by Brian Moore
Time passed. The music changed, the military band switching to operetta airs. Suddenly the music faltered, trailing off as a hubbub of voices rose from the packed benches below. Emmeline, rising from her seat, peered through the peep hole at the side of the wings. Slowly, bowing this way and that, in humble acknowledgement of the greetings and salutations offered him from every side, Bou-Aziz came down the centre aisle on the arm of his daughter. Ahead, Deniau, wearing decorations and sword, stood below the stage, waiting to show the marabout to his place in the front row. As soon as Bou-Aziz had taken his seat, Deniau signalled to the conductor of the military orchestra. A roll of drums and a fanfare of trumpets were followed by the strains of ‘La Marseillaise’. Deniau raised his arm over his head for attention. ‘Today, to the sands of the Sahara, to the fiefdom of the Kabyles, comes the greatest marabout in all of France. I give you Henri Lambert.’
Emmeline did not see her husband come down the aisle because on his instructions she must now move into the wings. When she reached the place where he had told her to stand she saw that he was already on stage. He bowed to the audience, a signal that she should appear. She stepped out into the sunlight and walked to the table at the rear of the stage taking up the top hat that sat there. Coming downstage she handed it to Lambert, then retreated, continuing to face the audience as Jules did when assisting his master. Now, Lambert, his back to her, wearing not his usual frock coat, cravat and linen waistcoat but dressed as though for a boating excursion on the Seine, in an open-necked white shirt and trousers, passed his ivory-tipped baton over the hat and reaching into it produced, in turn, three heavy cannon balls which he dropped with a thump on to the stage floor. As in Algiers this opening gambit at once fixed the attention of his audience. They watched in awed silence as again he reached into the hat and this time pulled out two doves which he let fly up into the arid desert sky. This was, she knew, the signal for her to bring him the papier-mâché cornucopia which he accepted without deigning to notice her presence. He opened its side hinge to demonstrate to the audience that it was empty. He closed it, then turned it upside down, spilling out a dozen bonbons, and other small favours which she must crouch to pick up and offer to the audience. But when, trembling, nervous, uncertain, she advanced to the front of the stage and handed the favours to interpreters who at once offered them to those in the front rows, Emmeline saw only one face. The marabout, leaning forward, his turban a crown framing his high forehead, his thick grey beard streaked yellow by the desert sun. His eyes, clouded yet intense, closed on Emmeline, locking her in his gaze. Transfixed, she stood, statue-still, as an interpreter took from her hands the last few favours to be distributed among the audience. In that moment she saw, not the marabout she had met last evening, but a face, mysterious and strange as the bruised visage of the crucified Christ imprinted on the shroud of Turin.
Now, in gentle dismissal, the marabout bowed his head, releasing her from the spell of his eyes. She turned back to Lambert who, displaying to his audience the empty cornucopia, passed his baton over it then drew from it with agile conjurer’s fingers first, one feather plume, then many, scattering them at her feet on the stage floor. And now as she began to scoop them up and place them in a basket, Lambert, stepping down from the stage, went among the front rows of the audience, plucking from the ear of one sheikh an egg, from the nose of another a five-franc coin. He picked up an empty slipper which one of the sheikhs had cast off and holding it aloft suddenly showed that it was filled with five-franc coins which he tossed out among the spectators. This manoeuvre seemed to delight the audience who cried out, ‘Douros!’ which the interpreters translated as a request for more five-franc pieces. Lambert, carefully avoiding the place where Bou-Aziz and his daughter were seated, then walked, smiling, along the aisle, producing again and again ‘Douros’ from the noses and ears of the astonished audience. This manoeuvre eventually brought him back to the steps from which he had stepped down. There, he held up his baton to still the cries and applause.
At last, when there was silence, he re-mounted the stage, turning to face the audience. He glanced briefly at Emmeline, reminding her that this was the moment when she should retire. She, her arms full of the feather plumes, still confused and moved by her encounter with the marabout, was slow to respond to Lambert’s covert signal. As she went past him, he whispered angrily, ‘Be ready!’ then walked to the rear and took from a table the small, solidly built wooden box adorned with iron handles. Holding it lightly in one hand he came back to the centre of the stage.
