Destiny

by Sally Beauman

  “But there are French troops there, Edouard…” She hesitated. “They will stop it, won’t they? Stop the terrorism?”

  “My darling, it’s not terrorism. It’s a revolution. If you’d been there, if you’d seen the country, you’d understand. The FLN won’t rest until the French are out—every last colon.”

  “But it’s a French colony…”

  “It’s an Arab country.” He stood up angrily. “The days of colonialism are over. Finished. Jean-Paul can’t see that, and never will. As far as Jean-Paul is concerned, the French haven’t put a foot wrong. They’ve built roads and bridges and rail systems. Houses. Hotels. Factories. They’ve created a civil service, and trained Arabs to work like French bureaucrats. Jean-Paul thinks the French brought prosperity to a poor country, and he goes on believing it because he takes care never to set foot outside the European quarter. So he never sees the poverty. Never smells the squalor. Do you know why it is that Jean-Paul’s Algerian estates are so prosperous? Why they make the profits of which he’s so proud? Because he pays his Algerian workers a pittance, that’s why. They earn in a year what he’d pay a French worker in a month. But they’re still better off than the other Arabs, the ones that don’t work for the French. And so he can make his profits, and feel like a philanthropist at the same time. Isobel, I loved Algeria when I first saw it; but the poverty—the attitudes, the intolerance. I came to hate it. I’ve hated it more every time I’ve been back. When I saw Jean-Paul there, I was ashamed. Ashamed of my own brother.”

  Isobel looked at him silently. She had rarely heard him speak with such vehemence, never seen him so angry.

  “Eighteen months ago”—he swung around to her again—“in 1956, when there were clear signs of what was going to happen, Jean-Paul came to me, and asked that the company invest in more estates out there. Vineyards. Olive plantations. They belonged to a friend of his who’d decided to get off the sinking ship quickly. I turned him down—and do you know that to this day, Jean-Paul has no idea why?” He paused, his voice growing calmer. “I gave him financial reasons. Business reasons. Of which there were many. And in the end he accepted it. Profit and loss, that’s what we talked about. But it wasn’t the true reason I refused him. The true reason was that I want nothing to do with that country while it remains as it is, and if it hadn’t been for Jean-Paul, I’d have ceased all our operations out there years ago.”

  Isobel smiled. “And Jean-Paul can be as stubborn as a mule, and you knew perfectly well that if you told him what you felt, he would have dug in his heels and insisted.” She sighed. “You can be terribly devious, Edouard.”

  “Possibly.” Edouard looked down at her. “Do you think I did the wrong thing?”

  “I don’t know,” Isobel said quietly, and looked away.

  There was silence, a moment of tension between them. Edouard thought of Isobel’s family, of her grandfathers, uncles, cousins, who had propped up and maintained an empire, who had fought, and ruled, in India, in Africa. He thought it unlikely she would understand his arguments, and he felt a sense of distance, a moment’s regret, there and then gone. Isobel, bending her head, thought: I can’t tell him about the baby; not now. She sensed his withdrawal from her, and slowly looked up.

  “You’re going out there, aren’t you, Edouard?”

  Her quickness and her resignation touched him. The regret instantly passed, and he crouched down to her, and took her hands gently in his. “My darling, I have to. I’ve tried speaking to Jean-Paul on the telephone, and it’s hopeless. I shall have to go out. I want to persuade him to come back to France.”

  “Leave Algeria?” Isobel’s eyes widened. She felt a moment’s scorn. In her family, the men had never walked out on their colonial responsibilities. She thought of her father’s many remarks on that subject, his outrage when India was finally granted independence. But her mind shied away from politics, and she had no wish to cross Edouard on that front. She sighed, and chose her words carefully.

  “Surely he’ll never agree to that, Edouard? He loves it there, you told me. It’s obviously meant so much to him, since he left the army. He’ll never agree to leave the vineyards, his land…”

  “It won’t be his land much longer whether he goes or stays.” Edouard’s tone was dismissive. He stood up and moved away. “He might as well realize that now. Two years from now—maybe more, maybe as much as five, though I doubt it—the French will pull out. You’re probably right about Jean-Paul. But I have to try. Algiers isn’t a safe place for any Frenchman—particularly one like Jean-Paul—”

  He broke off abruptly, an expression of distaste on his features. Then he swallowed the last of his drink, shrugged, turned back. “So—I have to try to persuade him. That’s all. He is my brother.”

