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Barbouze

Page 14

by Alan Williams


  Tiny sounds pierced the stillness: whispered voices, quick quiet movements, chimes like water dripping in a cave. A radio twanged and wailed somewhere behind the maze of walls. The alley widened and they walked on earth strewn with palm fronds. Spears of light filtered through the latticed roof, on to men in brown jellabahs sipping mint tea and chattering peacefully. Young men in khaki watched from the shadows; children peered at them, boys with shorn grey heads and girls with hair stained copper-red.

  They ducked down into another tunnel where water moved in the darkness: through a door where Neil had to bend almost, double, and up four flights of stairs into a wooden room with a Coca-Cola calendar and a big dark girl behind an old-fashioned typewriter that looked like the ribcage of a dead bird.

  The guide led him across the room and shouted something in Arabic through a closed door. A face of smooth brown leather jerked round, examined Neil, and held the door open. The guide did not follow.

  Neil went into a high room with latticed windows that shut out the sun. An oil lamp in a glass bowl hung from the ceiling, there were low couches along the walls draped with handwoven rugs. Three men sat round a table drinking mint tea off a tray of hammered brass. They rose together and bowed to Neil. One of them, a graceful man in a pale flannel suit with hawk’s eyes, made room beside him on the couch.

  ‘I am Dr. Marouf,’ he said, handing him a glass of tea. He turned to a plump man on his left: ‘This is Mohammed Abdel Boussid’ — a moist face behind green pebble-glasses bobbed forward, unsmiling — ‘and this is Mohammed Sherrif.’

  A sallow man with a pointed head of knitted hair, sitting on Neil’s left, bent forward with a sad smile and said, in almost a whisper, ‘Enchanté, m’sieur!’ His eyes were like pools of oil that caught strange prisms of light. He was dressed in a threadbare blue suit with a faded pin-stripe and a grimy shirt with no collar or tie. His hands were thin and dry, with a papery whiteness.

  Dr. Marouf opened the conversation. He explained that he and Boussid were members of the Arab Front Political Bureau in the Casbah. Mohammed Sherrif was responsible for ‘defence and security’. ‘We are not famous men,’ he added, with self-effacing modesty, ‘we are small people working for the good of our nation.’

  Neil thought hard: Marouf, Boussid, Sherrif. Whatever the elegant doctor might say, Neil knew that the first two names had been on most of the French security police files for the last five years. He remembered that Dr. Marouf had escaped twice from prison, and rumour had it that he had been tortured by the paras. He looked at Neil now like a Harley Street surgeon discussing a diagnosis.

  The one name that puzzled Neil was Sherrif. The man sat with his thin hands clasped between his knees, smiling with deep sadness at the brass tray.

  Marouf said, ‘We are greatly honoured to have a famous journalist from England to visit us.’

  ‘Thank you,’ Neil said, bowing and wondering what the hell Pol was playing at — Pol was a French agent: and these men were as much wanted by the French Government as were the leaders of the Secret Army — especially after the Casino bombing.

  They talked gently, at great length, in wide spirals of thought, touching only obliquely on points of political passion, as when Marouf complained that the hospitals in the Casbah were hopelessly overcrowded and medicines destined from outside were seized by Secret Army commandos. They talked of patriotism and the unity of the people and the honour of manual work, like monks discussing faith and the Holy Spirit. Occasionally Marouf or Boussid would pause and ask Neil, with fierce earnestness, what he thought would happen in the country — did he think the Secret Army had any chance of winning? And if they did, would the British and Americans send in troops to help the Arab Front?

  There was something oddly naive about them which both disarmed and rather worried Neil. He sipped his sweet green tea and said judiciously, ‘I don’t think the Secret Army has one chance in a million of winning. But nor do I think they can be beaten so easily. They are as much a popular movement among the Europeans here as you are among the Moslems. They are only saying what you are saying — that the country belongs to them. These Europeans are determined to fight and kill in order to hold on to what they honestly believe is theirs.’

  Boussid pursed his moist lips and replied, ‘This country is not theirs. It is not France. It belongs to us. And one day the Europeans are going to understand that!’

  The leather-faced man by the door refilled the little cups and Neil thought of the twin snakes of blood running down the boulevard: a woman’s severed leg in the darkness, and Van Loon groaning for a drink, dying with a pole through his guts. He said, in a feeble outburst of liberal righteousness, ‘Killing innocent people will do no good — it will make no one free.’

  ‘That is true!’ Sherrif blurted suddenly on his left. ‘But if killing does no good, what can we do to be free?’ His eyes widened into great pools of sorrow and his lips, smiling their perpetual sad smile, began to quiver.

  Neil thought he recognized the symptoms of a paranoiac. He said cautiously, wondering again why he had been called to this meeting, ‘There are surely other methods besides killing and terrorism? You are only using the same methods as the Secret Army, and the Secret Army is going to lose.’

  ‘But what else is there, m’sieur?’ cried Sherrif. ‘We are poor men — we do not have tanks and atom bombs!’ His dry white fingers rustled together in his lap like dead leaves.

  ‘There is world opinion,’ Neil suggested, dubiously, ‘that is on your side.’

  ‘World opinion is one thing,’ said Boussid, focusing upon Neil his tiny cod’s-eyes behind their pebble-lenses, ‘but alone it does not make us a free people. If we ever win our freedom it will be because we have used the weapons of war. There is no dishonour in that.’

  Neil looked at the plump pouting lips, the unblinking eyes, and said recklessly, ‘Was there no dishonour in what happened yesterday at the Casino de la Plage?’

  From beside him came a whine like a wounded animal. He turned and saw Sherrif staring at him, the smile frozen on his lips, tears flowing like a child’s down his yellow cheeks. Neil realized that the smile was the result of partial paralysis of the mouth.

  ‘M’sieur, croyez-moi!’ Sherrif cried. ‘When I heard what had happened to those poor people in the Casino I wept — I prayed for them, I could not sleep, I wept all night at the thought of them!’

  Neil looked at him in dismay; a dreadful suspicion began to creep over him. ‘I was there,’ he said, ‘I went in just after the bomb went off. I had a friend who was killed there — a Dutchman. He had nothing to do with this country. He and about forty other people who were enjoying themselves dancing in. the afternoon, harming no one, were murdered in cold blood. Do you really think that is how you are going to free your people?’

  Sherrif put his hands over his ears and moaned: ‘You call me a murderer! They all call me a murderer! I am not, m’sieur, I am not!’ He stared at Neil with his dead smile and Neil stared back with a curious thrill of horror. This man was Ali La Joconde.

  ‘If you were responsible for what happened at the Casino de la Plage,’ Neil said, with a boldness that even astonished him as he spoke, ‘then you are a murderer, Monsieur Sherrif.’ He sat back, gripping his brass teacup, waiting. The polite preamble, the eastern ritual of barter, was over. There was a dead silence. It was broken by the sobbing of Ali La Joconde. Neil found the sound slightly obscene. He turned at last to Marouf: ‘Doctor, why have I been asked to come here?’

  The directness of the question upset Marouf; he looked awkwardly at his hands and made a little coughing noise. It was as though the Harley Street surgeon had been asked to perform an abortion.

  It was Boussid who answered. He squinted through his green bifocals and said, ‘In the last three days we have lost two hundred and forty dead — murdered by Fascist thugs in the streets on their way to work, on their way to buy food for their families. This is senseless slaughter, m’sieur. The Secret Army are foolish. They
do not understand that their struggle is not with the Arab Front — it is with the French Government. Why do they send their terrorists against us — killing innocent working people, when their true enemies are sitting in Paris, in the High Command headquarters on the hill?’

  Neil said, ‘I cannot answer for the Secret Army. But it seems to me that they believe in terrorism for the same reasons that you do — to demoralize the population and destroy the rule of law.’

  ‘That is so,’ said Boussid, ‘but the Arab Front are not the rule of law. We are peaceful people, we want to live in peace with everyone, including the Europeans in this country. We do not wish to go on killing Europeans, if they will only stop killing us.’

