The Guillotine Choice

by Michael J Malone

  His stomach twisted with pain.

  How could he consider going back home? Algeria without his father was unthinkable.

  He bit down on the emotion that threatened to swamp him once again. There was no point in going back home. There was no point in even writing home for more information.

  He made his decision there and then. He would not think of home. He would not seek out news of home. Algeria and his family were dead to him. He would forget about them and concentrate on keeping busy for as many hours as he could. This was the only way he could stay sane.

  * * *

  Life settled into a pattern of work and sleep, with the odd hour at Lacroix’s bar. Work at the depot became more of a challenge as the war in Europe began and then started to bite. The German U-boats were patrolling the Atlantic, which meant very few supply ships could come through from France and her colonies on that side of the world. Everything the colony needed had to be sourced elsewhere. Which of course led to regular headaches for Mohand and his colleagues.

  Which in turn meant a whole new level of austerity for the convicts. Men working in the jungle camps, who were already starving for the want of a few crumbs, had even less to eat.

  Fragments of war news filtered through to the colony. A few men managed to locate the odd radio and would spend their evenings clustered around it. From there the rumours would spread.

  The first one that Mohand learned of was that the Germans had overrun France. This led to subsequent rumours. What need would the Germans have of the bagne? Surely they would close such an institution down?

  They had set up a new government. That was the first time the term ‘Vichy’ was heard on the colony, but it was one that was to prove unpopular for the prisoners.

  The new government wanted their own people to run outlying properties and colonies. Men in power in the French Guiana were suddenly ousted from their positions and replaced with those who were loyal to the new Vichy government.

  One evening at the bar, Mohand was debating this with Simone and Lacroix.

  ‘So, there’s a war on in Europe,’ Lacroix shrugged. ‘That’s a million miles away. Or it might as well be.’

  ‘Yes,’ Simone agreed. ‘What impact does it have on the colony? Look around you. Nobody gives a shit.’

  The other two men did as Simone suggested. Around the room men were huddled over their jugs of tafia in various states of inebriation. A pair of them snagged Mohand’s attention. He hadn’t seen them here before. They looked related to each other. They also looked like Berbers and, sadly, they wore the rags and haunted expressions common to the libéré.

  ‘See,’ said Simone, misreading the look on Mohand’s face. ‘They’re more interested in who is sleeping with which guard’s wife or what the going rate for a bribe is.’

  Mohand set his thoughts about the strangers to one side for the moment and shook his head. He, for one, was worried. He could already see the impact the war was having on supplies.

  ‘The Third Reich has ambitions that should worry us all,’ said Mohand.

  Simone made a dismissive sound. ‘They want to take over the old country? Let them. They should start with Paris. Parisians are degenerates.’

  ‘Are you not from Paris?’ asked Lacroix.

  ‘I rest my case, your honour,’ Simone answered with a grin.

  Mohand studied his friend’s face. He couldn’t believe he was so relaxed about this. ‘There is a lot to worry about, my friend, but at least I hear that Paris is safe.’

  ‘Oh,’ Simone said, leaning forward. He knew that Mohand had friends in high places, friends that would provide a good source of intelligence. Most of the men he spoke with he would listen to and then add a ladle of salt to their words. Mohand’s words tended to have a strong ring of truth.

  ‘The Vichy government have reached an agreement with the Boche. They will not bomb Paris. They may borrow a few of her treasures, but they will leave her architecture intact.’

  Simone sat back in his chair and made a dismissive sound through his lips. ‘Paris is like a whore, protecting her face while pulling up her skirts and spreading her legs.’ He scratched the side of his face and thought for a moment. ‘What should we be worried about, then?’

  ‘The first worry is the level of supplies we’re receiving. The colony has been lazy over the years, relying on France. Now that she is less able to send us goods, I am worried that a lot of men are going to starve. The libérés will find it harder to get work. They too will starve. Not good, my friend.’

  ‘Any more messages of doom, Monsieur Saoudi?’ Simone tried to add some levity to the conversation with a smile that held only half the humour he intended.

  Mohand thought with dread about what he had heard was happening in Europe. The Germans were rounding up all of the Jews in France. What was then happening was unclear. Speculation was rife and none of it pleasant. ‘If the Germans win this war, Simone,’ he said, ‘they are talking about rounding up all the Jews in Europe and placing them in death camps.’

  At the mention of Europe’s Jewish population being in danger, Simone was suddenly on edge. His parents were both Catholic, but his mother’s mother was a Jew, born in a small community in Georgia. Her parents had fled the region following a pogrom in which most of the men had been slaughtered by Cossacks. They arrived in Paris after long months of travel and worked hard to integrate with the local population.

  ‘Death camps,’ Simone thought aloud. ‘Surely they wouldn’t dare?’ Although his words conveyed doubt, his expression showed that he could well believe it.

  Mohand considered the Jewish population back in Algeria, most of whom were living easily beside their Muslim neighbours and adding a good deal to the country. ‘And if they are starting to kill off the Jews, what use will they have for Berbers?’

