The caporal yells and spits all this in his face. He is standing up, pointing the barrel of his sub-machine gun at Giovanni like a threatening finger. Daniel pushes away the gun and tells him to calm down, to sit down, but the caporal turns on him, grabbing him by the collar of his uniform.
“What’s up with you, eh? Scared I’ll hurt your girlfriend?”
“We’re here, ladies!” shouts Baltard the machine-gunner.
“The colonel can help you finish your argument.”
The caporal sits down and spits on the ground, cursing through gritted teeth. Then he stops speaking because the convoy enters the camp where the regiment’s H.Q. is housed, a former colonial infantry barracks of which only the façade and one wing remain, the rest knocked down so it could be extended. Barbed-wire fences now protect a vast area filled with shelters, tents and warehouses, parked trucks and armored vehicles and men, with roads and roundabouts traced in white-painted stones, with billboard signs covered in acronyms and numbers.
Daniel has been here before, but he is still amazed at how calm this place is, with its criss-crossing paths and its rows of off-white or khaki prefabs, some grunts hanging around in their undershirts, hands in pockets and smokes in mouths, while others climb into trucks, guns and kit on their backs. At a crossroads marked with pebbles, a clown in a helmet screams and gesticulates in an attempt to control traffic. Water truck that side, escort this side, and don’t give us any shit. Behind their windscreens, men give him the finger and advise him to keep a closer eye on his whore of a sister. They park the armored vehicles and the lieutenant’s jeep by the side of a tank parked ass-backwards outside a two-storey building that gleams with a fresh coat of paint, white with green shutters. They switch off the engines and in the silence that follows they hear the clatter of typewriters and they sit there for a moment, guns in hand, listening to this peaceful, mechanical murmur. Then Baltard, whose protective goggles make him look like a giant insect, mentions the slender fingers of the typists and wonders if he could just go and say hi to them to find out what else they can do with their hands. They laugh quietly, staring through the open windows at the fans that beat at the warm air, but they cannot see a single pretty face or shapely body. The only sound is that incessant, bitter rattle, like a tiny army of invisible machine-gunners shooting at them.
A jeep arrives at full throttle, skidding in the gravel as it comes to a sudden halt, and an adjutant, cap on backwards, yells at them without getting out to go and leave their weapons with the duty sergent, over there, at the other side of the courtyard. After that, they will have three hours in town before going back to their godforsaken little hellhole. Seeing the lieutenant, he stiffens in his seat and instantly salutes before driving off at top speed again, the jeep swallowed by the cloud of dust its wheels stir up.
On their way out, one of the orderlies gets to his feet behind his sandbags and recommends a few places to them: a café where you can drink cheaply on a terrace, and a well-kept brothel where the girls are clean and young and do anything you want. “Have a good time!” he yells, grabbing his crotch and sitting down on a canvas folding chair in front of his machine gun. There are seven or eight of them there, hesitating on the sidewalk, already rummaging through their pockets for cash, but the noon sun oppresses them, threatening to melt them if they stay in the same place much longer, so they start walking towards a long, straight avenue lined with plane trees and filled with shade, and cross a blindingly white square—a monument to the war dead stuck like a grayish-green shipwreck at its center—their feet stamping through the transparent fire that flickers in a haze over the ground.
