The German Mujahid

MALRICH’S DIARY, JANUARY 1997

Needless to say, getting out of Algeria was a fucking nightmare. Boarding the plane seemed to take forever, the paperwork, the Ausweis, the security checks, the waiting, the petty bureaucracy, it’s like the Bonzen in Algeria like nothing better than torturing people. They’re like the Gestapo. I was a bundle of nerves, I was terrified that I’d be dragged off somewhere. At one point, just as we were going through the last security check, an officer in a blue jacket came over to us and said: “You, you and you. . come with me.” I thought I’d had it, but it was nothing — he just needed four young guys to help him shift a crate from a truck and carry it down to the basement. I still can hardly believe he said thanks and gave us each a cigarette. Only after the plane had taken off and we had reached the point of no return did I breathe again. I fell asleep straight away. I needed to build up my strength so I could face the estate. I had a sick feeling. I expected the place to be completely different and, on our way back from Orly airport — where they gave me a hero’s welcome — my mates told me more than enough to convince me that the place would be unrecognizable. Between what you expect and what you find there’s a lot of relativity. The estate looked exactly the same as it ever had, what had changed was the atmosphere; I had felt as though I’d been away for ages, but when I looked up at the tower blocks, it was like I’d never been away. Time, to those waiting on the platform, passes at a different rate relative to those on the train. I felt weird. I had no experience of long journeys, of the dislocation caused by relativity. A week can be a long time and a short time. In Algeria, every second seemed so heavy with meaning that it felt like I’d spent a year there. Back in France, staring up at the tower blocks, it feels as though I’ve only been gone a couple of hours. My mates feel like they’ve lived through a whole century, but to me they seem exactly the same as when I left.

By the time I’d taken a quick tour of the estate, popped up to say hello to aunt Sakina and uncle Ali and headed down to meet my mates at the station cafeteria, everything was fine, we were back in sync, I was choked like them by the stifling atmosphere of the estate, in tune the mood of all-conquering Islam. I needed to think, to look at things objectively, if that was possible. As it turned out, nothing much had changed, it was same old same old. People were a little more panicky since the new emir Flicha and Cyclops the imam showed up. There was a lot more violence but the estate hadn’t degenerated into civil war; there were casualties but nothing fatal and, although there had been a shitload of death threats, nothing had actually happened. For the shopkeepers, the jihad tax had taken a big hike but the protection rackets were gone. The non-Muslims were completely fazed, they said they couldn’t afford to pay, they were threatening to move out, march on the Office of Taxation, stage a sit-in at the police station. A lot of boys had dropped out of school and started going to the mosque, a lot of the girls had started wearing the hijab, some of them had stopped going out and some of the older men, tired of constantly being lectured, had started wearing a scarf or a keffiyeh and sermonising themselves. The few regulars who still hung out in the local bars had started carrying prayer beads. The drug dealers in the south tower blocks have disappeared, but there’s no reason to think they’re dead, they’ve moved on or gone into hiding, they’ll be back. All in all, the social order has changed without breaking down. Thirty families moved out in the first week, but this was compensated by thirty new families arriving, a bunch from North Africa, one from Mali, a Pakistani family, one from Somalia, a family from Cape Verde and another from Romania. The population has remained pretty stable, but the ethnic and religious mix is narrower. A crew of new Kapos—real hard bastards — has taken over from the old ones who were demobbed for being too lenient, for fraternising with the enemy. “What about Com’Dad?” I asked. No one can understand what he’s up to, he’s keeping up a Level 4 surveillance and waiting to see what happens. He still does his daily rounds, but twice as fast as he used to. “What about the people on the estate?” “What about them? They’re waiting to see what happens.”

It didn’t seem like much, but it knocked me for six. How were we ever going to stop this thing? Back in Aïn Deb, it had all seemed so simple: I’d imagined the estate extricating itself from this nightmare in no time, I thought all we needed was for people to talk to each other, tell their kids everything. Fuckwit that I am, I’d imagined climbing up on the roof of a car and talking about brotherhood, about truth, about the future. But it was the new imam, Cyclops, who did the talking. The One-Eyed fucker had heard from his spies that my parents had been murdered by jihadists and that I’d gone back to the bled to visit their graves. His messenger said the imam sent me his blessings and wanted to meet with me to explain what had really happened. It was a no brainer, I said I’d meet him and hear him out. If he was going to offer me the chance to kill him in place of his Algerian mates, I wasn’t going to pass up the opportunity. Given there was nothing else I could do, revenge was a good plan B. Fuck, it was my duty!

