by Alexis Jenni
I continued walking at the same pace, my black umbrella over my head. I drew level with them, hunkered on the pavement. The young men in blue uniforms were pinning the young man with whom I had crossed the bridge. I made to slow, not intending to stop, just to slow down, perhaps say something. I did not know exactly what.
‘Please move along, monsieur.’
‘Has this young man done something wrong?’
‘We know what we are doing, monsieur. Move along, please.’
Lying on his belly, one arm twisted behind his back, his face pressed into the ground by a knee. His eyes rolled back, looked up at me. He gave me a look that was unfathomable, in which I saw disillusionment. That is what I thought I saw. I moved along. They hauled him to his feet in handcuffs.
They had asked nothing of me; of him, with a gruff gesture, they demanded that he produce a card to prove his identity. Should I have said something? I don’t like to argue with the musclemen of law and order; they’re as tense as coiled springs, and armed. They never talk. They are all about action, control, power. They implement. I heard them on the radio behind me, giving the reasons for the arrest: ‘Refusal to comply. Resisting arrest. Failure to produce an ID card.’ Glancing behind me surreptitiously, I saw him sitting in the squad car, hands behind his back. Silently, he watched as his fate was played out. I did not know him, this young man. Justice was taking its course. Our paths diverged. Maybe they knew what they were doing, the men in blue, these plumbers of the social order; maybe they knew something I did not. I felt as though this was their business, nothing to do with me.
This was what nagged at me for the rest of the day. Not the injustice, not my cowardice, not the display of violence right in front of me; what nagged at me until I felt sick to my stomach were the two words that had spontaneously occurred to me: ‘their business.’ The most terrible thing about this story is imprinted in the very fabric of the language. The words had come to me unbidden, and the most repulsive thing was how natural they sounded: ‘their business.’ As always; as in the past. Here, just as over there.
Through the unrest, through the tension, through the violence, wanders a ghost we cannot quite define. Ever present, ever near at hand, its great achievement is to create the illusion that everything can be explained. Race in France has substance, but no definition, it is visible, yet it cannot be described. Everyone understands it. Race is an actual identity that unleashes real actions, but we do not know what name to give to those whose presence would explain everything. None of the names we give them are apposite, and from each name we can immediately identify who gave it to them and what they want.
Race does not exist, but it is an actual identity. In a classless society, in a molecular society given to turbulence, everyone against everyone, race is the visible idea which makes identity checks possible. Resemblance, mistaken for identity, makes it possible to maintain order. Here, just as over there. Over there, we honed the perfect identity check. I can say ‘we’, because it was a product of French engineering. Elsewhere in the peaceful world, people developed the abstract concepts of Mister von Neumann to create machines. IBM invented actual thought using a system of punch cards. IBM, which was destined for great things, devised cards with holes, and simulated logical operations by manipulating these punch cards with long, pointed, metallic spikes jokingly nicknamed ‘knitting needles’. Meanwhile, in the city of Algiers, we were applying this same logic to human beings.
Here, we need to pay tribute to the brilliance of the French. The collective intelligence of my people knows how to develop both the most abstract and the most extensive concepts, and simultaneously how to apply them to human beings. The brilliance of the French made it possible to take control of a North African city by applying the principles of information theory in the most concrete fashion. Elsewhere, people made calculating machines; over there, we applied the theory to people.
We daubed a number on every house in the city of Algiers. We created an index card for every man. Over the entire city of Algiers we traced a web of coordinates. Each person was an input value; we proceeded to calculate. No one could make a move without disturbing the web. Every disturbance of the norm constituted one byte of suspicion. Every quiver of identity was transmitted along the strands of the web to the villa up the hill, where we kept sleepless watch. At the slightest suspicious movement, four men would leap into a jeep, careening through the streets, riding on the running board, one hand gripping the bodywork, the other clutching a sub-machine gun. They would screech to a halt outside a building, leap out, run up the stairs, sputtering with an electric energy. They would arrest the suspect in his bed, on the stairs, in the street, bundle him into the jeep in his pyjamas, and drive back up the hill without so much as slowing down. They always found their man, because there was a file on every man, a mark on every house. It was military triumph by index card. They always brought back someone, the four armed warriors who sped around in jeeps without ever slowing down.
The very knitting needles that were used to fish for punch cards elsewhere, were used to fish for men in Algiers. Having punched a hole in one man with a long needle, you could hook another man. We applied the knitting needle to human beings, while IBM was applying it merely to cards. We pushed needles into men, punched holes in them, and one man was bait to catch others. Using the holes punched in one card, we could use long needles to hook other cards. It was a great success. Everything that moved was arrested. Everything ceased to move. Once used, these punch cards were unusable. Cards in such a state could never be reused, and so they were thrown away. Some into the sea, some into ditches that were be filled in, but there is no telling where many of them ended up. People disappeared as though tossed into a rubbish bin.
