The Red Beard by Achouri Fethi
Chapter 1
It was during a trip I have made from my native town to the capital. Early in the morning, I prepared my luggage and had my brief and poor breakfast. After a while, I took all what I had to carry with me and got out rapidly to reach the bus station in time. As everybody knew at that bleak and bloody decade in my country, youths called to military service had to get the barracks about 8 o’clock if not they might be tried and automatically imprisoned. Consequently, I was aware about and wasted no time in order to avoid this horrid situation. “God save me and be with me along this perilous journey,” I said to myself with a sad and a broken voice. All my family members were there to encourage me and wish me a good luck in my trip. Unfortunately, my father was not there for he could not bear the farewell of his beloved and unique son.
bni...bni...come here my son...i'll never leave you alone...you'll be the lion I'll be proud of all my life....show me your work...ah...ah...I understood....you fled the school...your sisters will laugh at you longingly...tell me that you love me...ah ...ok you're really shy...I'll dye if one day you leave me alone....
However, I was certain that he was thinking about me wherever he existed and was enough wise to prevent this gloomy event.
My two little sisters were crying and tempting to reach my cheeks and kiss me whereas my grand sister and mum kept secretly their tears and tried to convey me their affection through strange glances full of gloom and fear. My mother did not want my leaving because she often heard the bloody stories of the killed youths in their way to the barracks where they would have confronted a harder fate if they could escape the captivity of monstrous, bloodthirsty and merciless terrorists. She feared both fate and destiny but was more faithful and so patient to support her superstitious thoughts. Finally, she moved closer to me and kissed my head cordially with strangely neither tears nor broken breath as mothers do usually in this kind of situations.
As soon as I received my mother’s kisses and hugs, the taxi driver shouted me and asked me to get into. It was an unbearable moment which none could support and accept. However, I was conscious that showing her the leaving’s impact on me, would probably hurt her and made her fears appear again. It took only a second to get into the taxi in order to avoid such a harmful feeling. Through the glaze, I saw their dead faces and their collapsed bodies and minds, yet no one could express it by a simple word. Everyone was thinking of my unknown destiny and of the so-called ambush in which several youths had already fallen and thus had of course been beheaded with no exception...
A salafiste group has claimed responsibility for Wednesday's two attacks on the road linking Blida to Algiers that the state-run news agency Algerie Presse Service said killed at least 24 soldiers and wounded 45 others new soldiers in their way to their intended barracks....
A spokesman for al GIA in the Tell (North Algeria) made the claim in a telephone call to Arabic news channel Al-Jazeera, the broadcaster said.
An Islamist Pamphlet that has carried statements and photoes from al GIA and other terrorist organizations posted a claim that described three attacks allegedly carried out by "three martyrdom seekers of the Lions of Islam" -- members of al GIA ....
I could notice only my mother who kept looking at me without apparent emotion whereas my sisters could no longer show their courage and their hidden vulnerability in such an event. The taxi was getting further and both my family and my house appeared rather little than I had left it few seconds ago. Whatever the gloom I felt, I was constrained to accept that fatal farewell and forget everything could remind me the years I had passed with my lovely family.
After a while, I reached the bus station where more than twenty youths were waiting as well as me the same fate to which we were faced, holding their heavy luggage and looking for the exact bus. Everyone was sinking in deep thoughts about what would have been waiting him either in his way to the capital or in the barracks if he had got safe.
I spent a whole afternoon waiting for the bus carrying out to the capital but unfortunately, nothing came. Because we had been told that the bus should take so longer, youths began to get worry. Although, I was extremely convinced that it was about to arrive. After a short moment, one of the future soldiers cried loudly “Here is the bus! There it’s coming!” .Here, I felt something stranger invading both my soul and my mind, and heard an unknown voice telling me that a frightening event would occur. Yet, I paid attention neither to the invading thing nor to the unknown voice. Therefore, I handed my luggage and moved towards the bus taking off from my mind everything either could sow terror in me or maybe tried to make me give up. Moreover, I was absolutely determined to overwhelm this adventure, even if I knew that the way to
Before getting the bus, a twenty-year-old young man approached me and asked me, as I was apparently ten years older than he was, “Is this bus going to the capital?” .“Of course this is!” I replied. “And at what time has it to depart?” he asked. “It may be after twenty minutes, when the driver comes back from the restaurant.”. Here I noted that this innocent youth would play the main role in my journey and his face would be familiar to me for longer time. He was the only youth among the other who still waited the coming of the driver. The worst that could be said of him was that he did not resemble to the other youths as their minds were of the stay-at-home kind and their bodies were not said to support such an adventure. Unlike them, Mohammed seemed too determined to challenge any difficulty would face him in his fatal choice and defy the less danger waiting him at any point he had to pass through.
