The Praetorians

by Jean Larteguy

  He kissed Françoise.

  “We haven’t been friends for long,” she said. “When Pierre first came out to Algeria I wrote an article about him. We haven’t many victories of this sort to our credit: business men often come out to us from France, but settlers never. This one was a mayor and a councillor general in the Gers. In Algeria that would be a sign of power, for out here the only people who get elected are the ones with money or influence, and the French Algerians think the same thing happens in France. Pierre couldn’t understand why there was this publicity about him.”

  Andériou took Françoise by the elbow:

  “I realized later what a great girl you are, but at the time I was furious.”

  “Why?” Pasfeuro asked him.

  “Come inside first.”

  The room was furnished with a sideboard, a dresser equipped with simple-patterned plates, a big farm table, carefully scrubbed, and benches. Without the blinding light streaming through the drawn shutters one could have imagined oneself in some corner of the French countryside. A faint smell of wax and jam hung in the air. A young Arab boy brought in some biscuits and wine; he introduced the only note of exoticism into the picture and his presence here was out of place; an old housekeeper would have been more in keeping.

  Andériou ceremoniously raised his glass.

  “Your health. You asked me why I stayed on. Maybe because I was sick of the uneventful life in my part of the country, shooting parties, huge rich meals, nice girls who at the end of dinner come and sit on your lap. . . .

  “I had reached the age of thirty without ever having done anything in life apart from a little extremely comfortable Resistance activity. My farmers all addressed me by the familiar tu and I played bowls with them. I had a pretty garden, one of those presbytery gardens in which the bees are drunk with the sugar from the fruit. My siestas were deep and lasted all afternoon; I was putting on weight and began to have liver trouble. My cellars were full of old brandy maturing and my stillrooms stacked with hams rubbed in salt and armagnac, and with pâtés de foie gras.

  “As soon as I got out here, in this ugly country, among the rough and often uncouth people, with the vineyards stretching in serried rows into the distance, under this shattering light, I felt a deep joy at being a new man.

  “The farm only served to make money, and it made a lot, because five hundred acres of vineyards and citrus fruit in the Mitidja bring in a packet. But nothing had been done for the Arabs, simple agricultural labourers who were paid by the day and housed in shacks.

  “I felt uncomfortable not knowing their names and not being able to talk to them. It’s not like that in Périgord. I invested my first year’s profits in building a little village next to the farmhouse and I gave each of my labourers a small allotment. I subsequently discovered that they rented it out to others who were even more hard up than they were. But instead of this making me angry it gave me a good laugh.

  “At first my neighbours jeered at me, then they accused me of spoiling the natives and making prices go up. They called me a dirty skinflint and cast aspersions on my parentage: they at least knew how to use their dough.

  “Françoise stood up for me with her customary violence and warm-heartedness. I was on good terms with the military round the corner. I had them in to meals and we would talk about that easy-going France to which we all belonged.

  “More often than not, settlers are tactless with the soldiers. They want to be liked, and therefore not to be discussed; they’re out to make money and they’re not always honest. That’s what they call being crafty. One day I discovered that the Arabs called my property the Frenchman’s farm, as though the others weren’t just as French as myself! One of my barns was burnt to the ground and some of my vineyards destroyed.

  “That wretched man Puydebois was behind it all, but acting on behalf of the ‘big families.’ They had led him to believe that I was a Socialist and a freemason.

  “A man can’t live alone, especially if he has got worries. Six months after I arrived I married a little schoolmistress from Cahors who was dying of boredom in this ungodly country. She had come here to spread the gospel to the Moslems. There were several missionaries in her family. . . . She’s now in France with our two children and I like to think of her in our garden, but, for her as much as for me, our real home is here. When the big families saw there was nothing doing they packed up and went back to France. All the little settlers then rallied round me—not so much because I had been right to treat my labourers well, but because I was the richest of those who still clung to their farms. My millions gave me the right to command them.

