‘What time is it?’ Jelloul asked.
‘A quarter to ten,’ I said.
‘It’s time. You can drive, I’ll tell you where to go.’
Germaine, who was standing off to one side, clasped her hands in silent prayer. She was shaking. The nurse went over to her. ‘Everything will be all right, madame.’ He patted her shoulder. ‘Don’t worry.’ Germaine hid her face in her hands.
The captain and the nurse took the back seat of the car, their guns at their feet. Jelloul climbed into the passenger seat, tugging at his tie. I opened the garage door and Germaine closed it after we left. I drove with the headlights off until we reached Kraus’s wine cellar, opposite André’s diner. There were people in the bar and out on the terrace; we could hear shouting and laughter. Suddenly I was afraid that Jelloul had come to settle old scores with his former employer. But he simply gave a bitter smile and jerked his chin towards the road that lead out of Río Salado. I turned on the headlights and drove into the darkness.
We took the road towards Lourmel, turning off before we reached the village and taking the dirt road towards Terga. A motorcycle was waiting for us at a railway crossing. I recognised the rider as the boy with the gun who had showed up at the pharmacy that first day. He turned the motorcycle around and rode on ahead of us.
‘Drive slowly,’ Jelloul ordered. ‘Don’t try to catch up with him. If you see him coming back, switch off your headlights and turn the car round.’
The motorcycle did not come back.
After about twenty kilometres, I saw him waiting by the side of the road. Jelloul told me to pull up next to him and turn off the engine. Shadows appeared from the bushes carrying rifles, with knapsacks on their backs. One of them was leading a donkey that was just skin and bone. The three men got out of my car and went over to greet them. The nurse came back to me, told me to stay in the car, and opened the boot. The boxes of drugs and supplies were loaded on to the mule. After that, Jelloul waved for me to go. I didn’t move. Surely they weren’t just going to let me leave? I could easily turn them in as soon as I got to the first roadblock. I tried to look into Jelloul’s eyes, but he had already turned away and was walking off with his captain, whom I had not heard speak a word since that first night when he had tried to strangle me. The mule stumbled up the steep path, staggered around a rocky outcrop and disappeared. The shadows of the others moved through the scrubland, helping each other up the hill, then disappeared into the darkness. Soon, all I could hear was the breeze rustling the leaves.
My hand refused to turn the key in the ignition. I was convinced that Jelloul was hiding somewhere nearby, rifle aimed at me, waiting for the sound of the engine to drown out the shot.
It took me an hour before I really believed that they had gone.
Months later, I found a letter with no stamp and no address among the post. Inside was a scrap of paper torn from an exercise book and on it a scribbled list of medications. There were no instructions. I bought the medicines on the list and packed them into a cardboard box. A week later, Laoufi came and picked them up. It was three o’clock in the morning when I heard the pebble hit the shutters. Germaine heard it too; I found her in the hall, wrapped in a dressing gown. She didn’t say anything, she simply watched as I went downstairs to the back office. I gave the box to Laoufi, locked the door and went back up to my room. I was waiting for Germaine to come in and ask me questions, but she simply went back to her room and locked herself in.
Laoufi came to pick up supplies five more times. It was always the same: an envelope would be slipped through the letter box with a list of medicines. Sometimes it listed other supplies: syringes, bandages, scissors, a stethoscope, some tourniquets. Then a pebble would be thrown up at the window. The nurse would be waiting outside. Germaine would be standing in the doorway to her bedroom.
One night, I got a phone call. Jelloul asked me to meet him at the spot where I had dropped them off. Seeing me take the car from the garage early the next morning, Germaine made the sign of the cross. It was then that I realised that we no longer spoke to each other. When I arrived at the place, Jelloul wasn’t there. He called me as soon as I got back to the pharmacy and told me to drive back to the spot again. This time there was a shepherd waiting for me with a briefcase full of banknotes. He told me to hide the money until someone came to fetch it. I kept the briefcase for two weeks, until Jelloul phoned one Sunday and told me to take the ‘package’ to Oran and wait in the car outside a small cabinetmaker’s shop behind the BAO Brasserie. I did as I was told. The shop was closed. A man walked past the car, then walked back again and stopped when he came to the car. Flashing the butt of the gun under his jacket, he told me to get out. ‘I’ll be back in fifteen minutes,’ he said as he drove off. The car was brought back to me a quarter of an hour later.
