The Heart of the Leopard Children (12 page)

Cut it out, guys. It's not cool to talk to someone like that. Show a little respect! Empty words, pretending, when you don't know what else to say, trying to save face, staying close to the guys without overreacting, catching up with Mireille and suffering her anger and disappointment, the fear of subjecting myself to yet another gaze of contempt and disgust. I preferred to take a walk in that moment. I
regretted never having accompanied my mother to church, where she goes to pray and recharge her batteries with her sisters in sorrow. I understood this need to be purified, to feel oneself cleansed and unburden the load of each day. To go and find the courage to live joyfully in an intangible world, give yourself to God, and free yourself forever from the nausea, our loyal companion from sunrise to sunset.

I finally understand you, ancestor. You tried and eventually your dreams disappeared with time. All that remains are images and stars from your childhood nights. The socialist lie punctured your youth. Today, Blacks from former allied nations are thrown from trains, and prostitution is commonplace in Cuba. The democratic parody of the Congo has transformed the proud leopards into faithless vultures with an alarming aggression. They are killing each other over a carrion of petrol. Eyes filled with tears no longer know how to cry before the horror they see. Sadly you keep repeating that those improbable black people we used to believe in have all now died. A horrible death. They settled that most cruelly, with a machete and a club, about one million times on the Rwandan hillsides. Black people only ever existed in the sinister holds of slave ships crossing the Atlantic. . . . Ancestor, in the state I'm in today, I understand you much better and I respect your silence.

. . . And to ensure that I don't advance, there are steel bars, and most importantly, an eager captain who's obsessed with me confessing to a murder!

It was around 5:30
PM
, Pascal Froment, a civil servant in the national police force in Paris, was preparing to leave his modest home in the inner suburbs to begin the night shift. While he was putting on his jacket, his concerned young wife advised him to be careful. You could hear in her voice that she was nervous. She understood all too well how important Pascal's job was for him. It was just that in light of recent events and the escalating hostility toward police officers, her husband's night shift was making her increasingly anxious. She was trying her best not to annoy him with her worrying, but ever
since their little girl was born, the idea of losing him or even just knowing that he might be in danger was making it difficult at times for her to sleep at night. In fact the subject kept coming up and was at the core of many of their discussions, leading to more and more heated arguments.

Pascal had chosen his line of work out of conviction. He had a mission to help the weakest in society, an almost chivalrous vision of law enforcement, one of the few in the police force who believed in what he was doing in the face of the reigning disillusionment among his colleagues. He wanted to present a positive image of his profession, one in which it was possible to have a dialogue and show respect toward both the victims and wrongdoers. He was very much appreciated for his sense of fairness, his honesty, and his kindness. Some, on the other hand, made fun of him and criticized him for always trying to understand, when as far as they could tell, all that was needed was a show of strength and determination. It's us against them. Pascal Froment had developed his own idea about compromise. He was always focused on keeping the peace and tried to act more like a mediator, especially between the different communities. That said, he was well aware of the fact that the police department had the reputation for being deeply racist.

His wife was not concerned with these issues. She just wanted her husband for her and their newborn baby, rather than have him fully devote his time to these ungrateful people who were, moreover, dangerous. She reckoned that their marriage and family life shouldn't come at such great cost, the ridiculously long hours, nights, weekends. . . . His superiors seemed to have no heart whatsoever. At least his salary should reflect the enormous sacrifices they had to make in their home life.

Only too aware of all this, Pascal Froment did his best to stay cheerful most of the time, took the time to talk with his wife before leaving for work, showing her a lot of attention and love, reassuring her, being funny and affectionate. From the steering wheel of his new car, he would blow kisses as he drove away. He was always making
her laugh, playing the drunk driver having a hard time getting out of the driveway and then he would gradually disappear.

It was always the same scene, heavy traffic on the roads going in the other direction from Paris to the suburbs, aggressive drivers, gripped to the wheel, rushing to get back home after an interminably long workday. But for him, it was sheer freedom, the roads were wide open, empty both in front of him and behind him, which made it easy for him to concentrate calmly and prepare for his shift. He drove, relaxed, peacefully, comforted in the fact that he had a loving wife and a job he was passionate about.

He felt a deep and sincere love for his wife. In the last six months, their marriage had been crowned with the birth of their little girl Marie. It was now ten years since he had become a police officer. He still had the same freshness, the same desire to get out onto the streets of Paris, at the wheel of his car, to track down the criminals and resolve violent conflicts. Arbitrating fights among drunkards gave him a real feeling of satisfaction of being in charge of an important mission because it was highly rewarding. It gave him a real sense of purpose. After two years of patrolling, his colleague, a few years younger than him, was already expressing his disillusionment about the profession. All of this doesn't change anything! His frustration and consumption of alcohol were on the rise. It took a lot of effort and some serious threats from Pascal to get him to stop concealing his habit of drinking on their shift.

Once Pascal arrived at the station, he was basically with his second family. First, he went and changed. He had a few polite exchanges in the locker room and caught up on how things had gone down from those coming in from the previous shift. One police officer was especially amazed by Pascal's unwaveringly good mood. He responded with a huge smile. This was exactly what he was proud of. He waited around a little bit. His partner had mastered the art of being systemically late for his shift, but Pascal didn't hold that against him. After a good fifteen minutes, he finally showed up and had to listen to a good dressing down from the police commissioner. Cranky as usual, he
said a quick hello to Pascal. Once they were both ready and seated in car number 357, the security controls turned on and the beat assignment in hand, they left the grounds of the police station.

As usual, Pascal, happy to get into action, never failed to find a reason to go on about how great the profession was. His partner kept sinking further into resentment. He was sick of all the Black and Arab pests, all these people that had to come into the world in such great numbers, just so that they could piss off the rest of us, and worst of all everyone hates us, you would think that we were the bad guys in this crazy scenario. They had a relatively calm evening and night, mostly identity checks, conflicts between minors, a routine patrol. About half an hour toward the end of their shift, late in the evening while they were taking a break at a stop sign to get their last wind, a male individual, Black, by all appearances very intoxicated came staggering up to the patrol car and started urinating on the front of the hood. Realizing that his partner was already out of control, Pascal Froment immediately got out of the car to defuse the situation. He knew all too well how situations like these could escalate pretty fast into something truly fatal. He had better take charge of the situation and not waste a second.

You'll soon be going before the judge. Don't even think you can get out of this with your bullshit African nonsense about sorcerers and God knows what. Your parents, your tragic childhood, your neighborhood, and all that crap. We've heard it all before and no one gives a shit! You're getting the maximum. Delinquents like you always wind up caving in and confessing.

Before leaving, the lady officer, even more beautiful than during the interrogation, held a towel out to me. I can finally wash up. She also managed to get me some clean clothes. I need to stay calm. She's smiling. I plan to do exactly as she says. She has my word. I almost burst into tears when she helped me to clean away all that filth in the prison. I had one hand holding up my pants with no belt and the other scrubbing the prison floor, all under the watchful gaze
and mockery of the other officers. My fairy came with a floor cloth, a bucket, and a pair of rubber gloves, as a real gesture of humanity.

She then escorts me with two other officers to the shower stalls. All of a sudden I feel like putting an end to this entire comedy by taking myself out. I could grab one of those guns and make the heroic gesture of blowing my skull wide open or just bash my head against the wall until I'm unconscious. But of course I can't even drum up that kind of courage right now. In fact, I feel weary. The nightmare of these past hours has definitely sobered me up. I'm moving so feebly. The proximity to the kind police officer has so completely warmed my heart that I'm finding the strength to keep going. I undress under the vigilant eye of all these officers who are keeping a close eye on me. They are trained to be ready for any and everything. You almost get the feeling that they're just waiting for something to happen so that they can have a go at me again.

The beatings, the blood, and the chains during these last hours have made me forget perhaps, for good, any modicum of modesty. The cold water against my bruised skin is giving me an incredible feeling of happiness. It's as though my very soul is getting cleansed from this washing. It feels like hundreds of invisible hands are moving gently all over my body and my heart spreading pureness and benediction. I'm washing myself now with enthusiasm because I can feel the enormous compassion of the spirits. They're returning from the depths of time to help me through this nightmare. They haven't abandoned me. All is not really lost! Relieved. Showering, I feel somehow exhilarated. It's all coming back to me suddenly. The sequence of events is resurfacing with astounding clarity.

The day before yesterday, Mireille left. We were supposed to meet in the Châtelet neighborhood. As usual, I was late. I'd spent the afternoon with Drissa. He's doing a lot better, making a lot more sense, still a long way off, but I'm not giving up hope. He's not smiling yet and definitely not laughing, he needs more time for that, a whole lot of patience and way more work to get there. Suddenly, he started to
tell me this strange story about Mireille's mother, as if I don't have enough on my plate already!

He wasn't even fifteen when it had all started. What had been for me a beautiful period in my life had been like a tsunami for him, and I'd been completely unaware of it. He looked me point blank in the eyes with a gaze that said I have nothing more to hide and went on to describe their first afternoon.