A year later they celebrated Odette’s first birthday with cake and a day off work, while in a railway carriage parked at Compiègne in northern France, Germany signed an end to the war.
16
On the morning of Wednesday December 20th, Madame Lesage knocked on Steven’s door.
‘Is she gone?’
‘Oui. Gone to the press office, just as you said she would.’
Steven nodded; Nicolette’s behaviour was becoming predictable. When she’d learnt the previous day of the massive blackout that was crippling all of France, as well as part of Britain, she’d paced up and down the pressroom in front of the telex machines, sure she was missing out on some vital piece of news. No amount of coaxing from Steven convinced her to leave. He’d even tried to pull rank, reminding her that she was here to get Algerian stories, and that what was happening in France should be of no concern to her, but she’d insisted she had a feeling that this was no ordinary blackout, and Steven was learning not to argue with her ‘feelings’ – he would never win. It was only when he told her about an interview he’d arranged with one of Boumedienne’s staff that she agreed to leave the pressroom and accompany him. That she had made straight for the pressroom again this morning was no surprise to him.
‘But the blackout,’ the woman continued, ‘it’s over. She’ll not be gone long.’ She handed Steven a shopping bag. ‘It’s all as you asked.’
When Lesage left, Steven went to the phone in the hall and rang the Crédit Populair d’Algérie, to check whether a transfer of funds he was expecting had been deposited into Frank Taylor’s account. Back in his room, he locked the door and closed the curtains, then put on a pair of leather gloves. From the shopping bags he withdrew an ordinary briefcase. He checked for a receipt, read it and put it in the shopping bag. He removed the label from the handle of the briefcase and put it with the receipt. Then he checked the briefcase inside and out. Satisfied that there were no markings, he put it to one side. And as he worked he quietly whistled Lennon’s Imagine. He hid the shopping bag with the receipt and tag under his pillow, opened the curtains and left his room via the French doors, carrying the briefcase. A short while later he reached the Crédit Populair d’Algérie
#
Steven walked down the street where Madame Lesage’s house was situated, turned a corner and entered a tobacconist. He bought a packet of cigarettes and walked back the way he’d come. Satisfied the street was empty, he went into the garden then his room via the French doors.
The briefcase contained a number of newspapers with a large envelope hidden between them. He opened this and took two wads of US notes – $20,000 in all. He removed $5000, put the rest of the money back in the envelope and hid it once more amongst the newspapers. Locked the briefcase and put it on the floor by his bed. The key he put on the bedside table. Then, from the money he had removed, he put $500 in each of two envelopes, one for Madame Lesage, the other to Amoud, his driver, and put these beside the key. The rest he would need for the next few days’ expenses. That done, he removed his gloves and waited.
The knock came just a few minutes later. ‘Someone to see you.’
He opened the door. A woman, totally covered by the white haik and veil the women of Algiers favoured, stood behind Lesage. Steven opened the door wider and pointed to the briefcase. The woman picked it up, as well as the key, and with a nod to them both, left.
Steven gave Lesage the shopping bag from under his pillow. ‘Burn this,’ he said. She nodded, then went to the bedside table and pocketed the envelopes. ‘Can you take it to Amoud now?’
Again Lesage nodded. The front door slammed and Nicolette came hurrying in.
‘I told you, didn’t I?’ She brushed past Lesage, brandishing a newspaper. ‘I knew something was going on.’
‘What, in France?’
‘Well, no. I was wrong about the place, but look. Le Monde got the story.’
‘Make sense, will you?’
‘Yesterday in Le Monde. They had an item about an arms-drop gone wrong. I told you Jean-Paul was on to something.’
‘In France?’
‘No, here. Listen: Benyahia Mohamed Sadek – ex soldier of French army – maquisard – double agent – 48 years old – tea salon in centre of Algiers – that’s here, Steven. Here. Five accomplices – Kabyle coast – parachuted from Hercules C-130. Arms, explosives and munitions. Why didn’t we know about this?’
‘Well, if it happened yesterday…’
‘It didn’t – not all of it, anyway. They’re only reporting it now. It was on the night of the 10th to 11th. Why didn’t we know? We should have listened to Jean-Paul.’