This other life went on all through the summer and into autumn.
The last time Laoufi came to the pharmacy, he was more nervous than usual. Glancing around suspiciously, he emptied the contents of the box I handed him into a backpack, threw it over his shoulder and gave me a look I had never seen before. He wanted to say something, but the words would not come. Standing on tiptoe, he kissed the top of my head – a mark of great respect. His body trembled as I hugged him. It was four a.m. and the sky was beginning to brighten. Was it the dawn that bothered him? He was clearly worried about something. He said goodbye and hurried into the vineyards. I saw him disappear into the darkness; listened for the dying rustle of the leaves as he moved away. The moon in the sky looked like a bitten fingernail. A faltering wind gave a brief gust and then died away.
Leaving the light in my bedroom off, I sat on the edge of the bed, alert, watchful. Suddenly gunfire ripped through the silent darkness and dogs began to bark.
At dawn there was a knock on my door. It was Krimo, Simon’s former chauffeur. He was standing on the pavement, feet apart, hands on his hips, his rifle tucked under his arm. The expression on his face was one of vicious triumph. Six armed men, auxiliaries, were standing in the street around a wheelbarrow in which lay a bloody corpse. It was Laoufi. I recognised the oversized boots and the torn backpack.
‘A fellaga,’ said Krimo. ‘A dirty stinking fellaga . . . It was the stink that led us to him.’
He took a step forward.
‘I was wondering what this fucking fellaga was doing in my village. Who did he come to see? Where did he come from?’
He pushed the wheelbarrow towards me. The nurse’s head lolled against the ground. Part of his skull had been blown off. Krimo picked up the backpack and threw it at my feet; the medications spilled out on to the pavement.
‘There’s only one pharmacy in Río Salado, Jonas, and that’s yours . . . And then I understood.’
He slammed the butt of his rifle into my jaw. I heard the bone crack and Germaine scream, then everything went dark.
I woke up in a filthy cell surrounded by rats and cockroaches. Krimo wanted to know who the fellaga was, how long I had been supplying him with drugs. I said I had never seen him before. He forced my head into a bucket of cheap wine and whipped me with a riding crop, but I kept telling him I had never seen the fellaga. Krimo swore, he spat at me, he kicked me as I lay on the ground. I didn’t tell him anything. He handed me over to an emaciated old man with a long grey face and piercing eyes. The old man began by telling me that he understood, that no one in the village believed I had anything to do with these ‘terrorists’, that they had forced me to help them. I continued to deny everything. I was passed from one interrogator to another; some tried to outwit me, others tried to beat the truth out of me. Krimo waited until nightfall to come back and torture me again. I held out.
In the morning, the door opened, and there stood Pépé Rucillio.
Next to him was an officer in combat uniform.
‘We haven’t finished with him, Monsieur Rucillio.’
‘You’re wasting your time, Lieutenant. This has been a terrible misunderstanding. The boy was simply in the
wrong place at the wrong time. Your colonel agrees with me on this. You hardly think I’d try to protect a criminal?’
‘That’s not the problem . . .’
‘There is no problem, and there won’t be any problem,’ Pépé Rucillio assured him.
They gave me back my clothes.
Outside, in the gravel-strewn courtyard of what seemed to be a barracks, Krimo and his fellow officers watched, angry and outraged, as I slipped through their fingers. They knew that Río Salado’s most respected figure had pleaded my case to the highest authorities and had personally vouched for me.
Pépé Rucillio helped me into his car and got behind the wheel. He saluted the soldier at the gate, then drove off.
‘I hope I’m not making the biggest mistake of my life,’ he said.