At last, the sun sank low, and its brightness changed to a dull red with neither rays nor heat, as if it would never be back again and none of us would contemplate its shining magic the following day. The crowd rushed towards the bus as the driver appeared from the restaurant’s entrance. However, Mohammed did not hurry for he knew that there were enough places to sit on and for the bus fitted well our number. Suddenly, I began to feel uneasy and little disturbed because I was not used to such long trips and because there was something ominous in the atmosphere. I felt a strange and deadly coldness but after Mohammed had put his hand on my shoulder, I got warmer and was sure that this adventure would have a smiling side that I had never expected before.
In about forty seconds, I found myself inside the bus with my lovely friend, who, full of cleverness and sympathy made me feel rather better than the few earlier moments. While Mohammed and I were exchanging information about each other, Ami Issa drove away and asked us for taking ease for it was night and for the trip would be too long.
The twenty-one future soldiers, who had just begun the adventure, left many souvenirs and regrets behind them. The ideas of being with their families and that of the life with no concern changed very quickly as the bus drove out Guelma. Furthermore, they were not taking into account the political conflict between the government and the rebels and even more were not holding the concept of Muslims killing each other. However, Mohammed was the only one who, as a youth of high mind and pure heart, recognized chivalrously the claims of fighting the so-called Islamists warriors and was obviously against any faulty interpretations of the Holly Book “Koran”. Those interpretations had already led several youths to choose the mountain “Djebel” and to kill their brothers in faith mercilessly instead of serving in the national army and defending their country against rebels said to be rather from abroad.
Mohammed had been too silent before reaching the first village as if he feared an eventual appearance of terrorists. Suddenly he stood up and said sharply with a broken voice as if he was crying:
“Look at this hill! Here my old brother was slaughtered”
After having said this terrible sentence, everyone felt frightened and began to think of a probable ambush everywhere in the darkness. At that moment, Mohammed withdrew his head from the window and told me to give him some water. The others tried to get explanation to that horrible sentence but he kept silent and asked me again for water. Ami Issa, who seemed to know Mohammed brother’s story, tempted to comfort him by kind words:
“Hey, Moh? Do not mind this, brave friend! Your brother is in the paradise now and he will be forever pride of you if you go on in his honourable way”
As he received these words, which made him feel better, Moh lay down on his seat and took a rest for a while exposing his face to the cajoling and smooth whisper of the air through the window.
Now, I noted why his personality attracted me when I saw him for the first time. No doubt, he, as I thought before, would bear a harmful souvenir of his beloved brother and that emotion appeared clearly in his eyes. As soon as I learned the Moh’s truth, I began again to think about the unknown fate waiting us and was firmly sure that we maybe should live a great adventure and probably with God’s grace and mercy, we might be safe. Then that adventure might belong to history if we knew how to manage.
It was about seven o’clock and the fallen sun seemed to keep above the horizon as if it wanted to last forever to let us enjoy more light and forget about the coming darkness for a while. Moh was still asleep, and then I did not like to awake him because the previous hour was so atrocious and tiring for him. Ami Issa turned back and asked me for water while the others were having their dinner.
In an hour after sunset, the darkness had taken complete possession of earth and heavens. The village had melted into the night and none of us could see it from a long way off. Everybody felt tired and lay dead on his seat except Ami Issa who kept awake and remained seated for a longer time in order to reach sooner the village, and there he would stop and take the needed rest. The landscape got darker and nothing from the close village appeared to us except a weak and glowing spark, which was running by itself and reaching higher the sky. That spark was as much providential as the road became clearer to Ami Issa than before. Then, in few minutes we were at the first house of the village and Ami Issa asked me whether I liked accompany him or I would stay inside to take care of my comrades. After having been hesitating between either going on discovering the mystic village or remaining in the bus waiting for Ami Issa’s return, I finally decided to go along with him but I assured a promise from him to get back soon.
Ami Issa and I could see nothing but we felt people moving that and there and heard them whispering to each other as if they were planning for a secret plot. We neglected everything could make us frightened and followed the weak light emanating from an old shop over the hill. Unlike Ami Issa, I was too afraid but I managed to hide my fear. However, he felt my fear and his tender voice right close to my ear relieved and cleared my troubled thoughts.
“Don’t be afraid! I’m with you and nothing can happen to you!”
“Yes, I know but I’ve never been in such a place, have you?” I asked.
“Yes, of course I have!”
He remained very quiet for a minute and suddenly told me:
“Follow me and don’t say why!”
“But, why?” I said without thinking about what he had told me for I had never faced to this kind of situation.
“I told you, don’t ask me! I know exactly what I have to do,” he replied angrily as if we were about to face death and he intended to be harsh with me because this unexpected event needed to be so.
I followed him with neither word nor even breath as though I had lost both and I said to myself pessimistically “ shall I live another day or will this night be my last one upon earth?”.
He went on running without talking while he was tempting to carry me away for I was tired and for I could not bear escaping no longer. We stumbled along toward the forest, and there, he asked me to stop for a while to take a little rest. Meanwhile, I was thinking about my comrades left in the bus and whether they were safe or they were threatened like us. Suddenly, he addressed me with a voice full of confidence as if he was trying to encourage me for I appeared too frightened:
“Don’t be afraid! Brace yourself and nothing bad will happen”
As soon as I heard his words, a feel of comfort and confidence pervaded my spirit and finally I found again my lost personality and I began to ask him again, about what was happening to us since we had left the bus.
“Please Ami Issa, tell me what has happened”
“Don’t bother yourself asking me, you’ll never understand. It is so complicated to explain and no one can imagine the situation in which we are involved.” He answered me hopelessly and tried to persuade me not to ask any more because I would be shocked by the bitterness of our country’s bleak reality.
It took him one-half an hour to begin talking about people of whom we saw only their shadows. He told me that there were two kinds of rebels and that each one had his own conviction and thoughts towards the government. He told me also that the bearded men he had seen and recognized were those of IAS “the Islamic Army of Salute».Thus, he informed me that this was an organized army, which fought the Algerian government after the IFS’s dissolution as a political party and that it had nothing against the citizens. However, he asserted that the other rebels were said to be too extremists that they allowed to themselves the assassinations they committed only in order to reach their aims. Those extremists belonged to what we called the IAG “the Islamic Armed Group” and their intransigence expressed by their famous claim “No dialogue, no reconciliation, and no truce”.
After having been listening to Ami Issa’s explanation about the Islamic terrorism, I felt more comforted than before and could differentiate between rebels and terrorists. Yet, at the same time, I had been thinking again about the youths left asleep in the bus and wondering if the men with kachabias had reached them.
Several voices muttered everywhere in the forest, “They are here. They are here.”, though, Ami Issa remained static and completely amazed as if he was waiting for at least a word from me. Then, he ordered me to move off toward the cottage where I could wait him until he would join me. Rapidly, I obeyed him and took my way straight to the cottage without asking him about what was happening right now. Even while we are facing a great danger, he kept enough brave and appeared hardly impressed by event as if he was expecting for his friends’ coming. The noise of the guns beating upon my ears was heard with more echo as much as the men approached us.
Ignoring these noises, I went over a long causeway to get across the oued (little river in
Shaking off from my spirit what should have been superstition, I tried to find out a probable entrance but in vain. Every point in the black walls seemed closed and I still wondered to find how impossible was to get into. Nevertheless, I saw a triangular hole at the bottom of one of corners, which seemed too small to allow me get through it but this was somewhat of providence for me. Immediately, I crawled into the hole and found my self in small but lofty room, being empty of anything could have a relationship with life as if its owners had left it long ages ago. From inside, I could notice very small windows underneath the decayed roof with no apparent lamps. On the floor, I saw no prominent objects except two broken plates and an old cooking pan. Three jars hung on the dark walls with a brown drapery mottled entirely with a dry blood as though someone committed a huge massacre in this cottage months ago. Many knives lay scattered about, but managed to give a somewhat terror to the image I had in my mind about what had eventually occurred here. The darkness of the room in which I found myself helped me to hide perfectly from the threatening men but I still wondered how Ami Issa could meet them alone and what would happen to me if they killed him.
Then, through one of the small windows, I managed to look out for the bearded men who arose from the causeway upon which Ami Issa had been lying at full length under a thick tree. They stood for a while side by side, looking round upon the causeway as if they were expecting that someone would appear somewhere until he shouted out a long sentence of which I heard only few words “ don’t shoot! I’m Issa!”
“I see him, here he is” said one of them, who, seeming to be the youngest and the less bearded, came just from backward where he had been busy checking up on the security of the site.
“What are you doing here, Issa?” asked their leader, who, looking the most bearded and seemingly the wisest, tried to help Ami Issa standing up.
“At first, I didn’t recognize you but after I have seen your yellow chachia I told them that Issa was hiding here!” said the leader as if he knew very well Ami Issa.
“I thought you were those dogs of IGA,” answered Ami Issa.
“Never Issa, they are afraid of circulating everywhere after they had committed the diversion of an Airbus of Air
“Yes I heard about it through French channels” added Ami Issa.
“You know Issa? Their members are almost chosen among small criminals of common law and their activities often concern the criminality of common law like extortion, thieving and even rape. Actually, they are smirching the good image of our religion.” Explained the leader with a desolate accent as if he regretted having talked about them.
“Yes, but don’t you think that it’s high time you exterminated them?” asked Ami Issa as though he was involved in their affaires.
