The Guillotine Choice

by Michael J Malone

  Mohand sipped some more of his coffee. It revived him a little. He kept sipping till it was finished. He slid the cup across the table to Lacroix.

  ‘Thank you.’

  ‘Don’t take this the wrong way, kid,’ Lacroix said, standing up. He picked up the machete and slapped the width of the blade against the palm of his hand. ‘This is not the kind of place for a bright, young fellow like you. Get the hell out and don’t come back.

  SEVEN

  Temptation

  Her name was Marie-Louise and she was the most beautiful creature Mohand had ever seen. She had long, lustrous black hair she was always playing with. Her hand would pick out a strand as she talked, then she’d slide her thumb and forefinger down its length before going back to the top of her head, picking another strand and going through the same process all over again. Mohand could watch her doing this in the same way some men might sit on their haunches staring out to sea.

  She was a tiny woman, small-waisted with breasts and hips that swelled out on a promise, and she had a smile that never quite left her brown eyes. She was also the wife of one of the camp guards.

  Mohand had been on garden detail for two months when he was approached by Villiers.

  ‘You’re a good kid, Saoudi.’ He nodded as if he’d just reached a decision. ‘Bright. Hard-working. Come with me.’

  Mohand looked over at Simone, who was bent over a shrub, pulling off flowers whose time had come and gone. Simone continued his work, but he had of course heard the whole thing.

  ‘I’ll just give this to Simone.’ Mohand picked up a sack full of weeds as he rose from his knees and walked over to the older man. As he dropped the sack at Simone’s side, his eyes framed a question.

  Simone shaped a faint shrug and mumbled, ‘Just remember to keep it in your pants.’

  As they walked, Villiers explained what was happening.

  ‘Our last houseboy died. Marie-Louise was devastated. Refused to have another. She never could have a pet, not even back in Brittany.

  ‘Twice a week I want you to come round and do our garden, tidy round the house. Do a good job and you might earn yourself some tips, okay?’

  Villiers stretched into the sky beside him and Mohand looked up at him at the mention of money.

  ‘Self-respect is very important to me, Monsieur Villiers. Of course I will do a good job.’

  Villiers reached across and patted him on the shoulder. ‘Bien. Prove to me that I made the right choice.’ The guard moved his hand to the base of Mohand’s throat. His grip light, but the promise of threat clear. ‘My wife is very beautiful. She is also very trusting.’ A dark light shone in the Frenchman’s eyes. ‘Look at her the wrong way and I will cut your balls off.’

  * * *

  The house he led him to was the last in a row of cottages. White-washed walls, red-tiled roof and a riot of roses and azaleas in the garden. A palm tree towered over the house, offering shade. Mohand struggled with the idea that such a picture-perfect home was only minutes from the hell of the blockhaus. Keeping such thoughts from showing, he allowed Villiers to guide him up a small path to the cottage door.

  The door was flung open and a small woman came bouncing out towards them.

  ‘Marc, you angel. You remembered.’ She reached up. He reached down and they kissed.

  ‘You must be Monsieur Saoudi,’ she beamed at him. Then she took him completely by surprise by leaning forward and kissing him on each cheek. He stood as if frozen. Sweat broke out on his forehead. Villiers was bound to draw his pistol and shoot them both on the spot.

  Villiers stepped forward and, placing an arm over his wife’s shoulders, he walked towards the house. Once inside he looked over his shoulder.

  ‘Don’t be shy, kid. C’mon in.’

  Numb, he lifted his hat from his head, held it before his stomach and followed the couple. The room instantly reminded him of the Samson house back in Algeria. It had the same arrangement of furniture; two large soft chairs, a small low table and every surface held a square of lace as a stand for a vase of flowers.

  Mohand felt a pang of loss and closed his eyes against the tears that threatened. The Villiers were oblivious to his reaction. They had arranged themselves on one of the large chairs, while Marie-Louise fussed over her husband.

  ‘Can I get you a coffee, darling?’

  ‘Have you read the paper?’

