“In Paris de Gaulle is playing his hand cleverly. He has made contact with the labourers’ trade unions through the intermediary of Blocq-Mascart. Back there he’s doing his best to be as reassuring as possible, but we out here have the same effect as a bogeyman. The old traditional game: stroke with your left hand and strike with your right. We’re heading for a lot of trouble.”
“Puysanges is trying to suck up to us.”
“The Tojun is feeling uneasy. He is born for underground stratagems, for subtle intrigues, but is scared of the rank and file of the army, because he knows he’s incapable of making direct contact with them. The two bazooka shells they fired at him on January 10th made him aware of quite a number of things.
“The powder magazine’s going up and we’re not yet ready for it. The Tojun, like a spiritual son of Ancient China, is far more keen on the appearance of power than on actually wielding it. If he left us the power we might be able to save his face!
“I’m not quite happy about de Gaulle. De Gaulle is the old world and sweet reason. But what is great is never reasonable.
“He has behind him all that provides the reason for a State: big business—I know this from my father—the higher echelons of the civil service, and the tradition of the army as represented in its best form by men like Glatigny. The man who in London offered us ‘the great adventure’ died when he became a politician. But we’re going to spring this integration on him, force him to embark on a new adventure. . . .
“Yet I’d rather play cards with the Tojun. I’d be more comfortable, because he knows how to lie and cheat with an admirable grand mandarin’s expression on his face: eliminating him would give no one a twinge of conscience; he only has lackeys and accomplices behind him, not friends.”
* * * *
The revolution of the 13th of May, which for a time resulted in the severing of relations with Metropolitan France, broke out before Pasfeuro had written his articles. The journalist had come to this conclusion: a coup d’état is impossible, or else it hangs fire. He had found nothing but dissent and lack of cohesion, in the army as well as in the administration and at every level of the population.
* * * *
“It’s getting late,” said Urbain Donadieu, “but before going to bed I should like to know what became of your settler, that fellow Andériou who came from the Gers, where they make the best pâtés in the world. He went back there, I suppose?”
“Yes, but feet first. After the 13th of May he became the President of the Public Safety Committee in his district. He was so popular that many of the Moslems rallied round him. In consequence, he became a dangerous enemy to the F.L.N. They killed him: a bomb planted in his car. . . . We paid a flying visit to attend the funeral in his little village—Françoise Baguèras, Pellegrin, Boisfeuras and myself. It went off very badly. We were standing by the freshly dug grave; the priest had said the last prayers. Looking tiny in her black clothes, Andériou’s wife huddled against Françoise, weeping. The whole village was there, but I’m certain not one of the inhabitants could understand why a nice lad like Pierre, who enjoyed the good things of life and had the money to enjoy them, should have gone off and got himself killed in Algeria. An astonishing mixture of disapproval could be seen on the faces of some of them.
“The President of the Former Deportees and Resistance Fighters Association of the department had come from Auch with three or four characters who looked like members of a bodyguard. They had made no attempt to conceal their boredom during this ceremony, which was too long for their liking. They were the militant sort, full of hate, contempt and self-sufficiency.
“Taking a sheet of paper from his pocket, the president of the association climbed up on to a hummock and began:
“‘Comrades, we represent the Former Deportees and Resistance Fighters Association of the Gers Department, of which Andériou was a member. It must be admitted that, during the occupation, Andériou gave evidence of upright conduct even though he was right wing and, by virtue of his ideas and upbringing, would normally have sided with the traitor Pétain. But he very quickly returned to his set, to the clan of colonialist warmongers and exploiters. He went to Algeria to defend his class privileges. He took an active part in the Fascist plot of May 13th and helped to throttle the Republic. In their courageous struggle for the independence of their country our comrades, the valiant soldiers of the Algerian Liberation Army, executed him. . . .’
“‘Shut your trap!’ Pellegrin gently remarked.
“‘I beg your pardon!’
“‘Shut your trap!’
