Dirty Feet (9 page)

HE WENT BACK
to work wishing for a final meeting with the shadow. One more night, the last act of the dying winter. Once out of the parking lot, he turned right at the first corner. He had driven barely a hundred metres when a man flagged him down. It was unusual, especially at night, to pick up a fare so quickly. He found this piece of luck somewhat odd but could not turn it down. He hoped the client would be the friendly sort, someone he could have a conversation with. The man wore a hat. He settled into the back of the car, removed his headgear. Silence.

“How's it going, Askia?”

“. . .”

Askia recognized him. The man in the back seat chuckled.

“It's good to see you again.”

“. . .”

“I must say, you haven't changed.”

“You neither.”

“Thanks. For the compliment.”

“It's not a compliment. Just the truth. You haven't changed, Zak.”

“Yeah, but it's been a while, Askia. Lots of water and a few corpses under the bridge. And through our hands.”

“. . .”

“And here you are, in this city so foreign to what we were. I guess you left, deserted, because you thought this city, the night here, which knows nothing of your past, could protect you. But you know very well that the past is like a woman who's in love with you and won't leave you alone. Your new situation doesn't change a thing. Sorry, friend. Believe me, I would have preferred to meet you under different circumstances and celebrate another kind of Mass.”

“. . .”

“Like meet you for a drink, have some fun the way we used to, or just shoot the breeze, sitting on the hoods of our cabs after the night shift. But life is cruel. Isn't it, Askia?”

“. . .”

“You can't always choose the Mass you're going to celebrate. You want to stay a choirboy, pure and innocent in your white robe, but then you end up playing the monster. I understand. It was hard work, and eventually it got to you. You're human. I understand and I respect that. But you know that in our case it's better to blow yourself away than to run away. Don't you think it's better?”

“. . .”

“You're out of luck, Askia. We found you. This really isn't the best town to hole up in. Did you forget that it's called the City of Lights? You can't hide in the light . . . Sorry.”

“. . .”

“I'm telling you this because we respected each other. Otherwise I would have finished the job by now, but I find this contract repugnant — knocking off a colleague. I see it as another role, a new one, one more after all the roles we've had to play. It's a character role, something completely original; for once, you'll be the choirboy. Let's go. Drive, my friend. Go to that wood — you know, where the night shoots its wad in the bellies of the
filles de joie
.”

Askia did not have to wonder whether the man was pointing his weapon at him. It was a basic precaution. And Zak — the Terrible, they used to call him — had always been very efficient. He had joined the Cell before Askia and had shown him the ropes. The reflexes and moves needed to be good at what you did. Meticulous. Zak seemed to be thinking. For a moment Askia heard nothing. He spoke up:

“What have you been up to, Zak?”

“What have I been up to?”

“Yeah.”

“Let's say I haven't been able to make a career change like you. I'm still . . . you know.”

“And the others? What about them?”

Zak coughed.

“The others . . . Some stayed, some got out; a lot of them are dead.”

“You mean eliminated.”

“Dead. Camilio was found in a ditch with his stomach ripped open; Martin, burned to a crisp behind the wheel of his car . . .”

“Maybe accidents?”

“Lika hanged himself. Leo got married to a colonel's daughter. Now he's got a nice house and a big family. Upward mobility, you might say. Tino, the old guy, the veteran, he's retired and spends his days on a seafront terrace drinking pastis. Carno lost his mind and walks around naked in the alleys of the old market. Faustin is getting contracts in North America; John's on the run. That pretty much covers the old crew. How far are we from the wood? You know, Askia, the sooner this gets done the better. Sorry, friend.”

HE PARKED AT
the edge of the wood. Zak ordered him to get out of the car and walk ahead of him. This is what Askia did, and they advanced through the trees. A milky moon in a clear night sky. Zak told him to turn around and step towards him. He obeyed. Zak, his arm fully extended, held his pistol level with Askia's head. Askia walked towards him. He could not see his face: the other man had lowered his hat over his eyes. A trace of wind came up. Askia concentrated on the wind, on its trace. He received a blow in the stomach. He did not register anything akin to pain. He found himself down on his knees. Then Zak's voice sounded: “You've gone soft, Askia. All I did was push you. Lie down.”

Now he was lying on his back, immobile, with the cool grass underneath him. Already dead. Zak swore: “Damn it, I still have to do this bit! I don't like taking pictures of the stiff, but — and you know this — I have to bring back proof that I finished the job. Oh well, you're almost dead anyway. They won't notice the difference. I'll take the pictures and then . . . There's no way I'm going to put a stiff in my camera.”

