The Influence Peddlers

by Hedi Kaddour

  37

  SCARADÈRE

  The following Thursday, everyone gathered in the public park in the European city, several hundred people. In the first rows were the Americans, the French, and local notables, Marfaing, Si Ahmed, high-ranking officers and bureaucrats, then the colonists, important European merchants, Jews and Arabs, lower-ranking bureaucrats, and the group of young people who were studying in the capital and who already had a taste for film, and the middle class in djellabas who hesitated between progress and tradition, and Italians, Spanish . . . On the left, separated by chevaux-de-frise, were the lower classes who had come out of curiosity or had been rounded up by the Spahis.

  The projection truck was parked behind the audience, and Wayne was standing next to it with a megaphone, ready to translate the film’s title cards into French. Marfaing had taken precautions; a company of Senegalese reserves were standing in front of the chevaux-de-frise. He had also summoned some veterans. They would channel emotion and keep an eye on any anti-French in the audience. The caïd had deployed his neighborhood bosses and his informants. And people began to talk as soon as the first images appeared, in French, Arabic, Berber, Spanish, Italian, pidgin. Some asked their neighbors questions, others answered, some answered that they didn’t know, others’ answers were wrong. Some commented, others argued, intellectuals who looked down on everyone else, sometimes without understanding, and the uneducated whose instincts were spot on, the locals talking out loud, the Europeans in softer voices. Karim said to Raouf:

  “There are quite a few old turbans here. They are against images but they still came.” And Raouf:

  “They’re taking advantage of the opportunity. They will say that they were forced to come.”

  Neil was carefully watching this partially virgin audience. That’s also why he proposed the screening, to observe people who were watching a film for the first time, their reactions before they learned how to pretend, and Raouf felt ill at ease, torn between his reactions as someone familiar with film and those of the novices, who were teased by others who were more familiar, happy to be able to practice the condescension of a progressive petty bourgeois or a colonist. He was angry at everyone, at Marfaing, Neil, Ganthier, and the little group from La Porte du Sud who chuckled every time a first-timer reacted.

  “. . . Why does the American have the right to talk and not us?”

  “Because he’s reading the words written on the sheet.”

  “That’s not a sheet, it’s a canvas.”

  “Look! In France there are also shacks, they’re poor.”

  “What are the French saying? Civilization? With shacks?”

  “That’s because it’s in the past.”

  “What past?”

  “Their past, we have a past, they have a past.”

  “The road isn’t paved, and their windmills are made of wood!”

  “Mine is made of iron, it cost me an arm and a leg!”

  “You can see right away, my friend, that what these Americans do is less refined than French culture.”

  “Yes, they don’t have theater, that explains everything! That said, for the audience this evening it’s perfectly appropriate.”

  “And the guy in France with the rifle, he’s beating a poor guy with the butt of his gun!”

  “Is the poor guy dead?”

  “Yes, he’s dead, look, the woman is crying.”

  “And the one with the rifle, what’s he saying?”

  “He says that’s what happens to poachers.”

  “How do you know?”

  “Because of Wayne, he’s reading the words on the canvas, just listen.”

  “In France it’s like here, only the rich have the right to steal.”

  “What’s more, dear friend, I’m not sure it’s best to show violence. It’s like in the theater, it should take place behind the scenes. Racine does it perfectly.”

  Other voices called for silence. The murmuring calmed down, started up again, the crowd cheering for a young man in black, a lawyer. On the screen he was consoling the widow: then a cry from the audience, a woman’s cry, a French woman, no manners? A shopkeeper? The cry again, sharper, echoed by other cries from Frenchwomen, it’s Cavarro! The man! Behind the lawyer, it’s Cavarro! The audience now recognized Francis Cavarro. They applauded him. Then a carriage arrived on the scene.

  “Who’s that?”

  “Wayne’s saying it’s a marquis.”

  “The marquis has powder on his face, like a Christian woman.”

