What the day owes the nigth

by Yasmina Khadra

  I barely saw him any more.

  Fabrice, too, had less and less time to spend with me, but I understood. His relationship with Émilie seemed serious. They met every day behind the church, and on Sundays I could see them from my balcony walking through the vineyards, or heading out of the village on their bicycles, his shirt billowing, her hair whipped back by the wind. It was a joy to watch them ride up the hill, out of the village, away from the gossips. Sometimes, in my mind, I would go with them.

  Then, one morning, a miracle occurred. I was stocking the shelves in the pharmacy when I saw my uncle slowly come down the stairs in his dressing gown, cross the room and go outside. Germaine, who was two steps behind him, could hardly believe her eyes. My uncle had not set foot outside the house for years. That morning he stood on the steps of the shop, hands in the pockets of his dressing gown, looking around him, his gaze lingering on the orange groves and then flitting towards the distant hills on the horizon.

  ‘It’s a beautiful day,’ he said, grinning, and so unaccustomed was he to smiling, I thought his lips might crack. Germaine and I watched as laughter lines spread across his face like the ripples from a pebble in a pond.

  ‘Would you like me to bring out a chair?’ Germaine asked with tears in her eyes.

  ‘What for?’

  ‘You can sit in the sun. I’ll set it next to the window with a little table and make some fresh mint tea and you can watch the people go past.’

  ‘No.’ My uncle shook his head. ‘No chair today. I think I’ll take a little walk.’

  ‘In your dressing gown?’

  ‘If it were up to me, I’d walk around naked,’ said my uncle, and he stepped off the porch.

  A prophet walking on water would not have amazed us any more than the sight of my uncle stepping into the street, hands in his pockets, his back straight, walking with a slow, almost military gait. He headed towards a little orange grove and wandered among the trees. Then, catching sight of a partridge taking to the wing, he turned and, following the bird’s flight, disappeared into the vineyards. Germaine and I sat on the veranda, holding each other’s hand, until he came back.

  A few weeks later, we bought a second-hand car. Germaine’s nephew Bertrand – now a mechanic – delivered it in person. It was a tiny bottle-green car with hard seats and curved bodywork like a tortoise’s shell. The steering wheel was so big it looked like it belonged in a truck. Bertrand told Germaine and me to climb in and he would put the engine through its paces. It felt like being in a tank. In time, everyone in Río Salado learned to recognise our car a mile off. Hearing the deafening roar of the engine, someone would shout: ‘Attention, here comes the artillery!’ and people would stand on the kerb and salute as we passed.

  André offered to give me driving lessons. He took me out to a patch of waste ground, and every time I made a mistake he called me all the names under the sun. Once or twice I was so panicked by his swearing I nearly killed us both. As soon as he had taught me to drive around a tree without grazing it, and do a hill start without stalling, he went back to working at his diner, relieved to have come through the ordeal without a scratch.

  One Sunday, after mass. Simon suggested we go down to the beach. He had had a tough week and needed some fresh air. Deciding to head for the port of Bouzedjar, we set off after lunch.

  ‘Where did you buy that rust bucket? Army surplus?’

  ‘Okay, maybe it doesn’t look like much, but it gets me where I want to go, and so far it’s never broken down.’

  ‘I’m surprised you’re not deaf . . . it’s like listening to a steamboat on its last legs.’

  ‘You get used to it.’

  Rolling the window down, Simon stuck his head out, and as his hair was swept back by the wind, I noticed he was already going bald. Seeing my friend suddenly looking older, I glanced in the mirror to see if I did too. We drove through Lourmel and headed straight for the coast. Now and then, when the road crested the peak of a hill, it seemed as though we could almost touch the sky. It was a beautiful late-April morning; the sky was an immaculate blue, the horizon majestic and all around was a feeling of completeness. The last days of spring in Río Salado were often the most splendid. The orange groves thrummed with the sound of early cicadas, and clouds of gnats glittered over stagnant pools like fistfuls of gold dust. If it were not for the squalid shacks scattered here and there, you would have thought you were in paradise.

