Tuareg

He spent the best part of the next day going back and forth between the presidential palace and the kasbah, until he knew the route like the back of his hand and was able to go there and back to his hiding place with relative ease. He would never get used to the streets in the new town, however, because they were all the same, long and identical, lined with shops and only distinguishable by their names, which he was unable to read.

Later that afternoon he bought a supply of dates, figs and almonds because he was not sure how long he would have to spend hidden in the top of the date palms and a large water bottle that he filled up at the nearest fountain. Finally, he went back to the church ruins, checked the state of his weapons once again and waited patiently, leaning against the wall, trying not to think of anything else but the route he had to take between his refuge and the palace.

There was nobody in the kasbah, which was covered in an eerie mist and he crossed it in silence, startling the cats. A clock chimed three times, slowly and he came out onto one of the paved streets. He looked up at the luminous sphere that stared down at him, like the huge eye of a Cyclops, or a swollen moon floating just above the horizon, the tower behind it no longer visible, as if it had been swallowed up by the night.

The avenues were deserted. There were no night buses or rubbish trucks and the quiet of the city unsettled him, even though it was very late.

The silence was suddenly broken by the appearance of a black police car ahead of him with a flashing light on top and then the noise of a siren in the distance, somewhere on the other side of the beach, he guessed.

He started to walk faster, feeling more anxious by the minute, but had to dive into a doorway as another black car drove by, only about two hundred meters away from him, then stopped at the edge of the pavement and switched off its lights.

He waited there patiently, but soon realised that the men inside the car had no intention of going anywhere and had stopped to keep guard, probably since it was a strategic point and at the cross section of two streets. He decided to take the first street he came to and try and lose the obstacle, then come back out when he thought the car would be behind him.

But he had been forced to leave the route that he had spent so long trying to memorise all too quickly and before long, he realised that he was lost. All the streets started to look the same, lit up by the half-light of hundreds of identical, sad, street lamps and he could no longer spot any of the tiny details he had memorised during the day.

He started to get worried, because the longer he continued, the more lost he became and there was not a breath of wind or a twinkling star to guide his way and give him a sense of direction.

A police car drove past him with its siren on and he dived under a bench. Once it had gone he came up and sat on it, trying in vain to order his thoughts. He had to work out on what side of that giant, sprawling and filthy city the palace was now on and where the kasbah was and all those places that he had become vaguely familiar with.

In the end he had to accept that he had lost the battle that night and that he should return to his hideout and try again the next day.

He tried to retrace his steps, but going back was just as difficult as it had been getting there and he wandered through the city as lost as ever, until finally he heard the sound of the sea and he found the esplanade, which came out right in front of the Ministry of the Interior.

He sighed with relief. He knew how to get back to his hideout from there, but just as he had started to quicken his step and was about to turn into a windy backstreet that led into the native quarter, a car parked next to the pavement suddenly switched on its front lights, dazzling him. A voice of authority shouted from within:

‘Hey, you! Come here!’

His first instinct was to run away up the street, but he controlled himself and went over to the front window, trying to get out of the glare of the lights.

From the half light of the car’s interior, three men in uniform looked out at him, a serious expression on their faces.

‘What are you doing out in the street at this time of night?’ the man sitting next to the driver and the one who had called him over, said. ‘Did you not know that there is a curfew in place?’

‘A what?’ he replied.

‘A curfew, you idiot. They announced it on the radio and the television. Where the hell are you from anyway?’

Gazel gestured to somewhere behind him.

‘From the port.’

‘And where are you going?’

He pointed with his chin over to a side street.

‘Home.’

‘Alright. Show us your papers.’

‘I haven’t got any.’

The man who had been sitting in the back of the car got out and walked over to the Targui slowly, dangling a submachine gun wearily at his side.

‘Lets see now. How come you don’t have your papers? Everybody has an identity card.’

The strong, tall man with a huge moustache walked over to Gazel with an air of self-assurance, but on reaching him, suddenly doubled over and cried out in pain as the butt of a rifle was shoved painfully into his stomach. Almost simultaneously, Gazel threw his carpets over the windscreen and ran off, turning round the corner and into a backstreet.

A few seconds later a siren started up, disturbing the quiet of the neighbourhood and just as the fugitive was half way down the street, he saw one of the policemen at the corner, who, without even taking aim, let off a short burst of gunfire.

The impact of the bullet propelled Gazel forward and he fell head first onto the wide steps, but he rolled over like a cat on to his back, fired a shot and hit the policeman in the chest, knocking him backwards. He loaded his gun up again, hid round a corner and waited, his breathing laboured, but still not feeling any pain at all, despite the fact that the bullet had gone right through him and blood was starting to soak through the front of his shirt.

A head appeared round the corner and shot without aim. The bullets went ricocheting through the night, bouncing off buildings and smashing glass windows.

He started to climb back up slowly, hugging the wall all the time. With just one shot he had made his pursuers realise that they were dealing with a superior marksman and they had abandoned the chase, rather than risk getting their heads blown off.

A few seconds later, as the Targui disappeared off into the darkness and lost himself in the kasbah’s labyrinth of windy, narrow alleys, the two policemen who were still standing, glanced at each other briefly, then without a word, went over to the wounded man, put him in the back seat and headed to hospital.

They both knew that it would take an army to find a fugitive in the dark, complex world of the native quarter.