The Influence Peddlers

by Hedi Kaddour

  Kathryn stopped daydreaming. She was suffering in this city, but she liked it. Berlin was the noise of wind in the trees, mixed with the sounds of birds, four or five times Central Park in Berlin, and Berlin made her love Raouf, the golden light of Berlin on the snow, one morning, and Raouf:

  “In German they say that the morning has gold in its mouth . . .” Kathryn didn’t dare ask who had taught him that expression, and furious with herself at not daring, and suddenly stricken with cold anger at Raouf, who didn’t understand a thing, Kathryn saying, “Kiss me!” in a flood of tenderness, to erase her anger, gold in the mouth . . . The other one must have told him that in bed! Another morning, right in the middle of the Tiergarten, a woman started calling, “Greta! Greta!” some annoyance in her voice. The woman was in front of them, a hundred feet away, on a wide path. She repeated, “Greta!” Anguish, a lost child, a city of gardens and a city of crime, and they saw a red spot in a thicket, on the right, almost next to them, a coat, a little figure that was up against the trunk of a large oak tree, a little girl, hardly six years old. The woman’s voice was getting desperate, and the little girl was letting her mother be desperate. “There’s one who already knows a lot about pleasure,” Gabrielle had said. The voice repeated, “Greta!” cracking. Over there, next to the mother, passersby were beginning to look around. Two riders had stopped. “The rascal, I want to turn her in,” said Ganthier, and Gabrielle, “No, maybe the mother is mean. You never know what goes on between a mother and her daughter, let’s leave them alone, come on!”

  “Wait a minute,” said Kathryn, “I want to see when she decides to come out.”

  “She’s going to laugh like a jokester,” said Raouf.

  “Or she’ll say she was lost,” said Kathryn.

  The mother was shouting at the top of her lungs now. The little girl in the red coat left the tree and made a detour through the thicket crying, “Muttie!” before coming out onto the large path, crying.

  “Sincere tears,” Ganthier said, “She’s crying out of real fear of getting a good thrashing.”

  “They’re like the tears of an actress,” Kathryn said, “She’s pretending she was afraid when she was lost.”

  “And what’s more, I’m sure the mother is going to feel guilty at letting the daughter wander off,” Gabrielle added, “Look at the kid, she’s not even running to her mother . . . It’s the mother who lost her, it’s her place to go get her.”

  “All’s well that ends well,” Kathryn said, “but I’d like to see the same scene with a boy.”

  “Boys don’t do that,” said Raouf with all the sincerity in the world in his voice.

  “Boys don’t learn early on how to lie and escape? So how do men do it?” Kathryn asked.

  “Mothers,” said Gabrielle, “never let a boy out of their sight, because they know that they think only of escaping.”

  “I didn’t have a mother,” said Raouf.

  Kathryn became tender, but she couldn’t stop thinking about what Gabrielle had said, He thinks only of escaping. She remembered what Gabrielle had told her in Nahbès, the servants, the nanny, what they did, Metilda leaning over Raouf . . . And the next day as they were walking down the street, sounding completely natural:

  “Your friend on the boat, is she the same one as the motors, in the ads?”

  “Yes.”

  “Do you think we could meet her? That would be nice.”

  Raouf found that amusing. He would write to see if that would be possible. Kathryn was sure he had already done it. Police strolled by, two by two. “There really are a lot of them,” said Kathryn, and Ganthier: “Don’t forget that scarcely a year ago there was an insurrection here.” A man-sandwich appeared in front of them. Only his head and boots could be seen. He was covered with newspapers, with headlines about a demonstration organized by the party of a certain Adolf Hitler, “a small party of excitables, and not the only one,” said Gabrielle, translating, adding: “If France were one day treated like Germany, we would soon have our Adolphe Duponts!” Ganthier wondered if she really thought such things, In fact, she only likes paradoxes, the headiness of thinking to think, that’s what’s worst, it’s not surprising she sympathizes with this country. Raouf managed to translate another headline by himself: “The German people are not yet colonized by France.”

