Concerto to the Memory of an Angel by Éric-Emmanuel Schmitt Page B

to stick around to see it.”
    â€œYou don’t believe in redemption?”
    â€œWhat you talking about?”
    Six feet away, hanging on every word, Axel was finding it harder and harder to breathe. He withdrew further into his hiding place to eavesdrop.
    â€œYou can change your destiny, Karim. A thief can become an honest man, a murderer can come to realize that he has done wrong and never do it again. Karim, you may have started out with vandalism, pillaging, break-ins and dealing in heroin, but that doesn’t mean you can’t learn to behave well. The proof is that you disgust your own self. A really bad person thinks he is good. Just as a real jerk doesn’t even know he’s a jerk. You see, you’ve already moved up to the next category. I have faith in you, Karim. You have my word, I will help you all the way if I can.”
    They fell silent. Karim warmed himself with the hot chocolate, but also with Chris’s words.
    To avoid appearing sentimental, to keep strong—according to his criteria—he maintained his rebellious stance: “Who are you? Why do you care what happens to me? You’re not my brother!”
    â€œNot directly.”
    â€œWhat’s that supposed to mean?”
    â€œThat I can feel like your brother even if I’m not your blood brother.”
    â€œBozo! You can only be brothers through blood, and the rest is just bull.”
    â€œOh really? Because you’ve never seen brothers fighting or hating each other in your neighborhood? And what about you and your family, what have your brothers done for you?”
    â€œThey’re too little, I’m the oldest.”
    â€œAnd you want to do away with yourself. Smart move, the ideal older brother!”
    â€œThat’s enough . . . it’s my business what I do.”
    â€œExactly. Do you know the story of the two brothers, Cain and Abel?”
    â€œSure, it’s in the Koran.”
    â€œIn the Bible, too. They were the sons of Adam and Eve and they lived together without a hitch until the famous quarrel about the offerings. Abel gave God the products of his activity as a breeder—no doubt an ox and sheep—while Cain, as a farmer, offered fruit and vegetables. Now God for no apparent reason accepted Abel’s gift but refused Cain’s. You know life can be that way, unfair, unpredictable, never the same. You just have to accept it. So Cain, who was very proud, didn’t accept it, went into a rage and rebelled. God told him off and advised him to calm down. No way! In a fit of rage Cain killed his brother Abel because he was jealous. At the scene of the crime, but too late, God asked him why. Cain just laughed and said, ‘Am I my brother’s keeper?’ Well yes, he was, but he didn’t realize that, he hadn’t thought about the great human family. Every man is responsible for every other man, for his brother and all the others. If you kill someone, it means you’re forgetting that. If you’re violent, you’re forgetting. I don’t want to forget anymore: I am your keeper, Karim, and I won’t let you down. And you are the keeper of your little brothers: not only must you not abandon them, but you must help them, too.”
    â€œOkay . . . and then what?”
    â€œGod sent Cain far away to a land where he had to work; he was eaten away by guilt, and he had children; all humanity up until Noah is said to stem from his descendents. Which goes to show that violence doesn’t stop you from getting ahead. And, above all, that there is no life without violence, you just have to learn to restrain it.”
    â€œWhen I said, ‘and then what?’ I wasn’t talking about Cain, I was talking about myself!”
    â€œYou come back with me, you trust me, and you trust yourself. Maybe you will turn into the person you really are, the real Karim, not the Karim the hoods in your neighborhood have turned you