The African Equation by Yasmina Khadra Page B

keep my eyes wide open and familiarise myself with what I couldn’t see; this was perhaps the last time I could cling to something that kept me alive … Hans had given up. I disturbed him when I spoke to him; he would answer reluctantly, out of politeness. I imagined him struggling with Tao’s ghost. But I needed to talk, to say something, no matter what, to ask questions to which I wouldn’t demand answers; Hans’s silence left medefenceless. Silence is the cruellest medium for panic; it turns doubt into an obsession, darkness into claustrophobia. What were they going to do with us? Death was prowling around us; I could have touched it but I was afraid to provoke it. I listened out for a voice or an animal cry that would burst through that awful, crushing silence, but it was pointless. Outside, the night was like a sarcophagus; it stank of mustiness and rotting flesh. I was scared …
    In the morning, a teenage boy brought us something to eat: a kind of thick, lumpy soup. The smell alone made me nauseous.
    ‘What is this?’ I asked.
    ‘Here we eat and don’t ask questions. It isn’t every day we have something to get our teeth into.’
    The boy seemed bored, as if he was being forced to do tasks he hated. He was very tall, with prominent shoulder blades, an angular face and a tuft of frizzy hair cut into a diamond shape in the middle of his shaven skull. A tattoo showing a girl’s face and the letter
f
adorned his right shoulder. I turned and held out my arms so that he could untie me. He stepped back warily.
    ‘How can we eat with our hands behind our backs?’ I said.
    ‘Does sir need a trolley?’ the giant grunted, appearing suddenly as if emerging out of the stone. ‘A chromeplated trolley with embroidered white place mats, silver cutlery and crystal glasses?’
    He chased away the boy, who left without hurrying, then pushed the pan in my direction with his foot.
    ‘If you really want to feel Africa at its most authentic, you just have to smell your meal. Of course, it looks likevomit, but isn’t it already a foretaste of the great journey of initiation?’
    ‘How can we possibly eat with these chains?’
    ‘By licking the pan, like animals.’
    He walked over to Hans, who was still lying on his side.
    ‘He’s been hurt,’ I said.
    The giant bent over Hans and pulled up his shirt to see the state of the wound. ‘I’ve seen worse,’ he muttered. ‘He’ll get over it.’
    ‘I’m a doctor. I need to examine him.’
    ‘I tell you it isn’t serious.’
    ‘And I tell you his wound will get infected if—’
    With one hand, he grabbed me by the throat, stifling the rest of my protest.
    ‘Don’t raise your voice to me,’ he said, opening wide his huge white eyes. ‘I hate that.’
    His fingers closed over my carotid artery; their throbbing reached my temples.
    ‘You’re in Africa … you’re in my home, and here, I’m the master. When you talk to Joma, you take care what you say … And stop looking at me like that or I’ll gouge your eyes out with a toothpick.’
    My brain was starting to lack air.
    ‘Have you got that?’
    Spit from his mouth spattered my face. Scornfully, he pushed me away.
    ‘I don’t like you,’ he said, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand.
    He made as if to leave the cave, then turned back, shaking with suppressed rage as if an age-old resentment, silenced for centuries, had caught up with him andoverwhelmed him. In his massive face, as black as coal, his nostrils quivered in time with the spasms making his cheeks twitch.
    ‘You must be wondering what kind of creature I am, not enough of a primate to be tamed, nor human enough to be moved.’
    ‘I don’t know what you’re insinuating.’
    His hand landed on my cheek, so hard that my skull bounced off the rock. In a sudden surge of pride and revolt, I stood up again to confront him. Our breaths met. He raised his arm. I defied him, my neck stretched to breaking point. Unable to make me back down, he