Visions of Isabelle

by William Bayer

  By mid-afternoon the worst rage of the sun is past. She marches three more hours, smiling the whole time, serene in her accomplishment, her defeat of pain. At the camp her wrists are finally untied and she collapses in a heap.

  Later she sits apart, with her hands still pressed together, watching as the men prepare the fires and the food. She eats a little and afterward runs her hands over her face. Her skin is badly scorched, her lips are puffed, the sockets of all her joints are sore. She removes her boots and examines her feet. They are blistered, cut in many places, and the caked blood on her knees is black.

  As she is contemplating her wounds, marveling at her martyrdom and the fact that she's survived, a sergeant comes to fetch her to Desforges' tent. Wearily, she replaces her boots, then follows him toward the black hexagon lit up strangely by the fires of the camp.

  She stands before the closed black flaps, willing up an anger at this man who has caused her so much pain. In her mind, now, he is more than a man–he is a font of power, absolute, a dark force whose field she can feel even in the cold night desert air. The sergeant opens the flap, she stoops, enters and rises to face her enemy at last.

  He inspects her strangely. She watches as his eyes roam her baked-out face, her ruined lips, then search her torn knees and feet.

  "You look like you've been barbecued, like a piece of roasted lamb, a mechoui. Did you like it?"

  His sneer, his vile choice of words, conjures a rush of hate. With all her force she spits into his face.

  "Cunt! Whore!"

  He slashes at her with the back of his hand. She falls before the blow, and then turns to see him standing above her quivering with rage.

  She lowers her eyes, has lost all interest now in meeting his menacing gaze. She feels his hard body come upon her, feels him ripping at her robe. His strong fingers tear at her djellaba, snatch it away to bare her breasts. She turns her head as he takes her on the stony sand with savage strokes. She is conscious of nothing except the image of the sentry outside, a silhouette against the dark wool wall of the tent. When Desforges grinds her down against the rocks, she does not even flinch. She is amazed. It's as if the Desert of Black Stones has made her so hard she's become immune even to annihilation by a lover–a sensation she's always craved.

  She spends the night beside him, curled up upon herself against the cold, her back, bruised and marked, in touch with his dark warm skin. He wakes up several times to caress her absently, brush his lips against her neck and cheeks. But it is as if he is not even there. In her numbness, she thinks that nothing is what she is, that love and torment are the same, that pain is good, that submission is conquest, and that he who has tortured her is now her slave.

  Before dawn she creeps over his sleeping body, arranges her clothes. When he wakes up she is sitting on his stool, staring down at him, smiling, smoking a cigarette.

  "I'll be riding back to Beni-Ounif today," she says.

  "You want to leave–now?"

  She nods.

  "But I can show you action, anything you want."

  She shakes her head, pitying him with her smile.

  "We can be friends now. Comrades. I respect you. You can sleep with me or outside if you like, as one of the men."

  Again she shakes her head.

  "Si Mahmoud!"

  She grins, reaches for his hand, gives it a hearty shake. "Thank you, Lieutenant Desforges. Thank you for your time and everything else."

  Then she stands up and walks out of the tent, down to the fires where she helps herself to coffee and bread.

  Awhile later, when she is watering her horse, an armed Berber tribesman appears at her side.

  "I am your escort, Si Mahmoud. The lieutenant has ordered me to guide you back."

  She nods and a few minutes later they start their trek across the silent Desert of Black Stones toward the camp at Beni-Ounif.

  VISIONS OF ISABELLE

  A few days after her return to Aïn Sefra, Isabelle is summoned to Lyautey's house.

  "How did it go?" he asks. "Any interesting adventures?"

  "Yes," she replies. "Now I can write about the lives of our soldiers en marche. I'm very happy to have had the experience. Thank you."

  Lyautey smiles.

  "But I'd heard–oh, well..."

  "Yes?"

  "It's just that I received a report. Nothing important. A small unpleasantness. But since you don't mention it, well..."

  She looks at him, sees him searching her face.