They have spread out under the trees, suddenly intimidated by the girls they pass, who ignore them, sometimes shaking their beautiful hair as if to rid themselves of the men’s insistent stares. Daniel and Giovanni hang around in the streets for a while, stopping in front of shop windows and staring covetously inside. They buy half a kilo of strawberries, which they eat straight from the bag, like sweets. Then they sit at a table on the shady terrace of a cheap café—Chez Perez: snacks all day—where some old men play dominoes and drink pastis in a corner. The owner comes over immediately and, seeing them in their frayed uniforms and their dusty boots, asks them if it’s not too tough out there, in the jebel, and he shakes their hands and thanks them for what they are doing for this magnificent country of Algeria, the most beautiful province of France, a treasure that we won’t let the Arabs take off us. He says the Arabs, or the Muslims, never ratons or crouilles or bougnoles. He says that, without France, they would still all be living in mud huts with their goats because that’s their nature, that indolence. It’s not that they’re bad people, though of course there are some bad’uns at the moment, with those groups of brigands—yes, he uses that word—those F.L.N. savages who are enlisted by force and who must be exterminated, but mostly they’re just lazy: if you don’t tell them to work, and tell them how to do it, they do nothing, and you have to yell at them or they don’t listen. Anyway, you only have to see the way they fight, treacherously and lazily, sitting or lying in the undergrowth so you can’t see them. And say what you want, but the climate doesn’t explain everything. I’m telling you, it’s like a kid who’s been naughty: give them a good thrashing whenever they break the rules, as many times as it takes, and they’ll stop doing it and everything will be better.
He pours out all this in a confidential tone, never once raising his voice, calm and certain in his observations and solutions, and the two friends let him talk, nodding their approval from time to time, watching women pass out of the corner of their eyes.
“Anyway, enough of all that. What would you boys like to eat? Some of my special brochettes?”
They wouldn’t say no. And two pastis and a carafe of water, with plenty of ice. The man hurries back into the obscure depths of the bar.
“And that’s why we’re here,” says Giovanni. “For these stupid fucking whites. We should blow his bar up, that prick.”
Daniel does not reply. He lets the sounds of the street wash over him. The shouting and laughter, the roar of engines, the horns honking. The din of a city. He never realized he would miss it one day. Life is here, he thinks, in all its raucous confusion. Women pass, walking briskly, heels clicking on the sidewalk. Their light dresses dance around their legs in time with the swing of their bare arms. Tanned skin. High heels. It seems to him that he has never seen so many women. He says this to Giovanni and his friend laughs.
“That’s because you don’t look. There are women everywhere, all the time. Your Irène is not the only one, you know!”
“Why do you say that?”
Giovanni snorts, then squints enigmatically at Daniel.
“Because I know what you don’t know yourself yet, apparently!”
The owner brings them two plates, each with three glistening brochettes surrounded by grilled tomatoes. Then he places before them a carafe of water dripping with condensation and two glasses of pastis.
“Drinks are on the house,” he announces.
They grab the drinks and sip them, eyes closed, with sighs of pleasure. Oh fuck, that’s good, they murmur. They drink and eat, not saying anything else, and they lick their fingers and fill their glasses with iced water, then lean back in their seats, hands cradling their full bellies, smiling with mute happiness.
Giovanni sits up, looks at his watch.
“Come on, we need to get going. I have to introduce you to someone. A nice guy.”
He is already on his feet. Daniel gets up too and they take the money from their pockets to pay. As they walk away, the owner wishes them good luck and shouts that he’s fully behind them, behind the army. They walk fast, Daniel behind Giovanni, who is almost running, explaining that they only have an hour and a half before they have to return to the barracks.
Suddenly, turning a corner, they enter another city. Empty streets, faded façades, broken paveme
nts, scrawny dogs sniffing dry gutters. They hear a newborn crying behind closed shutters. They hear the sound of metal on metal, and Daniel catches a glimpse of a man at the end of an alley straightening the bumper of a 202 with a sledgehammer. “Not long now,” says Giovanni. Gradually the streets become narrower and shadier, and the air is filled with strong smells coming from shops behind metal shutters. The silence grows as oppressive as the heat. Ghostly voices echo in the dimness. Daniel listens closely, scans the shadows, glimpsing fragments of poverty. Giovanni turns to him:
“You’ve never been here, I take it? Welcome to Algeria. Don’t worry, it had the same effect on me. When you come from a European city, it’s a shock. You can see why they want to get rid of us, can’t you? It’s like some fat bloke sitting on your chest. First you feel like you’re suffocating, you think you’re going to die, then you try to get him off you by any means necessary.”
“Where are we going?”
“To a friend’s place. Well . . . a guy whose address I was given, and who might be able to help me get out of here. I met him last month, when I came here with the lieutenant, you remember, that time when we were on leave almost the whole day?”