  Simone took a long drink from his glass. And belched dramatically. ‘There, my friend, your worries should cease. The world has long held a fear of my family’s religion. Germany’s hunger for the blood of my ancestors has a long and troubled history. Jews have travelled the world. Everywhere they put down some roots, they flourish. Some say, like weeds. Through a combination of hard work and good brains’, at this, he tapped the side of his head, ‘they succeed. More often than not, they succeed even while the other communities around them fail. Then the rumours start. The Jews eat their young and pray to strange gods. They are the source of all our problems, the larger community argues. It would be better for everyone if they died. In Georgia, they would whip themselves into a frenzy so that the only thing to do would be to go out and maim or murder a few Jews. In the dead of night, they would ride into a Jewish village with their swords and cut down anyone in their reach. Men, women or children. If it carried the tag of “Jew” then its neck should be met with a sword. Some of the stories my grandmother used to tell me…’ He stopped and looked into Mohand’s eyes, his own giving hints of the horrors brought to life as they dripped from his grandmother’s tongue.

  Mohand shuddered and thought about his own people’s struggles with a different oppressor. One group acted through fear and suspicion. The other through greed. Which was worse? In any case, mankind, it seemed, found it very difficult to ignore its worst urges.

  He stood up, bid Simone goodnight and on the way out of the bar found himself walking towards the pair of Berbers.

  ‘Do I know you?’ he asked the men in their own language. He was surprised that he had switched to his old language without thought, and after so long without speaking it the words felt rough on his tongue.

  As he had walked over, the two men looked at him with suspicion. They had both leaned forward, hands on the table, looking as if they were ready to spring. When they heard the Berber words, the suspicion softened on their expressions.

  ‘I am from Maillot in Algeria,’ said Mohand.

  Both men smiled broadly. One said, ‘I am Arezki and this is my brother, Aissa. We’re from Oued Amezour.’ They both stood up at the same time and moved to
embrace Mohand.

  They spoke one over the other. Each anxious to hear the other’s story. Mohand felt his chest was about to burst. Conflicting emotions piled up one on top of the other. Joy that he should meet men with whom he shared a culture. Sorrow that these men should be in the same position as him; possibly a worse situation, judging by the shabbiness of their cloth.

  ‘Oued Amezour?’ Mohand wondered. ‘That is just… what… forty kilometres from Maillot, and yet we meet here… Incredible.’

  ‘You look as if prison has been less… of a challenge,’ Aissa, the younger one, said. Mohand looked at him, judging the tenor of this comment. He was aware that many men were jealous of his position in the colony. Most of them lost this when they saw that he used this position to help those around them. However, Mohand was satisfied that Aissa was merely stating a fact and not voicing a criticism. He was skinny, but not skeletal as many of the men around him were. He placed a hand on Aissa’s shoulder.

  ‘My hell is a little cooler than yours, Aissa,’ he said. ‘I was lucky to find a way to work with the system to make things a little easier. But make no mistake, this is still hell.’

  As the conversation went on, Mohand watched the men and observed how similar they were. How they smiled at the same thing, finished each other’s sentences. Mohand envied them their closeness, but at the same time he wanted to distance himself from it. Life here was difficult but it would be unbearable if you had that relationship with someone and then lost it.

  Memories of home crowded him. Scenes of Maillot jostled for attention. The chatter and rough humour in the evenings when the men sat on the carpet outside the house as the day cooled. Picking figs from the trees during the harvest. The many versions of couscous Hanna Addidi would serve him after a long, hard day.

  Before he realised it, he was slowly rocking back and forward in his chair. A tear forming a slow slide down his cheek.

  The two men looked at him, clearly alarmed at his actions.

  ‘Are you…?’ one asked.

  ‘We didn’t mean to…’ the other tried to join in.

  ‘Home…’ Mohand closed his eyes tight. He could feel the sting as he fought the tears. ‘I miss it every day.’

  ‘We apologise…’ began Arezki, at a loss as to what to do when faced with Mohand’s pain.

  Mohand shook his head wordlessly. He fought for control, surprised at his own response. Perhaps he was still grieving for his father.

  ‘Fine,’ he managed to say. ‘I’m fine. It was just… your voices… the Berber… so difficult.’

  Both men looked at him, empathy widening their eyes.

  ‘We understand,’ Arezki offered.

  Mohand bought some tafia and they chatted for an hour or so about their stories since they had come to French Guiana. Before he returned to his room, he promised the men that they would all meet again.

  SEVEN

  Accusations

  Captain Sancarve was an officer Mohand had come across in the prison from time to time. He was a tall, slim man with the archetypal French profile and one of the fairest men he had met since entering the French penal system.

  ‘Captain.’ Mohand stood up from behind his desk when the man entered his office. ‘What can I do for you?’

  ‘A glass of water would be welcome, Saoudi,’ Sancarve replied while mopping at his brow with a square of cotton. ‘A man could die in this heat.’ This statement had Mohand immediately on alert. His finely tuned danger alert system was prickling down his spine. Sancarve was a man who never allowed nature to impact on his appearance. While other men around him might have brows dripping or the usual telltale patches of sweat on their uniforms, he was always scrupulously clean. Even now as he dabbed his forehead his skin looked as cool as if he were standing in a mountain breeze.