“He struck the man in the face and the president of the deportees (during the war he had never set foot outside his cozy little house) and Resistance fighters (he had never heard a shot fired in anger) toppled over into the grave while a cry of horror rose from the crowd. His little pals made a rush at Pellegrin, which obliged us to intervene and to give these terrors of the district a good hiding. The priest, the choirboys, the Christian widows, the Children of Mary, the Bowls Club, the flag-bearers, the whole lot, took to their heels and ran away through the tombs, while we rolled about wrestling in the freshly turned earth, crushing the bead crowns, the fresh flowers and old bones. We drove off immediately afterwards, taking Andériou’s wife and kids with us. In the car Françoise Baguèras burst into tears and said:
“‘This is a damnable war. It engenders hate and sacrilege everywhere, even in this out-of-the-way little village, which has never before seen anyone fighting in a cemetery. . . .’
“Some blood was dribbling from Pellegrin’s mouth. He wiped it with his earth-stained handkerchief:
“‘Don’t worry, my beauty, we’ll save that Algeria of yours, with or without old Uncle de Gaulle. Because there’s one thing we’ll never allow—that such a good fellow as Andériou should die for nothing and then be insulted at the graveside.’”
* * * *
“If I had to paint a picture of a hero of our times,” said Urbain Donadieu, “he would be utterly different from your big-hearted settler and also from your Captain Boisfeuras, whose grating romanticism is absolutely out of date.
“To reassure my public I would first of all have him die like a good Frenchman in a car accident during Whitsun week-end. In his adventures he would involve no one but himself and his disappearance would not cause the slightest stir.”
Urbain Donadieu poured himself out a glass of brandy, then rose with an effort from his armchair and his heavy step could be heard creaking on the stairs.
“I’ll see you home,” Irène said to Esclavier, “at least to your front door. Then, perhaps, I’ll come in with you, or else come back here. I like to feel free to do as I please!”
“You’ll come in with me, Irène, because people who claim to be the most free are the ones who succumb the most easily to their desires!”
The sound of their footsteps on the cobbles echoed in the silence like the sonorous and disturbing reverberations of pebbles thrown down a well. Irène leant against Philippe, fell into step beside him and had the reassuring pleasure of feeling protected by a man against the indefinable dangers that inhabit the nights of women.
Philippe carried her in his arms over the threshold.
“I hate you,” she said, hugging him closely.
But to show her that he too was free Philippe did not lay a finger on her all night, even though she provoked him with the shamelessness of an old hetaera. In the morning he woke her by kissing her and made love to her with the tenderness of a young swain. As she prepared his breakfast, she thought to herself:
“Here I am subdued like a little kitchenmaid and my very guts are topsy-turvy with pleasure. But you’re going to pay for this, my little Philippe, you’re going to pay a heavy price!”
7
THE CHOUCHOUKA OF THE 13TH OF MAY
“I wish I could see a photograph of Boisfeuras,” said Irène, “I can’t quite pic
ture his appearance.”
“He was an ugly chap,” said Esclavier, “with a sort of ugliness that isn’t repellent but to which it is hard to grow accustomed. And that rasping voice of his, that supple easy gait, that swinging tireless step! He could sleep anywhere, in any position, but never for longer than an hour or two.
“When he was in Burma he had taken part in the experiments of breaking the rhythm of sleep which that mad old genius Wingate inflicted on his Chindits; he had gone on with them on his own.
“Like anything made up of unequal elements, Boisfeuras’s personality gave rise to a feeling of discomfort. He had an astonishing gift for mimicry, could blend into any Far Eastern crowd, assume the appearance of a coolie or a soldier, the arrogance of a mandarin or the whimpering tone of a beggar.
“But in Algeria he was like one of those chameleons which you put on a patch of colour that they can’t assume themselves—bright red, for instance—and which burst in the attempt to do so.
“It was impossible to tell if he was in good form or tired, ill or in the best of health. I never saw him sweat, even in the greatest heat. In his bottle he carried slightly salty water. Another bit of Chindit training.”
