Free The African Equation by Yasmina Khadra

differently, but what’s done is done, and there’s no point bringing it back.’
    ‘I agree, except that you can also redeem yourself.’
    ‘What do you mean?’ he asked with a frown.
    ‘You can be of use to us. You can help us to escape.’
    He shook his head as if he had just received an uppercut to the chin. ‘What?’ he said in a choked voice. ‘Help you to escape? What are you talking about? What do you take me for? I talk to you for a while, and you immediately think you’ve got me in your pocket. I was only having a chat. Here, apart from Joma, nobody says a word to me. And even Joma doesn’t talk to me, he just tells me off … Why do you take me for a sucker?’
    ‘Don’t take it badly. I wasn’t—’
    ‘Shut up!’ he yelled, getting to his feet, his sabre at the ready. ‘I try to be nice to you, and you try to trick me. Why should I help you to get out of here? What’s in it for me? What will I do after that? And who’ll help me when the guys get their hands on me? We’re in Africa, damn it! Wherever you hide, they always track you down. And besides, do I look like a traitor?’
    He was incensed. His sabre hovered above the back of my neck.
    Taken aback by the violence of his about-turn, I no longer knew how to react. His cries echoed in the cave like explosions. I was afraid the others would hear and come to see what was going on. Suddenly, in the same way as he had lost his temper, he calmed down. In a flash, he was again the boy who liked football. I was flabbergasted.Who was I up against? Who were these people who were furious one moment, placid the next. I looked at the boy in amazement, at the sabre he had now lowered, and his eyes which were recovering that disturbing acuteness that had made me so ill at ease.
    He threw me even more when he said, in a moderate, even conciliatory tone, ‘You mustn’t take me for an idiot. It isn’t good. I may not look up to much, but I have my self-respect.’
    ‘I’m sorry. I wasn’t trying to be unpleasant—’
    ‘Shut up. Just because I’m not shouting doesn’t mean I’m not angry. Stop amusing yourself by taking me for a fool. Joma says that white people think Africans have mush for brains. But they’re wrong … We’re just as intelligent as you, even if you’re more calculating than the devil.’
    He sat down again, placed his sabre on its side, brought his knees up to his chest, folded his arms over them and was still. Only his jaws continued to move. I wondered if he was entirely in his right mind or if he was a brilliant actor.
    After a long silence, he looked up and said, ‘Do you think Beckenbauer’s still alive?’
    I thought it best not to restart the conversation.
     
    The following day, it was another boy who brought us food. Blackmoon didn’t set foot in the cave again. I saw him from time to time, passing the cave entrance, but not once did he lift his eyes in my direction.
    In the afternoon, Hans at last emerged from his lethargy. Standing on his unsteady legs, shivering with fever andhunger, he tried desperately to free himself of his chains.
    ‘What’s the matter?’ I said.
    He was unable to utter a sound. He stared in terror at a corner of the cave while his Adam’s apple leapt in his throat. His voice emerged, quavery and unrecognisable.
    ‘A snake … There’s a snake over there …’
    I thought he was hallucinating, then, following his gaze, I noticed a shadow moving a few paces from us. My blood froze. A conical head the size of a hand glided over a stone; a snake more than three metres long, plump and hideous, had wriggled out of a crack, its eyes shining through the gloom. Hans started screaming for help.
    ‘Whatever you do, don’t move!’ said a guard alerted by Hans’s cries for help.
    The snake slid over a bump on the ground and, attracted by the cries, came towards us, its tongue quivering. I was petrified with horror. The reptile lifted its head as far as Hans’s belt, then recoiled; I closed my