  ‘Isn’t that Fabrice’s car?’ Simon pointed to a car parked beneath a lone eucalyptus in the scrubland.

  I pulled up on the hard shoulder and in the distance saw Fabrice with two girls having a picnic. Intrigued by the sudden appearance of the car, Fabrice got up and put his hands on his hips, clearly on the defensive.

  ‘I always said he was short-sighted,’ Simon whispered as he clambered out.

  Fabrice walked a hundred metres before realising it was my car. Relieved, he stopped where he was and waved for us to join them.

  ‘Did we give you a scare?’ said Simon, hugging Fabrice.

  ‘What are you guys doing out here?’

  ‘We’re just out for a drive. Are you sure we’re not interrupting?’

  ‘Well, we didn’t bring enough cutlery, but if you can wait while we finish our apple tarts, it’s no problem.’

  The two girls readjusted blouses and tugged their skirts down past their knees to appear decent when they greeted us. Émilie Cazenave gave us a smile; the other girl simply looked quizzically at Fabrice, who quickly reassured her:

  ‘Jonas and Simon, my best friends.’

  Then, turning to us, he said, ‘This is Hélène Lefèvre, a journalist with the Écho d’Oran. She’s writing an article about the area.’

  Madame Cazenave’s daughter turned her deep, dark eyes on me and I had to look away.

  Fabrice went back to his car and found a beach towel, and laid it out on a patch of grass so that Simon and I could sit down. Simon crouched down by the wicker basket, rummaged inside and found a piece of bread, then, taking a penknife from his pocket, cut slices of saucisson. The girls glanced at each other quickly, clearly amused by his nerve.

  ‘Where were you headed?’ Fabrice asked us.

  ‘Down to the port to see the fishermen unload,’ said Simon. ‘What about you, what are you doing out here with these two charming girls?’

  Émilie stared at me again. Could she read my thoughts? And if so, what did they say? Had her mother said something about me? Had Émilie detected some hint of me in her mother’s bedroom, a scent I had been unable to erase, the trace of a kiss, the memory of an embrace? Why did I suddenly feel that she could read me like a book? And her eyes . . . They held me hypnotised. How could they plunge into mine, know my every thought, my every doubt? For an instant I saw her mother’s eyes back in their vast house on the marabout road – eyes so radiant that one needed no other light to see into the deepest depths, discern the most secret weaknesses . . . I felt unsettled.

  ‘I think we’ve met before. A long time ago.’

  ‘I don’t think so, mademoiselle. I’m sure I would remember.’

  ‘It’s strange, your face seems familiar,’ she said, then added, ‘What do you do for a living, Monsieur Jonas?’

  Her voice had the gentle murmur of a mountain stream. She said ‘Monsieur Jonas’ just as her mother had, accentuating the ‘s’, and it roused the same feelings in me, stirred the same emotions.

  ‘Nothing much,’ said Simon, jealous of the attention I was getting from his first real crush. ‘Me, I’m a businessman. I’m setting up an import-export business. In two, three years, I’ll be rich.’

  Émilie ignored Simon’s teasing. I could feel her eyes on me, waiting for my answer. She was so beautiful I could not meet her gaze without blushing.

  ‘I work in a pharmacy, mademoiselle.’

  A lock of hair fell over her eyes and she swept it away with an elegant hand, as though lifting a veil to reveal her beauty.

  ‘A pharmacy, where?’
/>   ‘Río Salado, mademoiselle.’

  Something flitted across her face, she arched her eyebrows and the piece of apple pie between her fingers crumbled. Fabrice noticed her confusion, and now, confused himself, quickly rushed to pour me a glass of wine.

  ‘You know he doesn’t drink,’ Simon said.

  ‘Oh, sorry . . .’

  The journalist took the glass and brought it to her lips.

  Émilie did not take her eyes off me.

  Twice, she came to visit me at the pharmacy. I made sure that Germaine was with me. What I saw in her face disconcerted me and I had no intention of hurting Fabrice.

  I began to avoid her. I told Germaine that if Émilie phoned she should say I was out and she didn’t know when I would be back. Émilie quickly realised that I found her attentions unsettling, that I could not deal with the friendship she was offering. She stopped trying to see me.