  “Hchouma!”

  Then Wayne’s voice: All men are born free and equal under the law . . .

  “What’s that?”

  “Wayne said that men have rights.”

  Wayne repeated: The lawyer is reading the Constitution. Some applauding in the audience, a few shouts, “Yahyia l’dustour!”

  “What are the Arabs yelling?”

  “It’s the nationalist slogan, Long live the Constitution.”

  The officers and gendarmes were watching the crowd, especially the natives in European dress. A shout, Silence! Other shouts, Yahyia l’dustour! And other voices, softer, in reply, L’Qur’an dustourna . . .

  “Now what are they saying?”

  “L’Qur’an dustourna, they’re saying that the Koran is the Constitution. Those are the old turbans, they’re against the ones who are shouting dustour. They’re saying that the country doesn’t need a Constitution, the Koran is enough.”

  Raouf also shouted yahyia l’dustour with Karim and their friends from the little band. The officers were asking for orders. Marfaing said to the colonel:

  “No, let’s not do anything yet, we mustn’t cut off the hand of the thief before he’s stolen something! And listen to them, they are divided, the devout against the supporters of a constitution, we can keep score!”

  On the screen, the marquis threw the Constitution on the ground, the lawyer slapped the marquis, and in a duel the marquis killed the lawyer with the thrust of his sword . . .

  “What is Wayne saying?”

  “He says that the marquis is saying, Justice is done!”

  “That’s not justice, the French say we must have justice, but they don’t have it there! The peasant poaches and the guard kills him . . . The lawyer slaps the marquis and the marquis kills him . . . Is that French justice? It’s worse than what the peasants dole out!”

  Someone asked what Cavarro had just said . . .

  “Cavarro?”

  “Yes, the lawyer’s friend.”

  “So you mean André! In the film Cavarro’s name is André. He says he will avenge his dead friend.”

  The crowd applauded André. The screen went black . . .

  “They’re changing the reel,” said Marfaing.

  “I know that,” said the colonel.

  The voice of Thérèse Pagnon behind Marfaing, talking to a friend:

  “Francis is very elegant, the frock coat is flattering, and the trousers are very well cut.”

  Marfaing didn’t like Thérèse being interested in Cavarro’s trousers, or her calling him by his first name. At the back of the park Tess was taking advantage of the darkness to help a veiled woman get into the projection truck, and Rania was able to sit on a stool to see everything, the audience and the screen, and the image that the lamp projected on the screen in a beam of light filled with dancing dust that Rania was surprised to discover was so dense, covering the group in which she thought she recognized, but as if in a cloud, the back of Raouf, those of Ganthier, Marfaing, Si Ahmed . . . To see without being seen . . . and to prevent my being seen, I am forbidden from seeing.

  The film started again. Wayne’s voice: After the lawyer is murdered by the marquis, André goes to his godfather’s house to seek justice. A murmur in the audience, a name running through the rows:

  “Kathryn! Look, it’s Kathryn!”

  “The American woman? The one who walks around town with the caïd’s son?”

  “Yes, that’s her!”

 
; Applauding for Kathryn Bishop, what was she doing on the sheet? Wayne said that she is the godfather’s daughter . . .

  “And the guy with her, is he the marquis?”

  “Yes.”

  “Did you see her chest? Hchouma!”

  “No, she’s not showing everything.”

  “It’s still shameful.”

  “She’s very pretty. Rani fuqha, ya rabbi!”

  “What did the Arab say, behind us, with his rani fou something or other?”

  “Rani fuqha, ya rabbi means My God help me to be on her.”

  “He better not try! They’re interested in our women, now?”

  “Ah, you’re not fooling anyone, dear friend, American women are now your women! That’s why we see you so often in the Grand Hôtel!”

  André’s godfather was saying that he was going to have his daughter marry the marquis. The people grumbled their sympathy. Poor André, he came for justice and he lost Kathryn. And those who were listening carefully knew that Kathryn’s name was Séverine. On the screen she was leaving in a carriage . . .

