Haxin's Volvo travel van

Hacine’s Volvo station wagon is both the vehicle that carries him back toward Heillange and the concealed transport for his return from Morocco with cannabis resin. At first it is simply a means of solitary travel; at a deserted enterprise zone, its stripped trim and adapted trunk make it part of a carefully executed drug transfer. The change turns an ordinary family-sized car into a working instrument of Hacine’s new pursuit of money.

Identification and Return

The novel introduces the Volvo as Hacine drives home. He has been on the road since morning, alone, and cannot say what color the car is. That small absence of attention makes the vehicle seem less an object of affection than a practical means of getting somewhere: Hacine’s focus is on the journey, not on the car’s appearance.

Near Niort, he leaves the highway for coffee at a Total gas station after driving nonstop. He fills the Volvo with unleaded and throws away a water bottle he has used when he could no longer wait to relieve himself. The bottle, rolling on the passenger-side carpet, records the bodily discomfort of an extended drive in a vehicle that is serving as a private, makeshift space. Hacine obeys the road rules scrupulously and continues home without conversation; the car carries the outward quiet of a lawful journey even as the account reveals the strain and isolation inside it.

Hacine’s return follows two years in Morocco. His father had taken him there in a car loaded with goods for relatives and resale, and the journey had included an effort to present him respectably: his father cut his hair on the ferry and supplied new clothes and leather shoes. On the return trip described here, Hacine travels without his father. He is still young, but now has considerable money in his pockets; he wears an expensive Armani shirt, white trousers, and a belt costing half a week’s minimum-wage pay. The Volvo is the understated vehicle accompanying this visible change in his circumstances.

A Vehicle Repurposed for Smuggling

Hacine’s drive is part of a return carrying forty-five kilos of cannabis resin. Near Troyes, he gets lost while searching for a rendezvous, takes the A6 south, and then has to rejoin the A5. The detour costs about an hour but does not make him anxious or impatient. The Volvo moves ponderously through the roads, its large grille spangled with dead insects. Its slow, substantial presence contrasts with the criminal purpose of the journey: the car looks suited to an unhurried, ordinary passage while carrying a concealed load.

The rendezvous takes place at night in the Plaines-Devant enterprise zone, among warehouses, hotels, franchise restaurants, and large stores. Hacine drives slowly through the empty development, noticing familiar signs including Darty and Kiabi. He follows a van farther into the deserted area, where the vehicles stop behind a Halle aux Vêtements department store, screened from view by shipping containers and empty cartons. The choice of this setting makes the Volvo’s usefulness depend not only on its capacity but also on the cover provided by an unoccupied commercial landscape.

The Hidden Cargo

At the concealed stopping place, Hacine backs the Volvo in so that it stands rear to rear with the van. He opens the back door, and the two men use screwdrivers to remove the car’s trim and the floor of its trunk. The vehicle’s ordinary interior is thus opened up and altered for the transfer; its cargo space is not merely used but dismantled to reach the hiding place.

The cannabis is packed in small, carefully shaped one-kilo bricks wrapped in waterproof plastic. The men transfer around forty bricks into modified gasoline containers that open like tin cans, then fill the containers with fuel. Hacine keeps five bricks for himself. The practical details show how the Volvo’s role fits into a larger concealment method: the load is divided, waterproofed, placed inside containers disguised as fuel cans, and hidden beneath the car’s fittings. The station wagon enables the transport, but its altered trunk and the rigged containers make that transport possible without exposing the cargo to an ordinary view.

Narrative Significance

The Volvo connects two versions of Hacine’s return. On the road from Morocco, it is the setting for an arduous and solitary drive; at the rendezvous, it becomes the means by which he brings his criminal enterprise back toward France. Its details—the discarded bottle, the dead insects on the grille, the removed trunk floor—keep the journey materially specific rather than abstract. The car’s usefulness is also double-edged: it can pass through ordinary roads and commercial surroundings, but its concealment requires the deliberate disruption of its interior.

The vehicle therefore marks a change in how Hacine travels and what he is carrying. His father’s earlier journey to Morocco had been a family trip with assorted goods for relatives and resale. Hacine’s return is undertaken alone and bears a much more dangerous cargo. The Volvo remains a practical car throughout, but the hidden bricks turn that practicality toward the pursuit of profit that now governs his return.