  They were shivering. And the sun, when it appeared, was icy. They went into a café to warm up. The café had large, colored mirrored balls that gave the customers very thick lips, sunken eyes, long ears, and a yellow or blue tint, as if life were only an ill-fated farce. The customers seemed to like it. When they left Raouf burst out laughing:

  “Look at that lovely duo, Unruhe and Ordnung!” On the road two skinny men, wearing white shirt fronts, morning coats, and top hats, were pedaling a tandem bicycle that was making a disturbing clanking noise. The one in front was leaning over the handlebars, grimacing, gesticulating, twisting himself while keeping his head straight so his hat wouldn’t fall off, and the other was sitting up very straight, his chin up, with no other movement than that of his legs. Where were they going?

  32

  THE SMILE ON A GRILLED SHEEP’S HEAD

  One morning, Taïeb came to his father’s house with a lawyer friend: no, I just want to introduce you. I have every confidence in your lawyer, but mine is a friend. He has lots of contacts. He knows everything. He knows people’s pasts. Taïeb’s goal was to frighten his sister. It was enough that she know that a new lawyer had spent some time with her father, and if her suitor’s business wasn’t spotless they would quickly know. Did she really want everything to come out? The suitor himself began to grow tired of it. He had people say that it is never good for a man to be the object of conversations in the capital. And in the evening Taïeb, in a calm voice, asked Rania to talk for a moment:

  “I’m not doing this for me, but to avoid anything bad happening to you.” This time he wasn’t seeking to break his sister. He was trying to surprise her with his arguments:

  “What does this importer want by marrying you? It’s not money, it’s your beauty, of course, and your intelligence. I could tell you that it’s to rule over you, but you already know all that, it’s in your books. To subjugate a woman like you is more satisfying than marrying a housewife. You see, I also know how to think like they do today, but that’s not what’s most important, and you already know him, you have done your own research. You have even had a few discreet conversations with him, that’s normal, you are modern. A simple question, then, has he for even a single moment seemed to have even a tenth of the qualities of your dead husband?”

  Taïeb was careful not to say anything offensive. Rania was surprised at this new tone. She responded prudently: the man was interested in her life, her life in the country. Taïeb continued, “You know, you could keep the farm.” Rania was both wary and confident, saying that the “future one” had admired the way in which she kept the books. Taïeb smiled, don’t force anything, his sister was reasoning. He just had to let her be, and slowly the bits of reasoning would be put in place in Rania’s mind. Taïeb in passing repeated the word accountant, a reliable accountant, she must understand, a wife condemned to doing the books, Taïeb saying that the affairs of that importer had gone through difficult times, as she knew well, and you can guess how some businessmen get out of difficult situations . . . You will spend your life with numbers, trafficked numbers. Yes, he trafficks, otherwise he wouldn’t earn all that money. At one point Rania looked at Taïeb coldly: “You know all about cooked accounts!” He didn’t react. He continued: “You won’t be the slave of a husband, you will be the accomplice of an embezzler. In the end it will make a great tale, like the ones you read in your Egyptian novels, and our father will be the father and father-in-law of people who are brought before the judge . . .”

  Taïeb had let those ideas sink in, then he arranged a meeting in his father’s office with the suitor of his choice, Si Bougmal, and that day his father looked wonderful. Rania’s perfume st
ill floated in the room, She must have tried to wage her final battle, thought Taïeb, She has lost, my father wouldn’t have received us like this if it were only to show Si Bougmal the door.

