Brussels Noir Page 9

  The filmmaker is poised to revolt. From every corner of the house, the guests observe him warily.

  “Eight years ago, tragedy struck our family,” says K. “We lost one of our own under horrible circumstances. He left home and began visiting people who claimed to worship our God, but were nothing at all like us! We’ve all read the Koran, we have kneeled before God in prayer, but he kneeled before other mortals who have networks right here, in Brussels. Imposters of the faith preying on the youth groups and Koranic schools of our neighborhood, they stole from us one of our bravest sons. The only time we had news of him, it was to learn of his death in a suicide attack in London, eight years ago. This loss was the most difficult of all to mourn. For the first time, we did not even know how to comprehend a death. Not only had he put an end to his life—already difficult to accept, considering our beliefs—but he’d done so in the worst way imaginable: by turning his own body into a bomb, and using it to murder as many people as possible. And so we were forced to ask ourselves a seemingly simple but essential question: what really happened between the father, the son, and God, on that night when the father, in order to prove his faith, agreed to sacrifice his son, and when, at the last moment, convinced of the father’s devotion, God sent him a ram and allowed him to sacrifice the animal instead? This myth, common to the three religions of the Book, whose protagonists are Abraham/Ibrahim and Isaac/Ismael . . .” K. is joined by another man of around forty, elegantly dressed. “We have always deplored the recourse to violence,” the man says, coming to K’s side. “But the day when one of our own strapped a bomb to his back, we were suddenly in a position to see this act for what it was. The fog cleared and we had, before our eyes, the truth of what it means to send a son to his death while invoking the name of God, like these ‘peddlers of Islam’ who recruited our cousin!”

  “Can you begin to see, now,” asks K., “why his death cast us back to that night when Abraham, on the point of sacrificing Isaac, was deterred by God’s provision of the ram? Abraham sees this sacrifice as a supreme act of love: to give to God what he loves most in the world. This aspect is crucial. And God, seeing him sincere, is satisfied with the intention alone. In the history of myths and symbols, stained by centuries of human sacrifice from the Aztecs to the Romans, Abraham’s renunciation of Isaac’s sacrifice should have marked the immemorial end of human sacrifice, certainly in the name of God. Yet the plague of suicide and violence continues to spread, and there is no longer an end in sight. They are dying by the thousands, in the prime of life, convinced that their act has its place in the divine order. Not only do they go where God Himself spared Abraham from going, but the essence of the ritual is annihilated: the act of love is transformed into an act of hate. God gave us a means of renouncing this violence and protecting those we love, and we have desecrated it.”

  “The ram in the myth of the sacrifice . . .”

  “The scapegoat, yes. The Feast of the Sacrifice was supposed to be a reminder of this pact, and as Muslims, we were the last to assume the duty of honoring it. But look at the world: is it not full of the bloody evidence of this betrayal? What purpose does the festival serve if the pact itself is broken, if the reconciliation it was supposed to offer has been undone? Terrorism, then, would appear to be only the most spectacular symptom of what is, in reality, the slow death of our dogmas and our rites, the spiritual collapse of our world. Our violence weakens us, makes a mockery of our hopes for the future! Born of the agendas of politicians and religious leaders, it has escaped their grasp and become a monstrous ballet of violence, without rhyme or reason, without nation or God!” “But that’s a horrible—” “It could be worse! And if Abraham had killed his son? If God had left us to murder one another? Would not this version of the myth be truer to our world? There would be no more betrayal, for God would already have abandoned us; our religions would have lied to us in order to hide the atrocious truth: that there is no redemption.”

  K. stands, and the others follow him. Through the large windows, the father’s solitary silhouette can be seen standing at the back of the garden. He’s waiting for them to join him. Moving closer to the camera, K. asks:

  “How are we going to survive this?” “I must leave here. I’m not ready—” “What could it mean to you, atheist, nonbeliever, delivered of all spiritual concern? Why did you come here, if only to feed your contempt? Why did you follow me, if only to profit from what you despise?”