Askia was struck in the face by a kind of light, a flash. Zak repeated this a dozen times. Capturing the moment. Askia heard one more click, the flash. Zak sighed. “Goodbye, my friend.”

Askia closed his eyes. Waited. The shot hit him right in the face. The shot. Zak's booming laughter, his voice:

“Gotcha! Admit it, Askia, I really had you.”

“. . .”

Zak was in stitches.

“Tell me, do you really believe I'd go through that whole song and dance to finish you off? Hey, you should have seen yourself. Come on, tell me, what does it feel like? Eh? What's it like living your last moments?”

“. . .”

“You don't want to get up?”

Askia could barely grasp what was happening. He lay glued to the grass, trying to persuade himself that this could not be a joke — Zak was toying with him, playing with his nerves. Then Zak told him that he too had deserted. He had had enough — the routine of murder had worn him out. But what had finally pushed him over the edge was what he had said in the taxi: the guys started to disappear. Mysteriously. He didn't understand. There were rumours about goings-on inside the Cell. It felt strange to go over to the other side, to become the prey, he said. Like a wedge of cold iron in your gut. He had been obliged to slip into a woman's body. A disguise to get across the border in the north. After that, a long journey: Bobo-Dioulasso, Bamako, Niamey, Tripoli, Tunis, Malta, Athens . . . How had he managed? He would tell him another time. Askia was stretched out on the grass. His face was suddenly struck by a light, but from a different source. He opened his eyes. The headlights of a car that must have been parked at the edge of the wood. Then a voice, very loud: “Identify yourself!”

Zak whistled. “Shit! See you later, friend. Be careful, the Cell is looking for us!” At this point he punched Askia in the face. The light grew stronger. Zak fled, vanishing into the shadows behind Askia. Into the night. Askia heard footsteps on the grass. He sat up and shifted backwards on his rear end. He raised his elbow, trying to shield his eyes against the beam of the flashlight. The policeman questioned him. He had been cruising when he saw quick flashes of light in the wood. His partner ran up behind him. Askia explained that a thief had mugged him and tried to kill him. He had picked him up thinking he was an ordinary fare. The policeman with the flashlight held out his hand. He clasped it and hoisted himself to his feet. The officer told him he'd been lucky. Probably his number hadn't come up. Once he had lodged a complaint, Askia could go to the hospital to have them take care of the bump over his right eye. He would have to follow them to the station in his cab. The one who had found him shone the light on his face again. He wanted to make sure he was not too badly beaten. But Askia wasn't listening. He was far away. Isolated in a cell. Inside the walls of the past.

THE CELL WAS
a murky organization. Unofficial intelligence body, militia specialized in kidnapping, torture, and murder. The standard mission statement. Askia was a member and his role was to keep things under control. To keep the populace quiet. He had volunteered for this work, which involved total engagement in what was, what is a program of purges. He was to observe and report, and in the course of many nights on the job he had become a ripper, whose weapons were his efficiency, his hands, a revolver, a belt of explosives, a taxi called “The Passage,” a steadfast will, ironclad insensitivity, and indifference.

He had joined on an October night in 1984 because the money was good. Just what was needed to avoid relying on his student bursary, which came as often as rain in the desert. Just what was needed to fatten up that all too paltry purse. Just what was needed to pay for the operation on a sick mother, exhausted by housework in other people's homes in the real city perched high above their slum. But in the lower part of town the mother breathed her last, and the son's ultimate efforts to raise the money for an operation were left hanging.

The Cell. He was to be a cab driver like any other. Pick up fares and ask them harmless questions. And if they turned out to be rebels who found fault with the government, eliminate them, silence the stinking mouths whose words were fouling the atmosphere. Tarnishing the country's name and image. People incapable of truly loving the country because they had no country. Troublemakers. Vermin. Schemers, enemies, envious of the nation's accomplishments — that is what the Powers said of them. And how could they not be envious, since they had no nation. He was to eliminate all the political adventurers. With the night and the darkness as accomplices. He had his badge and he moved like a cat among the shadows. Or rather, he had to make the night his element and make a career of hunting down idle, irresponsible globetrotters. His job: drive the rebels far outside the city, where the downtown lights were no longer visible, where his passengers could not be seen, strap the explosive belt onto them, and, sitting in his taxicab, push the button.