  “They’re nice fellows, but it has taken this desertion of their usual leaders, this outbreak of violence and bloodshed, to open their eyes at last.

  “Some fellaghas also came to see me. They told me I was a good white man, that I should never have anything to worry about, but that I would have to help them ‘in their war effort.’ Those were their very words.

  “I refused and I was preparing in despair to go back to the Gers. My labourers came to see me and they begged me to stay. I therefore raised their wages and no one touched my vines. But I knew perfectly well that anything extra I gave them went at once into the pocket of the fund collectors—and not always into the F.L.N.’s. The war in Algeria has been first and foremost an enormous racket of which the victims were the poorest of the poor.

  “So I’m betraying my country a little, but if I had left I should have betrayed her more. The settlers all round me now practise the same system, except Puydebois. He’s mad, but courageous. And do you know that this fanatic who regards himself as a Chouan and calls us ‘the Blues’ behaves like the best of men towards the three or four Moslem families who live on his farm? One of his labourers whose name had been found on an F.L.N. list was arrested: he was only just prevented from setting out with his rifle to release him. In his eyes all the Arabs are rebels except his own; actually they are neither more nor less so than the others.”

  “What’s going to happen now?” asked Pasfeuro.

  Andériou shrugged his shoulders:

  “I’m afraid our days are numbered on the continent of Africa. Our settlers might have been the best in the world or, on the other hand, the most oppressive, it would have come to the same in the end.”

  As usual, whenever she felt embarrassed, Françoise Baguèras had risen to her feet and was striding round the table, swinging her bag.

  “Heavens above, Pierre, tell them why you really stayed on. Don’t be frightened of appearing ridiculous. We’ve been living too long in the midst of tragedy and excess for us to go on noticing what’s ridiculous and what isn’t.

  “You won’t tell them? All right, I will! It’s because you and your wife were bursting with the need to love others, to love anyone who was the victim of misfortune. In France there was no one left to love. The French are fat, peaceful, selfish and satisfied. So you came out here.

  “An American friend of mine used to quote these verses of an old Persian poet: ‘If pain, like fire, produced smoke, the whole world would be darkened by it.’

  “There’s so much smoke in Algeria that you can’t see clearly any longer or else you suffocate.

  “They have stopped calling your place the Frenchman’s farm, it’s now known as the Saint’s, the farm of Hadj Andériou, the man who came to perform his pilgrimage of love in the land of Islam.

  “Go back to your little presbytery garden, Pierre. We Algerians are soaked in blood, violence and sunshine. We’re on the side of injustice and strength and that’s the very reason we feel almost at ease in this civil war of ours. Haven’t you realized you’re dealing with pagans? Just look how we honour youth, strength, riches, which are the signs of the protection of the gods! But we turn aside from the old, the poor; and at the same time we’re as old and resigned as the rest of them.

  “You’re too good for
us, Pierre. We don’t want you to be made a martyr, in the full sense of that word, that’s to say the Christian sense, while we’ve been incapable of producing a single real one for the cause of French Algeria.

  “Because a soldier is never a martyr, any more than a settler who merely protects his land, like Puydebois, or a journalist who happens to get bumped off while doing his job.”

  “Dear Françoise, as usual you’re exaggerating,” Pierre Andériou gently replied. “I don’t feel the slightest urge to die and I’m not in the least a saint. If I’m attacked, I shall defend my land——”

  “What with?” Françoise bluntly retorted. “Just tell us what you’ve got in the way of arms to defend yourself: a shot-gun!”

  “There’s a military post less than two miles away. . . .”

  * * * *

  As they drove back along the coastal road in the smell of sea-salt and tar, Françoise who was sitting in front turned round to Esclavier:

  “Tell me, Captain, you don’t seem to like the French of Algeria. . . .”

  “What makes you think that?”

  “You’re tense and on edge whenever you’re with them. But then you’re not the only one. Many of the military behave like that. The army in Algeria has made its love match with the Moslems, not the French. What about Algiers? Do you like Algiers?”