Philippe dipped into a haversack and pulled out a big photograph of a man lying on the sand, leaning on his elbows. Over the sinewy torso lay a camouflage jacket; it was stained with blood. There was a curious smile on the ravaged face, while the mouth hung open like that of a suffocating fish. A fly had settled near his lips.
“This photo, Irène, was taken a few minutes before he died. A machine-gun burst fired at point-blank range had torn away his stomach. It was at Ilghérem.”
“You were also wounded at Ilghérem.”
“Yes. Our luck had forsaken us that day. We had been too daring and we discovered to our cost that we were up against men who were a match for us and better adapted to desert warfare.
“One morning, as the sun came up over the dunes, there was no doubt in anyone’s mind that we had lost. Like the legionaries at Camerone, we might have fought on to the last man, huddled round a flag.
“So then we went mad with rage, were even more daring than before, and one fine day we won the victory we were after. But at what a price! Ilghèrem is now referred to as the legendary battle of the red berets and is actually compared with Camerone; rather than fight a losing battle and die as heroes, we preferred to win and survive. We were men of the times, when efficiency counts for more than fine gestures, and we were not fighting a mercenary war somewhere miles away in Mexico.”
“Do you think you’ll ever get used to civilian life, Philippe? I wish you could have seen your face just now—you were transformed, your cheeks drawn in, your lips pressed tight together and your nostrils quivering; you had turned into a wolf again. You frightened me. One day you’ll go back to your wolves and you’ll end up like your friend, sneering stupidly at death.”
“Do you think those who die quietly in bed look so clever?”
“I like the peaceful death of old men surrounded by their children, or that of wise men who listen with indifference to the already slackened threads of life loosening inside them, or that of lovers, of a boy of twenty and a girl of sixteen who die with a smile on their lips, holding each other’s hand.”
“Are you going through your fit of petit-bourgeois romanticism?”
“Why is Boisfeuras, with his stomach ripped out, still trying to smile? Is it because, for the last time, he wants to cut a good figure in front of his comrades, or is he merely posing for a snapshot? ‘Before dying, Captain, please smile into the camera; it’s for the regimental album.’”
Esclavier took the photograph out of her hands.
“In Indo-China there was an army camera-man who followed all the paratroops’ operations and had many friends among them. He told me he once saw a group of wounded men burnt to death in a forest fire which the Vietminh had lit. The camera-man could do nothing for them, and they knew he couldn’t. But, crazed with pain, they still smiled at him. It wasn’t for the regimental album, but it forced them to behave properly and to die like men.
“Boisfeuras was not a man of the times, that may be true. He had something of the romantic revolutionaries of the inter-war period, of whom Malraux and Hemingway have given us a few examples. Of course, Malraux and Hemingway have fallen out of fashion and you’re a girl who’s up to date.”
Irène had enjoyed reading Hemingway and Malraux at the age of eighteen, but she had adopted the definition of courage suggested by Saint-Exupéry: “Courage . . . is not made up of fine feelings: a little rage, a little vanity, much stubbornness and a vulgar love of sport. Least of all, exaltation of one’s physical strength, which has nothing to do with it. One folds one’s arms over one’s open shirt and takes a deep breath. It’s rather pleasant. When it occurs at night-time it is mingled with the feeling of having committed an enormous blunder.”
Wasn’t Esclavier nothing but a man of courage, who throughout his life had mingled rage and stubbornness with a vulgar love of sport? Perhaps he had merely just become aware of that enormous blunder and this was the real reason for his resignation: a commonplace creature, in fact, a poor wretch who smiled for the photographer and killed to overawe his pals!
All of a sudden she hated him so deeply that she was amazed, but at the same time she felt the need of having him close to her. From this mixture of hatred and desire she derived a violent and perfect sensual pleasure.
“With him, I sacrifice to the beast,” she thought to herself, “I make use of Philippe as though he was a splendid stallion, but I wouldn’t let another woman come near him. I’d go mad. And he doesn’t know a thing, he doesn’t notice a thing! It’s wonderful to be a woman and to know how to hide one’s feelings so well. . . .”