  ‘Do you need something to eat?’

  ‘For chrissake, Marie-Louise, calm down. It’s just a houseboy.’ He showed his wife a cold grin and Mohand felt the atmosphere change. There was something at play here and he had no idea what it might be. His convict sense of danger set his skin to prickle.

  Marie-Louise stood up and took a step back from her husband. She swallowed and then offered her husband a smile laced with apology and appeasement.

  Villiers jumped to his feet and pulled his wife towards him. His groin tight against her. His hand on her arse.

  His message clear.

  Then he smiled, warmth returning to his face, and he leaned forward to kiss his wife on the forehead. It all changed so quickly that Mohand thought the switch from affection to menace and back again was all in his imagination.

  ‘Right. I have work to do. Saoudi. You do everything my wife tells you and remember when the bell goes…’

  While studying the floor, Mohand nodded to show his understanding and Villiers was gone, leaving only an echo of chill to suggest he had once occupied space in the room.

  Marie-Louise studied the door for a few seconds after it shut. Closed her eyes, set her shoulders and turned to face Mohand.

  ‘I hope you are ready to work hard?’ she asked with a tight smile, and Mohand read the shame and fear in her eyes. Shame that her husband would treat her so in front of another and fear because, for the briefest of moments, there had been a very real threat in the room. Mohand swallowed his pity for the woman and suddenly felt very vulnerable. Several what-ifs ran through his mind and he considered running for the door.

  ‘Don’t look so scared.’ Marie-Louise sat down on the chair, composure regained. ‘From time to time my husband forgets I am not a convict. That we come from a civilised part of the world.’ She set her jaw. ‘Come and sit with me and tell me all about yourself.’

  Mohand stayed where he was.

  ‘I am here to work, Madame Villiers. Show me what work you want me to do and I will get it done.’

  ‘So serious, Monsieur Saoudi.’

  ‘I am a convicted criminal, Madame Villiers, and I have been living in one of the worst prisons in the world. And now…’ He motioned around himself with an open palm. ‘Please forgive me if I don’t join you on the chair. I would rather just go and do some work. If you are not happy with my efforts, you could just tell your husband that I am not suitable and I can go back to working in the town’s garden detail.’

  Marie-Louise stood up and walked towards Mohand. Her own fears had faded and she was wearing an expression that said, if I have a difficult time, how must it be for this poor man in front of me? ‘Mon dieu, you are trembling. What has happened to you that you are so scared?’ She shook her head and gave him a look full of knowing. ‘Stupid question, non?’

  She stretched out a hand, pointing at the rear of the house. ‘Come. There is work I want you to do in the back garden.’ She offered a weak smile by way of apology and Mohand felt his heart give a little. ‘I am so flighty sometimes. I mean you no harm.’

  Mohand found himself nodding. She may be the wife of a guard. She may be free, but Marie-Louise was every bit the prisoner that he was.

  ‘The garden.’ She turned and strode through the room. ‘I have a big job for you.’

  * * *

  Marie-Louise inhabited Mohand’s thoughts the way ivy wreathes an old house. When the turnkey shouted, ‘Breakfast,’ to wake him from his dreams of her, his thoughts slid to the way she tilted her head when she was listening to him. When he was walking out of the camp into town, he would think of her small s
lender hands and imagine how they might stroke him. When he was working in the town gardens, he could smell her perfume sweetening the breeze. As he drifted off to sleep, she was there beside him with a whispered ‘Bon nuit.’

  ‘You’re doing that thing with your eyes again, Saoudi,’ Simone said, nudging him with the handle of his paintbrush.

  ‘Go and do yourself, old man,’ Mohand answered.

  They were standing at the corner of the main administration building, touching up the wood panelling with thick, glossy white paint. They’d been working together now on various projects for six months and Simone was the only man in French Guiana that he trusted, apart from Arab, of whom he had heard nothing since his transfer to Kourou. However, there was one thing he was not willing to trust with Simone: his feelings for Marie-Louise.