  “And where’s the marquis?”

  “Wayne said he left earlier.”

  “Why didn’t we see him leave?”

  “Because it’s a movie.”

  The marquis reappeared and also got into a carriage . . .

  “I don’t understand it, the marquis is leaving, when he already left?”

  “In a movie at first you don’t understand, then later you understand.”

  “Do you understand it, captain?”

  “No, these Americans will never have natural order, French clarity . . .”

  “And there, now Séverine is in the chateau but she already left it!”

  In the first row, Neil turned to Kathryn:

  “That moron put on the wrong reel. We need to tell Wayne to get in the truck and fix it.”

  Kathryn got up, “I’ll relieve Wayne for the reading, I like doing it.”

  And Raouf saw her walk up the side aisle. I’d like to join her, They’ll see me get up, I don’t care, do I really want to join her? He closed his eyes so he wouldn’t see her, opened them. She was moving slowly, She’s giving me time to join her. He closed his eyes again, A bed . . . Paris . . . Berlin . . . fights, walks . . . Who is she with now? He shook his head. It had been more than a year since his heart had beaten that hard . . .

  Kathryn was reading: Like many people of his time André was hoping for revolution. A shout from the audience, “Tahyia atthaoura!”

  “What did the Arab back there say?”

  “He shouted Long live the revolution, my colonel.”

  “Get rid of him, before he spawns more revolutionaries!”

  “What’s written? Wayne isn’t saying anything anymore?”

  “No, it’s a woman who’s saying the words on the cloth.”

  “It’s Kathryn’s voice!”

  “No, she’s called Séverine! Now I know, in the film, it’s Séverine!”

  “No, it’s Kathryn who’s talking. Look, she’s standing up, behind the big funnel, next to the truck with the light, where Wayne was.”

  “Kathryn is reading, and she’s in the film at the same time, how does she do it?”

  “Look carefully and you’ll understand.”

  “And Cavarro, he’s on horseback, like a peasant, when he has a Rolls!”

  “That’s because that was a long time ago.”

  “A long time? Before the war?”

  “Yes.”

  “I was in France during the war, it was already a lot more civilized.”

  A large square on the screen, an equestrian statue . . .

  “The guy on the pedestal, next to the horse, with people all around, is he reading a paper?”

  “It’s the Constitution again!”

  “Yahyia l’dustour!”

  “And who’s on the horse?”

  “It’s a king.”

  “The French always say they cut off the king’s head, and the one on the statue has his head, when did they cut off the head?”

  “After the film, I think.”

  “What do you mean, after?”

  “That means in the film they’re going to make the Constitution and after that they’re going to cut off the head.”

  “You can cut off a head with a Constitution?”

  “First you vote, then you cut.”

  “Yahyia l’dustour!”

  “Look, all the people in the square, they’re cheering.”

  “Yahyia l’watan!”

  “Now what are the Arabs shouting?”

  “They’re shouting Long live the nation.”

  “They think they’re a nation?”

  On the screen a soldier was killing a demonstrator. People threw the soldier on the ground and killed him.

  “It’s like here, the cow that falls, it attracts knives.”

  “Look, Cavarro is on the pedestal, yahyia André!”

  Marfaing to the colonel: “You see, they shout and they applaud, whom? A French hero! I was right! Why panic?”

  Now the cavalry was attacking the crowd, André escaping, yahyia André! A stone came out of the audience and struck the canvas at the height of the cavalry who were pursuing him. Two Spahis seized the one who had thrown the stone. Voices grew louder. A sign from the colonel, commanding the officers, soldiers with guns at the ready. Everything calmed down. A couple began to fight in the fourth row:

  “No, I’m not going home! You wanted me to come with you so you would look good with Marfaing, I’m staying! You can very well protect me! Look at Thérèse and her husband, they’re perfectly fine!”