I didn’t answer. My mouth was bleeding and my eyes were so swollen I could barely keep them open.
Pépé did not say another word. I sensed him wavering between his doubt and a moral dilemma, between the efforts he had made on my behalf and the inconsistencies in what he had told the colonel to clear me of suspicion and have me released. Pépé Rucillio was more than simply a respected local figure, he was a legend, a moral compass, a man as towering as his fortune, but like many prominent people who put honour before all other considerations, he was as fragile as a porcelain monument. He could get people to do whatever he wished, and his integrity was worth more than any official document. Influential people of his stature, the mention of whose name could settle the stormiest argument, could be magnanimous, even extravagant, and they were granted a certain impunity, but in matters of honour – when they gave their word – no laxity was tolerated. If they gave their word on something that proved to be unfounded, there was no way back. Having personally vouched for me, Pépé Rucillio was wondering whether he had made a serious mistake; it was a possibility that clearly worried him deeply.
He drove me back to the village and dropped me outside my house. He didn’t help me out of the car, leaving me to cope as best I could.
‘My reputation is at stake here, Jonas,’ he muttered. ‘If I ever find out that you’re a liar, I’ll personally see to it that they execute you.’
I don’t know where I found the strength to ask him:
‘Jean-Christophe?’
He shook his head. ‘No . . . Isabelle. I never could refuse her anything. But if she’s wrong about you, I’ll disown her on the spot.’
Germaine came out to help me inside. She was so relieved to have me back alive that she did not reproach me; she simply ran a bath for me and made me something to eat. Afterwards, she cleaned my wounds, bandaged the most serious ones and put me to bed.
‘Did you phone Isabelle?’
‘No . . . she phoned me.’
‘But she’s in Oran . . . how could she possibly know?’
‘Everyone in Río Salado knows.’
‘What did you say to her?’
‘I told her you were innocent, that you had nothing to do with this business.’
‘And she believed you?’
‘I didn’t ask.’
My questions hurt her, more especially the way I had asked them. The half-heartedness of my tone, the implicit criticism of what I was asking turned her joy at having me back safe and sound into a vague feeling of irritation and later mute anger. She looked at me and there was a bitterness in her eyes I had never seen before. I realised that the ties that had bound me to her had finally sundered. This woman, who had been everything to me – mother, fairy godmother, sister, confidante, friend – now saw me simply as a stranger.
19
THE WINTER of 1960 was so harsh that even our prayers froze; we could almost hear them dropping from heaven and shattering on the hard ground. As if the overcast sky was not enough, dark clouds flocked like falcons over the sun, cutting off what little light might have warmed our numbed souls. Storms were brewing everywhere and no one now was under any illusions: war had found its calling and the cemeteries were answering.
At home, things were becoming complicated. Germaine’s silence saddened me. It upset me that she would walk past me without a word, sit silently with me at dinner staring at her plate, clear the table as soon as I had finished and immediately go upstairs to her room without saying good night. I felt heartsick, and yet I could not find it in me to make peace with her. I didn’t have the strength. Everything exhausted me, everything disgusted me. I would not see reason; I didn’t care I was in the wrong: all I wanted was a dark corner where I refused to let myself wonder what I should do, think about what I had done, decide whether or not I had acted for the best. I was bitter as rose-laurel root, sullen and angry as something I dared not name. At times I heard Krimo’s insults exploding in my head. I would find myself imagining him suffering horribly, then I would shake off these thoughts and clear my mind. I felt no hatred; I had no more rage; my whole being felt so bloated that a breath of air might cause it to explode.