  Isobel watched him closely. She wondered what he meant by that last remark about his brother, so quickly bitten off, but she knew better than to ask.

  “When are you going?” she said quietly.

  “Tomorrow.”

  “I shall come with you.”

  “My darling, no.” He swung around again, his face softening. “Not this time. I’d rather you stayed here.”

  Isobel stood up. “If you go, I go,” she said firmly. “And if it’s too dangerous for me, then it’s too dangerous for you. And you don’t think that, do you?”

  “No, of course not, but—”

  “Then I’m coming with you.” She gave him her most disarming smile. “You know perfectly well that I can persuade you, so you might just as well give in now with good grace…”

  “Oh, really?” She saw his lips curve at her challenge, and before he could protest, she crossed quickly to him.

  “Darling Edouard. I’m coming. No ridiculous arguments. Kiss me. If you like, we can argue later.”

  She put her arms around his neck, and Edouard managed to resist her for about thirty seconds. Then he groaned, and then he kissed her.

  They did argue about it, later, but Isobel got her way. When Edouard left for the airport the next morning, Isobel was with him. And she still hadn’t told him.

  Jean-Paul leaned back, and watched the naked boy who was oiling his body. He had long, supple fingers, slender hands with surprising strength. They worked their way down over Jean-Paul’s flesh, expertly kneading the muscles, smoothing the lax skin, seeking the most sensitive folds and crevices. Down over the stomach to the groin, then back to the chest, feeling for each rib under its layer of flabby muscle and fat.

  He parted Jean-Paul’s thighs, and began on his legs. Slowly up from the ankle and then down again. The knee, then the still strong muscles of the thighs. Slowly up to the groin once more. Then, at last, between his legs, under his balls, feeling the loose pouchy skin of the scrotum, carefully under and back, tracing the crevice of the buttocks with one delicate forefinger. Then back to the ankles again. Jean-Paul closed his eyes. Jesus, the little bastard knew how to tease.

  Jean-Paul’s body was pale but flushed red on the face, neck, and arms, where he had been burned by the sun. He was fresh from the shower; his body smelled of the oil, which was scented with jasmine. The boy smelled, faintly, of sweat, and also of something else—of poverty, of cheap food, overcrowded lodgings, oil applied to hair that was not quite clean, Arab buses, dust. Jean-Paul liked the smell. It was part of the ritual, part of the game, part of the reality: servant and master.

  The boy was very beautiful. He was half-Arab, with a pale olive skin that now gleamed golden in the thin ribbons of light from the half-closed shutters. He could pass for a European, an Italian or a Frenchman from one of the southern regions, like Provence. He had been a student in France—or so he said. Jean-Paul wasn’t sure if he believed him. But he spoke good French with scarcely a trace of an Algerian accent, so it might be true. He said he was nineteen years old; he also said he was an orphan, but they all said that, they thought it made people pay more. He worked as an elevator boy in one of the smaller French hotels, moonlighting occasionally by serving drinks in a café in
the evenings. That was where Jean-Paul had first met him. Three months ago.

  Up again from knee to groin, that delicate forefinger tracing, tracing. Jean-Paul could feel himself getting hard at last. He opened his eyes, his consciousness hazed and slowed by the kif he had smoked, and focused with difficulty on the watch on the bedside table. Nearly four; Jesus, they didn’t have long. Edouard and Isobel would be back at five. Not that they were likely to walk into his bedroom, but still…The need for secrecy, the need for haste, excited him. He reached down and grabbed the boy’s wrist.

