The Caliphate, André Gallo [best books to read ever .TXT] 📗

instinctively, she turned and ran from the kitchen, through the dark hallway and out the door of the apartment.

     She pushed past neighbors who had assembled on the landing and took the steps down several at a time despite her bulky clothing, aware that her life depended upon getting to the street before Hamad caught up with her.

     Kella reached the street-level hallway, still breathing with difficulty. She ran toward the entrance but was stopped by four hefty men bringing large boxes into the building. The entrance was blocked from side to side by heavy looking cardboard containers. One was more than halfway inside and two men were struggling with another. Kella briefly wondered if she could get over the container but was instantly convinced that she could not. She looked around and saw a wood and glass door in the back of the lobby. She ran to it but could not see through the greenish opaque glass. She feared another dead end, but she nevertheless turned the white porcelain handle and found herself in a narrow corridor that led out to a small courtyard. She jogged past garbage cans and entered a corridor similar to the one she had just left and reached the front hallway of the building next door. She kept moving and reached the sidewalk.

     She nearly lost her balance when she saw the movers who had blocked her exit in front of Faridah’s building and barely managed to turn course and run the other way. After a few steps, she realized she had no idea how to get back to the Metro. On the way to the apartment, she had been talking and had paid little attention to direction, expecting that Faridah would guide her back.

     But Faridah was dead—dead!

     The thought and the word shocked her. She looked back for Hamad but did not see him, just a crowded sidewalk with working people going about their daily routine. Kella’s scarf came undone and she first tried to put it back on, but decided after a few steps that the effort was slowing her down so she crumpled it into her left hand as she ran. The images she had just witnessed were seared in her mind―Hamad’s face a nightmarish demon’s mask; Faridah bleeding and screaming; the knife plunging into Faridah’s body. She was now only fifty yards away from Faridah’s building and already breathing hard.

     She ran around a corner, slowed to a walk and put her scarf back on. No one seemed to be paying any particular attention to her. She scanned the street for a taxi and tried to get her bearings. No taxis in sight. She glanced at her watch wondering if Steve would still be at the Basilica and was surprised that less than twenty minutes had elapsed since she and Steve had separated at the Metro station. She glanced at the Tuareg tattoo on the back of her right hand wistfully and looked up hoping to spot the Basilica’s spires but the street was too narrow and its buildings, while not particularly high, were still too tall to enable her to see anything beyond them.

     What she did notice for the first time was the number of young Arab men on the streets, in small groups. Most had a cigarette protruding defiantly from the corner of their mouths as if each was an Ali La Pointe, the small-time thief who had become the psychopathic hero of the movie The Battle of Algiers, and all with no particular place to go. Every Arab male on the street seemed like another Hamad, full of anger ready to erupt if provoked. She saw a sign for the Basilica and she hastened her steps in that direction, consciously avoiding eye contact with any of the loiterers.

     She came to an intersection that broadened her line-of-sight, and saw the market she had passed after leaving the Metro. As she crossed the street she noticed a man walking quickly, half running, in her direction. He seemed to be searching over and around the people in front of him. She did not get a close enough look to determine if it was Hamad. Instead she stayed close to the other pedestrians crossing the street, using them as concealment.

     At the open-air market, she stopped briefly at a stall and bought a long dark-gray scarf, to change her appearance a bit from the beacon of a bright white scarf she had worn earlier. As she completed her purchase, she spotted Hamad. He was scanning the market. Kella moved behind a display of Damascene tablecloths. With the intention of appearing to be just another shopper, she examined the material. She could no longer see Hamad and she directed her steps toward the Metro beyond the Hotel de Ville.

     As she detached herself from the crowd at the market, Hamad reappeared, now running toward her. Spurred by energy born of desperation, Kella also started running. She looked for a policeman, but the police were wherever the absent cab drivers had gone. Kella, who had considered going straight for the Metro, veered to the right toward the Basilica.

     She realized that she would have no protection from Hamad’s violence in the Metro unless a gendarme showed up or unless she could hop on a departing metro with quickly closing doors, both unlikely to happen. The Basilica had Steve and Catholic priests who, in her mind, stood for safety and sanctuary. Further, there would be tourists, Westerners, visiting the necropolis of the French Kings. All in all, the environment would be more protective. She raced to the front doors of the church and went in.

     She took a breath and got her bearings. She was in the middle of a thin crowd that was starting to disperse. A mass must have just ended. Two priests stood in the back of the church, not far from the main entrance,