The Dictator's Last Night

11

I am reading the Koran, shut away in my room, when the air strike hits District Two, one missile, then another … The third is so powerful that the last panes are blasted out of the windows and hit the floor in a chilling shattering of glass.

The awaited coalition attack has begun.

I go out into the corridor. On the ground floor I hear someone shouting orders to switch off all the lights and not to go out into the courtyard. The few candles lighting the living room downstairs are quickly put out. A fourth missile hits, not far from our school headquarters. A sort of feverishness takes hold of me, making me excited and curious. I want to be present at the bombardment of my city, and I take the stairs that lead to the terrace four at a time.

I expected something climactic, a sky slashed by shooting stars, adorned with balls of fire the size of exploding suns, with searchlights aimed in the direction of the attack, soldiers returning fire, fire engines tearing to where the missiles have hit and burning winds starting up on every side — but all I get is a low-grade performance as miserable as it is amateurish, seeing only a city without courage exposed to the fury of the drones, inert in its dust and dirt like a tart in her filthy sheets. Apart from the bombs raining down from an indifferent sky and the targets smoking like shreds of rags carried away on the wind, Sirte is as depressing as one of History’s rejects. Not a single pair of headlights, not one alarm wailing, not a shot fired from a rooftop: nothing but the crump of explosions and a darkness filled with poltergeists who have suddenly gone to ground, their fingers to their lips so they do not give themselves away.

I am disappointed.

I remember the night of Friday 28 March 2003, when a rain of fire deluged Baghdad. I was pinned to my armchair at Bab al-Azizia, in front of my plasma screen, completely transfixed by the blue-green darkness saturating the city of Harun al-Rashid. The flares swelled in the middle of the Tomahawk ballet, the anti-aircraft machine guns traced exciting phosphorescent lines of dots in the sky, buildings collapsed in a tumult of concrete and steel, ammunition dumps burst in great arrays of sizzling comets. It was a magical sight, a terrible wonderland. The coalition’s apocalyptic firework display came up against the Iraqis’ valour. David and Goliath were waging a titanic battle in a performance designed by a choreographer of genius. The air-raid sirens merged with the ambulance sirens to make a symphony of misfortune that was unbearable in its intensity and beauty. I could have died that night in Baghdad’s wounded arms, at the heart of a proud nation so admirable in its fighting spirit; I would have liked to die pinned to a column that shattered into a thousand pieces, or be blown apart by a shell, shouting, ‘Death to the invader.’ Nothing can be more gratifying for a martyr than to give up his soul without surrendering, identifying himself with every fireball, every rattling breech, every piece of flesh caught in the coil of the supreme sacrifice.

What a disappointment not to see any of that in my own country.

Sirte is the pits, an old, rotting rug being beaten to pieces, a doormat to wipe your filthy boots on. It looks like the kind of place the gods chose to mourn their Olympus.

‘Don’t stay out there, Brotherly Guide.’

Abu-Bakr begs me to take cover. He stands at the top of the stairs, too frightened to join me on the terrace. His pallor gleams in the half-light, like a candle in a death chamber.

‘Brotherly Guide, please, this way.’

I feel like spitting at him.

Mansour and Lieutenant-Colonel Trid come running.

‘Please, Rais, don’t stay there.’

‘Why not?’ I say. ‘It is my city they are destroying. How can I look elsewhere, or cover my face?’

Abu-Bakr ventures out onto the terrace.

‘Go back to your hole,’ I order him. ‘I am not like Ben Ali, ready to sneak away. I was born in this land and this land will be my tomb.’

‘You could be injured.’

‘What about it?’

‘We need you, Rais.’

‘Go. That is an order. I am not afraid of dying.’

A missile hits a few blocks away from the school. The defence minister retreats to the top of the stairs, his hands covering his ears, bent double. Mansour throws himself down. Only the lieutenant-colonel dares to come towards me, not knowing how to convince me to follow him.

The building that has been hit turns into a gigantic torch. The trees around it catch fire in turn, casting an unearthly light on the street, strewn with white-hot rubble.

Intoxicated by the noise of weapons and the folly of men, I find myself yelling, my arms out wide, calling down the heaven’s thunder.

‘You will not take me alive. I am not a clove of garlic to be strung up on a rope. I will fight to the last drop of my blood … Come and get me, you dogs! I am a soldier of Allah; death is my mission. My place is in paradise, at the side of the prophets, surrounded by angels and houris, and my earthly tomb will carry as many crowns as a meadow has flowers … What did you think? That I would hide down a well until someone came to flush me out? You will not swab my cheek with your cotton swabs. You will not expose me on prime-time TV with a tramp’s beard. And you, Sarkozy, you will not have the honour of flying my scalp on the roof of your National Assembly.’

‘I beg you, Rais, come with me,’ Trid pleads with me.

I am not listening to him.

I hear only my own piercing cries, ringing out over the chaos of the explosions. I am a roaring inferno. A supernatural force has taken hold of me. I feel capable of confronting hurricanes.

A bomb explodes close to the school. Its shock wave stings my face, whipping up my anger. I climb up onto the parapet, open my arms wide, my chest thrust out, my chin forward.

The lieutenant-colonel grips my waist to stop me stepping up onto the wall’s outer ledge. He suspects that I am about to throw myself off. I push him away with a hand, turn back to the massacre and go on with my railing against the entire world.

‘Look! I’m up here, flesh and blood, on my pedestal. Must I sacrifice myself before you see me? Come on, show some guts, you cowards; come and get me if you’re man enough. You’ll find that I’m not Ben Ali, or Saddam or Bin Laden.’

‘Rais, there’ll be snipers across the street.’

‘Then let them show themselves. They couldn’t hit a mountain, they’re shaking with fear.’

The lieutenant-colonel wraps his arms around my waist again. It is as if his embrace is pressing on my rage to squirt it up to the stars. I lean on him for support, put my hands around my mouth like a megaphone and hurl my cries further than an artillery shell.

‘Curses be upon you, Saddam Hussein! Why did you let yourself be taken alive and executed on the first day of Eid? You could have put a bullet in your brain and robbed the Crusaders of the pleasure of their ghoulish revenge. Because of you, the prophet Muhammad and his people do not dare raise their eyes to God any longer … But I shall stand straight before the Lord. I shall look him in the eye till He turns away. Because He wouldn’t trouble himself to unleash the Ababil on these infidels who heap calumnies and defecate without restraint upon a Muslim land.’10

My shouts pour out into space like a raging torrent of the elements; the sky and earth intermingle, then the abyss …

10 In the Koran the Ababil were a race of birds that saved Mecca from the Yemeni army by dropping clay bricks on its elephants as they approached.