  “Come on. Come on. Get on with it…”

  The boy’s black eyes flicked up at his face impassively, with just the slightest suggestion of contempt. He knelt between Jean-Paul’s legs, bent his head, and began to lick. Jean-Paul grunted, cupped the boy’s head in his hands. He liked that contempt, that resentment; the first time he saw it in the boy’s face he knew it reminded him of something, but it was weeks before it came to him what it was. Then, suddenly, he remembered. That night in the war, the night his father died, the night at that bitch Simonescu’s, with Carlotta. She had looked just the way the boy did, and Jean-Paul liked it because it made him feel…what did it make him feel? His mind drifted away on the tides of the kif, and then floated back. It made him feel powerful, that was it, because he paid, he bought, and even if they hated him, they sold. That felt good; simple and good. It made him feel big. He felt his penis strain and press to the back of the boy’s throat. He almost gagged, and Jean-Paul’s hand tightened around the nape of his neck, pulling him down, so he was fully in the boy’s mouth.

  The first time he’d done it with a boy, he’d been ashamed. He knew it was commonplace here, taken for granted almost. Other men talked openly about it in the club, when they’d had a few drinks. Tighter, sweeter, better than a woman any day—that was what they said. The boys were more skilled, less inhibited than the Arab women, ready to do anything, anything, for money.

  Jean-Paul had felt slightly disgusted; also oddly threatened, and beneath it all, excited. It wasn’t for him: he was no pansy; he liked women, not boys with made-up eyes and sly insinuating glances. But still, he liked to hear about it from the others.

  Then, the first time—well, he’d been drunk, so drunk he hardly knew what was happening, so it didn’t matter. Then, the next time he went with a woman: nothing—nothing that counted. Plenty of excitement, plenty of anxiety, and no hard-on; just a limp cock hanging between his legs. Not a twitch out of it, no matter what she did, and she’d tried everything. So he went back to a boy—one of the best, came highly recommended. He’d been fearing the worst, but no, the boy undressed him, and there it was, standing up proudly, his machinery in full working order once again. The boy had been impressed, and he’d seen plenty. He’d said it was very big, too big, even with oil, even with Vaseline. He’d cried out when Jean-Paul pushed up him. But that was just another trick they had, like being an orphan. It didn’t mean anything, not really.

  There had been a lot of boys after that, and some women, but he found them less exciting than he used to. Especially the French ones. He’d had a good line going with a number of the wives out here—what man hadn’t? They were all bored out of their minds, had nothing else to think about except bed. But after the boys they seemed tiresome: too demanding, wanting love as well as sex; too many ideas about how it should be done, and which position they liked best, and whether they came or not. I don’t give a shit, he’d wanted to say. Just shut up and let me get the fuck on with it. But he hadn’t, of course. He’d just stopped going back for more. He got it from the boys instead. The boys who did exactly what he said, when he told them…

  Mother of God!

  He’d never done that before, and it felt good. Very good. No doubt about it, this boy was a find. The best.

  “That’s enough. Lie down…”

  He pushed the boy back, and pulled his cock out of his mouth. The boy never said a word. He just moved to the other side of the bed, and lay on his back. He didn’t have an erection—but then he hardly ever did. Jean-Paul had stopped worrying about that weeks ago.

  “Imbecile. Turn over…”

  The kif was beginning to wear off, and Jean-Paul could feel irritation, incipient anger, somewhere at the edge of his mind. It often took you like that, when the kif was wearing off, but it didn’t matter: anger helped.

  “Lift your ass.”

  The boy raised himself a little from the bed. Jean-Paul looked down at his own oiled body, then spat onto his palm for added lubrication.

  He held himself poised for a moment, then he thrust hard into the boy’s body. The boy cried out, once. Then he bit his lip, and was silent. Jean-Paul heaved and thrust, panting now, holding the boy’s beautiful narrow pelvis tight between his hands. Heat and rage built in his body, such rage, swirling through the clouds of kif, that it was blinding, fiercer than desire for an instant, so he lost his rhythm, misjudged his pace. Like war, he thought confusedly, like war, like battle, fucking is like that, it’s…

  Then the thought eddied away again out of the grasp of his mind; he looked down at the subservient curve of the boy’s back, found his rhythm again, pumped, and came. He slumped across him, breathing heavily, feeling a little sick. Too much kif. He must lay off the kif. It played tricks on your mind when you least expected it. He’d nearly blown the whole thing then.