  “It’s a lovely town.”

  “You don’t like it . . . maybe because you don’t know its secret. Camus, with whom I used to wander about the Kasbah and whom I sometimes accompanied to Djemilla, to Tipasa, anywhere there were any ruins or where artemisia grew, declares, I think in Été: ‘The towns that Europe has to offer are too full of rumours of the past . . . the desert itself has taken a similar course, it has been overloaded with poetry. To escape from poetry and recover the peace of stone, there must be other deserts, other places without a soul and without redress. . . .’

  “Those places without a soul and without redress were Oran and also Algiers. But he suffered as I did from the fact that Algeria has no past and that’s why he was so attracted to ruins.”

  * * * *

  On his return to Algiers, Esclavier learnt that Colonel Puysanges had asked him to report to H.Q. Region Ten. Feeling apprehensive, he notified his comrades—an old reaction dating back to the Resistance—and reported to the colonel’s office, a bare and austere room simply adorned with the portrait of the Commander-in-Chief.

  As usual, Colonel Puysanges was amiable, affable and worldly, concealing threats beneath his flattery and setting a trap behind every word.

  Nothing was more forthright than the colonel’s gaze, nothing more firm than his hand-shake or more sincere than the tone of his voice.

  “My dear Esclavier, I’ve been wanting to see you for some time . . . but circumstances . . . Luckily, here you are in Algiers. By the way, you’re often seen in the company of journalists. . . . I must remind you there’s a special branch at G.H.Q. to deal with them. It would be regrettable if, at such serious times as we’re going through at the moment, while important things are no doubt afoot, an indiscreet remark exploited by someone like Pasfeuro or Françoise Baguèras were to jeopardize certain plans. If you want to meet Arcinade let me know. I’ll invite you both to lunch. Then we could go and have coffee with the C.-in-C.—your name’s not unknown to him, you know.

  “Well, now, how’s everything at the 10th Regiment? Raspéguy the same as ever? A good soldier, to be sure, outstanding even, so long as he keeps strictly to the running of his regiment. But he lacks political maturity—which is not the case, it seems, with your dear friend Glatigny! He’s very active these days and in a direction which we’re bound to find astonishing. He wasn’t in the F.F.L. as far as I know. Anyway, the C.-in-C. has a high regard for him as well.”

  Esclavier was amused to see what a high regard the Commander-in-Chief could have for officers who made him frightened or whom he needed.

  “You know the C.-in-C.’s position,” Puysanges went on. “He notified Monsieur Pleven, who had just been earmarked as Prime Minister, that in no circumstances would the army tolerate a withdrawal from Algeria which the opening of negotiations with the F.L.N. would imply.

  “He has been saddled with a wild reputation for Machiavellianism, whereas there couldn’t be a simpler man in the world. Some of you, I know, call him the Tojun, the Chinese General. That’s a lot of rot.

  “It has also reached my ears, in connection with the Mohadi affair—between ourselves, it was the only solution and Boisfeuras was quite right—that a rather strange meeting took place at the Aletti the other night. . . . You ought to trust me a little more. For my friends I can arrange quite a number of things.

  “Come and take pot luck with me at dinner one of these days, and bring Glatigny and Boisfeuras along—I think, at a pinch, he can leave hospital for one evening—and also Marindelle.

  “Since you’ve just come back from Z, how are the Moslems reacting?”

  “They’re rather worried, sir, trapped like a grain of wheat between two millstones, us and the F.L.N. Before committing themselves too much to our side they want to know if we plan to stay on.”

  “Quite natural, my dear fellow. Our levies are likewise somewhat disturbed, even the N.C.O.s. We must find some means of reassuring them. We’re liable to need all the help we can get.”

  “May I put forward a suggestion?”

  “But of course, my dear chap.”

  “Captain Mahmoudi is still being held in Fort l’Empereur. What have they got against him? His signature on a letter to the President of the Republic. Mahmoudi is very popular among the regiments of levies. He belongs to a great family from the Saharan Atlas. He ought to be released.”

  “So that he can rush off to Cairo or Tunis!”

  “There are a number of us in Algiers who were his fellow-prisoners in Camp One. We could go bail for him.”

  “It seems a little difficult to me, but I’ll speak to the C.-in-C. about it. A psychological shock is always a good thing . . . besides, with a firm hand to guide him, Mahmoudi could become a trump card.

  “What’s the strength of your three companies stationed at Zeralda?”

  “Four hundred, sir.”

  “With their heavy armament?”

  “No, only their light.”

  “Keep a firm grip on your men. They’re liable to have heavy demands made on them.”

  * * * *

  “Well,” enquired Boisfeuras who was waiting for Esclavier at the Aletti, “what did that dear colonel have to say?”

  “Puysanges knows about quite a number of things. I don’t really know how the idea crossed my mind, but I spoke to him about Mahmoudi. He’s not opposed in principle to his release on parole, provided we go bail for him. All our plots are public property in Algiers and the eight million Moslems have been careful to keep out of them. Our only chance of success is to have at least some of them on our side.”

  Boisfeuras agreed:

  “Even if Mahmoudi buggers off to Tunis we must try and bring this off, and be prepared to face the consequences. I don’t think he will leave, especially when he knows what we’re trying to achieve: the independence of Algeria in a French context. For that we will have to have the support of men like him.

  “I couldn’t sleep last night. The bed’s too soft. I had a tart sent up to my room, but there was nothing to her: lifeless flesh, overscented and a mass of frills. And yet I like tarts. So I started thinking and disentangling my memories from my plans.

  “Do you know what gives the Communists their strength, Philippe? They have no country or frontiers, no women, only female companions, no friends, only comrades-in-arms. A year ago I might have been able to adopt that way of life, but I began to be fond of some of my friends, rather more fond than I should have been if I had wanted to remain a real revolutionary. I’m fond of Françoise Baguèras, that woman journalist
you were with today, and also Pellegrin, and you yourself, Philippe, however much that may shock you.”

  “What’s come over you? Here you are, having human feelings.”

  “No. But I’m beginning to think that all that remains for people like us is friendship. The great fires that devoured men and carried them away have gone out for ever. All that’s left are a few wretches who huddle against one another for warmth. And the Communists are no exception. For them there are just as many frontiers as for us. I often get news from China. The Russians are hated there and can’t move an inch without being closely watched and spied on. And yet they are Communists like the Chinese. But it’s a question of yellow skin versus white. And that’s all that’s left in the world: racialism accompanied by a primitive form of imperialism. The whole war of Algeria is based on this racial struggle. Spaniards, Maltese and Jews, all regarded as Europeans, refuse to be assimilated with fair-haired and blue-eyed Berbers who are known as Arabs.

  “It’s frighteningly stupid, and it affects me more than anyone else. You know I’m a half-caste, Philippe: a quarter Chinese blood, a quarter Russian, a little more of one, a little less of the other, I’m not quite sure, because I never knew my mother. The old man wanted a son. He chose a woman for her beauty without bothering about her background. He laid his egg in her, then took the child and sent the woman packing, after paying her, of course. But my father gave me his ugly mug, and the woman all the rest. A Chinese will always despise me because I’m a half-breed.

  “So, you see, I want our adventure in Algeria to be first and foremost anti-racial; and our slogan—that word which Si Mellial said we would have to put forward to counter Istiqlal or Independence—must take that fusion of races into consideration.”

  “Soustelle, like a good ethnologist, that’s to say a man who realizes how vain is the notion of race and how important that of civilization, has suggested Integration.”

  “Try and impress integration on people who won’t even accept mixed schools! But it’s a word, and there’s a certain magic about words. Sometimes they assume such a burden of hope or despair that they become stronger than any idea.