  "Oh," she says. "That! It's not worth mentioning–a small unpleasantness, as you say."

  "It must have been frightful. If I'd known, then of course..."

  "Don't even think about it."

  "But, my dear, you must have suffered."

  "Yes," she says, "but in the end I rather enjoyed it, too."

  He shakes his head.

  "Poor Si Mahmoud."

  They talk awhile longer, about his progress with the Marabouts. There have been some setbacks, but generally he's satisfied.

  As she leaves she's struck by a sudden thought: that he might have been behind the entire episode with Desforges, might have set him up as a proxy lover to discipline and seduce her at the same time.

  But a moment later she knows this is impossible. Lyautey is too civilized a man. Though he's as ruthless as Sidi Lachmi, and as cunning, he is not the sort to turn upon a friend.

  At the Foreign Legion canteen in Beni-Ounif, a mixture of infantrymen, Spahis, Camel Corps soldiers and legionnaires have been drinking through the night. They are shouting good-natured insults, boasting of the exploits of their units.

  Isabelle sits at a table in the center, dazed by a night of absinthe and several pipes of potent kif. She feels miserable, tired, disappointed with her life. As the brawling becomes louder and the insults of the soldiers more obscene, she suddenly swipes her glass onto the floor.

  Someone kicks it away and it breaks against the wall. The brawling continues while she lies with her head upon the table, oblivious, ignored.

  At dawn the soldiers disappear. She is alone, asleep, in the smoky room.

  In the souk at Tirkount everything is dusty and brown: the earth, the clothes of the inhabitants, the pottery they make and sell. Donkeys stand about unfettered. The people crush the sellers. Their bargaining is not intense or shrill; it blends into the hushing wind.

  Beside the women seated on the ground are pieces of orange rind, squashed dates, potatoes bearing the stamp of heels. Before one of these women, selling goats' milk, there suddenly appears a pair of scarlet boots.

  The woman looks up, sees Isabelle in a white burnoose, searching the horizon with her eyes.

  "Some milk?"

  Isabelle does not reply.

  From a distance her boots are two red flames in a sea of brown.

  At the correspondents' tent at Aïn Sefra, Isabelle has spent the day drinking anisette and by late afternoon has fallen to sleep. Jules Bresson of Le Matin sits talking with an artist who's been sent to paint a portrait of Lyautey for a corridor in the Ministry of War.

  "This is a puny little war," says Bresson. "Give me Indochina anytime. At least there are women, and you can bear the heat."

  "I'd like to make love to a Tuareg," says the artist. "I like the idea of blue skin."

  Their eyes fall upon Isabelle. She's waking, slowly–peering around. Suddenly her eyes glaze and she begins to shriek.

  "Bring them on! Bring on the soldiers! I want them all!" The painter is embarrassed, tries to hush her up.

  "Calm down, Si Mahmoud. You've had a bad dream."

  Later, when she's fallen back to sleep, he turns to Bresson. "Is she always like that?"

  "Sometimes she is, and sometimes she's not."

  Night, near the stables at Aïn Sefra. Isabelle is wrapped against the cold in a black burnoose. Her head is wrapped in a black turban which she's drawn around her face to cover her mouth. She sits on the ground. Her horse, head down, stands a few feet away.

  A
fter a few moments she stands and strokes his neck. Tears form in her eyes.

  "I'm sorry, Karim," she says. "I'm sorry I can't afford to buy you better food."

  At the canteen in Duveyrier, Isabelle has spent the night trying to make an advantageous deal. She has approached a group of legionnaires with a proposition: she will find them an Ouled-Naïl prostitute whom they can share through the night, and in return they will pay her ten francs. She thinks she can get the girl for three and pocket the difference for herself. Her problem is that the legionnaires are drunk and will not commit themselves. In the meantime the girl may make another arrangement.

  She leaves the canteen and walks back through the alleys of the village to assure herself that the girl is still there. When she returns, one of the legionnaires has dropped out of the group, and a new one, who has taken his place, asks the same questions she's answered many times.

