The Praetorians

by Jean Larteguy

  The waxen-faced old man prepared himself another pipe and for a few moments nothing could be heard but the bubbling of the opium pellet.

  Then he said in a high-pitched voice—the voice his son would have had if he had reached the same age:

  “I’m now going to read you his letter. It is dated October 22nd, 1958, and is post-marked Foum el Zoar.”

  His hands vanished once more from the circle of lamplight, then reappeared with a sheet of paper folded in four.

  “‘Father,

  “‘I feel like quoting Hamlet: “Something is rotten in the state of Denmark . . .’

  “‘I’m writing to you from a god-forsaken post in the Sahara: Foum el Zoar. It’s a bright clear night, with soothing noises coming up from the plantations: the creaking sound of a noria, the cry of a camel, the cooing of turtle-doves.

  “‘In the room next door Min is interrogating a prisoner—as the Viets or Communist Chinese used to do. You fill a sock with sand and bring it down over and over again on the head of the chap whose tongue you want to loosen. This treatment leaves no trace, doesn’t kill, but I know few men who can bear it for long. A little sergeant of twenty with the face of an archangel is calmly noting down what the prisoner coughs up: lies interspersed with accurate information.

  “‘Afterwards, when the prisoner has got everything off his chest, we’ll let him rest. Tomorrow I’ll confront him with everything he has blurted out.

  “‘He will thus learn that he has become a traitor to his cause, to his friends. If he’s a man of character he will kill himself, but more often than not he will agree to work with us. This is what will happen in Abdallah’s case. One day his own people will execute him, or perhaps we will ourselves, because he will have turned traitor again.

  “‘And this will go on as long as the war lasts, as long as the world lasts. . . .

  “‘But tonight I’ve had enough. If I were a Christian or a Buddhist I could contemplate retiring to a monastery. But I’m neither.

  “‘I was in Oran yesterday. I called on my old friend Captain Philippe Esclavier. He is seriously wounded and, like me, utterly dejected.

  “‘For the last week I’ve had the same nightmare. I am in a fortified city, the sort that’s described in certain far-fetched science-fiction stories. It’s a huge place, equipped with all the latest American technical refinements: 3-D cinemas, erotic clubs where every form of love-making is practised, and others in which drug-addicts try out all sorts of products, not only that old-fashioned opium of yours, but also sedatives, tranquillizers, stimulants. The museums and libraries are stuffed with treasures, but no one comes any longer to read the old books or to look at the masterpieces except for a few old madmen under police supervision.

  “‘For an all-powerful police force reigns over my city. They are informed not only of what the inhabitants do, but of what they think and dream, and they see to it that everyone, at the same time, performs the same gestures, watches the same television programmes, practises the same sports. The city manufactures its own food. It lives in complete autarchy, and the surrounding countryside, since it is useless, lies fallow. I often dream that you are the supreme head of this police force.

  “‘The city is protected by a few laboratories in which scientists have perfected weapons of one hundred per cent efficiency, and a handful of guard-posts situated on the confines of the forbidden zone which surrounds it. For the city has many enemies. Emaciated and envious nomads prowl round it. They hate it to the point of venturing into the forbidden zone where they are immediately destroyed.

  “‘I’m in command of one of these guard-posts. I have begun to hate the dead city, where nothing happens, and to hate you as well. In one of my dreams I let the nomads through, in another I put myself at the head of them and set fire to the city with my own hands.

  “‘For this is my temptation: not to be Boisfeuras any longer, but Meskri, the rebel chief I bumped off the day before yesterday, and to rise in arms against this outworn West and its rotting Byzantiums . . .

  “‘But on certain nights I remember that in the other guard-posts there are friends of mine, chaps like Esclavier or Raspéguy, and it’s stronger than I am, I can’t betray them. So I press the button and the nomads, bearded and tattered, but very much alive, with warm blood in their veins and healthy appetites, are sacrificed to the perambulating corpses in the city.

  “‘This nightmare—which is very much like my real life—culminates in a dead-end.

  “‘How the Sahara nights inspire one to write! I only wanted to tell you that I’ve had a child by a Eurasian girl, a bit of a slut who used to live in Marseille and whom I met again in Algiers.

  “‘This is her address:

  “‘Mlle Florence Mercadier, 17 Rue Félicien-Bonte, Algiers.

  “‘As you see, the family traditions are not dying out! Did you not behave in the same way with the Russo-Chinese woman in whom you planted your seed?

  “‘Good-bye, old taipan. I don’t think I’ll let the bearded nomads through.

  Julien.’

  “That’s all,” said the old man. “Now let’s go and have some lunch. I’ll watch you eating, as I can’t get anything down myself.

  “I too wanted to play a trick on my son. I never told him I was suffering from cancer and only had a few more months to live.”

  11

  AN “OBJECTIVE” POINT OF VIEW

  The article appeared a week later in Influences, heralded by a publicity campaign that was typical of this periodical.

  “The veil is at last lifted on the secret of the 13th of May. From the torture-chamber to the Elysée. The murder of Ben Mohadi. The true story behind the resignation of one of the great figures among the Red Berets: Major Philippe Esclavier.”