Esclavier had put the photograph away. He was lost in his memories, from which Irène felt excluded.
“Do you know Algiers?” he suddenly asked her.
She felt an urge to be unpleasant:
“No. It’s a town I don’t like at all. Its vulgar exoticism is connected in my mind with the memory of Pépé le Moko. I don’t like the French of Algeria. I knew a few when I was a student. They’re self-sufficient, lazy and caddish with girls. In their behaviour they’re hardly distinguishable from the Arabs whom they affect to despise so much and they haven’t got the excuse of having the complex of the colonized.”
She would have liked to shout in his face that she had been to bed with dozens of Arabs—just to hurt him, for it wasn’t true—but she was frightened of being sent packing like a whore.
“First of all I’ve got my article to write,” she said to herself, “and I’m not going to jeopardize my career for the pleasure of making this ape-man lose his temper.”
“The Algerian French,” said Esclavier, “have complexes rather like those of the colonized. They have never been able to get rid of the idea that they are second-class Frenchmen; hence this need of theirs to exaggerate their defects, to be loud-mouthed and ostentatious. I didn’t like Algiers either . . . until the 13th of May. Afterwards, for a week, I let myself be devoured by that town, then I took myself in hand again. But I understood how the proconsuls and generals were digested by Algiers and how bewildered the Tojun must have felt when the very crowd that had booed him suddenly started wildly acclaiming him.
“I knew perfectly well, however, that that crowd had been bewitched by us. We made it shout whatever we wanted. But we were extremely clumsy sorcerer’s apprentices. We were not aware of its sexual urge, its heat, its strength which it seemed to draw from the sun and the glittering sea.
“It was only then, and not before, that for us officers born in Metropolitan France there occurred the tragedy of our commitment.”
* * * *
Urbain Donadieu came waddling in, still shod in his slippers.
He sank into an armchair, heaving a deep sigh of relief
reminiscent of the noise of a bladder being deflated.
“It’s a splendid view from your terrace,” he observed, “and this wing armchair which was a present of mine to your uncle is extremely comfortable. But your house lacks flavour, it’s as neutral as the visiting-room of a convent. We’ll flavour it with garlic, olive oil and fried onion.”
“You would love the streets of Bab-el-Oued,” Esclavier replied. “There’s a strong smell about them: oil and tomato, but also fish and skewered meat grilling on charcoal fires. To begin with I couldn’t stand those smells, but on the 13th of May I suddenly found I liked them, that I felt at home in that seething quarter, where Jews, Arabs, Maltese, Spaniards and garrison soldiers embraced to the sound of martial music.”
Urbain Donadieu folded his arms across his stomach and, with lowered eyes, like a father confessor, said:
“I’m listening, my son.”
“Not yet,” said Irène. “The coffee simply won’t drip through this damned percolator. . . .”
* * * *
The soldiers of the three companies of the 10th Regiment were delighted to be back in Algiers. They had known the town only during the battle against the terrorists, when the crash of bombs was punctuated by the wailing of ambulances.
Péladon, Molintard and Videban could now stroll about unarmed and watch the girls go by from the terrace of a café in the Rue Michelet.
“That one hasn’t got a stitch on under her dress,” said Péladon.
“That’s not true,” exclaimed Corporal Videban, who on principle always shed doubt on whatever his comrade asserted. “She’s wearing nylon underneath.”
“They’re all virgins in Algiers,” said Sergeant Molintard in a tone of disgust, “or they say they are. Last night I picked one up. No need to waste time on small talk. She didn’t take much persuading to come to the flicks. I’m a gentleman, I waited till the big film before groping up her skirt. Nothing doing. And you know what she said? That she was a virgin, of course! Then she started talking about marriage and introducing me to her family. But I gave her the works all right, and by the time we came out I knew she wasn’t a virgin. It’s not often you get a chance like that!”
The Praetorians Page 17