  ‘You Berbers are so coarse. “Go and do yourself,” indeed. And what should I use? Thirteen years of doing myself. I need a change. Can I use your hand?’

  ‘You French are so limited in your imagination. Unless, of course, it involves human suffering. In any case, my hand is thick with callouses. Perhaps one of the town’s blind prostitutes might do you a favour?’

  ‘Cheeky pup,’ Simone grinned.

  The two men stopped talking and gave themselves to the rhythm of the brush. Dip. Slap. Slide. There was something soothing in the repetition and it allowed Mohand’s thoughts to drift.

  ‘Again with the eyes,’ Simone mumbled.

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘I am older than you, Mohand. And a good deal wiser, I might add. All I’m saying is, be careful.’

  Mohand pursed his lips and blew a dismissive sound. ‘Don’t know what you are talking about.’

  He went back to his painting and started to worry. Does the old man suspect? Were his feelings for her so obvious?

  ‘You wouldn’t be the first convict to fall in love with a guard’s wife, Mohand. And between you and me, you’ve picked the wrong guard.’ The warning in Simone’s tone caused Mohand to pause.

  ‘The word is that Villiers is insanely jealous. His previous houseboy ended up face down in the river. The wife had a broken jaw.’

  ‘No.’

  Simone simply raised his eyebrows in answer.

  Mohand’s first thought was to dismiss his friend’s fears. Compared to his fellow inmates, he was in a hugely fortunate position and he didn’t want to think even for a moment that it might be threatened. Then he considered what he had witnessed and knew about Villiers. There had been that moment when he was introduced to Marie-Louise, but since then, nothing. The guard had said that the previous houseboy died. Could he have murdered him in a fit of jealousy?

  Villiers had come home early on a few occasions, checked that Mohand was working and had a quiet word with his wife before heading back to whatever part of the prison he had been working in.

  ‘I don’t doubt you, young man,’ Simone said and attacked another stretch of panelling with the brush. ‘The wife, however…’ He whistled. ‘I’ve seen it all before. Many times. The husband has changed since he came to the colony. When he touches her, it’s too firm. Almost painful. And once, he hits her. Then there’re gifts and apologies until it happens again. The houseboy is quiet… timid almost. In the deepest part of her, she realises she has power over another human being. In other parts of her, she craves the touch of someone who looks at her like she’s sixteen again… once again on the brink of womanhood.

  ‘How am I doing so far, Saoudi?’ Simone asked.

  ‘You’ve read too many shit novels, old man,’ he answered.

  They went back to the rhythm of the brush for a few moments, both lost in their own thoughts.

  ‘I’ve always wondered, Saoudi, why a Berber has a name like Saoudi. Surely that’s an Arabian name, no?’

  Mohand smiled and then suffered a pang of homesickness as memory assailed him.

  Noticing how his young companion’s movement had changed, Simone apologised. ‘If it’s too painful, you don’t need to tell me.’

  ‘No. Not painful,’ said Mohand. ‘It’s a good memory. A simpler, happier time.’ And his father’s voice filled his ears, and he was a young boy on the back of a donkey, begging his father for another story.

  Mohand relived the moment as if it happened just yesterday. He could feel the slow sway of the donkey’s gait, the dry air of Algeria and the warmth of his father’s hand on his shoulder as he told the family legend.

  ‘The story as my father told me was this. My great-great-grandfather, Mohamed OuMessaoud Zenouch, was one of five sons and when he first got married he and his wife struggled to have children. Being a filthy Parisian,’ Mohand said, grinning and dodging his friend’s weak punch aimed at his ear, ‘you will not know that for a culture such as ours, a son is an assurance for old age. Poor Mohamed’s wife died. His work was doubly difficult because he had poor eyesight and was all alone. He had to do to all the chores inside and outside by himself. He had to look after his land and his animals. His other brothers had their own problems. They had many grown-up children and not enough resources to go around. So one day they hatched a plan to get rid of their brother and take over his land.’

  ‘Seriously?’ asked Simone. ‘They would kill their brother for his land?’