  The boy waited five minutes. He always waited five minutes. Then he got up, and went into the bathroom. There was the sound of running water. He came out dressed. Jean-Paul had lit a cigarette. He smiled at the boy. “There’s a present for you. Over on the chest.”

  The boy didn’t even glance at the folded franc notes. He pouted, and hung his head.

  “I don’t want presents. I told you.”

  Jean-Paul sighed. This was a new tack—it had started about two weeks ago.

  “What do you want then? You must want something. I’m only trying to show you how grateful I am. I like you—you know that.”

  He lifted his hand to the boy, but the boy ignored him.

  He looked at Jean-Paul sulkily. “I told you.” His voice was hardly audible. “I want us to be friends.”

  “We are friends. Good friends. You know that.” Jean-Paul gave a sigh of exasperation.

  “No, we’re not. You just want me here for this.” The boy gestured sullenly at the bed. “We never meet anywhere else. Just here. Just for this.”

  “Well, where should we meet, for God’s sake? What do you want me to do—take you down to the club? An hotel? You know that’s impossible.”

  “You could meet me for a drink sometimes.” The boy stuck his lip out obstinately. “That’s what friends do. They meet for drinks—in a café, or a restaurant. They go out for a meal. We could do that. I can pass—you know I can. You said so. I’m half-French. I studied in France…”

  His voice was rising petulantly. Jean-Paul looked anxiously at his watch. It was nearly five.

  “All right, all right. We’ll do that sometime. We’ll meet in a café—have a drink. Go to a cinema maybe. Will that make you happy?”

  “It might. When?”

  “I don’t know when.” Jean-Paul heaved himself upright and reached for his dressing gown. “Look, we can’t argue about it now. I haven’t got time. I told you. I’ve got friends here. My brother. His wife. They’ll be back soon. Now, be a good boy and run along…”

  “I won’t come again.” The boy raised his face, and to Jean-Paul’s horror, the black eyes were welling with tears. “Not unless we can be friends. I don’t like it.”

  “All right. All right.” Jean-Paul hurriedly crossed the room and picked up the francs from the chest. He pushed them into the boy’s top pocket. He could hear a car drawing up on the drive outside. Quickly he added one more note: thirty francs, that ought to do it. In the boy’s terms, it was a fortune. The boy didn’t move. Jean-Paul gave him an exasperated push.

  “Look, go on now. I’ll meet you. We’ll arrange it next time,
I promise…”

  “Not next time. Now.”

  “All right. Very well. I’ll meet you tomorrow. The Café de la Paix—you know it, off the Place de la Révolution…”

  Instantly the boy’s face lit up. “You will? You promise? What time?”

  “About six. I’ll meet you at six. I might not be able to stay long.” He frowned. “I might have to bring my friends—and if they’re there—well, you’ll be careful, won’t you? Pretend it’s a casual meeting—something like that?” Already he regretted giving in, but it was too late now, the boy’s face was alight with excitement.

  “Your brother? You mean I’ll meet your brother? You will introduce me? I will be very proud—and very careful. I promise you. I don’t want you to be ashamed of me. You’ll see—I know how to behave. Truly.”

  He looked so eager that Jean-Paul was quite touched. He gave him an affectionate pat on the bottom.

  “Very well. Don’t let me down now—all right?” He hesitated, then squeezed the boy’s arm. “You’ve been good today, very good.”

  “I hope so. I want you to have pleasure.” He spoke a little stiffly, and again Jean-Paul thought he saw that flash of resentment in the eyes, there and then gone. The boy was proud, that was all. He glanced at the window, and the boy nodded.

  “It’s all right. I’ll go out the back way. Through the kitchen.”

  Just after five the next day, Edouard and Jean-Paul left the offices of the governor general. They were escorted down long corridors—cooled by fans, for the weather was still very warm—by a senior aide, who was French, and by his aide, an Algerian. Flanked by the two men, they walked down a wide marble staircase and out into the brilliant sunshine. The senior aide stopped, and made a polite half bow.