Never in our lives had we been so close.
Then I went to visit the imam in his basement. They’ve turned it into a bunker, steel-plated door, bars on the window and there’s a wall of Kapos standing guard outside. They body-searched me and brought me to the imam like a prisoner of war. So there he was in the flesh, the one-eyed fucker, he was fifty-something, his hair was completely white, he was wearing a green gandurah, a black jacket, he had a beard that comes down to his belly button and one piercing eye. He was sitting cross-legged on the floor with his back against the wall. In front of him, on a low table, were the tools of his trade, the Qur’an, a pile of blank fatwas, a seal, a phone and fax machine. Flicha, the new emir, was next to him, a young guy with a beard, built like a brick shithouse, carrying a gun under his jacket, the butt deliberately sticking out to make sure any visitors didn’t try anything. The imam said: “Come here, my son, come here. Sit opposite me. I believe you know Mujahid Si Omar — the ignorant young thugs on the estate call him Flicha. Talk to me, tell me about yourself, tell me what you thought of our beloved Algeria, an Islamic country suffering under the yoke of a heathen government.”
I said, “What do you want?”
“Your happiness, my son, your happiness and that of our faith. When I heard that your parents had been savagely murdered, it grieved me, truly. I immediately got in touch with our brothers in Algeria, who are fighting for Allah, for His religion.”
“I didn’t ask you for anything.”
“I did it for Allah, and for truth, that is my duty as a Muslim, as an imam. I need to tell you that your parents were murdered by the Algerian government, not by the holy warriors of Allah. It is their way, to kill people and put the blame on us.”
“Them, you, what’s the difference?”
“There is a great difference. Had this been done by our soldiers, I would have told you so regardless of how you might feel, we proclaim our jihad before the world. They are the guilty ones, you must avenge your parents, Allah provides for Qisas—for exact and equivalent retribution.”
“I don’t need you, I don’t need anybody.”
“Pride is a virtue, but now you need Islam to strengthen your heart and your hand.”
“I don’t need anything.”
“What you says is blasphemous, but you will think better of it and join us, we can give you solace, we can help you and your adoptive parents financially, and we can find some useful work for your friends who hang around all day in defiance of the law.”
“I don’t think you heard me, imam, I don’t need you!”
“Grief and anger have clouded your mind, but go. . Si Omar is here, he will watch over you, guide you. . ”
“Is that a threat?”
“Only Allah can punish, my son, we are but his instruments.”
I was about to get up and leave, but I changed my mind.
“Tell me, imam, if you had power over the earth, where would you begin the genocide?”
“What do you mean by that question?”
“There have been a lot of genocides throughout history, what would our genocide be?”
“You have been reading evil sinful books. We have our own books, as you shall see, they will tell you that the only genocides have been waged against Muslim peoples.”
“All the more reason. . Who would we kill to even the score?”
“Islam brings peace, my son, not war. When we come to power, people will be happy to convert to Islam.”
“And those who refuse?”
“Those who reject Allah, Allah will reject, there is no place for such a man on His earth or in His paradise.”
“We’ll kill them?”
“Allah will decide their fate.”
“But he rejects them!”
“He will punish them without mercy.”
“Will he command us to kill every last one of them?”
“We will do as he commands us.”
“You see, that’s my problem: how do you go about killing six million kaffirs quickly, before they wake up and fight back?”
“You’re talking foolishness, my son.”
“You’re the imam. As a believer I have the right to ask you any question I like.”
“Indeed you have, but I have told you, when Allah confers power on us, He shall tell us what we should do and how we should do it. As I said, we are instruments of His will.”
“Can I make a suggestion?”
“One does not make suggestions to Allah!”
“To his representatives, then, so they can pass it on.”
“I’m listening.”
“They way I see it, you round the kaffirs all up into camps surrounded by electric fences, you gas all the useless ones straight off, the rest of them, you divide into groups based on their skills and their gender, and you work them till they drop dead. Anyone who disobeys, you gas them. What do you think?”
“I think you’re dreaming.”
“I’m not dreaming, it’s been done before.”
“The methods you suggest are barbaric, Allah commands that we kill the infidels according to Muslim rite.”
“You don’t get the point, imam, killing six million infidels isn’t like burning some girl like Nadia, or slitting the throats of forty villagers in Aïn Deb. Half-arsed methods just won’t work, it takes productivity. When you’ve worked it out, let me know, I’ll drop by. Salam.”
“Allah has cursed you, son of a dog.”
“Yeah, well fuck you, and you too, Emir! You want genocide? Well bring it on! Me and my mates, we’ll be only too happy to roast some Nazi jihadist fuckers, and we’ll invite all the kids on the estate to the barbecue.”
“You’re asking for trouble. . ”
“And you’re getting it.”
Now that war has been declared, I have to do the hard bit: tell my mates everything. They’ll hate me, reject me, they’ll go ballistic, but truth is truth, it should be known. I’ll take it in stages, I suffered from finding it all out at once. I’ll tell them who my father was, what he did, then later, when they’re ready, I’ll tell them about the Nazi killing machine, I’ll lend them Rachel’s books, explain that papa never told us anything, that that’s why Rachel killed himself. And if they ask me, “What about you, what are you going to do?” I’ll tell them, “Tell the truth, all over the world. After that, we’ll see.”
MALRICH’S DIARY, FEBRUARY 1997
It was in August 1995, nearly a year and a half ago, that Rachel wrote to the Algerian minister for Foreign Affairs, and there’s still been no answer — at least not while I was living in Rachel’s house, and I didn’t find any sign of a letter among his books and papers. The fact our parents’ names were changed has been bugging me since the start, like it bugged him. Given what I’ve learned since, it feels like they were buried with numbers tattooed on their forearms. I thought about going back to Rachel’s house and asking the new owners if there’s been any post since I left, then I thought that if the Ministry hadn’t replied over the past sixteen months, they’re hardly likely to send a reply in month seventeen. Maybe the letter got lost, I thought, in Algeria, everything ends up in the hands of the police, but I couldn’t believe they’d treat a ministerial letter the way they’d handle an ordinary letter; diplomatic letters are sent by couriers on special planes. I felt I had to send a follow-up to Rachel’s letter, so I wrote another letter. “To whom it may concern,” like when you write to the police. And while I was at it, I wrote to the French Minister of the Interior about what’s been going on at the estate. It won’t do any good, but like Rachel says, you have to do what you have to do. Here’s what I wrote: