The Angels Die

by Yasmina Khadra

  ‘I’m not in the habit of shouting what I see from the rooftops, Madame.’

  ‘This isn’t about you. It’s about their state of mind. Your presence makes them uncomfortable.’

  I leapt to my feet. ‘Then why don’t you give them the address you just gave me?’

  Before she had a chance to put things right, I left the room and slammed the door behind me. I was sure my presence didn’t bother anyone and that this whole thing was merely the result of the loathing she felt for me. An Arab in her house damaged the special character she was striving to give it. Wasn’t it her ambition to make her brothel the most exclusive in Oran?

  Madame Camélia didn’t like me. It wasn’t by chance that she had ‘assigned’ me a Muslim girl. As far as she was concerned, I wasn’t worthy of laying my hands on a European woman. I don’t think she liked anybody in particular. There was too much bile in her eyes, too much venom on her lips; if she had a heart, she would have made sure nobody ever got to it … I didn’t like her either. I hadn’t liked her since the first time we’d met. Her ‘aura’ stank of sulphur. As arrogant as only vice can be when it brings virtue to its knees, she really despised her clients, who, the second they hung up their prestige and status in the cloakroom, let themselves be debauched by a glass of vintage wine and a mechanical show of affection. Her good graces concealed deadly traps; her charisma was tinged with a cold duplicity. She wasn’t made of flesh and blood: she was nothing but calculation and manipulation, the obscure priestess of a despised Olympus where the soul and the flesh were quartered on the altar of desire, having nothing but blatant contempt for one another.

  I wasn’t there for her. Or for her girls. I was there for Aïda, and only for Aïda. And although she also belonged to other men, Aïda was mine. At any rate, that was how I saw it. I didn’t just sleep with Aïda, it was a kind of marriage. I had respect for her; I hated the fate that had led her to this centre of lust and vice, this den of demons and perverted angels. In that purgatory of sensuality, it was tit for tat, love reduced to a sordid commodity. Even a false smile had to be paid for; you bought the moment, you traded the sexual act, the least look was added to the bill. Only one aim prevailed: to ensure the client spent excessively and, in order to make this happen, to reduce him to his base instincts, a consenting, devoted slave in search of ecstasy, ready to lose himself in an orgasm only to be born again and again to the craziest fantasies, never satisfied, always demanding, since everything was paid for in cash, since nothing could resist the power of money when the clock on the wall turned into a money-making machine. Aïda didn’t work that way. She was generous and sensitive, without malice or deceit. She was just as good as those respectable women you raised your hat to in the street. I was unhappy to see her being a receptacle for dregs and vomit, offering herself indiscriminately to perverts who, in other circumstances, wouldn’t even have dared look at her. That wasn’t the role of a woman who loved as she could love. Aïda had a soul, an unusual grace, a kind of nobility; she was nothing like her profession, and it was obvious she wouldn’t survive it – with time, I was sure, the little humanity she had held on to would rot in her breast and she would die of it as of a cancer … But what could I do except dwell on my bitterness and clap my hands? Whenever I arrived at the brothel and was told she had a client and I would have to wait my turn, I couldn’t see any light at the end of the tunnel. And when I took my leave of her so that another man could immediately replace me, I felt I was burning in a kind of hell. I would return to Oran so sad that my room welcomed night faster than usual. In the morning, when I got to the gym, the punch bag would sag under my blows and I swear I heard it moaning and begging my forgiveness.

  *

  My conversation with Madame Camélia had left its mark. I was asking myself questions. Did my presence really bother the clients of the brothel? Was I abusing the Duke’s generosity? Strangely, Filippi started sneaking off whenever I asked for him, claiming he had urgent business to attend to or an errand to run for the boss. At the gym, my training left a lot to be desired; I listened only absently to De Stefano’s entreaties. My lack of concentration almost cost me dear. At the end of the month, I had a great deal of difficulty finishing off my opponent, a tough fellow from Boufarik, who was ahead of me on points until the seventh round. My left hook saved me at the last moment. Disgusted by my performance, the Duke gave me a dressing-down in the changing rooms. We returned to Oran by train, each racked by his own anxieties.