  The summer of 1950 swaggered into Río Salado like a carnival strongman. The roads teemed with holidaymakers, the beaches were overrun. Simon’s new business secured its first big contract and he took us all to dinner in one of the most fashionable restaurants in Oran. Simon – who had always been the life and soul of the party – surpassed himself. His antics and his clowning had the whole restaurant in stitches; the priggish women at the adjoining tables giggled whenever he raised his glass and launched into some hilarious new tirade. It was a wonderful evening. Fabrice and Émilie had come, as had Jean-Christophe, who spent the whole evening asking Hélène to dance. Seeing Jean-Christophe enjoying himself after the months of black depression put the finishing touch to the celebrations. The four of us were together again, inseparable as the tines of a pitchfork, and all would have been for the best in the best of all possible worlds had it not been for that one awkward, inappropriate gesture. Under the table, I felt Émilie’s hand slide along my thigh. My drink went down the wrong way and I almost passed out, gasping and choking as the others thumped me on the back. When I came to, it seemed that most of the restaurant was leaning over me. Simon heaved a sigh of relief when he saw me grab the table leg and hoist myself back on to my chair. Émilie’s eyes had never seemed so dark, nor her face so pale.

  The following day, when Germaine and my uncle had gone out – they were in the habit of walking in the vineyards every morning now – I was shocked to see Madame Cazenave come into the pharmacy. Although silhouetted against the sunlight, I recognised the curve of her figure, the singular way she held herself, shoulders back, head high.

  She hesitated in the doorway for a moment, probably to be sure that I was alone, then strode into the shop, a rustle of shadows and light, her heady perfume pervading the space.

  She was wearing a grey trouser suit and a hat adorned with cornflowers pulled down slightly over her turbulent face.

  ‘Good morning, Monsieur Jonas.’

  ‘Good morning, madame.’

  She took off her dark glasses . . . but the magic did not work now. She was just another customer, and I was no longer the teenage boy who felt he might faint at the sight of her smile. This realisation disconcerted her somewhat, and she began drumming her fingers on the counter top.

  ‘Madame . . . ?’

  My innocent tone irritated her. Fire flickered in her eyes but she kept her composure; she could be uncompromising only if she was in control. Madame Cazenave was the sort of person who planned everything she did in meticulous detail; she chose the battleground and calculated her entrance to the last second. Knowing her as I did, I imagined she had spent the night plotting every move, every word of her performance. What she had not realised was that the boy she was expecting was no longer in the audience. My composure unsettled her; it was something she had not expected. She tried to adapt her plans, but the cards had already been dealt, and spontaneity had never been her strong suit.

  She pressed the tip of her sunglasses to her lips to stop them quivering, but there was nothing she could do to hide her apprehension – her whole face was trembling; it seemed as though it might crumble like a piece of chalk.

  ‘If you’re busy, I can come back later,’ she ventured.

  Was she playing for time? Hoping to retreat so she might return better prepared?

  ‘I am not particularly busy. How can I help you, madame?’

  She grew more uneasy. What was she afraid of? I knew she had not come for a prescription, but I could not think why she should be so tense.

  ‘Make no mistake, Monsieur Jonas,’ she said, as though reading my mind, ‘I am in full possession of my faculties. I simply do not know how to begin.’

  ‘I’m listening . . .’

  ‘I find your tone rather arrogant. Why do you think I am here?’

  ‘I’m afraid you will have to tell me.’

  ‘You haven’t the slightest idea?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Really?’

  ‘Really.’

  She took a deep breath, held it for a several seconds, then, taking her courage in both hands, in a rush of breath – as though afraid I might interrupt her – she said quickly:

  ‘I’ve come about Émilie.’

  It was like watching a balloon suddenly deflate. Her throat tightened, she swallowed hard, but she appeared relieved, as though a great weight had been lifted from her. But the battle was just beginning and she looked as though she had expended her last reserves of energy.

  ‘My daughter, Émilie.’

  ‘I know who you mean. But I don’t see the connection.’

