BooksBarbecue
Back The Double
Chapters (63)
  1. 1
  2. 2
  3. 3
  4. 4
  5. 5
  6. 6
  7. 7
  8. 8
  9. 9
  10. 10
  11. 11
  12. 12
  13. 13
  14. 14
  15. 15
  16. 16
  17. 17
  18. 18
  19. 19
  20. 20
  21. 21
  22. 22
  23. 23
  24. 24
  25. 25
  26. 26
  27. 27
  28. 28
  29. 29
  30. 30
  31. 31
  32. 32
  33. 33
  34. 34
  35. 35
  36. 36
  37. 37
  38. 38
  39. 39
  40. 40
  41. 41
  42. 42
  43. 43
  44. 44
  45. 45
  46. 46
  47. 47
  48. 48
  49. 49
  50. 50
  51. 51
  52. 52
  53. 53
  54. 54
  55. 55
  56. 56
  57. 57
  58. 58
  59. 59
  60. 60
  61. 61
  62. 62
  63. Acknowledgements

‘In that terrible frame of mind,’ Malik continued, lying back and closing his eyes, ‘I wandered the streets, feeling like pond scum, wondering if it wouldn’t be better to pack up and leave the city for good. Not knowing of course that, a few days later, I would be drawn into the Seine by the sadistic boy who’d been trying for months to annihilate my very soul.

The sun streamed through the bright green leaves as I walked and walked, not knowing where I was headed. When I turned a corner, sick with despair and weak with hunger, I looked up to see a man coming out of the cinema.’ He paused. ‘A man came out of a cinema. Such a simple thing. But not in this case.’

He opened his eyes and looked at the ceiling. ‘That man was my father.’

Malik gave Gessen a sad smile. ‘All this time you’ve been anxious to meet the man himself, and here he is at last. Exhibit A: The man who betrayed his own people, during the war of independence, in an act of despicable treachery. Villages razed to the ground, countless innocents slaughtered. The man who terrorised me as a child. The man I was told had died when I was twelve.’

He examined Gessen’s face, hoping for a flicker of disgust, or even surprise, but Gessen’s eyes, etched with deep lines at the corners, showed only sorrow. Perhaps he had guessed long ago. As the two men faced each other, Malik – or was he Vidor now? – couldn’t help but wonder how far they had travelled. Having lost track of the game, what had become of the king? Was it check or checkmate? Sheikh or sheikh mat? Dead or alive, what did it matter? In his soul where it counted, he had been dead for a very long time.

As a pain stabbed his temple, he squeezed his head between his hands, and a wave of nausea knocked him flat. Someone – or something – grabbed him by the throat and choked him with an iron grip. As the walls closed in and he struggled to breathe, a shadow fell upon him and everything went dark.

* * *

The journey home was a blur of green and white and grey. Above ground and below, he passed through a maze of tunnels, black as pitch, but they had lost the power to frighten him. How strange that such gloom, deep underground, could bring him moments of peace. He yearned for nothing more than to lie down in that darkness and sleep for eternity.