  At night, when I switched off the light in my room, I would slide my hands behind my head and let darkness overcome my thoughts. Aïda occupied my mind. I would wonder who she was sleeping with at that moment, what impure hands were crushing her. I was jealous, and I was unhappy for her. What future was there for a prostitute? One evening, they would realise that she was no longer as young and fresh as she had been. Her lovers would prefer other courtesans. They would start to desert her, then mock her. The priestess would ask her to pack her bags and give back the key to the room. Aïda would go and stagnate in some rooming house in the outlying districts where the beds were cold and the sheets rank. When she didn’t have enough to pay the rent, she would wander from dive to low bordello, from mezzanine to stairwell, before going back on the streets and using up her last resources walking the pavements. She would pass from a docker to a penniless carpenter, so common and drab now that no pimp would deign to take her on. Then, after hitting rock bottom and absorbing every insult, she would end up in some insalubrious bolthole, defeated, sick, hungry, worn to the bone, coughing blood and longing for death.

  I had nobody to share my distress with. Gino was too busy buying himself suits and mixing with polite society to worry about my moods. We hardly ever saw each other. While he strove to become the Duke’s shadow, the Duke having promised him an office in his establishment, I wondered how to overcome the doubts that Madame Camélia had sown in me. I had to come to a decision. I missed Aïda. Confiding in Gino struck me as wasted breath. He would try to dissuade me, would laugh at the feelings I harboured for a prostitute. Wasn’t he against lasting relationships? He would find words to disarm me, and I had no desire to agree with him. I needed to listen to my heart. Lots of boxers were husbands and fathers; they didn’t seem to suffer because of it.

  I asked my uncle’s partner the Mozabite for advice. Of course, I dreaded his verdict. In order not to arouse his suspicions, I told him that a friend of mine was in love with a girl of easy virtue and was planning to marry her. The Mozabite, whose wisdom I appreciated, didn’t know what to reply. He wasn’t keen. He told me that my friend might regret it one day. Then I asked him what the attitude of our religion was to that kind of thing. He told me Islam wasn’t against it, and that it was even honourable for a believer to rescue a lost soul from prostitution. He advised me to send my ‘friend’ to see the imam of the Great Mosque, the only person qualified to pronounce on the subject. The imam received me with consideration. He asked me questions about my ‘friend’, if he was a Muslim, if he was married, if he had children. I told him he was a bachelor, healthy in body and mind. The imam wanted to be sure that the prostitute could be trusted, that she hadn’t bewitched her lover and wasn’t interested only in his money. I told him that she didn’t even know of my ‘friend’s’ intentions. The imam opened his arms wide and said, ‘Restoring her honour to a poor woman robbed of her soul is equal to a thousand prayers.’

  I was relieved.

  A week later, after thinking about it until my brain was exhausted, I bought a ring and asked Filippi to drive me immediately to Canastel.

  Aïda wasn’t free. I had to wait downstairs for an eternity, unceremoniously repelling the other girls’ diligent advances. It was after eight; night brooded at the windows. An excited client was torturing an upright piano by the bay window. His erratic playing interspersed with bum notes got on my nerves. I was hoping that someone would say something to him or that a girl would entice him to the counter, but nobody seemed interested in him. I con
centrated on the first-floor landing, where the maid was keeping her eye open. Every time a client appeared at the top of the stairs, she would look down at me and shake her head. Every passing moment was wearing down my patience. My hands were damp from so much fidgeting. At last, a fat, bald, red-faced, shifty-looking man appeared. This was the one. I ran up the stairs, deaf to the protests of another client, who was waiting on a sofa. The maid tried to run after me; the glare I gave her stopped her in her tracks.

  Aïda was finishing powdering herself at the mirror. Her hair was still loose and the sheets on the bed were rumpled. I stood there in front of her, trembling from head to foot. I found her more beautiful than ever, with her big doe-like eyes smiling at me.

  ‘I wasn’t expecting you,’ she said, mechanically unfastening her corset.