  “I am still trying to conceive of what all this has been leading to, from the moment K. offered to lend me money, when I hear the call to prayer. I say, ‘Aziz Allah,’ as is the custom when the call rises from the minarets, this call that makes all of us equal before God. It has been years since I last prayed or set foot in a mosque, but I have never been able to remain unmoved by this chant. Well recited, it can make the soul tremble. K.’s father bursts into the prayer and carries it beautifully.”

  * * *

  The sequence that follows left the police no choice but to contact the Turkish Islamic authority of Brussels. In this European capital, one-fifth of the population is Muslim. The Turkish Muslim community, regulated by the Diyanet, an advising body of the Turkish Minister of the Interior, is the most active religious group. The mosque is located on the chaussée de Haecht in the Saint-Josse municipality, at the heart of the neighborhood known as Little Turkey—where everything is, in fact, alaturka: from the grocery stores, bakeries, restaurants, and pizzerias, to the travel agencies and brokerage firms. In the weeks leading up to the Feast of the Sacrifice, one of the Diyanet’s most time-consuming tasks is collecting donations for Muslims who lack the means to pay for the holiday meal, often those living in faraway countries. We—myself and the investigators following the case—are desperate to stop this from happening again in just a few hours, this rite we have witnessed, incredulous and . . . not disgusted, for it goes beyond revulsion. And the imam we’ve summoned is every bit as stunned. We are in urgent need of his wisdom, but the man remains speechless.

  And here is that final sequence, which for me brought together atrocity and comprehension. We are in the cellar; a wavering brightness like firelight enters through the small, round window. In this flickering light, the walls are like those of a cave on which platonic shadows dance—the shadows of K. and his mother, the former crouching, the latter standing and pouring water from an earthenware jar over her son’s head (we can hear it lapping in the basin where K. sits). She has resigned herself to her role: to accompany her child. To make sure that he’ll smell sweetly when the angels breathe him in. She washes him and prays—her voice faintly echoing the ethereal prayer that reaches us from the garden, where the father leads the family in reciting the blessing. A close-up at waist level shows K. pushing his hair off his forehead so that we can look into his green eyes.

  “If God truly did send the ram to Abraham, then, by our bombings and our disregard for the divine order, we have broken the pact, and we must pay for our carelessness. If God did not send the ram, then the present form of the ritual is still void, and our faith demands that we honor what was asked of us: an act of supreme love, the gift of what is most precious to us.” The water from the jar washes away all tension from his face. “In mythology, that which is sacrificed is always of great value. If it is an animal, it must be in good health. If it is an object, it must be a treasure. If it is a child, it must be the favorite child. If a human group relies on these members to perpetuate itself, to sacrifice them is to forfeit its greatest chance at survival. Those who preceded me were not chosen at random. By sacrificing them, we know we are denying our family its most fertile elements and allowing it to perish. We accept this, and, in so doing, reveal the work of violence in this desecrated world: to deprive humanity of what should assure its permanence. You see: it all makes sense. You film, I confess. Like the candidates for martyrdom, like my cousin . . . each of us prepares his own death.” He takes his mother’s hand. “Do not blame my parents. You’ll always be welcome here. And do not
blame me. I don’t matter anymore. Tonight, I am every man and every man is me. When I join my father and lie down before him, my neck bare, I will be all the sons of the earth. And believe me, their suffering will cause me more pain than the knife!”

  Outside, the prayer grows more fervent, as though the family were reaching a state of trance.

  * * *

  We see a wide-angle shot of the garden and its occupants. Earlier, the air was misty because of the heat and the heavy rains. But the evening sky is clear, limpid: the garden is lit by flaming braziers planted in the ground. The sheep, now eight in number, pass beneath a tree.

  The assembly of nearly fifty men and women stand with their backs to the camera. The angle and the distance from the subjects add to the sense of voyeurism. The prayer is drawing to an end. They’re waiting for the one who must come, as the ram came to deliver humanity, or so we long believed. It’s K. who comes. He stops at the edge of the garden. We see his legs and his bare feet. His parents, his uncles and aunts—his family—turn toward him. K.’s feet sink into the grass, into the earth, still humid from the morning rain. He is as naked as he was on his first day, his body as white as a cloud, as the sheep that have become his family’s sons. The father contemplates his child as he walks among his own. Some hold out their hands. K. touches them lightly. His father welcomes him into his arms. And we watch, from a distance maintained by the camera, as the family slowly closes in around father and son. “The knife must be perfectly cleaned and sharpened. Otherwise, the blade will tear at the flesh. And the victim will suffer longer than is necessary.” “The sacrifice is an ordeal, then?” “Death is never a bed of roses. Even if it is desired. Even if it is justified . . .”

  6.

  I spent a whole year with these images, watching and rewatching them, editing them, searching for the meaning in each shot, asking myself over and over how to put them to use. And all this time I continued, on the surface, to lead the life I had known before my encounter with K. Beating my fists against the glass walls of a coffin of solitude, not knowing how or with whom to share what I knew, finally turning to the only ones in a position to understand me—K.’s family, which became my own. Today is the Feast of the Sacrifice. At dawn, I went to the Anderlecht abattoir. I examined the sheep. Choosing one’s animal is an art in itself. This sheep must not stand out from the eight others in the garden, just as my portrait must appear in its proper place next to K’s. Each of us prepares his own death, he said, guiding me carefully toward his own. It’s the Feast of the Sacrifice but now more than ever, a mournful holiday; seated beside K.’s father, facing YouTube, I tremble, appalled: a hooded specter, all in black, cuts the throat of a man in orange clothing. For love of God, Abraham/Ibrahim was prepared to offer Him his child. What do these butchers of the self-proclaimed Islamic State believe they are accomplishing in the name of Allah? Claiming to lead us back to the origins of Islam, they have nothing to offer God but their own hatred and blindness, and the martyred souls of the brothers they mistake for their worst enemies. They betray us all, and will not be forgiven. We are hopelessly right, says K.’s father. And we so hopelessly long to be mistaken. The force of our love has become a force of hatred. And hatred will never win the approval of the gods.

  PART II

  Sur(realism)

  A Fraction of a Second

  BY PAUL COLIZE

  Palais de Justice

  I pull up the collar of my raincoat and set out across place Poelaert under a driving rain. In spite of the downpour, I can’t help stopping in the middle of the square.

  It stands before me.

  A hundred meters tall, the building looms over the Marolles district and seems to challenge wrongdoers.

  By spending so much time within its walls, I’ve finally come to know some of its secrets.

  For several years, it’s been covered in scaffolding to the point of appearing disfigured. The renovation was started without a permit and is now at the center of an interminable legal battle. A rather surreal situation, considering that it’s supposed to be the emblem of our justice system.

  I’m soaked to the skin, but I stand still, facing my old enemy. This morning, it appears to me in a new light.

  A gust of wind sweeps across the square.

  My eyes blur with water.

  * * *

  There were three of them.

  If it hadn’t been for the screams coming from every direction, I might have found them amusing, with their long coats and carnival masks.

  They burst into the supermarket a few minutes before closing, the Giant leading the way. He yelled out an order and they scattered. One made a break for the cash registers, the other ran down an aisle toward the back of the store. The Giant came right for us in slow, measured steps.

  My father stayed calm, as if he knew what was about to happen. He pointed to the space beneath a shelf. “Under there!”

  I obeyed. I got down on my knees and crawled in between the rows of bottles.

  He smiled weakly at me. “It’ll be okay—” His words were lost in a hail of gunfire. He disappeared from my field of vision, as if he’d been wrested away by some superhuman force.

  The Giant drew nearer.