  The cover bore the photograph that Philippe had given Irène, of himself on a stretcher at the Zair well just before the helicopter flew him out.

  With his head lolling on one side, he was the perfect, conventional picture of the stricken hero.

  Below it was a quotation from Péguy on which Michel Weihl-Esclavier had insisted to offset any nuisance that his brother-in-law might be caused through the publication of such a document:

  “Mother, here are your sons who have fought so hard,

  May they not be weighed as a soul is weighed,

  May they rather be judged as an outlaw is judged

  Who comes creeping home along deserted paths . . .”

  For Influences stood in serene but inexorable judgement of Philippe Esclavier, the paratroops, the French army and the whole régime behind it.

  The article was signed Irène Donadieu, but a short introduction by Villèle explained the situation “objectively” and gave the journal’s point of view:

  “We hesitated to publish this document, but after long reflection we felt that our readers and the whole of France had a right to see it, for it throws fresh light on the putsch of the 13th of May. It explains by what stratagems General de Gaulle came back to power, carried on the shoulders of a handful of mercenaries in camouflage uniform who were under close judicial observation and had nothing further to lose.

  “Our correspondent Irène Donadieu, while on holiday at her father’s home in the little Provence village of Saint-Gilles-de-Valreyne, by chance met Major Philippe Esclavier who had taken refuge there after his resignation. The officer made a number of disclosures to her, as he would have done to anyone who knew about his problems and was capable of understanding them.

  “He was not aware of Irène Donadieu’s profession. Since she was not contemplating using this confession, our correspondent did not consider it necessary to let him know she was on the staff of Influences. We have every reason to believe, however, that if he had known that Irène Donadieu was a journalist, Philippe Esclavier would not have spoken in any other way.

  “But later on our colleague realize
d that her duty as a journalist should come before scruples of a more personal nature.

  “Through her courageous decision she honours the profession.”

  The article began as follows:

  “Major, or rather ex-Major, Philippe Esclavier is the perfect picture of those heroes in camouflage cap and uniform who became front-page news on the 13th of May.

  “His war record is one of the best that any officer could have: Commander of the Légion d’Honneur, Companion of the Liberation, the Resistance rosette, eighteen mentions in dispatches, a member of the F.F.L. from the very start, deported to Buchenwald, he belongs moreover to a family of great university figures which has in many cases conscientiously served the French Left Wing.

  “He has the leanness and toughness of a wolf. To him women are puppets or playthings, a warrior’s pastime or machines for producing children. Men who do not lead the same harsh life as himself are readily dubbed ‘rotten’ or ‘decadent.’

  “In point of fact, behind this surly attitude can be seen the immense despair of a man undoubtedly gifted in many ways, but who has become, by dint of fighting in wars which in his heart of hearts he condemned, a sort of robot, a killing machine. . . .

  “He could be taken for the angel of death, but a sarcastic and sharp-tempered angel. A serious wound has afforded him time for reflection, which has led to his painful conflict of conscience. It has enabled him to tear himself away from this infernal cycle of torture, summary executions, merciless fighting, plots, schemes and play-acting.

  “But Philippe Esclavier has been marked for life by the two wars of Indo-China and Algeria, like those trees struck by lightning which stand twisted and blackened in the middle of a forest.

  “As a result of his disclosures I can now firmly state:

  “That Lucien Ben Mohadi, the great Algerian Liberal, was murdered by the paratroops at Z.

  “That the man responsible for this murder, Captain B, was killed in action, or rather committed suicide under the guise of an operation which was in progress in the western Sahara.

  “That at the root of the May 13th conspiracy there was this murder and the fear of the guilty parties of being brought to justice, which would have led to their being questioned about the torturing and disappearance of individuals during the battle of Algiers.

  “That it was at machine-gun point that General Salan had to opt for de Gaulle, who was directly or indirectly controlling these officers through the medium of a former R.P.F. leader who is now a deputy.

  “That the rallying of the Moslems was deliberately engineered by this group of officers who, as prisoners-of-war in Indo-China, had borrowed from the Vietminh their methods of crowd management and propaganda technique, but without basing them on any ideology whatsoever, except a hotch-potch of conventional ideas in which Nationalism, Christianity and the West were all blended.

  “That it was the paratroops who launched the word Integration and, like haughty prætorians, tried to force de Gaulle to ratify their scheme. But in him they found a man who was even more difficult and haughty than themselves.

  “That these very paratroopers are at the root of the Public Safety Committees, whose real aim was to give the whole of France a military complexion. The ultimate result: a single party, of a Communist or Fascist type.”

  In her article Irène Donadieu dwelt at some length on each of these points, padding them out with details and remarks which she put into the major’s mouth.

  She passed over the Restignes affair in complete silence.

  “You see,” Villèle had told her, “it would disturb the unity of your contribution. . . .”

  Urbain Donadieu, still in his slippers, with an old raincoat thrown over his shirt and trousers, arrived two days later at the Gare de Lyon. A taxi drove him to his daughter’s flat and at nine o’clock in the morning he was ringing her doorbell. As there was no answer, he went panting downstairs to the concierge, borrowed a key and climbed up again panting even more heavily.