  He spoke fluently, without the passion of Ali La Joconde. More tea was poured, and Boussid’s words flowed in the smooth patter of a political PRO. Neil looked into the small cod’s eyes, at the impassive Dr. Marouf and the sad smiling face of Mohammed Sherrif. ‘Do I understand, messieurs,’ he said slowly, ‘that you wish to stop the terrorism?’

  None of them around the brass table moved, except Sherrif who gave a little shudder. Boussid went on as though Neil had not spoken: ‘The Secret Army is not our problem — it is an internal French problem which must be solved by the French. The Paris Government may soon grant us our independence. Then we will have no more quarrel with France. All we want is peace and freedom. Let us have peace with the Secret Army, and the Secret Army can be left to work out its own problems with the High Command and with Paris.’

  ‘So you desire to make a truce with the Secret Army?’ said Neil.

  Boussid was silent. Dr. Marouf pressed his fingertips together and nodded. Ali La Joconde went on staring at the table, shuddering.

  ‘The Secret Army don’t know this?’ asked Neil.

  ‘No,’ said Marouf.

  ‘Does the French Government know?’

  ‘We have no relations with the French Government,’ said Marouf, ‘that is why we have asked you here today.’

  Neil paused, controlling his excitement. Boussid began to speak, softly, urgently: ‘Monsieur, we are told that you are a man of some influence. You are British — you are not involved in the problems here. You can meet with the Secret Army, you can meet with us. If you can contact the leaders of the Secret Army, talk with them, explore their feelings, tell them that we wish to spare the innocent, then perhaps we can prevent a repetition of what happened yesterday at the Casino de la Plage. We cannot do this ourselves. The French will not do it for us. It must be done by someone like you.’

  Neil sipped his tea and contemplated the role of Ingleby the Peacemaker. It satisfied most of his ambitions and a few of his fantasies. Secretly he had always hankered after fame, although the fame enjoyed by most public figures rather appalled him. He wanted to be seen as a remote romantic figure, aloof from publicity, going down in history as a lone force who called halt to murder and terrorism.

  He liked the role. The only thing that worried him was Pol’s part in it; but he did not bring this up now with Marouf or Boussid. It was a problem that could be tackled later. It was 11.52. He had been in the Casbah for nearly an hour. He remembered the car waiting outside and said, ‘You want me to contact the Secret Army and tell them you are prepared to call a truce? Then what?’

  ‘You will hear from us,’ said Marouf.

  Neil produced the packet of Chesterfields he had bought from the murdered Moslem outside the hotel, and offered it round. They hesitated; Marouf said, ‘Ah, ce sont de vraies cigarettes americaines!’ Shyly he took one, followed by Boussid. Ali La Joconde shook his head, grinning tearfully at the table.

  ‘We haven’t seen American cigarettes here for nearly four years,’ Marouf said, bringing out a Zippo lighter.

  CHAPTER 3

  The Yale lock snapped shut behind him. Neil was alone. The car was not outside. He felt a spasm of terror and looked up and down the alley.

  It was about fifty yards away, near the corner, parked at a clumsy angle against the steel-shuttered doors. The man had promised to be waiting directly outside; perhaps he had gone away and got the doors confused when he returned.

  Neil started up the alley, walking fast. It was the right car — a black Aronde. As he came closer he noticed that the offside wing had been crushed against the shutters. The driver sat with his head resting on the back of the seat. Neil came level and looked in.

  The man’s throat gaped open like a shark’s mouth, bulbous and wine-red, with the severed cords glistening like dark streaks of bubble-gum. His rimless glasses had dropped into his lap and his eyes stared at the roof. Both hands were thrust out along the seat, fists clenched; and a sheet of paper splashed with blood was pinned to his shirt, with the scribbled words in biro: ‘JE SUIS UNE BARBOUZE’. Neil thought for a second, how odd the word should be feminine. The blood was still thick and wet.

  Then he turned and ran. He reached the right-angled corner, slipping on a lump of squashed fruit, catching himself with his hands: stumbled up arid raced down the narrow street, his feet clattering between the high walls: feeling the sweat prickling on his face, his palms chafed raw with his fall, running on towards the CRS roadblock.