  “Pagnon has nothing to fear. He’s opened up half these Arabs’ bellies. Even the orphans thank him! It’s not the same for me, I’m the tax collector!”

  They were now at the home of André’s godfather, Séverine taking a wounded André in her arms. In the truck Rania was filled with emotion . . . These are shadows on canvas, and a stupid story, why am I crying? Her gaze stopped on one of the figures in the audience, I see him without him seeing me, but the world in which I can sit next to him exists only when I close my eyes . . . bakaytu min hubbin man yuba‘iduni, I cry because I love the one who keeps me at a distance, I would do better to go back to the farm, I’m only good for kicking my blanket.

  “. . . Hchouma! Séverine stuck to André when her father is marrying her to the marquis!”

  “When you’re wounded French women do that.”

  “Who’s that sleeping in a chair?”

  “That’s her father.”

  “Séverine’s father is sleeping? Then it serves him right! When you have a daughter you act like a shepherd, you don’t sleep.”

  “Séverine has two men, she’s lying to her father about the first one, and she’s lying to the first one and to her father about the second one!”

  “She’s not lying, she has pity.”

  “Be quiet, what did André say?”

  “He told Séverine that he was going to kill the marquis!”

  Raouf listening to Kathryn’s voice, remembering the times she would speak in his ear . . . the warmth of her mouth at his ear, at night, when they told each other things, We don’t sleep enough, said Kathryn. It’s your fault, he answered, kissing her. On the canvas the gendarmes were arriving. André disappeared through a door, “Yahyia André!”

  André fleeing into the countryside, taken in by a troupe of traveling actors, the Illustrious Theater.

  “Their film, my friend, there is no unity of place, no unity of action, no unity of time, no unity of interest. This will never be a form for a beautiful work of art!”

  The veterans remembered the theater in the army:

  “I saw theater, too, they are on a platform in the back of a room and they tell a story.”

  “Like in the film?”

  “No, in the theater the actors are real people, you throw a stone and they get hit, and if they throw them, you get hit.”

  “Are they peop
le like us?”

  “Yes, but you can’t touch them.”

  The story continued. André was pushing away a large actor who was trying to hit him with a cane . . .

  “Who’s the big guy?”

  “Kathryn says he’s an actor, his name is Binet.”

  “Binet is an actor and André has the right to touch him? I don’t understand, so André is also an actor?”

  “No, the actor is Cavarro, he’s playing André.”

  “Why does the big Binet want to hit him?”

  “Because André fell off a haystack onto him.”

  “That haystack isn’t real, it is too big.”

  “No, it’s real, it’s hay from back there, a French haystack.”

  “We have big ones here, too, at Ganthier’s, and at the Belmejdoub daughter’s farm.”

  “Is she still refusing to exchange land?”

  “She still is, she has the courage of a man.”

  “It seems that Ganthier is going to threaten her in her house.”

  “No, you can’t go to a widow’s house like that.”

  “People say that this year they’ve seen him.”

  “People will say anything.”

  “I don’t understand, there’s André, he’s not an actor, and there is the big guy and the others, they’re actors?”

  “Yes.”

  “Then where’s the platform?”

  “They don’t need one, they’re not acting, they’re resting.”

  “I understand: they are actors, they’re not acting, so they’re real.”

  “No, they’re in the film.”

  “In the film they’re acting, but there they’re not acting, so they’re real?”

  “No, they’re actors.”

  “I don’t understand anything.”

  “Listen, I’ll explain . . .”

  Raouf, noticing a wink between two men in the audience. They were pretending not to understand anything to drive the one explaining crazy. They had understood it all, and were having fun at the expense of the one who thought he knew it all. Fair enough, Raouf said to himself.

  “. . . Now listen! Kathryn is saying that months have gone by, André has also become an actor.”

  “You see, I was right!”

  “Be quiet and watch, it’s Paris!”