That Devil's Madness

by Dominique Wilson

  ‘Why d’you say that?’

  ‘Look around you. Have you noticed how few older people there are in Algeria? How many babies and children there are?’

  Nicolette nodded.

  ‘Hundreds of thousands killed during the war. And after independence, thousands more. The harkis, of course, because they’d fought for France. But also anyone who’d associated with the French. Not just the men, but entire families – even their children. Treated like traitors, burnt alive, castrated, their flesh cut in pieces and fed to dogs. Our grandfathers guessed this would happen – why else d’you think they kept their friendship a secret? Hundreds of thousands killed… I read some statistics recently,’ Jamilah continued. ‘Apparently, at the rate Algerian women are having children, if I’m still alive in twenty years’ time, seventy-five per cent of the population will be under thirty.’

  Nicolette looked at Jamilah’s son, then at the bits of mint leaves clinging to the sides of her glass. She didn’t know what to say anymore. This wasn’t what she imagined – what she remembered.

  ‘I thought, after the French left—’

  ‘After you left.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘You’re French too, you know.’

  Jamilah’s statement shocked Nicolette. Of course, on an intellectual level, she knew she was French. But not French French. Not the French the Algerians – Jamilah? – fought against. Most of the time she thought of herself as Australian. And when she thought of her life in Algeria, she never thought of herself as of any particular nationality. Never in terms of the colonizers or the settlers or the invaders, and never as the French, the way Jamilah meant it. She thought of herself in terms of her family, her friends. Never had she even considered how Jamilah saw her. She shivered, cold, not from the gathering dusk but from the realisation that a lot of what she had believed was probably wrong.

  ‘What about our friendship? Was that just my imagination too?’

  Jamilah seemed to lose herself in memories of long ago. She smiled then, and patted Nicolette’s hand. ‘No, we were friends. Really. Remember the time we followed my grandmother to the grotto?’

  ‘The Grotto of the Ravens! I’d forgotten about that.’

  ‘You were so scared.’

  ‘Me? You were the one who was scared, when they sacrificed the roosters.’

  Jamilah laughed, remembering the two little girls who had followed the old woman to the grotto where some still went, secretly, to exorcise themselves from djennouns. Nicolette’s mother had been sent out of town for her work, and left Nicolette in the care of their housekeeper. But the woman was old and had fallen asleep after dinner, so that Nicolette had sneaked out. It was on a hot summer’s night, and the grotto had been lit by dozens of candles, the air heavy with incense. Jamilah and Nicolette had hidden behind boulders and watched the frenetic dancing and singing with delight and giggles, but when the roosters had been brought forth, and their throats cut, and their blood had spurted in ever diminishing arcs onto the women, both girls had run in panic back to Jamilah’s house. Jamilah had been haunted by the sight, sure that the djennouns had seen her and would possess her, so Nicolette had given her the gold crucifix hanging on the thin gold chain that she always wore, which had belonged to her great-grandmother. It’ll protect you, she’d said, not recognising the paradox, it’ll keep the djennouns away.

  ‘Yes,’ Jamilah said again. ‘We were friends, before it all went wrong.’

  ‘And Rafiq too.’

  Jamilah nodded. ‘Rafiq too.’

  ‘What’s happened to him?’ Nicolette asked, afraid of the answer.

  ‘He’s still fighting the war.’

  ‘The war’s over, Jamilah. Since ‘62.’

  Jamilah shook her head. ‘The Arabs got their independence from the French in ‘62, Nicolette, but we – the Tuaregs, the Kabyles, all the Berbers – we didn’t. We’d lived in a world of make believe, thinking we’d get our independence, but there was no united front. There still isn’t; it’s tribe fighting against tribe, ethnic group against ethnic group. We Berbers are still oppressed; our language is still not taught in schools, and we’re still marginalized. The only difference is that now it’s by the Arabs instead of the French. My people have been here since four hundred BC, but we’re still a minority.’

  ‘And you say Rafiq’s still fighting?’

  ‘Still fighting. Still dreaming of something better.’

  ‘I was hoping to see him too.’