  Si Mabrouk welcomed him warmly. Si Bougmal was a thin man, thin lips, short hair, slow movements, a smile meant to show that he permanently received a light that didn’t come just from the material world. Taïeb was proud to introduce his father to a man of this sort, and Si Mabrouk had congratulated the suitor at length:

  “You lead a model life, Si Bougmal. I have the means to know everything and I know that you drink very little, and only in order not to stand out among your peers when you’re with them. You are feared by your students, little liked by your colleagues, but that is not necessarily a bad thing, and your situation is prosperous, very prosperous. You have the respectability of a theologian and a good income—no father could be indifferent to that—and you are calm, not like a man who is holding himself back, but like one who never needs to resort to violence, and no one has ever accused you of going to or of being taken to bad places, which makes you a remarkable man among us. You are a blessing, Si Bougmal . . . a blessing with income from real estate, a true comfort for the soul (Si Bougmal raised his eyes to the heavens), a comfort for the soul of a father who is concerned with the future of his daughter and the children she will have . . . and you . . . are the owner of the largest brothel in this city!”

  Taïeb jumped out of his chair, indignant at what his father had said, a father who made a gesture with his hand, and who continued in a mechanical voice:

  “You don’t practice vice, Si Bougmal, you are content to live off of it, and the money is paid to the overseer of your farm, as if you were doing excellent business with wheat, almond trees, the gifts from God . . .” Si Mabrouk was tapping with a hand whose veins were very apparent a gray file that was sitting on his desk. Taïeb glanced hopelessly at the suitor who remained silent, even continuing to smile. Si Mabrouk stared at the suitor coldly, saying to himself, Are all crooks like that? When I read Badi’Ezzaman I really like his hero, a crook, imam, pimp, jokester, drunk, but this one is as motionless as a merguez . . . Then, out loud:

  “Do you enjoy yourself in your brothel, or are you content with the pleasures of hypocrisy, dear Si Bougmal?” The word caused Si Bougmal to react. He objected in a very controlled voice. He wasn’t the owner, not exactly, he was part of a group, itself . . . Si Mabrouk interrupted him: “A group in which you are 90% owner.” Si Bougmal said that it wasn’t forbidden, by any law, and with an instinctive gesture he showed the palms of his hands. Si Mabrouk said: “One can have clean hands and a disgusting soul!” Taïeb looked from his father to Si Bougmal. Si Bougmal was still smiling, but with the smile on the head of a grilled sheep. Taïeb stood up again, took the suitor out of his father’s office, to the front of the house. He returned to his father, awaiting the worst of his anger. It was Si Mabrouk’s turn to smile. He was very calm.

  Rania was also in the room. They allowed Taïeb to explain. His speech was feverish. He hadn’t known a thing, he swore, on the Holy Book, everyone can make mistakes. Rania herself had been mistaken about her suitor, a profiteer!

  “Yes, but you almost had me locked up in a brothel! I wonder why you didn’t check him out . . .”

  Taïeb couldn’t speak, he had understood that in the I wonder she was hiding another response . . . His sister knew more than what she had told their father . . . She knows about the two thousand francs that Bougmal loaned me, she could have told our father what she had discovered a lot sooner, he would have stopped everything, she let me get involved as far as possible, and now my father thinks I’m an idiot, she could make me out for a scoundrel, talk about my debt, talk about a plot, she prefers that I be only an imbecile in my father’s eyes. Taïeb was torturing himself. He had acted too quickly. If there hadn’t been that importer he would have gone more slowly. Rania certainly had proof of his connections with Bougmal. They were in the accounts at the brick factory. He had stolen from the receipts and put back into the accounts what he borrowed from Bougmal, who was to have been paid back by the marriage, but he didn’t know anything about the brothel—Bougmal didn’t tell him anything about it—that money was money from a brothel . . . He felt dizzy. His sister was holding him hostage, and she was escaping from him. At any moment she could ask him, “Why did you want to give me to that man?”

  The days passed, and Si Mabrouk finally said to Rania that in the end she never really wanted her importer of agricultural machines: “You didn’t really want to marry him, you wanted to force your brother to present his champion, to be able to make your own inquiries, and now you have him, you’ve had a good laugh, my daughter, I’m feeling much better.”