  I was terrified. I could see only the bottom of his khaki coat, his boots, and the barrel of his gun. He leaned toward me.

  For a fraction of a second, I glimpsed his eyes through the holes in his mask. An ineffable gleam shone in his pupils.

  He raised the barrel of his gun.

  More cries rang out as a series of shots sounded from the other end of the store. I hugged my rag doll to my chest and closed my eyes.

  * * *

  I climb the broad, imposing staircase.

  When I come to the top, I make my way through the forest of columns and down one of the passages. I walk through the glass door into the main hall, so vast it’s dizzying.

  The month of May has brought the first tourists of the season. A group of them gathers around a guide whose voice echoes through the cavernous space.

  I recognize Maarten’s accent. He’s from Anderlecht and speaks seven or eight languages. I’ve crossed paths with him many times in my comings and goings here; he knows the place like the back of his hand, has explored its every nook and cranny. When he’s not in Brussels, he leads tours through the canals of Bruges, the Citadel of Namur, or the Waterloo battlefield.

  He likes to throw numbers out at his audience, rolling his r’s for effect. “This building covers a surface area of twenty-six-thousand square meters; it is more vast than the place Saint-Pierre in Rome. Unveiled in 1883, it was the largest edifice built in the world in the nineteenth century. It has 245 rooms including this one, the main hall. The dome measures 104 meters from the ground and spans over 3,600 square meters.”

  Each superlative elicits murmurs of admiration.

  I check my watch. According to the plan, I have an hour left to wait. The longest one.

  * * *

  Later, after more cries, after more gunfire, after the blaring of sirens and the patter of footsteps, a policeman crouched down and lifted me out of my hiding place.

  He was pale and his voice quavered. “Come on, little one.”

  I was still hugging my rag doll. The man wrapped a blanket around me and took me in his arms. I wanted to look back over my shoulder at the place where my father had been standing just before he disappeared, but he covered my eyes with his hand.

  At the end of the aisle, a man was slumped on the ground, back to the wall. His T-shirt was bloodstained and he breathed with difficulty. A pinkish foam dribbled out of his mouth and nose.

  I left with the policeman. An indescribable chaos reigned outside. Police cars were parked all around the building, revolving lights flashing. People were talking rapidly, screaming, crying. They said certain words over and over.

  Poor little girl.

  The mad killers.

  The policeman fought his way through the crowd. I held onto his shoulder and buried
my head in his neck.

  On that night of September 27, 1985, I didn’t know who these people were talking about. I didn’t know who the Mad Killers of Brabant were. I had no idea that earlier in the evening they had murdered three people, and just now five more.

  Including my father.

  * * *

  Apart from the cluster of tourists hanging on Maarten’s every word, only a few people are milling about in the hall, some accompanied by their lawyers, their footsteps resounding on the marble floor, their black robes floating around them.

  I head toward the tables lining the perimeter. They’re equipped with antique lamps that cast a dull glow around the lawyers who pore over their dossiers.

  I find a corner table, behind the newspaper stand. An elderly couple is seated at the table beside me. They lean toward each other and whisper, their hands covering their faces.

  Standing beneath the dome, Maarten gesticulates like a Shakespearian actor. “Someone dubbed it the acropolis of Brussels. The building has ninety-four stone staircases, with 4,320 steps in total. The forty-one wooden staircases have 630 steps, and the twenty-nine new iron staircases have 991. A smaller replica of this courthouse was built in Lima, the capital of Peru.”

  I shiver.

  * * *

  In the days that followed, I was approached by many people. Most of them spoke gently to me, without ever raising their voices.

  They asked me how I was doing. They wanted me to speak about my experience, to exorcize the images that haunted me. They said that it would do me good, that I would feel better afterward. Others wanted me to tell them about the Giant, to describe what I’d seen, to give them details.

  I said nothing. Only my mother saw me cry a few silent tears. Cut off from everyone else, I thought of my father, of his last smile, his last words.