The Dictator's Last Night. Yasmina Khadra

us the father is as sacred as the prophet.’

      An explosion rattles the few panes of glass still left in the windows. Another bomb. In the distance there is the sound of a fighter plane climbing away. The hush that follows is like the silence of ruins, as deep as the tomb.

      In the adjoining rooms life starts up again. I hear an officer giving orders, a door creaking, footsteps back and forth …

      ‘Eat,’ I say to the orderly.

      This time he leaves the biscuit, shaking his head.

      ‘I can’t swallow anything, Brotherly Guide.’

      ‘Then go home. Go back to your daughters. I do not want to see you around here any more.’

      ‘Have I said something to displease you?’

      ‘Go. I need to pray.’

      The orderly stands up.

      ‘Clear away first,’ I tell him. ‘Collect this miserable meal and share it with those who think that they have to kill their father in order to grow up.’

      ‘I didn’t mean to offend you.’

      ‘Out of my sight.’

      ‘I—’

      ‘Get out!’

      His expression changes from that of a serving soldier to a death mask. He is finished. He has no life left to give me. He knows that his existence, his being, faith, courage, everything good that he believed he embodied, is worthless now that my anger has banished him from my confidence.

      I hate him.

      He has wounded me.

      He does not deserve to follow in my footsteps. My shadow will for ever be for him an unfathomable valley of darkness.

       2

      I rejoin my loyal servants on the ground floor. General Abu-Bakr Yunis Jabr, my defence minister, has a face that makes me think of a flag at half-mast. A week ago he was thumping the table and swearing that we were going to turn the situation to our advantage, that the rebel hordes would be swept aside in no time at all. Using staff maps to back up his argument, he identified the weak points in the traitors’ strategy, placing heavy emphasis on internal conflicts that would eventually undermine their alliance, lauding the thousands of patriots joining us in droves, engaging with the enemy relentlessly to strengthen the battlements of our final bastion.

      My son Mutassim nodded as he listened, a fierce look on his face.

      I listened with one ear, keeping the other one open for the commotion I could hear in the city.

      The general’s enthusiasm was short-lived, and has been replaced by mounting doubts. A number of my officers have deserted from our ranks; others have been captured, lynched there and then, their heads put on spikes and their bodies tied to the backs of pickups and dragged through the streets. I have seen some of the heads myself, displayed like macabre trophies on the tops of walls.

      For the last three days, as the rebels have taunted us from the neighbouring district, Abu-Bakr has been silent. His face has turned into a papier-mâché sculpture. He refuses to eat and in private he sulks, unable to command his officers. And this was a man whose orders once boomed out louder than cannon fire.

      I do not know why, despite his loyalty, I have never been completely convinced by him. He was my classmate at the Benghazi Academy, at my side in the coup d’état in 1969, one of the twelve members of the Revolutionary Command Council. Not once has Abu-Bakr disappointed me or been disloyal, yet I only have to look into his eyes to see no more than a startled fawn, a pet more desiring of my protection than the favours I have bestowed on him.

      Abu-Bakr fears me like a curse, certain that at the slightest suspicion I would eliminate him just as I liquidated without a qualm my comrades-in-arms and makers of my legend when they began, in secret, to challenge my legitimacy.

      ‘What are you thinking about, General?’

      He lifts his chin with an effort.

      ‘Nothing.’

      ‘Are you sure?’

      He shifts on his chair without answering.

      ‘Do you want to clear out too?’ I ask abruptly.

      ‘It hadn’t crossed my mind.’

      ‘So you think you have one?’

      He frowns.

      ‘Relax,’ I tell him, ‘I am teasing you.’

      I want to take the tension out of the atmosphere, but my heart is not in it. When I play to the gallery, everyone takes me seriously. The general more than anyone. A Guide has no sense of humour. His references are commands, his jokes warnings.

      ‘You think me capable of running out on you, Rais?’

      ‘Who knows?’

      ‘Where to?’ he grumbles crossly.

      ‘The enemy. Plenty of ministers have surrendered. Moussa Koussa, whom I appointed to lead the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, has asked the British for political asylum. Abdel Rahman Shalgham, my standard-bearer, has become my sworn double-crossing traitor, representative at the UN Security Council, mandated by renegades and mercenaries …’

      ‘I have never been on those men’s side. They were no more than racketeers, ready to sell their mothers for a scrap of privilege. I love you with my whole being. I shall never abandon you.’

      ‘So why did you leave me alone upstairs?’

      ‘You were at prayers. I didn’t want to disturb you.’

      I have no suspicions whatever about Abu-Bakr. His loyalty to me is equalled only by his superstition. I know he regularly used to consult fortune-tellers to reassure him that my trust in him was still intact.

      I was bullying him out of irritation.

      I did not like the fact that he stayed seated in my presence.

      In the past he would click his heels whenever he heard my voice on the phone. He sweated buckets every time I hung up on him.

      This damned war! It not only turns our customs upside down, but relegates them to pointlessness. If I choose to overlook the general’s sloppiness, it is because, with defections taking place on the grand scale they are now, I need to hear someone tell me he will never abandon me.

      ‘What is that bruise on your jaw?’

      ‘Perhaps I walked into a wall or knocked it on the corner of my bed. I don’t remember.’

      ‘Let me see it.’

      He turns the bruised side of his face towards me.

      ‘It looks nasty. You should see a doctor.’

      ‘It’s not worth it,’ he says, rubbing his jaw. ‘In any case it doesn’t hurt at all.’

      ‘Any news from Mutassim?’

      He shakes his head.

      ‘Where is Mansour?’

      ‘He’s resting through there.’

      I gesture to a soldier to fetch the commander of my People’s Guard.

      Mansour Dhao appears in a disgraceful state. His flies are undone, he is unshaven, and his hair is all over the place; he has difficulty standing. He tosses a vague fixed smile in my direction and moves across to the wall to stop himself falling. I know he has not closed his eyes for many days and nights. His expression is almost as empty and shrouded in gloom as the abyss.

      ‘Were you asleep?’

      ‘I should very much like to drop off for a couple of minutes, Rais.’

      ‘Do