“Not yet Issa, we need more time to organize our ranks and more space to move freely.”
I could have heard every word they said but understood only a few. I learned, moreover, at intervals, and through an equivocal conversation another particular feature of the so-called armed groups that they were not only against the national army but against each other as well. However, I regarded Ami Issa with an utter astonishment, and yet I found it impossible to believe that he knew those men. While hanging on the wall and looking at what was happening, I noticed the taller of them scrutinizing the cottage with curious eyes as if he knew that someone was there.
“Who is there? I can see his eyes glittering through the window!” cried the taller moving towards the cottage.
“But whom are you talking about?” asked the chief.
“I’ll seek him out and shoot at him” added the taller.
“Don’t shoot at him! Please Kamel don’t do it, that’s my friend!” begged him Ami Issa.
“Then why might he hide in the cottage if he’s not a suspicious one?” retorted Kamel who, very excited and much determined to kill me, was about to shoot but the words of Ami Issa made him change his decision.
“I recommended him myself to go there!” answered Ami Issa.
“So, how did you know him? And who is he? Where is he from? And what is he doing here?” asked Madani the leader.
“Actually, he’s my nephew and he came with me only to not to feel bored along my road to the capital” answered Ami Issa but seemed more troubled than he met them first.
“Then, where is your bus? I have not seen it!” asked Madani.
“It’s at the village’s entrance. I’ve left it there to get rest and to eat some food in Hakou’s shop.” Responded Ami Issa but still troubled.
“And whom did you leave there?” Asked again Madani.
“Nobody is there! I traveled solely with my nephew!” answered Ami Issa.
“Are you kidding me Issa?” protested Madani.
“Never my friend! I’m not working these days! I just want to go to
“Well! Call for your nephew! Tell him to not to be afraid of us” ordered Madani
“Here he is!” said Ami Issa. Then, I went down the causeway where they all were waiting for me preparing myself to be sentenced to death.
“Well! How are you my son?” asked Madani with a kind way wanting to comfort my fear.
“I’m still alive …that’s the most important for the moment!” I answered but being less troubled than I was in the cottage.
“Why did you say that?” asked me Madani.
“For I thought you were about to execute me!” I said with a voice full of self-confidence and of determination.
“True?” asked Madani gently “but is this man really your uncle?”
“Uncle? … Eh, yes of course he is” I answered but with somewhat hesitation which made Madani doubt my behavior. Though, he paid no attention to his doubts for he had either other matters to care about.
I could then notice that Madani and his fellow soldiers were rather busy seeking for something else than spending more time with us. Thus, immediately, he allowed us to regain the bus and warned us to be as much as careful to avoid any surprising terrorists’ appearance. He said surprising; for the IGA was not a regular army like that of IAS but merely groups of terrorists who relied very often on several ambushes either to capture or to murder whom they encountered. I looked upon the scene before me while the soldiers were leaving off towards the mountain, upon the valley where they were disappearing little by little and upon the bleak landscape of the site which suggested a disagreeable superstition of the mind.
It was completely night when Ami Issa asked me to hurry up in order to reach very quickly the bus for he feared that something might happen to my comrades left asleep in the bus. After having crossed the small valley which was linking the slope of the mountains with the national road, Ami Issa used his lighter to make his bus much clearer for he could no longer distinguish things from each other. There was a period of dead silence while Ami Issa was trying to find his bus out. Although, he vainly managed to visualize his engine in the endless darkness as if it sunk in the depth of the nightmarish landscape; beside the fear we still felt after such an encounter.
“Can you see the bus?” he asked with despair mixed with fear.
“I can almost see you and me!” I answered him and tried to persuade him that the bus was maybe anywhere in the darkness.
“Don’t worry Ami Issa… we’ll find it” I affirmed shudderingly to Ami Issa as I led him from the valley’s bank to the road. While crossing the footbridge which normally leads to the main road, Ami Issa whispered in my ear as if someone were with us “Can you see that light there or am I dreaming?”
“You’re not dreaming Ami Issa! But it seemed a fire rather than a light… Or maybe someone is trying to show us the way… but who can he be?” I replied.
“I cannot dare imagine that the man who holds the fire should belong to the extremists” cried Issa with a somewhat fear and for a time he seemed to be choked of concern.
“did you say extremists?” I asked with a voice full of worry and concern.
“My word! Did I say this?” he answered wanting to convince me that he never said that word, “anyway my son don’t care because I say sometimes things that have no sense…then let us go ahead to discover the source of this fire”
I looked at him, lost in astonishment.
10/10 on 1 vote
Select a rating.
1. Dr harris wordmarth The 08/11/2007 at 15:27
2. Chris melder The 11/08/2008 at 17:16
Make a free website with doomby.com
- Report illegal content
- View other websites in this category : Personal pages