“Are you serious? You’re really going to desert?”
“I’m not going to fight against these people. We would do the same if we were in their place. We did the same, during the Resistance. You of all people should understand that.”
Always that bite in his heart. Daniel tries to think how to reply.
“They’ll sentence you to death.”
“They already have. We’ve all been sentenced to death. Only difference is we don’t know if or when we’ll be executed. It’s a slaughterhouse, and it’s time for us lambs to skeddadle. It could be you, me, anyone in a uniform. Death strikes at random—you don’t know why, or who will get hit. Well, except for all those fucking colonists and those jumped-up whites who think they can make themselves at home in someone else’s country. Anyway, if they want to sentence me, they’ll have to catch me first. I kind of think they’ve got bigger fish to fry.”
A barrow creaks towards them, a man bent double between the two handles, with a whole mess of objects piled on top of the platform: chairs, crates of vegetables, cloth bundles and a cat lying stretched out, indifferent to the barrow’s vibrations, unmoving, perhaps dead. The street is so narrow that they have to stand in a doorway to let this swaying load pass. The man pushing the barrow is tiny and old, not an ounce of fat on him, his arms wiry and his fists wrapped round with rope that is tied to the wooden handles. He does not look up at them. He spits in front of his feet as he passes them. Daniel watches him move slowly away, limping because one leg is shorter than the other, even more wobbly than his barrow.
Giovanni grabs Daniel’s sleeve. Breaks into a jog. “Nearly there.”
They turn right outside a carpenter’s workshop. The smell of wood. A few planks leaning against a wall, some pale shavings on the floor. A green door, a narrow two-story house. It looks like a little tower, stuck there. They knock three times and a woman opens the door almost instantly. Her round face is tattooed with blue dotted lines, her eyes agleam in the darkness are ringed with mascara. She wears a richly brocaded scarf on her head. Seeing the two uniforms, she instinctively takes a step back and half closes the door.
“What do you want?”
“I’m Giovanni. I’ve come to see Robert. I came last month. Giovanni the soldier. Delsart sent me.”
The door closes. Giovanni gives Daniel a reassuring smile then hides his embarrassment by staring up at the building’s façade. Silence. A bird singing somewhere trills excitedly in the leaden air.
“Come in, please,” says the woman, opening the door again.
She bats her eyelids, her gaze golden.
As they enter the gloomy hallway, she glances around at the street outside. In front of them, the figure of a short, sturdy man appears against the light of a doorway.
“Who’s that?” he asks without moving.
Giovanni puts a hand on Daniel’s shoulder.
“A copain. An ami, I should say. You can trust him.”
Still the man doesn’t move. They stare at each other in this hallway, shadow to shadow. The woman stands behind the soldiers, hands concealed in the folds of her dress.
“It’s alright, Chadia. You can come. It’ll be O.K.”
The woman squeezes between Daniel and the wall. She gives something to the man that they can’t see. Then they guess what it is when he holds the object against his thigh. A revolver.
“Move forward,” says the man. “We’ll sit in here.”
They follow him to a tiled patio filled with greenery and flowers. It is like being at the bottom of a well, with a breath of coolness and the sounds of water, invisible.
“We have to be back in an hour,” says Giovanni.
The man puts the revolver in his pocket and sits on a wicker chair, inviting his guests to take two leather pouffes.
“It’s nothing against you,” the man tells Daniel. “But there are security instructions I have to follow, and I don’t really want this house to attract notice because there are too many soldiers coming to it. It’s my father’s house. They don’t know the address. Well . . . not yet. It would be impossible in my house; they have already been there three times. Anyway, what’s done is done . . . My name is Robert Autin. That’s not a secret. I’m a math teacher at the secondary school; everyone knows me in this city. But you have not been here, and you do not know who I am. Understood? Never breathe a word of this. To anyone. Can you understand that? You have to realize that a different aspect of the war is being fought here, and in other places, far from the military operations.”