And now Emmeline heard him begin to give the speech he had given in Algiers, boasting that: ‘Through the powers granted me by the Almighty I will show you that I can deprive the strongest man of his strength and restore that strength at my will. I ask anyone who thinks himself strong enough to try this experiment to come forward now.’
On hearing this, she abruptly dropped the bundle of feathers and went shakily towards the black levers. A young Kabyle chieftain, his fair hair worn long, a small Greek cross tattooed between his eyes, mounted the stage.
Lambert bowed in welcome and asked, ‘Are you very strong?’
Smiling, the chieftain nodded.
‘You are wrong. In an instant I will rob you of your strength. You will become as weak as a woman.’
In Algiers, Emmeline remembered, her husband had said ‘as weak as a little child’, and the audience had reacted with amusement. But here, when his remark was translated, the word ‘woman’ seemed filled with insult. In the packed benches which filled the square there was a sudden hostile silence. But the Kabyle chieftain did not seem offended. He smiled, shrugged his shoulders and gestured towards Lambert as if asking him to continue.
‘Now,’ Lambert said. ‘Lift this box.’
The young man bent and easily picked up the box, balancing it in one hand as Lambert had done earlier. He looked at the magician and again shrugged his shoulders.
‘Put it down, please,’ Lambert said.
The young man put down the box at Lambert’s feet. Lambert raised his hands making a pass in front of the young man’s face. He paused, then looked out at the audience. ‘From this moment on, he will be weak as a woman.’
He turned to the young chieftain. ‘Now. Try to lift the box.’
As he spoke, Lambert looked past the chieftain, staring into the wings in a pre-arranged signal. Emmeline, jerky as an automaton, at once pulled back the first of the black levers. The young man reached down, took hold of the box by its iron handles and gave it a savage tug. But the box, held by the magnetic force of the lever, did not move.
The young chieftain straightened up, panting, half turning in Emmeline’s direction. Although she knew he could not see her she felt herself stiffen and draw back from his gaze. Beads of sweat on his forehead moistened the tiny cross tattooed between his eyes, eyes which now, in bewilderment, stared into the darkness in which she hid.
From the benches in the square, half a dozen men rose to their feet. The young chieftain nodded and waved to them as if to say he understood. Bending down he tried again, shifting his feet as he straddled the box, straining and straining until, at last, defeated, he let go of the handles.
Lambert stood, tapping his ivory-tipped baton against his trouser leg, like an animal trainer about to signal a new trick.
‘Now. One last try?’ he said.
The interpreter repeated his words in Arabic, whereupon four or five Kabyle leaders rose again from their seats, urging the young chieftain not to give up. Emmeline, distracted by their cries, looked out at the audience, something that Lambert had forbidden her to do. In the front row, Bou-Aziz sat quietly with his daughter, his gaze fixed not on the chieftain but on Lambert himself. Emmeline, nervous, looked out at her husband, just in time to see him give her his second covert command.
The young man bent once again and took hold of the trunk’s iron handles. Trembling, closing her eyes as though it were she who would suffer the pain, Emmeline pulled down the second black
lever. Above it was the clock with which she would measure the thirty seconds of agony. The young chieftain, his hands suddenly glued to the box, trembled violently but, despite the shock of electricity which surged through his body, he did not cry out. Her eyes blurred with tears. Convulsively, she reached for the lever to shut off the current but remembering her husband’s strict injunction at the last moment she waited, looking out at the stage. Lambert, whose timing was impeccable, moved forward at the precise moment that the clock’s second hand registered a thirty-second advance. She pulled the lever. Lambert waved his baton over the box. The young chieftain, released from the current, his face still contorted in pain, stood swaying unsteadily, staring at the sorcerer.