I went to Rachel’s old neighbourhood to look at the house. My mates had told me someone had bought it. It hurts, seeing strangers living in his house. I kept my hands behind my back and strolled around like I was just out for a walk. I had no reason to be round here anymore. In Rachel’s house the lights were all on. There were new curtains in the windows, a dog barking, the TV turned up full blast, an electric drill whining, a hammer banging away, children laughing. The garage was wide open, full of boxes and furniture. The new family was busy moving in, wiping away every trace of us, stamping their own mark on the place. It hurts to see yourself wiped away like that. Do they know that some guy committed suicide in the house? I doubt it, estate agents don’t get paid to tell their clients the truth. If they’re hammering and drilling away like that, they must be happy, which means they don’t know. They’ll find out once they’ve settled in, when the neighbours pop round to bring them up to speed. Then they’ll find out that the parents of the guy who used to live there had their throats cut in Algeria. That should shake them up. I hope they take it well. Rachel was a great guy, a good citizen, he never let anyone down, his ghost wouldn’t hurt a fly. But I can see how it might spook them. Rachel’s house — like our house back in Aïn Deb — is haunted by a terrible secret, by the greatest crime in history, and in the end that sort of shit seeps through the walls, gnaws at your guts, it does your head in, drives you mad. It killed Rachel, and it will kill anyone who gets too close. All the time I lived in that house, I was constantly worrying, crying, trembling, panicking, and the more I tried to block it out, the more clearly I could see the ghosts on the horizon, marching towards me, staring at me with their hollow eyes. Every time I ran off into the night, I could hear their cries following me, only to disappear when the sun came up and the tears dried on my face.

I went to the cemetery like I promised back in Aïn Deb. I sat on Rachel’s grave and talked to him for a long time. I knew he could hear me. “Hey, bro” I said. “You know what? I just got back from Aïn Deb. It was all thanks to Ophélie, really, she gave me the cash for the trip. She told me: ‘Rachel would be happy to see you taking an interest in your family.’ See? I’m not a complete fuckup, and I’m getting better fast. Everything back in the bled is fine, apart from the weather, but it’s winter so I suppose it’s normal that it’s freezing and pissing down all the time. The people are really cool. They took care of me, especially Mimed, the shoemaker’s son. You probably don’t know him, he wasn’t even born when you left for France. Actually, you might remember him — that time you came back to bring me to France, he was bawling his eyes out because I was leaving and he blamed you, he was screaming at you. He’s a good looking guy these days with lots of happy kids. I didn’t tell them you killed yourself, they were so excited to hear about you, I just couldn’t bring myself to tell them. I did what you did, I went to papa and maman’s graves. It was nice: their last resting place is so peaceful. Your cemetery is nice too, it’s beautiful, it’s quiet, full of flowers with people coming and going, birds singing, couples whispering to each other. You’re lucky. . And I wanted to tell you, I read your diary. Com’Dad gave it to me after you. . after the investigation. He said, ‘Your brother was a great guy.’ It’s not like he was telling me anything new, I’ve always known that. All that stuff about papa’s past, it’s awful. We’d have been better off not knowing, you’d still be here, still be with Ophélie, things would be fine. At first I thought you were too hard on papa, but thinking about it, I realised you were right. What I read in your diary and what I found out from the books you left sent shivers down my spine. I aged, like, twenty years. I mean, could something like that happen again? I tell myself it couldn’t but when I see what the jihadists are doing on the estate and everywhere else, I think they’d outdo the Nazis if they ever came to power. They’re too full of hate and pride to just gas everyone. I’ve been trying to think how we can stop them, the people on the estate don’t say anything and the cops are keeping an eye, but from a safe distance. My mates and me, we stand up to them as best we can, but we’re just kids, people are more afraid of us than they are of the Islamists. And I wanted to tell you that I’m going to try to publish your diary and mine, I hope you think it’s the right thing to do, I hope I can find a publisher. Like that poet Primo Levi said, you have to tell kids everything. Me and the guys are thinking of setting up a club to teach them all the stuff people have been hiding from them, they need to know, they’re the ones who’ll take after their parents, the good and the bad. If you’re okay with the idea, I’d like to ask your old teacher, Madame Dominique G.H. to go over it, make it into a proper book. She won’t say no, she had a lot of time for you. Anyway, that’s what I wanted to say, bro. Momo and the guys say hello, and aunt Sakina sends her love. I suppose you know poor uncle Ali is a bit gone in the head these days. I love you, I owe you a lot. I’ll come back and visit. Get some rest.”

Never in our lives had we been so close.