In calmer moments, I thought about my uncle. I did not miss him, but the gaping void he had left reminded me of those who had cut me off. I felt as though I had nowhere to turn for support, that I was floating in a suffocating bubble, a bubble that could be burst by the smallest twig. I had to do something, I felt myself slipping away, slowly disintegrating. So I summoned my dead. My uncle’s memory supplanted mine; his ghost kept at bay all the horrors I had suffered. Perhaps, after all, I did miss him. I felt so alone that I almost faded away myself, like a shadow consumed by darkness. While I waited for my bruises to become less noticeable, I shut myself away in my uncle’s study and pored over his notebooks – a dozen exercise books filled with comments, remarks and quotes from writers and philosophers from all over the world. He also kept a diary, which I found by accident in the bottom drawer of his desk, under a vast swath of newspaper cuttings. He wrote about the dispossessed of Algeria, about the nationalist movement, about the absurdity of the human species that reduces everything in life to a vulgar power struggle, to the deplorable and mindless need of one group to enslave another. My uncle was a supremely cultivated man, both educated and wise. I could still remember his expression when he closed his notebook and looked up at me; an expression that radiated compassionate intelligence.
‘I hope my writings will prove useful to future generations,’ he had said.
‘They will be your gift to posterity,’ I replied, thinking it best to flatter him.
His features tensed. ‘Posterity has never made the grave’s embrace less cruel,’ he said. ‘It simply assuages our fear of death, because there is no better cure for our inevitable mortality than the illusion of a beautiful eternity. But there is one illusion I still hold dear: that is the thought of an enlightened nation. That is the only future I still dream of.’
When I looked out into the distance from my balcony and saw nothing looming on the horizon, I wondered if there was life after war.
A week after Pépé Rucillio’s speech, André Sosa came to see me. He parked his car opposite the vineyards, leaned out of the window and waved for me to come down. I shook my head. He opened the car door and stepped out. He was wearing a large beige coat, unbuttoned to reveal his pot belly, and a pair of leather boots that came up to his knees. From his broad smile, I knew he had come in peace.
‘Fancy coming out for the day in the old banger?’
‘I’m fine where I am.’
‘Okay, then, I’ll come up.’
I heard him say hello to Germaine in the hallway, climb the stairs, then open the door to my room. Before he stepped out on to the balcony to join me, he glanced around at the unmade bed, then crossed the room to the mantelpiece on which sat the wooden horse Jean-Christophe had given me a lifetime ago, after he beat me up at school.
‘Those were the good old days, weren’t they, Jonas?’
‘Days don’t get old, Dédé, we’re the ones who get old.’
‘You’re right. It’s just a pity we don’t improve with the years, like our wine.’
He came outside, propped his elbows on the balcony and surveyed the vineyards.
‘No one in the village thinks you had anything to do with the fellagas. Krimo was completely out of order. I saw him yesterday and told him to his face.’
He turned to me, trying not to look at my bruises.
‘I feel bad that I didn’t come sooner.’
‘What good would it have done?’
‘I don’t know . . . You don’t fancy coming with me to Tlemcen? Oran is impossible now, people are being murdered every day, but I need a change of scenery. Río Salado depresses me.’
‘I can’t.’
‘We won’t stay long. I know a little restaurant . . .’
‘Don’t, Dédé.’
He shook his head slowly.
‘I understand – not that I approve. It’s not good to hole up here, brooding over your bitterness.’
‘I’m not bitter. I just need to be on my own.’
‘Am I bothering you?’
I stared off into the distance so I would not have to answer.
‘It’s insane, this thing that’s happening,’ he sighed, leaning on the balcony again. ‘Who would have thought our country would be brought so low?’
‘It was obvious, Dédé. A whole nation lay down while we walked all over them. Sooner or later they were bound to get up. That’s when we lost our footing.’
‘Do you really believe that?’
This time I turned to him and said:
‘Dédé, how much longer can we go on lying to ourselves?’
He brought his fist up to his mouth and blew on it, measuring his words carefully.
‘It’s true, there was a lot wrong with how things were, but to go from there to waging a vicious, all-out war? It’s not right. There are hundreds of thousands dead, Jonas; that’s too many people, isn’t it?’
‘Are you asking me?’
‘I’m lost . . . I honestly don’t understand what’s happening to Algeria. And the French obviously don’t either. They’re talking about self-determination. What exactly do they mean by that? Does it mean we wipe the slate clean and start again with everyone equal, or . . .’
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