Deep, curt voice. Robert stares unblinkingly at Daniel, eyes wide, and Daniel does not move, holds his gaze, heart racing, breath short, and he nods and whispers, “Yes, monsieur.” Robert lights an American cigarette and hands them the packet. They smoke in silence for a moment, then Robert stands up.
“I’m going to get us something to drink. So, have you made your decision?”
“Yes,” says Giovanni. “As soon as possible.”
“They’re not keen on deserters, you know.”
He disappears behind a door carved in dark wood. Silence falls again.
“Who’s not keen?” Daniel asks.
“The Party. They say we should stay in our units and undermine the officers, try to change the minds of our fellow conscripts, because they’re workers, farmers, and we should always stand side by side with the people. And deserting is always connected with cowardice, so it’s supposedly frowned upon. But I don’t care about all that. I feel like a coward here anyway. I’m scared of the fells, scared of the other grunts, I’m even scared of myself. I don’t know my own mind anymore. They might convince me to do anything. That’s what they want. Don’t forget what they said during training: ‘When you’ve seen your friends get their throats cut, and their balls stuffed in their mouths, you’ll know why you’re fighting in Algeria.’ You remember all their speeches, their propaganda? The photos they showed us of ambushes, corpses? You remember the things the others said? I’ve seen enough, I’ve heard enough. I’d rather hide in a rat-infested hole until the war is over than take part in this shit. This has fuck-all to do with me. And I don’t understand . . .”
Robert returns, carrying a tray: three little ornamented glasses, a teapot, a carafe of water.
They fill the glasses with water. A dull heat falls on their shoulders from the square of milky sky hanging above them. Daniel can feel his shirt glued to his back with sweat.
“So, how is Delsart?” Robert asks. “Still laid up?”
“Yeah, he can’t get out of bed now, because of his trick leg.”
Giovanni turns to Daniel.
“Delsart is my uncle, you know: my mother’s brother. He got a bullet in his leg in ’4
7 during the miners’ strike. He’s the leader of the local branch of the Party.”
“I knew him when I was a primary school teacher near Lens,” Robert Autin explains. “Are you in the Party too?”
“I’m not. My sister’s in the Young Communists. And the Communist Students, I think. And my parents are, but they don’t go to many meetings.”
Giovanni and Autin say nothing, both looking at him with the same smile of fake indulgence, or perhaps pity.
“Well, anyway,” he adds, “I agree with what it stands for.”
Autin nods, then nimbly serves tea, the spout floating high above the glasses, making a gurgling sound as they are filled.
“Delsart’s fine,” says Giovanni abruptly. “I got a letter from him last week. He can’t say much—you never know who might read it. He’s continuing to fight against the war though, back there. Aragon went to Lille the other day apparently; my uncle got a book signed for me. Can you believe it? He wouldn’t tell me what Aragon wrote. He’d told him that I was here, in Algeria:
Everything changed pole and shoulder
Was the play funny or not?
If I didn’t play my role well
That’s because I didn’t understand it at all.”
“What are you on about?”
“It’s Aragon. From The Unfinished Novel. That describes what I’m feeling, more or less.”
Autin seems to digest the lines of verse, his glass hot in his hand. He sets it down suddenly.
“Well . . . That’s very nice, but you won’t be reading his inscription tomorrow, you know. It could take a long time—it all depends on the network. Ideally, you wouldn’t come back from your first leave. That way, you wouldn’t have to cross the whole of Algeria and risk getting arrested. I’ll see what I can do about fake I.D., but it’s not a sure thing. Everyone’s suspicious these days. The A.L.N. lot don’t even trust each other. We’ll try to get you a fake leave. By the time they check it out—if they even bother—you’ll be in Paris. That’s not really what it’s for, but never mind. You call here. If I don’t answer, Chadia will tell you about the meeting, your contact, and all that. You must follow instructions. No more than ten minutes in the meeting place. You go back again the next day, same time. You can stay the night at the Hôtel de Constantine, on rue de la Victoire. Ask for Achille, and say I sent you. And don’t hang around in the streets after eight at night. Got it?”
After the War Page 32