  Finally she is disgusted and issues an ultimatum. They must bring her the money in fifteen minutes or the deal is off. She steps outside for a cigarette. A German legionnaire she's met several times is leaning against the wall.

  "You're the talk of the camp tonight," he tells her. "The boys can speak of nothing else."

  She is silent.

  "They're making fun of you, Si Mahmoud. Surely you know better than to get yourself involved in something that will bring you shame later on."

  "What can I do?" she asks. "I haven't got a cent."

  "There must be something," he says. "Meantime let me give you this."

  He hands her a few small bills, walks away.

  Later that night she loses the money at cards.

  She is sitting in the officers' mess at Aïn Sefra when a young lieutenant comes bursting in. He grabs a plate of food, brings it over to her table.

  "I've just been with the chief," he says. "I'm excited as hell! His plan is fantastic. We'll soon have Bou-Amama on the run. What I can't get over is the precision of his mind. Lyautey's a genius–no question about it. In twenty years he'll be a marshal of France!"

  For three nights she's been wracked by a terrible fever, the same sort that has recurred since 1899. The garrison doctor says it's malaria, and she can look forward to attacks for years to come.

  After she leaves him she visits the garrison dentist. He tells her that her teeth are in terrible shape. He extracts three of them and tries to patch up the rest.

  "In a year or two you'll lose them all."

  "What should I do?" she asks. "How will I be able to eat?"

  The dentist shrugs.

  "Perhaps in Algiers someone can make you a false set."

  That night she notices that her hair is coming out. She can pull it out in clumps. In the morning she goes to the garrison barber and asks him to shave her head.

  "Yes," he says, as he lathers her up. "It's better this way. Takes care of the problem of fleas and lice."

  Sometimes at night she toys with a loaded revolver. It is huge and black. With her finger on the trigger she raises it to her head and holds her breath. Then she puts it down and smiles.

  She adopts a dog she calls "Loupiot," a shaggy creature who reminds her of Dédale. Loupiot has a habit of running around her as she rides or walks, making larger and more distant circles until he is out of sight. Then, suddenly, he reappears at her heels.

  She is happiest when she writes. She loves to transpose her notes. Her handwriting is precise and she enjoys embellishing the backs of the pages with beautiful Arabic script.

  When she writes descriptions of the little settlements around Aïn Sefra–the oasis of Figuig, the ksars, the souks–she becomes totally enraptured by the words and reads them over to herself, marveling at the music. As much as she loves the sound of Arabic, she is equally enamored of French.

  When she reads over her pieces, before posting them to Barrucand, it seems to her, sometimes, that they were written by someone else.

  Outside Lyautey's headquarters she encounters Captain De Susbielle.

  "You are a big hero now," she says.

  "You are famous, too."

  "Once you tried to destroy me. Why?"

  "It's a soldier's life," he says. "Destroy or be destroyed."

  She looks at him closely. He looks better now in his field uniform, much better than he ever did behind a desk. At the Arab Bureau he looked like a big baby. Now he looks like a hero with a row of medals on his chest.

  "I hope we can be friends," he says.

  "Of course," she answers. "See you in Rabat."

  In Figuig–a place that thrills her–she is invited one night to watch an esoteric dance. She is the only European in the whitewashed vaulted room whose walls run into the floor and remind her of melted ice cream. Candles are set about in niches. The room is packed with men. Despite the chill outside, Isabelle feels hot.

  Two women, supple and black, are sitting facing one another on the sandy floor. Using their legs as scissors, they grip each other's waists. A pillow is placed where their bodies meet. By thrusting their bodies in unison to a booming drum they make the pillow bounce.

  It jumps, faster, faster, while their black skins become slick with sweat. When the drumming turns to a continuous throb, the pillow is levitated in space.

  Often, when she goes to talk with Lyautey, he surprises her with an extravagant gift: a bottle of fine champagne cognac, or a carton of good English cigarettes. She can't understand why he doesn't give her decent pay, but under no circumstances will she allow herself to ask.

