I had already read Rachel’s diary over and over and I had found out a lot of stuff, but holding Papa’s medals, his military record, in my own hands, seeing the names, the documents, the stamps on them with my own eyes really fucked me up. I felt sick. This meant Papa was a Nazi war criminal, he would have been hanged if they’d ever caught up with him, but at the same time it didn’t mean anything. I refused to believe it, I clung to something else, something truer, fairer, he was our father, we are his sons, we bear his name. He was a good man, devoted to his village, loved and respected by everyone, he fought for the independence of his country, for the liberation of a people. He was a soldier, I thought, he was just obeying orders, orders he probably didn’t understand, orders he didn’t agree with. The leaders were the guilty ones, they knew how to manipulate people, get them to do things without understanding what they were doing, without thinking. Besides, I thought, why stir up all this shit now? Papa was dead, his throat cut like a sheep at Aïd, murdered along with Maman and all their neighbours by real criminals, by the most brutal bastards the earth has ever produced, criminals who are supported, cheered on, even helped by people in Algeria and all over the world, they speak at the UN, they have ads on TV, they insult whoever they like, whenever they like, like the imam in the mosque in Block 17, always jabbing his finger to heaven trying to scare people, to stop them thinking for themselves. I can understand Rachel’s pain, his whole world falling apart, I can understand why he felt guilty, tainted, why he felt that somehow, somewhere, someone had to atone. Rachel was the one to atone, though he had never hurt anyone in his life.