  Jamilah shook her head. ‘You’d never find him. He never comes into town; it’s not safe for him.’

  ‘Can you tell him I was here?’

  Before Jamilah could answer they heard screams and shouts from the far end of the market. Jamilah picked up her son and threw him into Nicolette’s arms, then, pushing the stroller in front of her, ran in the opposite direction to the cries.

  ‘Quickly,’ she said, ‘I know somewhere safe.’

  Nicolette hesitated. The photographer in her yearned to take her camera out of her bag and head towards the commotion, but the struggling youngster in her arms dictated otherwise.

  ‘Come on,’ Jamilah called over her shoulder, ‘hurry.’

  Nicolette followed Jamilah between stalls of vegetables and spices and clothes. She could hear the shouting and the cries and screams getting closer. People were pushing, trying to get away, but the alleyways were too narrow. The camera bag banged against her hip. Someone was running right behind her, yelling. She turned. Saw an angry face, a raised arm, a baton. Instinctively she curled her body over the child. Felt the full brunt of the baton on her back. Someone was shouting at her but she couldn’t understand his words. He pushed her and she fell to her knees and hit her head on the corner of a stall. The boy in her arms screamed. Someone pulled her by the arm and she stumbled through a doorway, looked up to see Jamilah. They were inside a shop that sold pots and pans. The boy wriggled out of her arms into his mother’s.

  ‘What was that all about?’

  ‘Arab fundamentalists. They take it upon themselves to patrol the streets for what they consider indecently-dressed women. When they find one, they beat her.’

  ‘But I’m not dressed indecently. They’re mad! A lot of women out there had children with them—’

  ‘You’re not, but it doesn’t matter. They don’t care who they beat. Like I said earlier, they want us to go back to the old ways. Even the glimpse of an ankle is enough to get you a beating.’

  Nicolette moved her shoulders, feeling her back – it was sore, but because of her winter clothes, the baton had caused no damage. She felt her temple where she’d hit the stall – a lump, but no bleeding. She checked her cameras. They seemed okay.

  ‘What now?’

  ‘We’ll wait a bit to make sure they’re gone, then I’ll get you back to wherever you’re staying. But we’ll take the children home first.’

  ‘I can make my own way back.’

  ‘I know. But I’ll take you anyway.’

  #

  Back at Jamilah’s apartment, Nicolette waited in a small living room while Jamilah went into what Nicolette glimpsed was a bedroom. She heard murmured voices – Jamilah’s, a man’s. She went to the bookshelves and read the spines of the books – mostly paperbacks. She pulled one out to read the blurb. Behind it, lying on its spine against the wall was another book – Sartre’s Of human freedom. She went along the shelves, pulling forward the cheap paperbacks. Translations of Plato and Chekhov. Solzhenitsyn, Camus. A tattered translation of John Stuart Mill’s On Liberty. My husband encourages me to keep learning all I can. Is this what Jamilah had meant? Nicolette thought herself educated, but though she’d heard of these writers, all she’d ever read was Camus’ La Peste. She would have never imagined Jamilah was reading these authors. She put the book back against the wall and replaced the paperback. She felt confused. If asked, she would have said she’d experienced a lot in life – the loss of Willow, her time with Michael, struggling with no money – but she’d always m
anaged to have food on the table. Had never had to run from men wanting to beat her because they disapproved of the way she dressed. Nor did she ever have to hide any of the books she read. How could she ever think that her own life, in the peace of Australia, has been troubled when compared to what Jamilah had experienced? And for that matter, what Steven and Jean-Paul had gone through, from what little she’d gathered? No wonder Steven treated her like a kid. No wonder those seasoned female journalists had taken one look at her and dismissed her – one glance at her blond ponytail, her over-eager face, and they’d known straight away she was nothing but a rank amateur. And now this half-hidden library had exposed her intellectual deficiency as well.

  Jamilah came out of the bedroom, totally covered, except for her face, by a black abayah and hijab. She held out another set to Nicolette.

  ‘I know what you’re thinking,’ she said before Nicolette could comment, ‘but we’ll be safer; sometimes it’s simply wiser just to bend. Here, I have something else for you. Remember this?’