  ‘That’s not what I came for.’

  ‘Have you found someone better elsewhere?’

  ‘No woman could distract me from you.’

  She gave me a sidelong glance, eyebrows slightly raised, then reknotted the braid round her neck and turned to face me. ‘What’s the matter? You seem agitated.’

  I took her hands firmly enough to break them and placed them on my chest. My heart was pounding. ‘I have great news for you,’ I said.

  ‘Great news? Great in what way?’

  ‘I want to marry you.’

  ‘What?’ she cried, pulling her hands away abruptly.

  I’d been expecting that reaction. A lady of the night doesn’t imagine she will hear such declarations. In her mind, she wouldn’t be worthy. I was so happy for her, so proud to be rehabilitating her, to be giving her back her dignity and her soul. I took her hand again. Her eyes went through me like shafts of light that a branch deflects in the wind. I understood her emotion. In her place, I would have leapt in the air.

  ‘The imam assured me that, for a believer, to save a woman from dishonour is equal to a thousand prayers.’

  She took a step back, more and more incredulous. ‘What imam? What dishonour?’

  ‘I want to give you a roof, a family, some respect.’

  ‘I had all that before.’

  Something was eluding me.

  Aïda’s face had turned white and I couldn’t understand why. ‘Who says I want to get married?’ she said. ‘I’m fine where I am. I live in a beautiful house, I’m fed, protected, I want for nothing.’

  ‘Are you serious?’

  ‘Why wouldn’t I be?’

  ‘Do you realise what I’m offering you?’

  ‘What are you offering me?’

  ‘To make you my wife.’

  ‘I haven’t asked anything of you.’

  My temples tensed.

  Thrown off balance, I tried again. ‘I don’t think you understand. I want to make you my wife and take you away from this indecent life.’

  ‘But I have no desire to depend on a man,’ she exclaimed, with a brief, nervous laugh. ‘I have lots of men and they all treat me like a queen. Why do you want to shut me up in a slum, burden me with kids and make me work hard? And besides, where do you see the indecency here? I work. I have a job and I love it.’

  ‘You call that a job, selling your body?’

  ‘Don’t workers sell their hands, don’t miners risk their lives in deadly tunnels, don’t bearers sell their backs for next to nothing? I find the struggle of a poor devil killing himself with work from morning till night for pennies a lot less decent than the exhilaration of a whore who takes pleasure in making more money in a month than a track-layer in ten years. And what about you? Do you find it decent to have your face smashed in a boxing ring? Isn’t that also selling your body? The difference between your profession and mine is that here, in this palace, I don’t receive blows, I receive gifts. I sleep in a real bed and my room is more luxurious than anything I’d find in a home, even if my husband was a champion. Here, I’m a sultana, Turambo. I bathe in hot water and rose water, my toiletries are of silk and essential oils, my meals are banquets and my sleep is soft as a cloud. I have no complaints, I assure you. I was born under a lucky star, Turambo, and no honour could ever compare with my little joys here.’

  My legs failing, I collapsed into the armchair and put my head in my hands; I refused to admit that Aïda could talk to me like that, so uncompromisingly, her words as final as a funeral. I found it hard to control the ideas swirling around in my mind. Sweat was spreading down my back in a tangle of shivers, freezing my body and my blood.

  I didn’t recognise my voice as I said, ‘I thought I wasn’t like the others, I thought you loved me.’

  ‘I love all my clients, Turambo. All in the same way. It’s my job.’

  I no longer knew right from wrong. I’d thought I was doing the right thing and now I realised there were other logics, other truths a million miles from those I had been taught.

  Gino burst out laughing when I told him how I had been rejected by Aïda.

  ‘You have a problem with your emotions, Turambo. You’ve been very badly brought up. Aïda isn’t wrong. All things considered, you owe her a lot. Don’t fall in love with every woman who smiles at you. You don’t have the means to maintain a harem. Just try not to shoot yourself in the foot. You can’t get in the ring when you’re walking on crutches.’

  He struck me on the shoulder.