‘Well, for a start, we were still in Marseille that night.’
‘It gets worse, listen. Journalists taken to see arms and security of area Tuesday 19th December. In Constantine. That’s yesterday.’ She threw the newspaper on the bed. ‘We should have been there, Steven. Why didn’t we know? DJ must have known about this. Why didn’t he tell us? I’m sure it’s linked to that runner Jean-Paul was telling me about, and they haven’t caught him yet. We could have gone, instead of interviewing that idiot you found who didn’t have anything to say anyway.’
‘Okay, calm down. Jean-Paul didn’t say anything either.’
‘Jean-Paul’s in Egypt till tomorrow.’
‘Well, it’s no big deal. You’re getting way too excited over this whole thing.’
‘I want to go to Constantine.’
‘We’ll go. Maybe when Boumedienne—’
‘No, not “when” anything. Now.’
‘You’re been ridiculous.’
‘No, I’m not. Look, we don’t know how much longer Boumedienne’s going to last. Could be days, could be weeks. If we fly, we can get to Constantine in just over an hour. We can be there and back in no time.’
‘Get real, Nicky. You really think you’re going to waltz into a town that you haven’t been in since you were a kid, ask a few questions, and find out all about this supposed gunrunner? The only thing you’ll achieve is getting yourself killed.’
‘I know it’s not that easy – I’m not totally stupid! But I could find Jamilah, ask for her help. She’d know people, she’d help.’
Steven sighed. It was obvious she wasn’t going to let this go.
‘Okay. If this Jamilah is still alive, and if she’s still in Constantine, and if she even remembers you, what makes you think she’ll know anything? Or more to the point, that she’d want to tell you anything?’
‘Because. It goes right back to our grandfathers – they were like brothers. Her grandfather played an important part in the Algerian war – at least around Constantine – and even when things went bad, we were safe. Because of him. That’s how it was with our families. She’d help, I know she would.’
Steven nodded. He may not know exactly what the story was between Nicolette’s grandfather and this Jamilah’s, but he knew enough about Muslims to know that if they considered you a brother, they’d risk their lives for you, if need be.
‘So tell me. This Jamilah – does she have a last name?’
‘al-Zain.’
‘And she has a brother?’
‘More than one. But it was Rafiq who was always with us.’
‘Rafiq al-Zain. Tuareg?’
‘You know him?’
‘No – just a guess. No big deal.’
Steven paced the room, thinking. Nicolette waited.
‘Okay,’ he said at last, ‘We’ll go. But we’ll drive; I want to be able to get around. I’ll ask DJ to ring us if anything happens with Boumedienne. If we need to, we can fly back and Amoud can bring the car back on his own. I can do some asking around—’
‘So can I.’
‘Oh no you don’t. You can look for your friend.’
‘But—’
‘No! I’m serious, Nicolette. You’ve no experience in this type of thing – you’ll end up getting us both killed. If we’re going to do this, we do it my way.’
Nicolette wanted to a
rgue, but she realised agreeing with Steven was the only way she’d get him to Constantine, and she needed his help – in spite of her bravado, she really had no idea how to go about all this. She nodded.
‘You’re not going to do something stupid once we’re there?’
‘Of course not. But you’ll fill me in, right? Keep me up to date? And when we’ve got something, I want to be there.’
‘I’ll fill you in, but don’t expect anything soon. These things take time. And I want you to promise me that if you find this Jamilah, you’re not going to blab to her what we’re doing there. Just make this a looking-up-old-friends visit. At least until I find out what’s really going on, okay?’
‘Mm, yeah, okay. When do we leave?’
‘How about tomorrow? I’ll tell Amoud. We can stay a few days; it’ll give me time to ask around.’
‘Okay. But you’d better keep me up to date. One other thing – one of my film’s missing. You did put in what I gave you, didn’t you?’
‘Of course I did.’
‘Well, they say they never got it.’
‘I gave them what you gave me. And you should be thanking me – you wouldn’t have gotten your pic of that woman with the oranges on the front page if I hadn’t gotten them there as soon as I did. Anyway, which one’s missing?’
‘The Blida film. Lots of monkeys.’
‘It’ll turn up.’
‘Maybe. But I don’t want to lose it – reckon I might be able to sell some of those shots to National Geographic.’
‘Probably some idiot desk-jockey stuffing up again – you can chase it up later. Not like it was anything important…’
‘I shouldn’t have to chase it up later – that’s not the point. And don’t you dare tell me which of my films are important. Oh what the hell, you just don’t get it!’ She snatched the newspaper off the bed and headed for the door.
‘Nicky—’
‘Forget it. I’m going for a shower. I’ll see you later.’
Steven winced as the door slammed.
#
Their approach to Constantine via the Sidi M’Cid Bridge took Nicolette’s breath away – she’d forgotten how spectacular it looked. Situated on a plateau six-hundred-and-forty meters above sea level, this ancient city once known as Carta was framed on three sides by a deep ravine. At the bottom of the gorge some two hundred metres below them, the Rhumel River cascaded over its narrow bed. To the left, clinging to a rockcliff, were the ruins of a Roman temple. Like so many places in North Africa, the city and the fortress were one.
As they entered the city Amoud sounded the car horn and turned to Nicolette, smiling broadly.
‘I think he’s glad to be here,’ Steven said.
Nicolette nodded and stretched. ‘He’s not the only one. I’m so stiff.’ They’d travelled some four hundred kilometres, stopping only briefly at the seaside town of Djidjelli for a coffee and snack.
‘Hotel? Or do you want to look around a bit first?’
‘Hotel, I think. I want to freshen up. Did you notice the smell when we crossed the bridge?’
Steven nodded. ‘It’s the gorge. They use it as a rubbish dump.’
Nicolette frowned. ‘I’m glad Grandpa Louis isn’t here to see that. He loved this city, these gorges.’
Steven spoke to Amoud, and Amoud nodded, smiling even more broadly.
‘I understood a bit of that,’ Nicolette said, looking out of the car window. ‘You know, I used to be able to talk really fluently in a whole lot of different dialects. Jamilah and I, we use to speak French at school, and her Berber dialect out of school – same with a lot of other kids. But I’ve forgotten it now. Shame.’
‘Well, if you haven’t spoken any since you left… I told Amoud he could have the rest of the afternoon off. He’s got family around here, and we don’t need the car for the rest of the day. You don’t mind, do you?’
‘I don’t mind.’
#
Nicolette stood on the balcony of her hotel room, towelling her freshly washed hair as she took in the scene below her window. Constantine seemed both recognizable and foreign. The crowds and the cars were still there, but there were very few Europeans now, and the traffic no longer seemed to respect traffic lights, nor the pedestrians crossing the road.
They’d had an apartment on the Avenue Fôche. Shutters closed against the hot afternoon sun, and the smell of bees-wax furniture polish and lemons. The lounge room had been decorated with African artefacts – a zebra skin on the floor, a leopard’s on the wall. She smiled as she imagined what the reaction of the animal activists of today would be to her mother’s style. But things were different then, and in any case, her mother wouldn’t have cared what anyone thought – she always did what she wanted, no matter what.
On either side of the leopard skin were hung tribal masks and spears that had frightened Nicolette as a child. Two native tom-toms served as side tables, circles of glass protecting their tops, and on a shelf, next to the radio, little statuettes of African dancers all in a row. Except for these statuettes, Nicolette disliked this room, the masks and spears being too much for her imagination, and so she’d avoided being there as much as possible. Instead, she spent the time between the end of her school day and the time her mother came home from work roaming the streets of the Berber quarter with Jamilah.
Jamilah – somewhere in that city below her, the woman that had once been her closest friend might still live. Nicolette went back into her room, found her hairbrush and brought a chair back onto the balcony. She sat and begun untangling the knots in her hair. The aromas drifting up from the street teased her memory. Kebabs and the spicy smell of mergezes sizzling on braziers. Spices and coffee. And underneath it all, the smell of cats. Constantine was overrun by cats, semi-wild creatures belonging to no one but fed by all.