  It would ruin everything, she thinks. The moment he becomes my patron, then our friendship will be lost.

  Early one morning Legrand comes to her shack. He wakes her up.

  "What is it?" she asks.

  "Bad news."

  "You've come to tell me I'm under arrest."

  "Desforges is dead."

  She stares at him, sees it's true.

  "An ambush. He was on the route to Bechar, chasing snipers who drew him off. He led his entire column into a trap."

  "There's more," she says. "Tell me."

  Legrand shakes his head.

  "His body–they cut it up?"

  Legrand nods.

  "Yes," she says, after a while, "they like to do things like that. It proves something–their manhood, I suppose."

  Winter comes to Aïn Sefra. The mountains around are whitened by snow. The desert is cold long before dark and the light is crisp and pale. Lyautey moves his headquarters to Beni-Ounif. Isabelle decides to return to Algiers for the winter.

  On the morning of her last day she makes a tour of the town. It is nearly deserted now–most of the soldiers and camp followers have left, and the crenellated forts are like empty shells.

  At noon she saddles her horse and rides to the rocky plains in the north. Here, finally out of sight of any habitation, she dismounts, spreads her black burnoose on the ground and lies upon it, her knees drawn slightly toward her waist.

  The sun is hot, its face blank, without pity. She thinks of all the hours she's spent like this, curled to a crescent upon rocks or sand, staring out at nothing, immense emptinesses, immensities of sadness.

  The route to Géryville is harsh. She must ride through mountain passes, sometimes dismount and lead her horse up frosty rocky trails. Each afternoon she must find a camp, someone who will let her share a tent. Sometimes she finds nomads who have lit up an entire field of esparto for warmth.

  She spends the evenings sitting in tents, warming herself with tea, listening to tales, jotting down poems and songs.

  In the mornings she rides into landscapes that remind her of the Alps. She thinks of herself as an eternal vagabond and savors the mystery of the unmarked roads.

  White on white: Isabelle as she crosses the Djebel-Amour toward Aflou. There is snow on the ground, Karim is white, and she wears a white scarf and a white burnoose.

  In Algiers she writes a letter to Maître de Laffont, her old antagonist in Constantine. She asks for news of Abdullah ben Mohammed ben Lakhdar, and also whether
it is possible for her to adopt him.

  When there is no reply, she wonders whether her letter is lost or whether she may have forgotten to take it to the post.

  Eugène Letord has been looking forward to their meeting for a year. She chooses a café overlooking the port, near the terraced arcades. They speak with great admiration of Lyautey, the frontier war, the digestion of Morocco. Then they lapse into silence.

  The next night she takes him to dinner at Villa Bellevue. Several prominent colonialists are there. She drinks too much and monopolizes the conversation.

  "The Foreign Legion!" she says. "I know the Foreign Legion! I've slept with them all!"

  Later, apropos of nothing, she says, "I'm a Russian at heart–I love the knout."

  The party breaks up early. Isabelle goes to bed. Letord and Barrucand remain on the terrace to talk.

  "What do you think?" Barrucand asks.

  "It's a pity to see her like this," Eugène replies. "She evidently feels she must shock people–that this is what they expect."

  Silence as they listen to the sea.

  "Strange," he adds, "the way she's aged. She's only twenty-seven, yet she seems–burned out."

  Walking the quais of Algiers in the rain, her shoulders hunched, a cheap cigarette clenched between her teeth.

  Two of Barrucand's maids discuss the neatness of her room:

  "He always arranges his boots–the heels are always together."

  "His pens, too–they are always lined up on the desk."

  "If I move the prayer rug a little, he moves it back."

  "He keeps his kif in a camel udder box!"

  She is sitting on a stone bench in the garden at Bellevue, staring at the sea. Victor Barrucand, twenty feet away, studies her unobserved. From the back she appears bent over, her elbows resting on her knees, her fists supporting her head.