Emmeline had been told by Lambert that if the victim was still in shock from the electricity it was her duty to come on stage and help him back to his seat. Now, with a tiny gesture, Lambert summoned her to re-appear. But when she stepped out into the cruel sunlight and went towards the Kabyle, putting her hand on his arm, he turned, as if struck, and shook her off. In the silence which had come down like a cloud on the audience, the young Kabyle went to the edge of the stage and, ignoring the steps, jumped down on to the sand, falling as he landed, almost at the feet of Bou-Aziz. The marabout rose, lifted him up and putting his hands on the young chieftain’s face, said something which no one except the young man heard. The young chieftain then took the marabout’s hand and kissed it. Together they went to the marabout’s bench where Bou-Aziz’s daughter moved aside to make room for them to sit together.
While this took place Lambert stood, looking straight ahead at the tricolour which flew on the ramparts of the fort. Emmeline, as instructed, moved back into the wings to wait for his next command. In the shadows, standing beside the levers, she pulled aside the covering of the peep hole and, filled with shame, looked down at the place where Bou-Aziz sat, his face grave and still, eyes clouded, withdrawn as in a state of trance. Beside him, the young Kabyle chieftain seemed recovered and at peace, while behind them, sheikhs and marabouts turned to each other, whispering uneasily, fingering their beads and staring from time to time at the enigmatic, quietly alarming figure on stage.
Lambert, master of his audience, knew the precise moment when he must resume. In a pre-arranged signal, he held up his ivory-tipped baton as if to examine it. At this, on cue, Colonel Deniau rose from his seat and came to the steps below the stage, turning to face the audience. He spoke in Arabic.
‘What is spiritual power? The Koran tells us it is a gift that Allah grants to holy men and women in gratitude for their devotion. It is the gift of miracles, the gift of lifting the curse from a woman who was barren, of delivering from his enemies a prisoner who was in chains, of cooling the bullet wounds of the injured and, the greatest gift of all, the gift that makes men in battle invulnerable to the bullets of an enemy. This last gift, you have been told, will be granted to the Mahdi, the chosen one of God, who will lead your armies to victory over us. But what marabout has this gift? What marabout has proved it before your very eyes?
‘I say no one. No Mahdi has risen among you. But here on this day, our marabout will show that he, guided by God, has been granted this power.’
Emmeline, standing in the shadows, heard this, her cue. She picked up the morocco-leather case containing the two cavalry pistols which her husband used in his performance, and came out at the rear of the stage.
Lambert, who had been standing at the centre of the stage, now walked towards the audience. He paused, his eyes searching among the massed faces in a way which held their attention. Then, speaking quietly, he said, ‘As I have demonstrated in Algiers I am invulnerable because I possess a talisman which protects me from all harm. No marksman can injure or kill me.’ He now looked down directly at Bou-Aziz. ‘Bou-Aziz, I ask your help to prove my claim.’
Emmeline saw the marabout look up at her husband and again felt the strange attraction of his gaze. He spoke in Arabic to his daughter, who said, ‘My father does not kill.’
At that, a tall heavily built Kabyle sheikh wearing an ochre burnous stood and walked towards the steps leading to the stage. He spoke in a slow guttural French. ‘You wish to be killed? I will help you.’
Lambert signalled him to mount the stage. When he did, Lambert turned back to Emmeline, gesturing to her to come forward. Obedient, she opened the pistol case as he had taught her to do and showed the two cavalry pistols to the audience. She then went up to Lambert who took one of the pistols from the case and offered it to the Kabyle sheikh.
But the sheikh shook his head and putting his hands into his burnous pulled from a sash two pistols of a similar type. ‘Now, my marabout,’ he said. ‘Choose one of my pistols and we will load it and I will fire at you. You have nothing to fear. You said in Algiers that you possess a talisman which can ward off all blows. Let us see this talisman and witness its power.’
