The Dictator's Last Night Read online

  ‘I don’t have any others, sir.’

  ‘Have I been unjust to my people?’

  ‘No!’ he exclaims. ‘Never, never in a thousand years will our country have a more enlightened guide or a gentler father than you. We were dusty nomads that a good-for-nothing king treated like a doormat, and then you came and made us a free people that the world envied.’

  ‘Should I imagine, then, that those rockets exploding outside are no more than firecrackers from a party I cannot quite locate?’

  The orderly hunches his neck into his shoulders as if, all at once, he finds himself having to carry all of the traitors’ shame.

  ‘Surely they must have a reason, do you not think?’

  ‘I can’t see what it is, sir.’

  ‘You must have gone home when you had leave. To Benghazi, right where the rebellion started. You went to the café, to the mosque, to the parks. You must have heard people criticising me.’

  ‘People weren’t criticising you in public, Brotherly Guide. Our security services were listening in everywhere. I only heard people say good things about you. In any case I wouldn’t have let anyone show you a lack of respect.’

  ‘My security services were deaf and blind. They failed to see anything coming.’

  Confused, he starts wringing his hands.

  ‘Very well,’ I concede. ‘People say nothing in public. That is normal. But tongues loosen in private. You must have been completely detached from reality if you did not hear, at least once, someone in your family, a cousin or an uncle, saying something bad about me.’

  ‘We all love you deeply in our family.’

  ‘I love my sons deeply. It does not stop me disapproving of them sometimes. I do not dispute that I am loved by your family. But some of your family members must have criticised me for small things, hasty decisions, ordinary mistakes.’

  ‘I’ve never heard anyone in my family challenge anything at all that you’ve done or said, sir.’

  ‘I do not believe you.’

  ‘I swear to you, sir. Nobody in my family criticises you.’

  ‘It’s not possible. The prophet Muhammad himself has his critics.’

  ‘Not you … not in my family anyway.’

  I fold my arms and study him in silence for a long moment.

  I return to the charge.

  ‘Why are people rebelling against me?’

  ‘I don’t know, sir.’

  ‘Are you a complete idiot?’

  ‘I’m just the person who looks after the car park, sir.’

  ‘That does not exempt you from having an opinion.’

  He is sweating now, and short of breath.

  ‘Answer me. Why are people rebelling against me?’

  He is desperately looking for the right words, the way people look for shelter in a bombing raid. His fingers are nearly knotted together and his Adam’s apple is bouncing wildly. He feels that he is caught in a trap and his destiny depends on his response.

  He ventures, ‘Sometimes, when things are too quiet, people get bored, and some of them try to stir things up to make their lives more interesting.’

  ‘By attacking me?’

  ‘They think the only way to grow up is to kill their father.’

  ‘Go on.’

  ‘They challenge his birthright in order to—’

  ‘No, go back to the father … You said “kill their father”. I would like you to develop that idea further.’

  ‘I don’t really know enough to do that.’

  ‘You do not need to be a genius to understand that you do not kill your father, whatever he does, whatever he says,’ I shout, outraged. ‘To us the father is as sacred as the prophet.’

  An explosion rattles the few panes of glass still left in the windows. Another bomb. In the distance there is the sound of a fighter plane climbing away. The hush that follows is like the silence of ruins, as deep as the tomb.

  In the adjoining rooms life starts up again. I hear an officer giving orders, a door creaking, footsteps back and forth …

  ‘Eat,’ I say to the orderly.

  This time he leaves the biscuit, shaking his head.

  ‘I can’t swallow anything, Brotherly Guide.’

  ‘Then go home. Go back to your daughters. I do not want to see you around here any more.’

  ‘Have I said something to displease you?’

  ‘Go. I need to pray.’

  The orderly stands up.

  ‘Clear away first,’ I tell him. ‘Collect this miserable meal and share it with those who think that they have to kill their father in order to grow up.’

  ‘I didn’t mean to offend you.’

  ‘Out of my sight.’

  ‘I—’

  ‘Get out!’

  His expression changes from that of a serving soldier to a death mask. He is finished. He has no life left to give me. He knows that his existence, his being, faith, courage, everything good that he believed he embodied, is worthless now that my anger has banished him from my confidence.

  I hate him.

  He has wounded me.

  He does not deserve to follow in my footsteps. My shadow will for ever be for him an unfathomable valley of darkness.

  2

  I rejoin my loyal servants on the ground floor. General Abu-Bakr Yunis Jabr, my defence minister, has a face that makes me think of a flag at half-mast. A week ago he was thumping the table and swearing that we were going to turn the situation to our advantage, that the rebel hordes would be swept aside in no time at all. Using staff maps to back up his argument, he identified the weak points in the traitors’ strategy, placing heavy emphasis on internal conflicts that would eventually undermine their alliance, lauding the thousands of patriots joining us in droves, engaging with the enemy relentlessly to strengthen the battlements of our final bastion.

  My son Mutassim nodded as he listened, a fierce look on his face.

  I listened with one ear, keeping the other one open for the commotion I could hear in the city.

  The general’s enthusiasm was short-lived, and has been replaced by mounting doubts. A number of my officers have deserted from our ranks; others have been captured, lynched there and then, their heads put on spikes and their bodies tied to the backs of pickups and dragged through the streets. I have seen some of the heads myself, displayed like macabre trophies on the tops of walls.

  For the last three days, as the rebels have taunted us from the neighbouring district, Abu-Bakr has been silent. His face has turned into a papier-mâché sculpture. He refuses to eat and in private he sulks, unable to command his officers. And this was a man whose orders once boomed out louder than cannon fire.

  I do not know why, despite his loyalty, I have never been completely convinced by him. He was my classmate at the Benghazi Academy, at my side in the coup d’état in 1969, one of the twelve members of the Revolutionary Command Council. Not once has Abu-Bakr disappointed me or been disloyal, yet I only have to look into his eyes to see no more than a startled fawn, a pet more desiring of my protection than the favours I have bestowed on him.

  Abu-Bakr fears me like a curse, certain that at the slightest suspicion I would eliminate him just as I liquidated without a qualm my comrades-in-arms and makers of my legend when they began, in secret, to challenge my legitimacy.

  ‘What are you thinking about, General?’

  He lifts his chin with an effort.

  ‘Nothing.’

  ‘Are you sure?’

  He shifts on his chair without answering.

  ‘Do you want to clear out too?’ I ask abruptly.

  ‘It hadn’t crossed my mind.’

  ‘So you think you have one?’

  He frowns.

  ‘Relax,’ I tell him, ‘I am teasing you.’

  I want to take the tension out of the atmosphere, but my heart is not in it. When I play to the gallery, everyone takes me seriously. The general more than anyone. A Guide has no sense of humour. His references are commands, his jokes w
arnings.

  ‘You think me capable of running out on you, Rais?’

  ‘Who knows?’

  ‘Where to?’ he grumbles crossly.

  ‘The enemy. Plenty of ministers have surrendered. Moussa Koussa, whom I appointed to lead the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, has asked the British for political asylum. Abdel Rahman Shalgham, my standard-bearer, has become my sworn double-crossing traitor, representative at the UN Security Council, mandated by renegades and mercenaries …’

  ‘I have never been on those men’s side. They were no more than racketeers, ready to sell their mothers for a scrap of privilege. I love you with my whole being. I shall never abandon you.’

  ‘So why did you leave me alone upstairs?’

  ‘You were at prayers. I didn’t want to disturb you.’

  I have no suspicions whatever about Abu-Bakr. His loyalty to me is equalled only by his superstition. I know he regularly used to consult fortune-tellers to reassure him that my trust in him was still intact.

  I was bullying him out of irritation.

  I did not like the fact that he stayed seated in my presence.

  In the past he would click his heels whenever he heard my voice on the phone. He sweated buckets every time I hung up on him.

  This damned war! It not only turns our customs upside down, but relegates them to pointlessness. If I choose to overlook the general’s sloppiness, it is because, with defections taking place on the grand scale they are now, I need to hear someone tell me he will never abandon me.

  ‘What is that bruise on your jaw?’

  ‘Perhaps I walked into a wall or knocked it on the corner of my bed. I don’t remember.’

  ‘Let me see it.’

  He turns the bruised side of his face towards me.

  ‘It looks nasty. You should see a doctor.’

  ‘It’s not worth it,’ he says, rubbing his jaw. ‘In any case it doesn’t hurt at all.’

  ‘Any news from Mutassim?’

  He shakes his head.

  ‘Where is Mansour?’

  ‘He’s resting through there.’

  I gesture to a soldier to fetch the commander of my People’s Guard.

  Mansour Dhao appears in a disgraceful state. His flies are undone, he is unshaven, and his hair is all over the place; he has difficulty standing. He tosses a vague fixed smile in my direction and moves across to the wall to stop himself falling. I know he has not closed his eyes for many days and nights. His expression is almost as empty and shrouded in gloom as the abyss.

  ‘Were you asleep?’

  ‘I should very much like to drop off for a couple of minutes, Rais.’

  ‘Do you think you are awake now?’

  He attempts to pull himself together a fraction, without success.

  His shirt is a rag, his corkscrewed trousers flap around his legs. I notice he has tightened his belt by several notches.

  I grip him by the shoulders and wait for him to lift his head so that I can look him straight in the eye.

  ‘Do not let yourself go, Mansour,’ I tell him. ‘We are going to come out of this, I promise you.’

  He nods his head.

  ‘What was that bomb just now?’

  He shrugs.

  I feel like slapping him.

  Abu-Bakr turns away. He knows that the attitude of the commander of the People’s Guard is as intolerable to me as the machine guns rattling in the distance.

  ‘Any news from Mutassim?’

  Mansour shakes his head, on the point of crumpling up and collapsing.

  ‘And Saif?’

  ‘He’s assembling his troops in the south,’ the general says. ‘Probably around Sabha. According to our sources, he is on the point of launching a vast counter-offensive.’

  My brave Saif al-Islam! If he were at my side now, he would rid me of these defeated faces. He has learnt from me the implacable meaning of a true oath of loyalty and contempt for danger. In fact I have few worries on his account. He is cunning and fearless, and when he makes a promise he keeps his word as a matter of honour. He promised me he would reorganise my army, scattered by the NATO air strikes, then decisively halt the rebels’ advance. Saif has charisma. He is a great leader of men. He would make short work of those turncoats.

  A lieutenant arrives to make a report. His appearance leaves a great deal to be desired, but his fervour is intact. He addresses the minister.

  ‘Our scouts signal that enemy infantry and reconnaissance units have begun withdrawing, General.’

  ‘They’re not withdrawing,’ Mansour objects, exasperated. ‘They’re taking cover.’

  ‘Meaning?’ I say.

  ‘They’ve started to evacuate the positions they took this afternoon. To isolate us. My bet is that we’re about to find ourselves on the wrong end of a massive bombing raid.’

  I demand that he elaborate.

  Mansour requests that the lieutenant leave the room and waits till the three of us are alone.

  ‘My signals specialist has intercepted coded comms. Everything points to coalition aviation targeting District Two. The bloody insurgents withdrawing confirms the probability.’

  ‘Where is Mutassim?’

  ‘Gone to requisition vehicles,’ Abu-Bakr says, getting to his feet. ‘We can’t stay dug in here any longer, waiting for some happy surprise to save us. We’re running out of food, ammunition and options. Our units have been knocked out or neutralised. Sirte is practically blockaded. The noose is tightening by the hour.’

  ‘I thought Mutassim had gone to reinforce his garrisons. Why the sudden turnaround?’

  ‘It was you yourself who decided to break out, Rais.’

  ‘What? Are you saying my memory is playing tricks on me?’

  The general frowns, taken aback by my forgetfulness. He starts to explain.

  ‘There won’t be any reinforcement, Rais.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘Because Saif al-Islam is too far south of us. We need to evacuate Sirte as fast as we can. That will give us a chance to reach Sabha, which the insurgents have abandoned, to reorganise ourselves and, with Saif’s support, move up and encircle Misrata. The southern tribes are still loyal to us. We’ll take our supply lines through them.’

  ‘Since when have your plans changed, General?’

  ‘Since this morning.’

  ‘Without informing me?’

  The general’s eyes widen as he again looks dumbfounded by my question.

  ‘But, Rais, I’m telling you, it was you yourself who suggested evacuating Sirte.’

  I do not remember having suggested such a perilous manoeuvre. In order not to lose face, I nod.

  Mansour crouches down with one hand on the floor, the other to his forehead. He looks as though he is about to puke his guts up.

  ‘Colonel Mutassim still has dependable men in the sector,’ the general tries to mollify me. ‘He is putting a substantial convoy together. At 4 a.m. exactly we’ll aim to break through enemy lines. The rebels’ withdrawal is a stroke of luck. It gives us a small window, at last. The militias have lifted their roadblocks at points 42, 43 and 29. Probably to take cover, as the signals operator said. We’ll retreat southwards. If Mutassim has been able to put together forty or fifty vehicles we’ll have a chance of getting through. Any skirmishes, we disperse. It’s chaos in the city. No one knows who commands who any more. We’ll exploit the confusion to get out of Sirte.’

