Read Online The Meursault Investigation by Kamel Daoud - Free Book Online
Authors: Kamel Daoud
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wasn’t killed on that famous Algiers beach! There must be another, hidden place, a setting that was disappeared. That would explain everything, all at once! Why the murderer was so relaxed after being sentenced to death and even after his execution, why my brother was never found, and why the court preferred judging a man who didn’t weep over his mother’s death to judging a man who killed an Arab.
I sometimes thought about poking around that beach at the exact hour of the crime. That is, during the summer, when the sun’s so close to earth it can make you crazy or drive you to shed blood, but that would be a futile exercise. Besides, the sea bothers me. I’m definitively afraid of the water. I don’t like to go swimming — the waves swallow me up too fast.
“Malou khouya, malou majache
.
El b’har eddah âliyah rah ou ma wellache.”
(Where is he, my brother, why didn’t he come back? The sea took him from me, he never came back.) I love that old song. It’s a local tune. A man sings about his brother, who was swept out to sea. I’ve got several images in my head, but I think I’ve been drinking a bit too fast. The truth is, I’ve actually done it. Six times … Yes, I went there six times, there to that beach. But I never found anything, no empty cartridges, no footsteps, no witnesses, no dried blood on the rock. Nothing. I looked for years. Until one Friday, ten years ago, more or less, the day when I
saw
him. Under a rock, a few meters from the water, I suddenly saw a silhouette that merged with a dark wedge of shadow. I’d walked on the beach for a long time, as I recall. I intended to get knocked out by the sun, to suffer sunstroke or a fainting spell and thus relive to some degree what your author describes. And I admit it, I’d also had a lot to drink. The sun was overwhelming, like a heavenly accusation. It shattered into needles on the sand and on the sea but never ever flagged. At one point, I had the impression of knowing where I was going, but that impression was surely mistaken. And then, down at the end of the beach, I spotted a tiny spring flowing in a trickle over the sand behind the rock. And I saw
a man
, dressed in overalls and nonchalantly lying there. I looked at him with fear and fascination; he seemed to barely notice me. One of us two was an insistent ghost, and the shadow — very deep, very black — had the coolness of a threshold. Then … then it seemed that the scene veered off into some sort of amusing delirium. When I raised my hand, the shadow did the same. And when I took a step to the side, it turned andchanged its resting point. Then I stopped, with my heart pounding, and I realized I had my mouth hanging open, like an idiot, and no weapon, not even a knife. I was sweating profusely, the big drops burning my eyes. No one was around, and the sea was mute. I knew for sure I was looking at a reflection, but I had no idea of what! I groaned out loud, and the shadow flickered. I took a backward step, and the shadow did the same, in a kind of weird contraction. I found myself stretched out on my back, shivering with cold, bludgeoned by bad wine. I’d walked backward about ten meters before collapsing in tears. Yes, I assure you, I wept for Musa years after his death. My efforts to reconstruct the crime at the scene where it had been committed were leading me to an impasse, to a ghost, to madness. All of which is to tell you there’s no point in your going to the cemetery, or to Bab-el-Oued, or to the beach. You won’t find anything. I’ve already tried, my friend. I told you right from the start: This story takes place somewhere in someone’s head, in mine and in yours and in the heads of people like you. In a sort of beyond.
Don’t do any geographical searching — that’s the point I’m trying to make.
You’ll get a better grasp on my version of the facts if you accept the idea that this story is like an origin myth: Cain comes here to build cities and roads,
I sometimes thought about poking around that beach at the exact hour of the crime. That is, during the summer, when the sun’s so close to earth it can make you crazy or drive you to shed blood, but that would be a futile exercise. Besides, the sea bothers me. I’m definitively afraid of the water. I don’t like to go swimming — the waves swallow me up too fast.
“Malou khouya, malou majache
.
El b’har eddah âliyah rah ou ma wellache.”
(Where is he, my brother, why didn’t he come back? The sea took him from me, he never came back.) I love that old song. It’s a local tune. A man sings about his brother, who was swept out to sea. I’ve got several images in my head, but I think I’ve been drinking a bit too fast. The truth is, I’ve actually done it. Six times … Yes, I went there six times, there to that beach. But I never found anything, no empty cartridges, no footsteps, no witnesses, no dried blood on the rock. Nothing. I looked for years. Until one Friday, ten years ago, more or less, the day when I
saw
him. Under a rock, a few meters from the water, I suddenly saw a silhouette that merged with a dark wedge of shadow. I’d walked on the beach for a long time, as I recall. I intended to get knocked out by the sun, to suffer sunstroke or a fainting spell and thus relive to some degree what your author describes. And I admit it, I’d also had a lot to drink. The sun was overwhelming, like a heavenly accusation. It shattered into needles on the sand and on the sea but never ever flagged. At one point, I had the impression of knowing where I was going, but that impression was surely mistaken. And then, down at the end of the beach, I spotted a tiny spring flowing in a trickle over the sand behind the rock. And I saw
a man
, dressed in overalls and nonchalantly lying there. I looked at him with fear and fascination; he seemed to barely notice me. One of us two was an insistent ghost, and the shadow — very deep, very black — had the coolness of a threshold. Then … then it seemed that the scene veered off into some sort of amusing delirium. When I raised my hand, the shadow did the same. And when I took a step to the side, it turned andchanged its resting point. Then I stopped, with my heart pounding, and I realized I had my mouth hanging open, like an idiot, and no weapon, not even a knife. I was sweating profusely, the big drops burning my eyes. No one was around, and the sea was mute. I knew for sure I was looking at a reflection, but I had no idea of what! I groaned out loud, and the shadow flickered. I took a backward step, and the shadow did the same, in a kind of weird contraction. I found myself stretched out on my back, shivering with cold, bludgeoned by bad wine. I’d walked backward about ten meters before collapsing in tears. Yes, I assure you, I wept for Musa years after his death. My efforts to reconstruct the crime at the scene where it had been committed were leading me to an impasse, to a ghost, to madness. All of which is to tell you there’s no point in your going to the cemetery, or to Bab-el-Oued, or to the beach. You won’t find anything. I’ve already tried, my friend. I told you right from the start: This story takes place somewhere in someone’s head, in mine and in yours and in the heads of people like you. In a sort of beyond.
Don’t do any geographical searching — that’s the point I’m trying to make.
You’ll get a better grasp on my version of the facts if you accept the idea that this story is like an origin myth: Cain comes here to build cities and roads,
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