  Si Mabrouk tried to negotiate a relaxation of his diet with the young medical assistant who came to see him, but the man was even more terrorized than the servant by the look Rania gave him.

  All these events had tired the young widow. Her father was doing much better, and so she returned to Nahbès. She told Si Ahmed that she refused to conclude the land exchange with Ganthier, but in the colonist’s absence the situation actually interested her much less. The caïd did not seem to be impatient, in any case, as if he had other fish to fry. She took comfort in taking care of her land. She missed her foreign friends, and not just them, she closed her eyes to envelop a figure in her arms, desire, tears, and the constant hope . . . I could beg him . . . What I feel is a poison, I don’t exist for him, I can’t help it, but I don’t want anything illicit, I’d like to marry him . . . It seems marriage for love is a Western invention, not even a century old, yet my first marriage . . . No, it wasn’t a marriage for love, he had asked for my hand, I wanted to enter into life, he was handsome, already rich, full of energy and the future, a true match said my father . . . Love came very quickly . . . Is love simply the means to make a match agreeable? No . . . When he was fifteen minutes late I trembled, and when I was upset he was sad, we invented each other . . . Do I not love him anymore? She dreamt of a living man while thinking of what a dead man had made her feel. It was up to life to decide, marriage for love, why had they told her about it? She also thought of the other woman. She was sure that in reality there was nothing, I’m going to find the right moment to tell him, or to show him, what will be the right moment? One day she would decide. She would disguise herself as a European. She would surprise him, a small veil over her face. She tried on dresses in front of a big mirror, announced herself in a sharp voice, “Madame de Wolmar,” and burst out laughing.

  33

  OTTO

  They were at a restaurant with Otto, an officer in the former imperial army who was trying to reinvent himself through literature. They had said to Ganthier: “You’re trying to understand Germany, he’s trying to understand France, that should work.” A model Prussian officer, shaved head, thin mustache, as dry as a sword, and blue eyes. The first time he proved very friendly with everyone except Raouf, to whom Gabrielle had said, “For him you’re closer to a cannibal than to a European.”

  “The biggest cannibal of all,” Raouf had replied, “is Europe.”

  Otto knew French authors admirably, the classics. They complimented him. He became bolder:

  “At thirteen I spoke French better than German. We had beaten you in 1870, we could admire you, maybe you’ll do the same thing now. My favorite author is La Rochefoucauld. I know his work by heart, very critical of war, but indeed, a true warrior must confront La Rochefoucauld’s criticism!”

  Otto was happy to preach to the French, criticism of valor, courage in combat, his finger raised to support the quotation: “Perfect valor and absolute cowardice are two extremes at which one rarely arrives,” smile. Raouf looked at his glass, seeming upset. The others praised Otto. They urged him to continue, and suddenly Raouf, in a hard voice, said:

  “Cowardice absolute!” and Otto:

  “Pardon me?” There was contempt in the officer’s voice. This dark-skinned dandy wasn’t ac
tually going to put his two cents into their conversation. Otto had been told that Monsieur Ganthier and Madame Conti had influence, they could be interesting. Otto wanted to talk to those people, not to just anyone, not to that one! He sought Raouf’s gaze the way a duelist seeks a weapon, to kill. Raouf kept looking at his glass. Ganthier sought a means to break the tension. Raouf then said:

  “Not ‘absolute cowardice’ but ‘cowardice absolute,’” and Otto: “It doesn’t matter!” but not violently. That dandy was perhaps correct, Otto was no longer very sure, kept repeating, “It doesn’t matter!” Raouf still looking at his glass: “No, the order of the words is important, a-b-b-a, ‘perfect valor and cowardice absolute,’ it’s a chiasmus!” A lesson in rhetoric now, thought Ganthier, he’s upping the ante in pedantry. And suddenly Raouf was looking Otto in the eyes: