Abduction by Simon Pare

(“If He doesn’t know about this, then He isn’t God, stupid!”), I could see that Meriem was wondering about her mother’s mental state. She stroked the old woman’s hand, but refused to show any more emotion than that.
    â€œGet up, mum,” she ordered. “Come and have a hot drink and afterwards you can have a rest.”
    The old woman did as she was told, glad, in her disarray, to have someone to obey. She allowed herself to be led to her chair and she grasped the cup Meriem handed her. As she sipped her tea, she didn’t leave off studying her daughter’s and husband’s faces, afraid of discovering there a sign of some terrible piece of information that had been withheld from her. Her misty eyes blinked constantly, doubtless to strengthen the fragile dam holding back the tears that might burst forth at a single word or intuition.
    Meriem bent over her mother. For a few seconds, I could see their two faces side by side, like for like, despite the difference in age, in their beauty and the expressiveness of their grief! Petty, ridiculous rancour welled up inside me at this old lady who was stealing a part of my wife from me by ‘daring’ to experience the same sorrow as she did.
    Oh, how irritating the grief of people we don’t like can be! And how terribly, conversely, can our hearts be broken by the grief of those we love when we show ourselves incapable, even when we share it, of offering them the slightest succour!
    Meriem accompanied her mother to Shehera’s bedroom. Mathieu and I watched each other, making no attempt to disguise the fact that we didn’t think much of each other, even if, deep down, we hadn’t the faintest idea of why this was. The embarrassed silence lasted for a few seconds before my father-in-law spoke. He looked pensive.
    â€œThe kidnapper knows I’m French. If it really is those GIA bastards…”
    Meriem appeared in the corridor and interrupted him.
    â€œI know what we have to do.”
    She gave us a hostile stare. She never covered her head, but now she had wrapped herself in a broad scarf and an old coat. She had stuck one of her hands in a pocket.
    â€œWhere are you off to like that? It’s dark outside.”
    My anxiety went up a notch when – as if this were sufficient explanation – she held up the thing she had stuffed into her pocket: a small, illuminated Koran.
    â€œWhere did you dig that out? I didn’t know we had one in the house.”
    She shrugged her shoulders with a defiant expression containing not an ounce of love.
    â€œYou assume I’m going to just twiddle my thumbs until my daughter’s corpse turns up?”
    Her near-exhausted tone contrasted with the sparks of anger glittering in her eyes. I no longer recognised the woman I had been living with for the last fifteen years; first the Koran and now this haunted look…
    â€œI’m going to see the imam. He’ll be able to intercede. He’s almost one of them, remember?”
    I jumped out of my chair.
    â€œYou’re mad! That’s the last thing we should do. He won’t lift a finger. Quite the opposite: he always said bad things about Shehera! His wife told you…”
    Pushing me violently aside, she made for the front door. I yelled, “You’re out of your mind!”
    â€œDon’t go, Meriem. Your husband’s right, it’s very dangerous,” Mathieu begged, advancing towards her. “The fact that they bothered to call us means that it could be a matter of negotiating. Stay here; we’ll find a solution, I swear! One life is already in danger. Don’t make things worse by adding yours.”
    Momentarily taken aback, Meriem shook her head in revulsion.
    â€œDon’t come on all fatherly towards me!” she chastised him from the doorway. “Marrying my mother by betraying my father doesn’t give you any rights over me! You’re the one who has