  He took a second turning, dizzily, his bearings gone, seeing only another stretch of black arcades: dented dustbins and rinds of fruit and dreadful cats thin as wire, watching him, ready to flee.

  He dodged back, trying frantically to remember where the CRS had been. He thought the car had taken two turnings, perhaps three. There were some railings on his left. They led to a long flight of steps into a little square far below lined with trimmed palms.

  He started down, four steps at a time. There was a fountain in the square tinkling over mossy stones. He ran into another street heading down towards the sea. There was barbed wire in front of him; it stood six feet high, sunk into concrete blocks and riveted into the walls on either side. There were no CRS here, and no way out.

  He doubled back into the square and tried a second turning. The street was crooked and ended on a plot of wasteland. He caught glimpses of the sea as he began leaping down the steep slope, loose tins and stones rolling away in front of him. Traffic hummed by in the street below. There was a wire fence about four feet high under a faded poster for Source Vittel. He clambered over the wire, ripping the inside of his trouser-leg.

  There was a café on the corner. It was full of Europeans in blue overalls drinking wine and eating calimares. He went in and asked for a brandy. The barman seemed to look at him for a long time, scooping a dishcloth round the inside of a glass. He nodded slowly and turned to the bar. Neil could see himself being watched in the mirror as the man poured the drink. He looked at his own face, and it seemed to belong to someone else.

  The barman came back with the brandy. ‘Un franc dix,’ he said, looking Neil in the eye. He was a bald man in a soiled apron. Neil gave him the money and gulped down the drink. He put the glass on the counter and saw several people watching him. One of them moved forward. He turned, walked quickly towards the door. A voice shouted, ‘Eh — monsieur.’

  He began to run, through the door and round the corner, into a lane crowded with orange barrows. He tried to think clearly, to keep his mind under control, imagining that he was a long-distance runner. He must not look back. Just keep running, steadily, without panic, dodging between the barrows, heading down towards the sea. Faces swept past: suspicious European faces, stubble-black and fanged with cigarette butts, turning to watch him. Someone backed out in front of him with a tray of oranges. They collided and the tray crashed to the pavement.

  He ran on, with the oranges bouncing down the street beside him, hearing shouts behind him, as he turned off at the back of a covered stall, down a flight of steps that led into the main shopping boulevard. He came out by the Air France building and knew at last where he was.

  No one followed him out of the opening up the steps; and gradually he began to relax, dragging himself down into the next street and along the last stretch to the Mira
mar.

  The armoured cars were out, the iron-faced Gardes Mobiles behind their heavy weapons, and he felt suddenly reassured, protected. They couldn’t chase him here.

  He went into the Miramar, up in the cage-lift, along to his room. He wanted a shower and a cold beer, and it would be time to meet Anne-Marie for lunch at Le Berry. He unlocked the door and went through into the bedroom.

  A face grinned at him from the window: ‘Come in, have a drink!’

  CHAPTER 4

  He was a big man of about forty-five with beige hair going grey, and bright piggy-blue eyes set close to a wedge of broken nose. He sat with his back to the window, holding a glass of brandy in one hand and a long-barrelled pistol in the other. His fingers were thick and blunt with knuckles like doorknobs. On the floor by his foot lay the bottle of Hine which Neil and Anne-Marie had been drinking the night before. It was almost empty.

  The second man lay on the bed, also drinking. He was young, very good-looking with a square blond crewcut and sly, arrow-shaped eyes. His mouth was long and thin. He wore jeans and a silver-blue windjammer.

  The big man lifted his glass. ‘Come in, have a drink!’ he said again, in guttural French, the gun lying across his knee pointing at the floor.

  Neil said, ‘Help yourselves.’ He leant against the wall, feeling very tired. The young man looked lazily at him and said in English, with the sort of American drawl that Americans never have, ‘You’re a bad guy, Englishman.’ He shook his head theatrically.

  ‘How did you get in?’ said Neil.

  The young one looked at his elder, and they grinned at each other like dogs. ‘We got in,’ said the big blond man, ‘we have friends in the hotel.’

 

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