  Irène was asleep. On her bedside table lay a half-empty tube of sleeping-pills.

  Urbain made some strong coffee, roused his daughter, forced two cups down her throat, looked for a chair big enough for his buttocks and, not finding one, sat down on the bed, which made it creak.

  “I came here,” he said, “for you to explain . . .”

  He drew the paper out of his pocket and pointed at it:

  “This!”

  Irène rolled over on the other side of the bed.

  “Everyone is wanting me to explain it! Leave me alone, I’ve got nothing to explain.”

  “I don’t give a damn about what you’ve written. You have merely falsified the truth without betraying it completely. You have simply taken facts out of their background and context, like a fish which is lifted out of its bowl and, on dying, at once loses its colour. You’ve also allowed yourself several omissions . . . Communists invariably behave in this fashion, but they have an excuse: they believe they’re serving their cause and their religion.

  “Your article looks very much like the vengeance of a woman in love. I’d be very vexed all the same if my daughter behaved like a little shopgirl who’s been deceived by her boy-friend.

  “Philippe is also in Paris. He’s been summoned to the War Ministry where they’re going to ask him to take proceedings against you. I’m told he’ll refuse.”

  “Give me another cup of coffee, Papa Urbain, I’ve behaved like a slut. Yesterday evening it preyed so much on my conscience that I thought of killing myself. But it’s too silly, after all, to die at the age of twenty-seven, especially when life lies open before one, ready to be enjoyed.

  “It’s not so much what I wrote that I regret, because it’s what I believe, and when a woman is faced with an adversary as dangerous and attractive as Philippe there are no holds barred.

  “But the motives which prompted me to act in this way are unpleasant. That’s what made me feel so nauseated last night. The woman in me rebelled against Philippe because there was no room for her in his simplified ruthless universe. I couldn’t bear it.”

  All of a sudden Irène burst into tears; her sobs were so violent that her body heaved under the bedclothes.

  “Give me a towel soaked in cold water. It’s only the shopgirl having her fit of hysterics. You’re right, it all began through jealousy, a sentiment of which I thought I was incapable. I felt it deep down in my guts; I should have been warned by that. Women never heed the warning of their guts enough. We were on our way back from that old drug-addict, Boisfeuras’s father. I don’t mind people who take drugs occasionally, because one must experience everything, but I don’t like those who build their whole life round drugs and shelter behind them to keep apart from the living.

  “The old boy was repulsive and at the same time attractive, with the body of the dead captain which seemed to be lying in the middle of the room and to which he and Esclavier kept harking back.

  “When we got back to Saint-Gilles it was dark. There was a girl standing in front of her white convertible car, twirling her keys round her finger. She was tanned by the sun, the sea and beauty products. A girlish and at the same time mature body, the sort old men find attractive, and a greedy, eager mouth with full lips. It was a certain Mina, a little tart who was trying to get into films.

  “She looked at Philippe as though he was her personal property, as though she knew every inch of him and was in the habit of using them all.

  “In her imagination she was already in his bed, ready for all sorts of beastliness; I could see it in her eager eyes. And there was Philippe, rolling his shoulders, knowing that he only had to snap his fingers for her to go down on her knees and lick his feet.

  “My guts, those damned guts of mine, turned over. Just like the drug-addict. I too, without noticing it, had built my life round Philippe—more specifically, round what there was below Philippe’s wa
istline. No, that’s not true; I needed all of him, but maybe that is how it all began.

  “That longing to have him always with me, even to hate him, to tear him apart!

  “Naturally, I tried to brazen it out. I was keen on my independence and freedom and at the same time didn’t know what to do with them.

  “In my mind or in my subconscious, I don’t know which, Philippe belonged to me, had always belonged to me. I could not admit any past life of his in which I did not figure.

  “He introduced us:

  “‘Mina, a friend of mine—Irène, another friend and also a sort of cousin.’

  “My guts ached and my legs were unsteady. . . . That bastard had got under my skin, into my blood. . . .

  “He asked us both in for a drink. I knocked back a couple of whiskies, neat, one after the other. Philippe was watching me and I fancied I saw in his eyes, in those cruel motionless eyes of his, that he was amused.

  “I made some excuse to leave. I must have looked like an idiot and got up as though I was abandoning my place to the other girl.

  “Philippe’s eyes were still laughing.

  “He came as far as the front door with me. I spat out:

  “‘You can have her if you feel like it.’

  “‘Really? Wouldn’t you mind?’

  “I almost retorted: ‘If you so much as touch her I’ll tear your eyes out.’

  “But the pride of a female who always wants to play the male, to be as hard as he is, to beat him on his own ground, made the words stick in my throat.

  “‘No, I wouldn’t mind at all. You can tell me all about it afterwards.’

  “He went slightly pale, all the same, and I, like an idiot, believed I had scored a point.

  “‘You’re quite sure? Then I’ll have her, as you suggest. Mina knows a trick or two in bed.’

  “Do you know, Papa, I tottered home, stumbling over the stones in the path, knocking against the walls. You weren’t in, I left you that message: ‘Sorry, recalled urgently to Paris.’