Emmeline, holding the unwanted pistols, waited, confused, watching Lambert who looked directly at the sheikh, then, nodding as in agreement, handed his own pistol back to her. She saw Deniau, sitting in the front row of the audience, rise in his seat, alarmed. And now she knew that the pistols she held had been in some way tampered with and that if her husband failed in this ultimate test of power on which the success of the journey depended, his mission would be aborted and his pride destroyed. She saw Deniau come forward as if to mount the stage and halt the proceedings. But Lambert signalled him to wait.
He turned to the sheikh and reaching into the air produced, as if by magic, the small, many-faceted glass orb, which glittered in the sun.
‘This is the talisman you speak of,’ he said. ‘With it, I am invulnerable. But I have decided not to use it today, when I stand before the marabout Bou-Aziz, who many of you believe is the Mahdi, the chosen one of God. Today I wish to show you that my power is greater than that of any talisman. Take the talisman.’
The Kabyle sheikh reached to take the glass orb offered him. But at once it disappeared from Lambert’s hand.
Lambert smiled. ‘Look in the fold of your sash,’ he said.
The sheikh slid his fingers into his orange silk sash and, astonished, took from it the small glass ball.
‘Guard it well,’ Lambert said. ‘I must explain that to do without the talisman I must now retire and spend six hours in prayer. Tomorrow morning, if you will permit me, I will return to this place and prove to you that I am invulnerable, even without my talisman. It will be proven when you fire your pistol directly at my heart in the presence of these sheikhs and marabouts.’
He turned to the audience and addressed himself to Bou-Aziz’s daughter. ‘Tomorrow, at dawn, I shall be ready. Will you ask your father to do me the honour of attending?’
Touching her father’s arm, Bou-Aziz’s daughter spoke to him in a low voice. At that, Bou-Aziz rose, gathering the folds of his green robe around him. He turned to his daughter who took his arm. In an electric pause, watched anxiously by the Arab and Kabyle leaders, he nodded his head in agreement, then, frail and slow, made his way towards the archway which led out into the streets of Milianah. At once, in a hubbub of talk and movement, the audience began to disperse, glancing back at Lambert who laid down his baton and walked out of sight into the wings. Emmeline followed, still holding the pistol case. She saw that Lambert’s face was wet with sweat and that he held his fists at his sides, tightly clenched as though to prevent himself from trembling.
Footsteps sounded on the stage behind her. Deniau greeted her with a nod, then said to Lambert ‘What are we going to do now? Couldn’t you have persuaded him to use your pistols? No one can see they have been tampered with. Why didn’t you try?’
‘A magician must honour his promise,’ Lambert said. ‘Even if it means that tomorrow I will be killed.’
Emmeline saw that Deniau was not concerned for her husband. His voice, his face, showed anger and frustration. ‘And if you are killed, everything we’ve planned will be lost. Tomorrow you must use your own pistols. I will make a
n announcement. I will say that you have been insulted and that anyone in the audience is free to examine your guns and satisfy himself that they are not false.’
Sweating, tense, Lambert sat on the solitary chair beside the electric levers which controlled the heavy box. He put his head down as though he felt faint, then said, ‘I can’t go back on my promise. I said I am invulnerable. If I am invulnerable, how can I refuse to use the sheikh’s pistol? Charles, I have spent my life before an audience. The audience is like an animal. If you fail to dominate it, it will turn on you. Today by dispensing with my “talisman” I made them feel my power. Now I must prove it. I have a slim chance of doing that, the glimmer of an idea which I must work on before morning.’
‘What is this idea?’ Deniau asked.
Lambert did not answer. He sat, his head bowed as if deep in thought.
Deniau turned to Emmeline. ‘Do you know what it is?’
‘She knows nothing,’ Lambert said. ‘Come, Emmeline. We will go back to our rooms now. Bring the pistol case with you.’
‘But this idea,’ Deniau said. ‘If you won’t tell me what it is, tell me, at least, how I can help you?’
Lambert forced a smile. ‘I must not be disturbed at my “prayers”. Make sure of that, will you? Send supper up to our rooms. And remember, if I fail the government of France must provide for my wife. I entrust her to your care, Charles. She will need your help.’