  Nicolette looked into Jamilah’s hand and her eyes filled with tears. She picked up her great-grandmother’s chain and crucifix. ‘You kept it all this time,’ she whispered. ‘Did you wear it?’

  ‘No, I couldn’t. But I always treasured it. When you first gave it to me, I was frightened of it – didn’t want to keep it. But I showed it to my mother, and she said it was a Christian talisman, and that if I kept it, I’d not only have protection from the evil eye from the hand of Fatima that I wore, but from the Christian djennouns as well. She didn’t think I should wear it though, since it’s gold. Just in case…’

  Nicolette smiled and closed Jamilah’s fingers over the cross. ‘I want you to keep it.’

  ‘But your grandfather gave it to you—’

  ‘He’d understand. And I have this to remind me of him. Look.’ She pulled down the neck of her jumper to reveal a chain of alternating gold and silver links. ‘It used to be the chain of his fob watch, but I had a jeweller put a clasp on it so I could wear it around my neck. Keep the cross, Jamilah.’ She smiled. ‘It’s kept the djennouns away till now, hasn’t it? Besides,’ she added, ‘I’ve already gotten into trouble once by my mother for supposedly losing it. I don’t know what she’d say if it suddenly turned up again, all those years later.’

  While Jamilah returned to her bedroom to put away the jewellery, Nicolette put on the clothes Jamilah had given her then looked around the living room. It was simply furnished, just the bookshelves, a couch, a round leather ottoman, a side table with photographs in frames – Jamilah’s children, an elderly man, and one older photo of an elegant woman with short blond hair, wearing a smart two-piece suit and heels, holding the hand of a girl of about ten.

  ‘Who’s this?’ she asked when Jamilah came back into the room.

  ‘My mother and I.’

  ‘But it can’t be. These people are both blond – and your mother never wore European clothes.’

  Jamilah laughed and took the photo from Nicolette. ‘It’s us,’ she explained. ‘Like I tried to tell you, there’s a lot you don’t know about what went on. You’d left already, but there was a time when the French decided they would “emancipate” us. Free us from the veil, they said. So they conducted unveiling ceremonies, started women’s circles, ran propaganda campaigns on radio and at the movies, all to free us from this perceived oppression. Of course, they didn’t think it should also include stopping the violence they inflicted on our women, the rapes and the torture, and the destruction of our homes. They wanted to get to the FLN through its women, you see. They thought that by “modernising” us, they’d bring us to their side, that we’d turn against our men, and in doing so damage the very structure of Muslim society.

  ‘They were wrong, of course, but we played along. The French had always known it was forbidden for a man to touch us, and they’d always respected that. But when the trouble started, that no longer happened. The police and the soldiers started searching Muslim women – veiled women – but they never searched Europeans women. So we changed the way we looked. Cut and bleached our hair, wore the latest European fashions, looked as European as we could, so that we wouldn’t be searched. It worked, and for a long time we were able to move weapons and explosives and messages to the various cells across town. They eventually found out, of course, and started searching everybody, so then we went back to the veil.’

  ‘But why? Why go back?’

  ‘Because it’s who we are. Do you think it was easy for us to pretend to be European? It wasn’t just a matter of playing dress-ups, you know. To do it properly, to be convincing, we had to deny our beliefs, our traditions. It was only temporary, true, but it was a struggle all the same. Imagine if you had to pass as a Muslim, act like one well enough to convince everyone – refute your religion, your customs. Because if you failed, you knew it would mean the life of your brothers, your husband or your father…’

  ‘Yes, but—’

  ‘But what? Do you think wearing the veil means we’re oppressed? Oh, Nicolette, if we’d waited for the Westerners to liberate us, we’d still be waiting. Westerners don’t understand, because they don’t know the code. But here, for us, being liberated also means choosing when to play along. Have you ever thought that by wearing the veil, we may be making a political statement? But apart from that, sometimes I wear the veil, sometimes I don’t. But when I do, it’s for safety, or because I want privacy, because I want to become anonymous. And it allows me to observe without being observed – a protection against intrusion, as it were. Can you understand that?’

  ‘Kind of… “Choosing when to play along” – I like that. You’ve given me an idea.’

  ‘You’re going to keep wearing this veil?’

  Nicolette laughed. ‘No, not that. But something along those lines. Are you in a hurry to get back this evening?’

  ‘No, not really. Why?’

  ‘I’ll tell you as we go…’

  #

  Steven knocked on Nicolette’s hotel room door. He knew she was in, but she hadn’t come down to dinner.

  ‘Nicolette? Are you okay?’ He listened at the door, heard a noise.

  ‘I’m in bed. Sleeping.’

  ‘Open the door.’

  ‘Steven, I’m tired. I’ll see you tomorrow.’

  ‘Did you find your friends?’

  ‘Tomorrow, Steven.’

  Steven knew she’d found Jamilah, Massa had told him of the cold reception she’d received. She probably didn’t want him to know – was probably moping.

  ‘I’ve got something to tell you.’

  ‘Tomorrow.’

  ‘You’re sure?’

  ‘Is it urgent?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Tomorrow, then.’

  ‘Ok. Goodnight, Nicky.’

  Nicolette didn’t answer.

  #

  ‘So, what did you have to tell me last night?’ Nicolette asked, pulling a chair from Steven’s breakfast table and sitting down.

  ‘I found— Whoa! When did that happen?’ he asked, indicating her hair. Instead of the usual long blond ponytail, Nicolette’s hair was now dyed a rich brown, and cut into a pixi-ish cut with a soft fringe. The combination of pale olive skin, blue eyes and dark hair was stunning.

  ‘Last night. Jamilah helped.’

  ‘Okay… Can I ask why?’

  ‘Do you like it?’

  ‘Yeah, it’s alright. But tell me why.’

  ‘I thought it made me look more professional. Ponytails are for kids. And a lot of people think blonde equals dumb.’

  Steven hid a smile behind his serviette. Nicolette signalled to the waiter and ordered a large cup of hot chocolate and toast.

  ‘And Jamilah helped you?’

  ‘Yup.’

  ‘Last night.’

  ‘Yup.’

  ‘Here? In your room?’

  ‘Yup.’

  ‘So Massa found her for you, then?’

  ‘No, Massa didn’t find her. I did.
And I didn’t need a babysitter, thank you very much. I sent her home when we got to Jamilah’s. And Jamilah’s fine, thank you. She’s married and has four children.’

  ‘And?’

  ‘And nothing. That’s it. We talked, it was nice.’

  Steven nodded, watching Nicolette. Something was different, and it wasn’t just the hair, but whatever it was, she didn’t want to talk about it. As she flipped her fringe back, he noticed a bruise on her temple.

  ‘What happened there?’

  ‘Banged my head against something. I was carrying Jamilah’s little boy and didn’t look where I was going. It’s nothing. So what did you have to tell me?’

  ‘Ah, well, I did some asking around yesterday. That arms-drop? They got dobbed in by some local farmer – a Frenchman – who saw the plane, or knew it was coming or something. He rang the police. I thought we could go talk to him.’

  ‘You know who it is?’

  ‘No, but I found out where he lives. As far as I know no other reporter’s been to see him yet.’

  ‘Great. Amoud’s waiting for us?’

  ‘He should be.’

  ‘Let’s go, then.’

  #

  A fine drizzle was falling when the car stopped by a grove of chestnut trees beside a laneway that lead to a farmhouse.

  ‘Is that it?’ Nicolette asked, peering through the car window.

  ‘I think so.’

  ‘Looks deserted. Look – no smoke from the chimney. You’d think in this weather…’

  ‘Maybe they’re in the paddocks working. Let’s go see.’

  Amoud turned into the laneway and drove to the farmhouse.

  Nicolette heard the faint whine of a dog as soon as she got out of the car. She followed it.

  ‘Steven, come quick.’

  Lying at the side of the house was a dog of indiscriminate breed. He was entangled in the chain that kept him captive, and had twisted so much that his neck had swollen to the point where the collar was only just visible. It could barely breathe. Beside it food and water bowls were overturned.

  ‘He’s choking. Help me get the collar off.’