  ‘We live and learn, don’t we? And yet it’s never enough to protect us from disappointments. Come,’ he said, throwing me a jacket, ‘there’s a wonderful group performing in Sid el-Hasni. There’s nothing better than a folk dance to get rid of evil spirits.’

  III

  Irène

  1

  Filippi asked me when I was planning to unlock my chastity belt; I told him I’d lost the key.

  A year after being rejected by Aïda, I was practising abstinence and devoting myself to my training. I hadn’t gone up onto the cliff of the Cueva del Agua to watch the drunks squabbling; I hadn’t clung to the walls or cursed the saints; at last, I had grown up.

  There is always life after failure; only death is final.

  According to the Mozabite, love can’t be tamed, can’t be improvised, can’t be imposed; it takes two to build it equally. If it were up to just one, the other would be his potential ruin. When you chase it, you scare it and it runs away, and you never catch up with it.

  Love is a matter of chance and luck. You turn a corner and there it is, an offering on your path. If it’s genuine, it gets better with time. And if it doesn’t last, it’s because you haven’t understood how to handle it.

  It wasn’t that I hadn’t understood how to handle it. I hadn’t understood anything at all.

  So I’d locked my heart away and listened to nothing but De Stefano’s instructions.

  Nine fights, nine victories.

  In the souks, the troubadours spiced up my story to dazzled audiences. The barbers of Medina Jedida adorned the front of their shops with my posters. Apparently, a famous cheikha sang about my victories at weddings.

  One night, a carriage came for me in Rue du Général-Cérez. The coachman seemed straight out of an Eastern tale, with his red, brass-buttoned waistcoat, his smock shining with adornments and his tarboosh tilted over his ear. Some kind of pasha was with him, a man with a moustache like rams’ horns. They drove me to a large farm to the south of the city. In a courtyard garlanded with lanterns, a hundred guests were waiting for me. As soon as the carriage crossed the threshold of the property, tambourines, cymbals and darbukas launched into a frenzied cacophony. Black dancers bounced about in a trance. And She came towards me, ethereal, stately, regal, the legendary Caïda Halima, who was said to be as rich as ten dowagers and as powerful as the Queen of Sheba. ‘We’re proud of you, Turambo,’ said the woman who had subdued the Terras and was respected by prefects and powerful colonists. ‘This party’s for you. As well as celebrating your victories, it reminds us we’re not dead and buried.’

  Aïda hadn’t led me astray: she had given me back to my people …

  I was
at my mother’s, enduring her neighbour’s screams. Since midday, the woman had been calling down curses on her brood of kids, who were making sleep impossible. The children would quieten for a moment then, blaming each other, resume their din. I’d had enough of putting the pillow over my face to muffle their cries. Wearily, I got dressed again and went out into the blazing heat of the city.

  Gino was at home. He was waiting for Filippi, dressed like a young nabob in a shirt and tie, dark glasses on his handsome face, his forehead sporting a sophisticated fringe. Gino only ever wore made-to-measure suits from Storto and brand-name shoes. We hardly saw each other these days. Our nightly jaunts, the cafés-concerts, the cinema trips – all that was over. Gino had other priorities. In the street, the girls devoured him with their eyes. With his dashing looks and devastating smile, he just had to click his fingers to arouse passions. And yet nothing ever happened. Gino barely looked at them. Ever since the Duke had given him a little office on the second floor of his establishment, with a view of the plane tree, Gino had kept his tie on even on the hottest days and talked about nothing but business. Of course, he was fiercely defending my interests, but I missed him, and I didn’t know what to do with myself when he was busy elsewhere.

  ‘I suppose you have another urgent meeting to go to?’ I asked as he admired himself in the mirror.

  ‘I’m sorry, I can’t put it off.’

  ‘When will you be back?’

  ‘No idea. We may go to dinner afterwards. These are important people. We have to cultivate them.’

  ‘I see.’

  ‘Don’t make that face. It’s your career we’re working so hard for.’

  ‘Take it easy, Gino, or the day we finally make it I’ll be putting flowers on your grave.’