His past. A deserted night, an empty lot, a vehicle in the night, the driver holding a box, a red button, a finger — more specifically, the thumb — on the button, the thumb pressing down on the button and the adventurer's belly exploding just a stone's throw from the taxi. A death dirge to decorate the silence of the streets and the ghosts' laments.

Because that was what he was — a maker of ghosts and death works. The suspect passengers, the ones he made disappear, had to be dispossessed of the thickness of the living. They became a mirage of the living. Nonentities. Removed from the thickness of life. Of the nation. They became, like his father, vague traces, sketches in pencil or black ink stains, stillborn portraits, unformed sculptures into which the artist had not had time to breathe life. He was an artist of death who, during his childhood in Trois-Collines, had been able to practise on the dog Pontos.

ASKIA THOUGHT
back to his flight, to what he had done to extricate himself from the murderous night. After years of hunting down the enemies of the nation, he had moved into a different field. A new specialty. He became a bodyguard. The Cell offered various positions according to one's tastes and aptitudes: tailing, interrogation, assassination, close protection. The Cell was bursting with talent. Askia was assigned to protect important people. People who mattered. Who made decisions. Who travelled because they needed to expand their network. He waited. Impatient as a fledgling waiting for the baptismal sky, for flight. Three months into the new job, the politician he was guarding was given a mission. Askia never learned what it was. It was that kind of mission. They landed at Charles de Gaulle in Paris. For him this was a new beginning. He would hold on, tooth and nail, to the pavement of exile. Two days after they arrived, taking advantage of his night off, he left the hotel on Rue de Rivoli where the members of the mission were staying. He put the Cell behind him, crossed the line. That's what they said in the Cell whenever one of them deserted. His college friend Tony, who lived in the Barbès district, was expecting him. He had been able to leave the country thanks to a scholarship. For six months Askia holed up there, going out only rarely, at night. Tony had warned him: Paris wasn't the best place to hide from the Cell. He thought Askia should go farther away, across the Atlantic, to America — some forsaken Caribbean island or a backcountry town in Maryland. Or to Montreal, where Tony knew people who could help his friend, people who never responded when he wrote to them.

Askia touched the spot above his eye — the swelling had gone down somewhat. Zak had not punched him very hard. Just enough for the cops to believe his story. Apparently it was nothing serious. The cops had taken his deposition, his charges against X, and he had left the station.

He took an ointment out of his first-aid kit and rubbed it on the bruise. Back behind the wheel, he thought about the charges. Against X. And he smiled. Because he had been an X. A no-name driver. Like Zak, in those Cell cabs, planting death in the heart of the tropical night.

He decided not to go back to work. There was someone he wanted to see. Monsieur Ali of Port Said, a no-name with whom he occasionally chatted. He had met Monsieur Ali by the Auguste-Comte entrance of the Jardin du Luxembourg, directly across the way from Olia's apartment. Monsieur Ali, the chestnut vendor. He had smiled at Askia and gone back to roasting his chestnuts, making sure not to burn them. It was late, the tourists were gone, but Monsieur Ali could not stop roasting chestnuts. He made paper cones, which he then filled with chestnuts. He used newsprint or pages torn out of old books. He put ten roasted chestnuts in each cone and charged two euros a cone. Monsieur Ali of Port Said was there, preparing cones of chestnuts for the tourists, and Askia sat down near him on the curb. The chestnuts were cooking on the grill. From time to time Monsieur Ali of Port Said fanned the embers. He said he made paper cones and pyramids so as not to forget the country of his father. It made him happy when he succeeded in shaping a beautiful large cone.

Monsieur Ali had survived, thousands of miles from his home, thanks to those cones and pyramids that he fashioned to stay in touch with history. In 1968, when he had arrived in France, the wind of Port Said was still on his face. He wanted to be a teacher. To teach the poetry of Abu Nuwas and the suras in the West. But minds were being seduced by a different music and new words, rock and the poems of Allen Ginsberg. Seducing a generation with long, dirty hair, outraged at the establishment, like those unwashed hippies in a California park wallowing in a disgusting orgy. Preferring dirty love to the violence of military boots in the Vietnam War.

Monsieur Ali had seen rock music engulf the words of Abu Nuwas. So he became a street vendor. He moved around to avoid sitting in some station where he might catch cold. To keep moving, he sold chestnuts from Gonesse to Boulogne. And Port Said slipped farther and farther away. Port Said and Abu Nuwas. So he made paper pyramids on Boulevard Saint-Michel in order not to forget. Monsieur Ali was a man of few words.