Then I went to visit the imam in his basement. They’ve turned it into a bunker, steel-plated door, bars on the window and there’s a wall of Kapos standing guard outside. They body-searched me and brought me to the imam like a prisoner of war. So there he was in the flesh, the one-eyed fucker, he was fifty-something, his hair was completely white, he was wearing a green gandurah, a black jacket, he had a beard that comes down to his belly button and one piercing eye. He was sitting cross-legged on the floor with his back against the wall. In front of him, on a low table, were the tools of his trade, the Qur’an, a pile of blank fatwas, a seal, a phone and fax machine. Flicha, the new emir, was next to him, a young guy with a beard, built like a brick shithouse, carrying a gun under his jacket, the butt deliberately sticking out to make sure any visitors didn’t try anything. The imam said: “Come here, my son, come here. Sit opposite me. I believe you know Mujahid Si Omar — the ignorant young thugs on the estate call him Flicha. Talk to me, tell me about yourself, tell me what you thought of our beloved Algeria, an Islamic country suffering under the yoke of a heathen government.”

I said, “What do you want?”

“Your happiness, my son, your happiness and that of our faith. When I heard that your parents had been savagely murdered, it grieved me, truly. I immediately got in touch with our brothers in Algeria, who are fighting for Allah, for His religion.”

“I didn’t ask you for anything.”

“I did it for Allah, and for truth, that is my duty as a Muslim, as an imam. I need to tell you that your parents were murdered by the Algerian government, not by the holy warriors of Allah. It is their way, to kill people and put the blame on us.”

“Them, you, what’s the difference?”

“There is a great difference. Had this been done by our soldiers, I would have told you so regardless of how you might feel, we proclaim our jihad before the world. They are the guilty ones, you must avenge your parents, Allah provides for Qisas—for exact and equivalent retribution.”

“I don’t need you, I don’t need anybody.”

“Pride is a virtue, but now you need Islam to strengthen your heart and your hand.”

“I don’t need anything.”

“What you says is blasphemous, but you will think better of it and join us, we can give you solace, we can help you and your adoptive parents financially, and we can find some useful work for your friends who hang around all day in defiance of the law.”

“I don’t think you heard me, imam, I don’t need you!”

“Grief and anger have clouded your mind, but go. . Si Omar is here, he will watch over you, guide you. . ”

“Is that a threat?”

“Only Allah can punish, my son, we are but his instruments.”

I was about to get up and leave, but I changed my mind.

“Tell me, imam, if you had power over the earth, where would you begin the genocide?”

“What do you mean by that question?”

“There have been a lot of genocides throughout history, what would our genocide be?”

“You have been reading evil sinful books. We have our own books, as you shall see, they will tell you that the only genocides have been waged against Muslim peoples.”

“All the more reason. . Who would we kill to even the score?”

“Islam brings peace, my son, not war. When we come to power, people will be happy to convert to Islam.”

“And those who refuse?”

“Those who reject Allah, Allah will reject, there is no place for such a man on His earth or in His paradise.”

“We’ll kill them?”

“Allah will decide their fate.”

“But he rejects them!”

“He will punish them without mercy.”

“Will he command us to kill every last one of them?”

“We will do as he commands us.”

“You see, that’s my problem: how do you go about killing six million kaffirs quickly, before they wake up and fight back?”

“You’re talking foolishness, my son.”

“You’re the imam. As a believer I have the right to ask you any question I like.”

“Indeed you have, but I have told you, when Allah confers power on us, He shall tell us what we should do and how we should do it. As I said, we are instruments of His will.”

“Can I make a suggestion?”

“One does not make suggestions to Allah!”

“To his representatives, then, so they can pass it on.”

“I’m listening.”

“They way I see it, you round the kaffirs all up into camps surrounded by electric fences, you gas all the useless ones straight off, the rest of them, you divide into groups based on their skills and their gender, and you work them till they drop dead. Anyone who disobeys, you gas them. What do you think?”

“I think you’re dreaming.”

“I’m not dreaming, it’s been done before.”

“The methods you suggest are barbaric, Allah commands that we kill the infidels according to Muslim rite.”

“You don’t get the point, imam, killing six million infidels isn’t like burning some girl like Nadia, or slitting the throats of forty villagers in Aïn Deb. Half-arsed methods just won’t work, it takes productivity. When you’ve worked it out, let me know, I’ll drop by. Salam.”

“Allah has cursed you, son of a dog.”

“Yeah, well fuck you, and you too, Emir! You want genocide? Well bring it on! Me and my mates, we’ll be only too happy to roast some Nazi jihadist fuckers, and we’ll invite all the kids on the estate to the barbecue.”

“You’re asking for trouble. . ”

“And you’re getting it.”

Now that war has been declared, I have to do the hard bit: tell my mates everything. They’ll hate me, reject me, they’ll go ballistic, but truth is truth, it should be known. I’ll take it in stages, I suffered from finding it all out at once. I’ll tell them who my father was, what he did, then later, when they’re ready, I’ll tell them about the Nazi killing machine, I’ll lend them Rachel’s books, explain that papa never told us anything, that that’s why Rachel killed himself. And if they ask me, “What about you, what are you going to do?” I’ll tell them, “Tell the truth, all over the world. After that, we’ll see.”