‘I Really Feel as if I’ve Vanished’ : Algeria: An editor writes to his terrorist assassins.

I must begin by addressing a few words to the terrorists. First, they don’t make my work any easier. No, not at all. And it is already complicated enough without them. Each day that God creates, I wrack my brains to write my daily column, to find an entertaining subject and give it that light and witty cast that my readers expect from me, as if all I have to do is pull it out of a drawer. In short, I live a daily torture so painful that I wonder how the terrorists are able to ignore it. Have they no humorists in their ranks who can empathize with a colleague?

Consider this, for example: On two occasions, several shots were fired at me. At this rate, they’ll succeed in killing me, don’t you think? And this is something that I must drive home with the terrorists--tell them that their little game is fatal. Perhaps they are unaware that the bullets in their pistols can actually hurt and kill.

If only that were all I had to tell them. Do you suppose they know that they’re causing problems between me and my wife, my lover and faithful companion of 20 years? Why? Simply because I have not managed to convince my better half that if, on certain nights, I fail to return to my conjugal abode, it is simply out of prudence.

Another thing: Sometimes I have to do acrobatics to elude the eyes of the moles who study my habits on the terrorists’ behalf. When, for example, I cover my tracks by walking backward toward my house to make it look like I’ve gone out. Or when I do the opposite to make it look like I’ve come home. I don’t know whether this ruse has successfully thrown off the enemy, but my bizarre behavior has attracted the attention of the neighbors, who have recommended to my wife that she get me examined by a psychiatrist. I must admit that often when I’m engaged in these acrobatics, I get disoriented, forgetting for the moment if I’m going home and just pretending that I am leaving, or vice versa.

And there is one thing I want the terrorists to know most of all. On the advice of friends concerned about my safety, I’ve altered my physical appearance by changing a few details. I shaved my mustache, cut my hair very short and replaced my glasses with contact lenses. If you could only see the effect, I have become simply unrecognizable. In the street, no one notices me any more. No more fond gestures or nice words. Nothing. I really feel as if I’ve vanished, as if I’m dead. Sometimes this feeling is so intense and overpowering that I open the paper to see if my assassination has been announced.

Translated from the French by Marle Hammond.