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. This is the songof my country, she repeats, trembling all over.Later, when the manfalls silent, she is overcome by fear.She is careful to wait, wait foranother scream, another sign of life and horror at the same time. The song of my country, she says again, as the man, too, beginsagain.Jerky, brief groans at first, which then swell anew into a singleendless scream, immense, and Salima rides it with all her willpowerbecause it seems to her that at the end it will open a door into theheavens.Blue landscapes she sees, instead of the cell s gray wall, thenoontime sun that blinds you, or the evening sun that reconciles,faces of smiling cherubs.of children in her class she recognizes, ofSuzanne walking.of the man. Who is he? she wonders, shiver-ing again, yet from the first moment on transported well beyondcompassion.With teeth still clenched, in the grasp of the effort in which sheperseveres with such tenacity that she s emptied, she continuesthroughout the entire day so it seems to her to accompany theman s long, loud screaming.Long after the screams have ended forgood, Salima still resonates with their echo, before wonderingwhether it is the end of the man s torture or of his life ( No, hislife ).Suddenly it seems she knows him, has trouble tearing herselfaway from him as if she lived in his shadow for years on end, like thewomen in the homes of her neighborhood who, every night,encounter the worried faces of their taciturn husbands returned tothe silence of their room.113CHILDREN092805.qxd 9/29/05 3:18 PM Page 114CHILDREN OF THE NEW WORLDElsewhere in the prison, Martinez exclaims, opening the door,  Hesure made a lot of noise! while in the room, Hakim and his twoassistants are trying once again to revive Saidi.It s Martinez s secondvisit; he had come an hour earlier.After leaving his office to go outto lunch, have a short siesta, then briefly help his young son who washaving a hard time with high school math, he returned to the stationat three o clock, punctual as always.He was supposed to stop by theold man s office but chose to check in on Hakim s interrogation.Ashe makes his steps resonate down the hallways, dark as a convent s,he cynically admits to himself that the result of the interrogationhardly matters to him at all.When earlier that morning Touma had provided him with thenames of Youssef and Saidi and the latter was then brought in to him,he figured they would get nothing out of this man; he would undoubt-edly have nothing to say, even though Touma s information was gener-ally good.Martinez s intuition was rarely wrong, so in principle hewould only attend an interrogation when he smelled prey at the firstquestioning.It happened frequently, in fact, that confessions wereextracted at the precise moment that Martinez came in, for throughthe fog of his pain and from among the faces of the tormentors heknew, the victim would swiftly glimpse the cold face of that manwhose single question would sometimes weaken his resistance.Mar-tinez knew this and used it to elevate his prestige with his subordinates.This time, when he had given the order to put Saidi through theprocedure of questioning, he was driven by no hope at all; he justresigned himself to habit.The gears of the machine needed to bekept oiled.When he first opened the door and looked in, Hakim hadn t seenhim, although he was facing in Martinez s direction.He was leaningover Saidi, fierce determination in his constricted features; betweenthe two policemen, one with the generator, the other holding theelectrodes to the man s body, he was questioning Saidi in Arabic.Martinez understood,  Talk! Talk! and then gradually the cursesfollowed:  Son of a bitch, son of a whore!. Hakim s voice was114CHILDREN092805.qxd 9/29/05 3:18 PM Page 115HAKIMcurt, not a trace of irritation.After long observation, Martinezadmitted to himself that he would have to alter his earlier reserva-tions: Hakim seemed weary but persevering, catching his breathonly when Saidi lost consciousness.Martinez appreciated thepatience, which he saw as one of the essential qualities of policework.( It is tenacity, he liked to tell himself,  that progressively,without our thinking about it, without our rebelling, helps us over-turn all the usual barriers, prejudices, and other taboos by which ourusual duties still seem to be surrounded. In contrast, this professionused no disguises and Martinez liked its truthfulness.)He was about to leave quietly when Hakim noticed him.A quickflash in his eyes,  No, not of surprise, Martinez thought,  but ofhate, I know I m right. Then, after a friendly sign of approval toHakim, he shut the door, headed for Jean s office, and was filled withfierce satisfaction.He d been so right to entrust Hakim with this job!He knew that Hakim had once refused the task on the pretext thatthe Arab baker they were then questioning was one of Hakim sacquaintances.Jean had given in.He, Martinez, on the other hand,had plunged Hakim right into this current assignment without hisdaring to object.Martinez saw it as proof of his authority.As he enters Jean s office and greets him, Martinez bursts out inlaughter that is purposely vulgar. I ve been telling you all along, sir!All things considered, to be more successful in our battle against thefellaghas, we might as well use their brothers.I m not coming upwith anything new! He is triumphant; Jean doesn t answer.Now, at the second visit, Hakim notices Martinez the momenthe comes in. You ve been at it for four hours, Hakim! Martinez uses athoughtful tone. Still no results? Then, as if it were a complimentmeant for Hakim and his men, he continues: He sure made a lot of noise! And he s got a lot of guts!Hakim is bent over Saidi, then straightens up, throws a lastglance at the naked, motionless body on the floor, and finallyaddresses the waiting Martinez:115CHILDREN092805.qxd 9/29/05 3:18 PM Page 116CHILDREN OF THE NEW WORLD He s dead, Captain! His heart gave out.While the two policemen dress the corpse and Martinez goes tothe window to open it, now that they no longer need to conceal thescreams, Hakim says a second time, dully,  He s dead. Then hetakes a large handkerchief out of his pocket and wipes his forehead.116CHILDREN092805.qxd 9/29/05 3:18 PM Page 1176.6 HASSIBA.Twice a day the Micheline, the railcar that was the pride of the townwhen it was first put into service a few years before, comes in fromthe capital.It arrives in the afternoon, at one o clock and then atseven, and instead of stopping at the station, which is too far fromthe center, it goes right to the place d armes so that the patrons onthe terraces of the surrounding cafés can watch departures and scru-tinize newcomers.It s fodder for their conversation.Khaled, whose reputation as a lawyer has only increased amongthe local population for the past ten years, arrives at one o clock.When he gets off the train and reaches the square, he glances at itspalm tree and in painful wonderment sees again the little townwhere he spent his secondary-school years.Since then he has beenback only on rare occasions.He immediately takes note of the factthat Suzanne is not among the people waiting; she has followed hisadvice.He ll pay her a visit after he has interviewed his client at theprison.As he crosses the square he smiles at finding it unchanged, still asit was when, as an adolescent, he used to spend his Sundays wander-ing around, penniless and friendless, to kill his only free afternoon inthe week.He runs into a young man and is quietly amused to seethe boy s resemblance to the shadowy figure that this place has awak-ened in him. Bachir! he says as the other shakes his hand a little117CHILDREN092805 [ Pobierz caÅ‚ość w formacie PDF ]