had it now. Trying to leave is an insult. They’re bound to be gassed. We were trying to get into the country and we’d been given the third degree. Later, I saw the special agents, who’d been sitting in the cafeteria, suddenly get to their feet, button their raincoats, slip on their dark glasses and march off quickly. They walked straight past us, but we ducked out of sight just in time. Compared to Algiers airport, our estate is like an old-folks home, everyone hanging out, bored senseless. Or it used to be — because since the new imam and his emir showed up, the Fourth Reich is well under way. By the time I left for Algeria, it was all set, the propaganda machine was up and running, strict security was being enforced and you could smell Blitzkrieg in the air. I wonder what it will be like by the time I get back, whether my family, my neighbours, my mates will still be there. I miss them already. I can’t imagine a future without my mates, without Momo, Raymou, Togo-au-Lait, Idir-Quoi, Cinq-Pouces, Manchot and Bidochon, the coffee jockey who can’t even make a decent cup of coffee, all sons of dirt-poor, honest working men. Slim, the royal pain in the arse, told me about his life in Paris, his mates, his girlfriends, and he told me about what he did in Algeria during the holidays, days spent playing video games, big family meals, little parties at the house, his sisters inviting their friends over pretending they needed to revise. I didn’t know what the fuck he was talking about. I told him about life on the estate and he looked at me like I was from another planet. Just then, his father showed up, frantic but happy, he’s some important professor at Algiers hospital, he used to work in some hospital in Paris. They gave me a lift, dropped me at the bus station. Slim, the royal pain in the arse, winked at me and said, “Come by the house when you get back from that godforsaken hole you’re going to, we can do some revision.”

Rachel was a bit of spoiled pain in the arse himself. I mean, he didn’t have to spend a fortune taking a taxi to Aïn Deb. They have got buses in Algeria and for a couple of dinar they’ll drive you, your family and all your belongings to the ends of the earth and back. Outside the bus station — a patch of waste ground with barbed wire fences where a hundred rusty ramshackle buses waged all out war to get in, fight over passengers and get the fuck out — was a guy like a scarecrow whose job was to give directions. I told him my story. For fifty dinar he told me what I needed to do, all the while giving directions to a bunch of other lost souls, “Yeah, yeah, that’s right, take bus number 12 to Sétif. . You, you need to take the number 8 to Oran. . and you. . uh. . 36, that’ll take you to Sidi-Bel-Abbes. . What? Oh yeah, so when you get to Sétif, take the bus for Bordj Kédir. . and you. . give me a minute. . you can take the bus to Tiaret or the one to Mascara, doesn’t matter. . You need to take the Ouargla bus and from there you take the caravan that goes to El Goléa. . and you. . you need to hitchhike the rest of the way to — where was it again?” I repeated the name pronouncing it carefully. “Aïn what. .?” He said as he hurried over to pick a fight with another scarecrow who was cutting in on his turf. “Aïn Deb? Yeah, yeah. . it’s like I said.” And he left me standing there in the mud and the chaos.

It was all exactly the way Rachel had described it in his diary. The military convoys, the roadblocks, the police, the deserted roads, the stupefying silence, the bus driver, foot to the floor, not looking left or right, the passengers so scared they were throwing up. The only difference was that it was bucketing down and wind whipped at us on the near side. At every bend, the wheels of the bus hung over the cliff. If the terrorists don’t kill us, the bus will. Or the cold. We stopped in a tiny village that looked like it had died out with the last dinosaur. Not a man or a ghost, nothing but shapeless figures muffled up so you could hardly see their faces. The guy in the café served us scalding hot coffee, took our money and disappeared. I had to change busses in Sétif, but things there were more efficient than they’d been in Algiers. In Sétif, the self-appointed guide only charged me five dinar to tell me, “all the blue mini-busses go to Bordj Kédir, you can’t miss it.” In Bordj Kédir I managed to find a taxi driver who was prepared to take me closer to Aïn Deb for a reasonable price. His Peugeot 403 looked like nothing I’d ever seen. “There’s something strange going on out in Aïn Deb,” he told me, “people coming and going all the time. . it’s weird.” “What people?” I asked, “What are they looking for?” He stared at me but said nothing. Maybe he didn’t trust me, maybe he didn’t understand me, I was talking to him in my best pidgin French with a thick sink-estate Arabic accent. I have to say I didn’t really understand him. I assumed that he was talking about terrorists, because he was looking around him all the time like he was expecting an ambush. He dropped me off at a crossroads of two flooded dirt tracks you could barely see in the darkness. To the left, the path climbed steeply, to the right, it ran downhill. “It’s that way. . about three kilometres.” He said, at least that’s what I understood from him pointing to the left and waving three fingers in my face. “Kilometre” is international, it didn’t need translating. He disappeared back into the darkness, his headlights turned off. I took a deep breath and slogged uphill through the driving rain, but at the least the wind was now whipping at my arse.