There had been a black and white cat that lived at her school. Why on earth would she remember that? All the children used to feed it. They’d named it Figaro, after the cat in Walt Disney’s Pinocchio, and even when it had its kittens one night in the sewing room, on top of the gingham materials used to teach little girls to sew by making aprons, still no one wanted to change its name to a more feminine one.
School. Monsieur de Bonêt, who always wore the same brown tweed jacket, and delivered his lessons sitting behind his desk, chin in hand, mumbling in a monotonous voice on and on and on, so that Nicolette frequently fought sleep, because to sleep would guarantee five – never more and never less – five slaps of his ruler on her outstretched hand. Once, Jamilah had told Rafiq that de Bonêt had hit Nicolette, and Rafiq had let down all four tyres of de Bonêt’s car.
Rafiq – how she’d idolised him. He was two years older than Jamilah but, unlike the other males of his family, always had time for his sister and her friend. Jamilah loved him most of all her brothers. What had become of him? Was he even alive? Of course he was. Rafiq was a survivor. Always had been. Fragments of a long forgotten memory nudged the corners of her mind, but instinctively Nicolette pushed it back. Still it persisted. The Berber woman. Rafiq running towards Nicolette. She brushed her hair harder, but the memory insisted. It had been after she’d been forbidden to play with Jamilah and Rafiq. That day when Jamilah had turned her back on her in the schoolyard.
Nicolette took the chair back into her hotel room. She didn’t want to remember the rest. Remember doors and shutters slowly opening, Rafiq screaming at her Go home, Nicolette! You don’t belong here. She went to the en-suite to look for a rubber band, found it and tied her hair into a ponytail. She had been shattered by Rafiq’s rejection, back then. Now, with the mind of an adult, she could understand. She knew things would be different now. The three of them had a lot of history together – a lot of happy memories – and so many years had passed…
17
On a late spring afternoon in 1925, Imez pulled a flowing ghandouras elaborately embroidered with thin silver cord over a white caftan, and wound his best indigo turban around his head and across his
mouth and nose. He added an ornate dagger and intricately carved scabbard to rest on his left hip, then went to wait for Louis and his family. Today was the first day of his second – now eldest – son’s wedding. The maribout had been here earlier to sanction the wedding, and now it was time for the ceremony.
He knew there were those in the camp who didn’t believe Louis and Therèse should have been invited, but they didn’t say so to his face – they dared not, for Imez was now an amenokal, a chieftain. And there were those in the camp who also disapproved of his friendship with Louis, but they had grown used to it, as they had grown used to Gwafa’s and Marius’ friendship. Imez smiled as he remembered how some had approached Bahac early in their marriage, to convince her that the friendship should not exist. But Bahac was no fool, and she had told everyone she approved of Imez’s friends, and in this matrilineal society, her approval had silenced them.
Imez heard the engine of Louis’ Clément Bayard, and went out to greet his friends. He smiled in approval when he saw them.
Marius and Louis were both in morning coats, white silk shirts and ties, and Louis carried an ebony walking stick whose handle and ferrule were of silver, the handle depicting the head of a duck. Top hats and black patent shoes completed their attire.
Therèse wore an ankle length, pearl-grey dinner dress of silk chiffon heavily embroidered with beads, and a large silk shawl rested on her shoulders. Her hair was bobbed in the latest style, topped with a silk and velvet cloche hat.
‘Welcome, Therèse,’ Imez said as he opened her car door.
‘Aren’t you going to say we look magnificent? Papa did,’ Odette interrupted, coming around the side of the car and holding out the hem of her blue lace dress.
‘Odette, you’re being rude.’
Odette ignored her mother and turned to Louis. ‘You thought we looked magnificent, didn’t you, Papa? You said so.’ She turned to Imez. ‘You should say so too.’
Imez thought – not for the first time – that this eight-year-old child promised nothing but trouble. ‘It’s not fitting for a man to comment on the beauty of another man’s wife,’ he told the child. ‘But come. Come and meet the bride’s parents.’
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