  ‘Don’t play the innocent with me, young man. You know exactly what I’m talking about. What is the nature of your relationship with my daughter?’

  ‘I’m afraid you’ve got the wrong person, madame. I have no relationship with your daughter.’

  She twisted the frame of her sunglasses, her eyes watching mine, waiting for some sign of weakness. I did not look away. She no longer scared me. Her suspicions had little effect on me, but they did make me curious. Río Salado was a small village, walls were thin and the best-kept secrets quickly became the source of idle gossip. What were people saying about me?

  ‘She talks of nothing but you, Monsieur Jonas.’

  ‘Of our gang . . .’

  ‘I’m not talking about your gang. I am talking about you and my daughter. I want to know the precise nature of your relationship, and your intentions. I want to know whether you have made plans, whether your intentions are serious . . . I want to know whether anything has happened between you.’

  ‘Nothing has happened, Madame Cazenave. Émilie is in love with my best friend Fabrice. I would never even think of doing anything that might ruin his happiness.’

  ‘You are a sensible young man, Monsieur Jonas, as I believe I’ve told you before.’

  She clasped her hands over the bridge of her nose, then, after a moment’s thought, raised her head again.

  ‘I shall get right to the point, Monsieur Jonas . . . You are a Muslim – a good Muslim from what I have heard – and I am a Catholic. A long time ago, in a moment of weakness, we gave in to temptation. May the Lord forgive us. It was a fleeting mistake. But there is one sin that He will never absolve or pardon – incest!’

  She shot me a venomous look as she said the word.

  ‘It is a terrible abomination.’

  ‘I don’t understand where you’re going with this.’

  ‘But we’re already there, Monsieur Jonas. You know that to sleep with a mother and her daughter is an offence against God, against the saints, against angels and demons!’

  Her face was flushed purple now and the whites of her eyes curdled like milk. Her trembling finger was intended as the sword of justice as she thundered:

  ‘I forbid you to go near my daughter.’

  ‘The thought had not even crossed my mind.’

  ‘I don’t think you understand me, Monsieur Jonas, I don’t care what goes on in that mind of yours. You can think whatever you want. What I want is for you to stay as far away from my daughter as possible, and
I want you to swear you will respect my wishes.’

  ‘Madame . . .’

  ‘Swear it!’ She screamed as though it were an order.

  Madame Cazenave had intended to remain icily calm, to let me know that she was in control of the situation. From the moment she stepped into the shop she had carefully curbed her mounting anger, uttering a word only when she was sure that it would not rebound on her. Now, at the moment she most needed it, she had lost control. She tried to regain her composure but it was too late; tears were welling in her eyes.

  She brought her hands up to her temples, focused on a single point, waited until her breathing was under control again, then, her voice almost inaudible, she said:

  ‘I apologise. I am not in the habit of raising my voice to people. But this whole thing has shocked me deeply. To hell with hypocrisy. I’m completely at a loss. I can’t sleep . . . I hoped to be firm, to be strong, but this concerns my family, my daughter, my faith, my conscience. It’s too much . . . I never imagined such a yawning abyss might open up at my feet. If it were just that, just an abyss, I would throw myself in if it would save my soul. But that would not solve the problem.

  ‘It must not happen, Monsieur Jonas; nothing good can come of your relationship with my daughter. It cannot happen, it must not happen, I need to be clear about that. I need to go home with a clear conscience. I need to be at peace. Émilie is just a child. She is fickle. She can fall for a boy because of his laugh, do you understand? And I do not want her to fall for you. So I am begging you, for the love of God and His prophets Jesus and Muhammad, promise me you will give her no encouragement. It would be appalling, immoral; it would be horribly obscene.’

  She took my hands in hers and squeezed them. This was not the woman I had dreamed of long ago. Terrified at the thought of this abomination, frightened at the idea that she might live in infamy for all eternity, Madame Cazenave had renounced her charms, her spells, her lofty throne; the woman who stood before me was simply a mother. Her eyes sought mine; with a blink, I could have sent her straight to Hell. I felt ashamed to have the power to damn someone I had once loved, someone whose grace and generosity I had thought of as sin.