If the enemy is like a fish in water, then drain away the water! And for good measure barb the ground with electrified spikes. The fish died, the battle was won, and our victory was a mound of rubble. We triumphed, thanks to the methodical use of information theory; but everything else was lost. We were masters of a ruined city, purged of men to whom we could speak, haunted by electrocuted spectres; a city where nothing remained but hatred, suffering and a generalized fear. The solution we found demonstrated a particular aspect of the French genius. Generals Salan and Massu implemented the magnificent folly espoused by Bouvard and Pécuchet to the letter: draw up lists, apply logic to all things, provoke disasters.
We were bound to have trouble living together after that.
Oh shit, it’s happening all over again!
It’s happening again! He said it, I heard him use those very same words, heard him use the same terms, the same tone. It’s starting again! We are infected by colonial corruption. It eats away at us. It constantly reappears. It has always been there, coursing under our feet, flowing unseen, just as sewers run beneath the streets, ever hidden, ever present, and when a heatwave comes we wonder where the stench comes from.
He said it, I heard him say it, the self-same words.
I was buying a newspaper. The newsagent was a nasty piece of work. I give nothing away, but I could instantly tell from the information provided by my senses. He reeked of fine cigars and aftershave. I’d rather deal with someone who is tubby and bald, with a cigarillo dangling from his lips and a nightstick under the counter. But this particular newsagent concealed his baldness by cropping his hair close. He was smoking a fat cigar that was clearly top quality. He proudly claimed to have a cellar with a hygrometer. He was obviously a connoisseur. He knew about cigars and how best to appreciate them. I almost envied him his shirt, it looked good on him. He was about my age, not quite fat, carrying just enough weight to have his feet planted firmly on the ground. He was attractively plump, with a good complexion and a quiet self-confidence. His wife, who manned the other till, exuded a commercial but nonetheless charming eroticism. Cigar clenched firmly between his teeth, he held forth.
‘They make me laugh.’
The newspaper lay open in front of him and he was commenting
on the headlines; it was a quality paper, not a tabloid rag. These days we cannot depend on stereotypes to protect ourselves. Thirty years of media editorials mean that everyone now puts their best foot forward, ensuring that their private thoughts are not so readily apparent. The only way to know who you are dealing with is to look for subtle signals; or to listen. Everything is communicated through music. Everything is expressed in the structure of language.
‘Makes me laugh, this idea they’ve had about anonymous CVs.’
People had recently had the idea of no longer giving their names when submitting job applications. It was proposed that no name should be included on a CV. It was suggested that candidates be discussed sight unseen, with no mention of a name. The goal being to create a level playing field in terms of access to jobs, since the resonant colour of a surname might prove troubling. And a troubled mind makes decisions that reason cannot justify. Those elements of language which carried too much meaning would be passed over in silence. People hoped that, through silence, violence would go unspoken. Gradually, it was hoped, people would stop speaking, would use words that were numbers; or speak English – a language that tells us nothing of importance.
‘Anonymous CVs! They’re having a laugh! More smoke and mirrors. As if that was the problem.’
I was about to agree, because it is always easier to absent-mindedly agree with a newsagent who has a nightstick under their counter. You never have to see them again, you will never come back, there is no obligation. I was about to agree, and I did agree that this was not the problem.
‘This is something we should have sorted out long ago.’
I remained noncommittal. I picked up my change, my paper, I sensed a trap. Because surely a beaming smile around a firmly planted cigar always conceals a trap. He studied me with a look of amusement; he knew my type.
‘If we had hit the agitators hard ten years ago, when there was still time, we might have a bit of peace and quiet now.’
It took me several attempts to pick up the change, the coins kept rolling away from me. Objects always resist you when you want to be rid of them. He kept me there. He was a past master.
‘Ten years ago, at least they knew their place. There was only a handful of troublemakers: that’s when we needed to come down hard. Really hard. Whack anyone who stuck their head above the parapet.’
I made to leave, backing away slowly, but he was an old hand. He looked me in the eye, he spoke to me directly and had a good laugh while he waited for me to agree. He knew my type.
‘This is what you get for all their bullshit. Look where it’s got us. They’re in charge now. They’re not afraid of anyone. They act like this is their home. We don’t control anything any more, except when it comes to business. This bullshit about anonymous CVs is just another way of making it easier for them to access the one place where we still had some control over them. So, obviously, they’re laughing: we’re opening the doors for them. They get to infiltrate the last bastion of privilege with no one any the wiser.’
I tried to leave. I held the door ajar with one hand, my paper with the other, but still he would not let me go. He was an expert. Staring hard into my eyes, never pausing for a moment, his cigar planted with smug satisfaction, he held me mesmerized by the power of human relationships. In order to leave, I would have had to interrupt him. I would have had to turn my back in mid-sentence, an affront I was keen to avoid. We are programmed to listen to someone who is talking to us and looking us in the eye; it’s an anthropological reflex. I did not want to get involved in a sordid discussion. I wanted it to be over, without some horrendous scene. And he just laughed, he knew my type.