Anyway, long story short, I arrived in Aïn Deb half dead from exhaustion, hunger, and thirst, soaked to the skin, both arms pulled from their sockets by aunt Sakina’s suitcase. And to top it all I’d caught a dose of flu. If it was like this in the camps, I’d volunteer to be gassed straight off, I thought, as the night got blacker and up there, on the hill, where Rachel had once stood, lost, the wind blew harder. It nearly sent me toppling into the abyss, but, with my big emigrant’s suitcase to weigh me down, I only flailed a bit.

Then, suddenly, I wondered what kind of welcome I would get. I hadn’t written, I hadn’t phoned. I hadn’t even thought about it, the trip was spur of the moment, because of the money Ophélie had sent me. Who cares, I thought, now that papa and maman and Rachel were all dead, I had no ties to Aïn Deb. I was a stranger turning up unexpectedly. But I was also a son of the village, following in my brother’s footsteps, in search of my father, my mother, our truth.

You could barely see the village from the hill. I waited for the next flash of lightning to get my bearings. I bounded down the hill like a sky-diver. At some point, as a flash of lightning lit up the sky, I spotted smoke rising from chimneys. I had finally arrived.

When you grow up on the estate, you learn to improvise. Dragging my suitcase, I went and knocked on Mohamed’s door. He was the son of the local shoemaker, we were friends back when I was a kid. I remembered people used to call him Mimed and I don’t remember seeing him going barefoot back in the day. I figured this was the best thing to do — I didn’t want to panic the whole village. The memory of the massacre must still haunt them. As I crept through the village I prayed to God that Mimed was still alive. At this hour — it was after 8 P.M. — the good people would have recited Isha’a, the last prayer, and would be sleeping the sleep of the just.

I’ll spare you the details, but fuckwit that I am, I scratched at the door instead of knocking properly and that set off all kinds of furtive goings-on and terrified whispers inside, then I nearly sent them into a panic because, instead of introducing myself properly, I whispered: “Mimed, open up, it’s, Malrich. . ” Malrich is what they call me in France, it doesn’t mean anything to anyone here in the bled, they probably thought it was a secret password or something. But everything worked itself out in the end. I introduced myself properly: “It’s Malek, Hassan and Aïcha’s son, Rachel’s brother, open the door for God’s sake.” Mohamed didn’t recognise me, and I didn’t recognise him. It took some time and some memory jogging before we could say, “It’s you, Malek, Cheïkh Hassan’s son, I can’t believe it! It’s you, Mimed, Tayeb the shoemaker’s son, I can’t believe it!” He was expecting an old man and here I was, this young guy; I was expecting a young man and what I found was an old man with a swarm of kids bawling and clinging to his ankles. The poor things were pissing themselves they were so scared. He kissed me on both cheecks and brought me inside. The kids magically disappeared, I could hear them on the other side of the curtain. His wife, an old woman who was still young and healthy, gave me some leftover couscous, some dates and some milk, then she disappeared for a second and came back with a rug, a blanket and a pillow and made a bed up for me in front of the fire. I ate like an animal. Through a gap in the curtain, the kids were staring at me. Poor things never seen a stranger, they didn’t know such things existed. Mohamed threw a white burnous over my shoulders then stoked the fire. Gradually, I came back to life a bit. Since it was really late for them—9 o’clock — and since I was dead on my feet, they said good night and went back to their room. I blew out the oil lamp and got under the blanket which smelled wonderfully of mountain sheep and straw. The fire sputtered in the grate, throwing off sparks. It was beautiful. Beside the fireplace, in an old scorched basket by the fire was a cat with her litter. I think she smiled at me, her eyes shining in the darkness. It really was beautiful.

Outside, the wind howled as hard as it could, rain came in flurries and the village dogs, smelling an unfamiliar scent, my scent, were barking as loudly as they could. I knew, I remembered: if they were pups of the dogs we used to have, they wouldn’t stop until dawn, not until the goats were let out and bounded down into the valley, to the roaring torrent of the wadi. I felt suddenly happy. Everything seemed innocent, so incredibly permanent that you forget everything, forget your own troubles and the troubles of the world.

I slept like a baby that night. It had been a long time.