  Mohand smiled. This was exactly the same question he had put to his father. ‘These are the pressures the colons put on my people. They twisted our minds and had us fighting ourselves, so they could keep our country’s wealth for themselves. Anyway. Stop asking questions. I’m telling you a story.’ This time it was Mohand’s turn to aim a wayward punch at Simone. ‘The plan the brothers came up with was to sabotage his work. Make it look like an accident. It occurred to them that he would be high in the trees gathering leaves for his animals and wouldn’t it be a terrible accident if he fell from a height and broke his neck?

  ‘The animals loved the leaf from a very tall tree that grew well on his land. We call it thasslent. I don’t know what the French word for this is. They judged the branch that he would be using next to get leaves for his animals and they sawed their way partly through this so that his weight would be enough for break the branch. And he would then fall to his death.

  ‘Then they camouflaged the cut with mud, thinking that he wouldn’t notice. However, that morning, while climbing up this tree, his hands landed on the mud, which was still wet. He cleaned it up, thinking it might make his climb on to the branch too slippy, and discovered the cut. He quickly realised what was going on and climbed down to safety.

  ‘So not only was he alone, but on top of that his family wanted to kill him. For who else would do such a thing? He decided that life at home would be intolerable. He couldn’t trust anyone. Why wait to see if they would make another attempt on his life, so a few days later, without a word to anyone, he packed his belongings on to the back of his horse and headed east.

  ‘Some months later he found himself in Saudi Arabia, where he got some work and made a decent life for himself, but always he wondered about home. Then one day, a man came to him, saying that he was from Maillot, too. They talked well into the night, telling each other their stories, and this stranger tried to convince him to return. Family is everything to the Berber, he said. You must try and repair things with your people. But of course, he didn’t want to go home. The other man argued and argued and eventually grew so frustrated that he threatened to kill Mohamed with his bare hands if he didn’t go home. Hearing the argument, advice and the threats from this stranger, he decided the time was right. He should return home, but he would do so with a different name. Make it a completely fresh start. He dropped “Zenouch” and adopted “Saoudi” in honour of the country that gave him refuge and a new hope.’

  * * *

  The next day, Mohand was working at the Villiers’ house, which gave him the chance to pretend for a few short hours that he was a human being again. As he walked, he smiled, an image bright in his mind of Marie-Louise curled up in her chair in the garden under the
shade of the giant greenheart tree. A table set before her with a jug of chilled lemonade and two glasses.

  They had found themselves in a rhythm where she would dole out just enough work to leave him a few minutes of rest before he returned to the prison. She would offer him a glass of something cold and they would chat, always separated by a safe distance.

  Mohand came to treasure these moments. The novelty of being treated like a man was enough to take the edge off his fear. He knew that Villiers would be horrified if he were ever to witness these short moments of intimacy, but he re-assured himself that they were completely innocent of anything that could be charged against them, and surely that would be enough?

  Marie-Louise was only a few years older than he and, he had come to realise, terribly lonely. Villiers should be happy that he was giving his wife an ear.

  Mohand quickened his step. Today he would race through the chores so that he and Marie-Louise might have some time chatting under the shade of the tree, drinking ice-cold lemonade. Then his step slowed as a thought occurred to him. Was it his imagination, or did Marc Villiers look at him differently that morning at roll call?

  An hour later, he was clipping branches from a large tree in her back garden. She was sitting on a low chair, wearing a light blue summer dress. He should have gone for a longer ladder, but he thought he could stretch just that little bit more. As he stretched, he turned his head to the side to look at how she had pulled her dress up just above her knee. The ladder tottered on one foot. He lost his balance and fell to the ground. As he fell, a branch scored a line across his ribs.

  She heard him fall and came running to his aid. She pulled him into the kitchen and ordered him to remove his tunic so she could clean and dress his wound.

  Once he was topless, she dipped a sponge in some water and gently swabbed at his side. His face was inches from hers. He could see the soft down on her chin, bleached to gold by the tropical sun. He followed the line of her face round to the swell of her lower lip.