He said nothing specific, but I knew what he meant, and the very fact that I understood amounted to tacit approval. He knew that. We are bound by language, and here he was bandying pronouns about without ever being specific. He knew I would say nothing, since it would mean getting into an argument with him and he was ready for me. If we got into an argument it would prove that I understood, which would mean confessing that we shared a language: that we thought in the same terms. He made his pronouncement, I pretended not to comprehend: those who accept what is can lay claim to a stronger grasp on reality; he already had the advantage.
I hovered in the doorway, not daring to tear myself away and leave. He kept me open-mouthed, force-fed me, an innocent goose, until my liver exploded. His wife, in her prime of life, radiated blonde perfection. She casually stacked the magazines into neat piles in a graceful ballet of red fingernails, accompanied by the tinkling music of her jewellery. He knew my type and he was using it to his advantage. He had recognized in me a child of the Mitterrand generation, of the First Republic of the Left, who refuses to speak and refuses to see. He had recognized me as someone who glories in anonymity, someone who avoids certain words for fear of violence, someone who no longer speaks for fear of being sullied, and thereby leaves himself defenceless. I could not contradict him, without acknowledging that I understood what he was saying. And, thereby, with my first words, admit that I thought in the same terms. He laughed at his trap as he gracefully pulled on his fat cigar. He let me come to him.
‘If we’d done something back then, we wouldn’t have to deal with what we’re dealing with today. If we’d put our foot down when there were only a handful of agitators. If we’d come down hard, really hard, on the ones who stuck their head above the parapet, we wouldn’t have the problems we have now. We would have had peace for ten years.’
It’s starting again! Colonial corruption has resurfaced and the words have not changed. ‘Peace for ten years.’ He said it to my face. Here, just as over there. And that word, ‘they’! The French all collude in using the word ‘they’. It is a tacit collusion between the French who understand, without having to specify who ‘they’ refers to. We do not need to specify. Simply understanding admits us to the group of those who understand. Understanding what is meant by ‘they’ makes us complicit. Some pretend not to say it and even not to understand it. But it is futile; we cannot help but understand language. We are immersed in language and all of us understand. Language understands us; and it is language that determines who we are.
Where did we come by the idea that firmness calms? Where did we come by the idea that a couple of slaps can bring peace? Where did we come by these notions, so simple they appear self-evident, if not from over there? And we do not need to explain what we mean by ‘over there’: every Frenchman knows precisely where it is.
Slaps restore peace; the idea is so simple that families use it. We wallop children to calm them down, we raise our voices, we glower, and it seems to have a little effect. So we carry on. In the closed world of the family this has little consequence, since more often than not the shouting, the empty threats, the arm-waving, are simply play-acting; but transposed to the free world of adults, it results in terrible violence. Where do we come by the notion that slaps bring about the peace we crave if not from ‘over there’, from colonial illegalism, from colonial infantilism?
Where does it come from, this belief in the virtue of violence? Where does it come from, this notion that ‘they are restless’? That we ‘need to show them who’s boss’ in order to calm them down. Where, if not from ‘over there’? From the siege mentality that haunted the nights of the pieds noirs. From their American dreams of pioneers conquering virgin territory overrun by savages. They dreamed of having power. To them, power seemed the simplest solution. Power invariably seems the simplest solution, it is something that everyone can imagine, since everyone was once a child. Looming grown-ups commanded our respect through their unimaginable power. They raised a hand and we cowered in fear. We bowed our heads believing that order stemmed from power. This sunken world lives on; the flotsam drifts through the very structure of our language, certain word associations we did not realize we knew occur to us unbidden.
Finally, I managed to turn away. I stepped across the threshold and fled. I fled this nasty piece of work who smelled of cigar s
moke, fled the mocking smile, the squarely planted cigar, this man who would stop at nothing to keep everyone in their place. I ran without offering a response; he had posed no questions. I cannot see what I could have argued. In France we do not argue. We assert our group identity with all the force required by our insecurity. France is splintering; the pieces are drifting further and further apart; very different groups no longer want to live together.
I ran out into the street, my eyes unfocused so as not to have to look at anyone; my shoulders hunched the better to move through the air, striding briskly to avoid a chance encounter. I fled as far as I could from the bastard who had forced me to agree to terrible things, without saying anything specific, without me objecting. I raced along the street, trailing the stench that rises from the sewers of language, briefly ajar.
I remember the origin of those words. I remember when they were first spoken, and by whom. ‘I will give you peace for ten years,’ Général Duval said in 1945. The Muslim villages along the coast were bombed by the navy; those inland were shelled by fighter planes. During the riots, 102 Europeans – this is the precise figure – were gutted in the town of Sétif. This is not a figure of speech, they were literally eviscerated: their abdomens slashed open with a variety of sharp tools and their still pulsating intestines spilled out and spread over the ground as they screamed. Guns were handed out to anyone who asked for them. Police officers, soldiers and armed militias – meaning just about anyone – roamed the countryside. They randomly massacred everyone they came across. Thousands of Muslims were slaughtered simply because they had the misfortune to encounter them. We need to show them we had the power. The streets, the villages and plains of Algeria were drenched in blood. People were butchered if they looked the type. ‘We will have peace for ten years.’