  Mohand immediately fetched the captain a glass of water and placed it before him. Sancarve drained it in one gulp.

  ‘Most pleasant,’ he said, ‘thank you.’ Sancarve may have been one of the fairest men Mohand had met, but he was also one of the most humourless. Even now, when he was on unofficial business, his eyes had all but slipped halfway down his cheeks and he wore the expression of someone waiting for the world to end.

  ‘Is there anything else I can offer the good captain while he is here?’ Mohand asked while his mind was working on the possibilities for the man’s visit.

  ‘There are times when I have a very difficult job to do, Monsieur Saoudi. Complaints are made. Complaints about black marketeers. Even against good men like yourself, and I have to investigate. There are even times when I have to do this secretly, when I know that I am wasting my time.’ As he spoke, his eyes bored into Mohand’s.

  With his heart tightening in his chest, Mohand’s mind worked on the importance of what Sancarve was saying.

  Someone had made complaints about him. Those complaints must have been so serious that Sancarve felt the need to warn him. And if they involved the black market and the individual was found to be guilty, there was only one way for that to end. Under the guillotine.

  The authorities took that sort of crime very seriously, because it meant the thieves were stealing in great quantities from the prison authority and the colony itself.

  Despite knowing that he was as innocent as a baby, Mohand felt anxiety build. His eyes smarted. Sweat burst out on his palms. He rubbed them on his trousers, under the table. Slowly. He wouldn’t want Sancarve to read the gesture and then read too much into it.

  ‘I’m sure a man like you would have nothing to worry about.’ Sancarve’s mouth twitched in his approximation of a smile. ‘Time will serve its function, Saoudi. The truth will reveal itself and we can go back to worrying about what the Boche will do to the mother country.’

  He left the room as abruptly as he arrived. The only sign of his passing was an empty glass.

  * * *

  Over the next few days and weeks more complaints arrived with the prison authorities. Other guards that had come to know and trust Mohand let the situation be known to him in similar ways to Captain Sancarve. In these letters the accusers alleged that Mohand was selling materials from the depot on the black market.

  These were allegations that could cost Mohand his life.

  Having contacts of his own, Mohand did what he could to find out where the accusations had come from. From his various sources, he found that Hassan had set the ball rolling. There were other accusers: French convicts who were insulted that a man who was not of French stock had achieved a position of responsibility. Again, it was Sancarve who highlighted this to him, in his own fashion.

  He paid another visit the next time he was ‘thirsty’. He spoke in the tone of someone who was discussing the weather. ‘Some men feel that French blood is superior. In that, they are no better than the Germans. This means they might take any opportunity that arises to… get rid of someone who doesn’t meet their view of what is correct. These men are blind fools, Saoudi. They are to be pitied.’

  * * *

  One evening, a chief of the brigade of gendarmerie came to visit Mohand in his room. He was one of the guests Mohand had been introduced to at the mayor’s party. The chief was a man of ruddy complexion and booming voice, who was simply known as ‘The Chief’.

  Mohand had been resting on his bed after another long hard day when he heard a knock at his door. He opened it to find the chief standing there in full uniform. Mohand’s first thought was that he had come to arrest him and he managed – just – to stay on his feet.

  ‘Don’t worry, Mohand,’ the chief said, placing a hand on his shoulder. ‘I am here unofficially.’

  ‘If you are here to tell me that there have been complaints…’

  ‘I am here to tell you that there have been complaints which have resulted in my placing someone within your staff to observe you.’

  ‘But…’ Mohand began to speak. He was stung that someone who he believed held him in trust would go to such lengths to find out if he was guilty of such a crime.<
br />
  ‘I have no choice, Mohand. This is the normal process when complaints like these are made. Oh, we know that things go missing and to an extent we turn a blind eye. However, when complaints are made on this scale…’

  ‘I assure you, Chief, that I am doing nothing illegal. Nothing.’

  ‘These guys are after your head, Mohand. But as you say, you have done nothing wrong. The truth of that will surface and they will lose.’ He offered Mohand a smile of support. ‘If you need me for anything, don’t hesitate to call on me.”

  The services that Mohand’s department provided were under the army control. They needed to get to the bottom of these allegations. Mohand understood that they had to act on any suspicion, whether that suspicion came from someone’s imagination or not. There were other areas of concern. Because Mohand didn’t sleep in the camp like all other prisoners, it would be easy for someone in his position to take advantage of the situation and make a great deal of money for himself.

  Knowing this, and being able to present a logical argument as to why that might be the case, did not make it easier for him. People who had trusted him to do a good job were being let down by the simple fact that he was under a cloud of suspicion.

  * * *

  They came for him an hour before first light. The door was all but torn from its hinges and two men pulled him from his bed.

  Heart spiked with adrenalin, legs weak with fear, Mohand attempted to speak to his captors. All that came out of his dry mouth was a weak, half-formed question.

  ‘What the…?’

  In the dim of dawn’s light he could see that the men in his room were all guards.

  ‘What is…?’

  Again fear snatched the words from his mouth. Aware that he was only wearing a pair of undershorts, he looked towards the chair beside his bed for his prison uniform. One of the guards read his head movement.