  ‘Why not now?’ I say. ‘Before the bombing raids start.’

  ‘It will take Colonel Mutassim several hours to round up the vehicles we need.’

  ‘Are you in contact with him?’

  ‘Not by radio. We’re using runners.’

  ‘Where is he exactly?’

  ‘We’re waiting for the reconnaissance patrols to come back and tell us.’

  Mansour lets himself slide down the wall to sit on the floor.

  ‘A little decorum,’ I shout at him. ‘Do you think you are resting on your mother’s patio?’

>   ‘I’ve got an appalling migraine.’

  ‘No matter. Get a grip on yourself, and do it fast.’

  Mansour gets to his feet. His face is scored with deep lines across his cheeks, giving him the look of an animal in agony. Abu-Bakr pushes a chair in his direction. He declines it.

  ‘Do you really believe they are about to bomb us?’ I ask him.

  ‘It’s obvious.’

  ‘Perhaps it’s a diversion,’ Abu-Bakr suggests, more to show himself on my side than from conviction.

  ‘They wouldn’t order their ground troops to evacuate their advance posts if they weren’t going to.’

  ‘You think they know where we are?’

  ‘No one knows where you are, Rais. They strike at random and wait for us to give ourselves away.’

  ‘Very well,’ I tell him. ‘I am going to rest. Let me know as soon as there is anything to report.’

  3

  Someone has cleaned my room, covered the windows with pieces of tarpaulin and cobbled together a light from a torch powered by a car battery.

  Under the couch I use as a bed I found, a while ago, a slender gold bracelet that must have belonged to a little girl. It is a pretty piece of jewellery, finely worked and with an inscription engraved on the inside: ‘For Khadija, my angel and my sunshine’. I tried to put a face to Khadija and looked for a photo of her in the drawers and on the shelves. Nothing. Not one forgotten snapshot, not a trace of the family who once lived in the house, apart from the portrait of the father – or the grandfather – in the living room. I tried to imagine the life that the vanished family led within these walls. They were probably well-off people living in comfort and peace, with an attentive mother and happy children. What wrong had they done for their dreams suddenly to be wiped out? I have spared no effort in Libya to ensure that joys, celebrations and hopes are my people’s pulse, that angels and sunshine are inseparable from a child’s laughter.

  I saw danger coming from a long way off, was absolutely clear about just how greedy the predators were, licking their lips at the prospect of the riches of my territory. But what alarm bells could I ring? In vain I warned other Arab leaders, those pleasure-seeking gluttons who only listen to the fawning and simpering of those who owe them favours. There was a full complement of them at Cairo, lined up like onions, spying on each other on the sly, half of them so conceited they could not stop behaving like constipated patriarchs, the other half too thick to be able to look serious. Arrivistes who thought they had really arrived, comic-opera presidents unable to shake off their country-bumpkin reflexes, petrodollar emirs looking like rabbits straight out of the magician’s hat, sultans wrapped in their robes like ghosts, disgusted at the blathering eulogies the speakers were trotting out ad infinitum. Why were they there? They cared for nothing that did not concern their personal fortunes. Busy stuffing their pockets, they refused to look up to see how dizzyingly fast the world was changing or how tomorrow’s storm clouds of hate were gathering on the horizon. The misery of their subjects, the despair of their youth, the pauperisation of their people, were the least of their concerns. Convinced that hard times would never trouble them, they ‘dealt with it’, as the saying goes. And they had nothing to fear, because they never stuck their necks out or played the tough guy. At the last summit of the League, while they hid their feelings behind their condescending smiles, I warned them: what had happened to Saddam Hussein could happen to them too. In private they laughed up their sleeves at me. And Ben Ali … my God, Ben Ali! That creep in his big shot’s suit, flexing his muscles to his henchmen, then folding like a pancake at the first envoy sent by the West! He sat right in front of me, red in the face from stifling his giggles. I amused him. I should have stepped off the stage to spit in his face. Wretched Ben Ali, dressed to the nines, so proud of his pimp’s paunch and willing to prostitute his country to the highest bidder. I have never been able to stand him, him and his mannered, pumped-up foppishness. I detested the way he cut his hair and his cheap charisma.