With his thumb, Jean-Claude slits open the letter his grandmother gave him. However proud I am of you, as I knew I would be, I am not pleased with you. It’s not by banging your head against the wall or crying that you’ll ever become a real little man. Also, let me tell you this: you’ve lived with me and you know what it means to be a communist. Our struggle is hard but we will win. I am not the only man on death row. The adolescent is angry with his mother for revealing to Fernand that he had cried, but the joy of hearing from his stepfather prevails over this reproach. Of course, I sometimes cry to think about your mother and all those on the outside, but I have the right, young man, and you don’t. So write to me, that I may see your courage, your work, what your friends are saying. He’s never forgotten what Fernand promised him, when he left Algeria two years after joining his mother there: that he was entirely free to think whatever he wanted to think; that he in no way had to share Fernand’s political views. Jean-Claude didn’t know the whole story (his mother had only told him that his stepfather wanted equality for all, admittedly a rather abstract notion for an adolescent) but he could appreciate the most important point: an adult had allowed him to voice his disagreement. That day, he told himself his mother’s lover was a good man (Fernand liked to tell Jean-Claude that his mother was his wife from Monday to Friday and his girlfriend on weekends—he would only understand what this remark meant much later: on weekends, factory toil and housework finshed, they could love each other more gaily, with the unconstrained and carefree bliss they’d known in France when they first met).
Condensed milk and two packets of cigarettes on a cell shelf. The magazine Bonne soirée is open on Chikhi’s bunk. Say, brother, says Bakri as he picks his teeth with a thin piece of wood, we were wondering yesterday, during our walk, I hope you won’t be angry, it’s a little personal … Fernand, lying on his mattress, puts down the notebook in which he keeps his penitentiary accounts (a little more than a thousand francs spent at the canteen, November 30, close to two thousand, December 9). Yes, so tell me: you’re married, right? Yes, of course, why? So why aren’t you wearing a ring, did the prison take it? Fernand laughs, no, you’re wrong, way off. My wife Hélène actually forbids me from wearing one: a friend of hers had his fingers sliced off—three, I think, I never met the man—by a machine at work because his ring got stuck. And since I work, or used to, at the factory, she was adamant: no ring! Bakri cannot believe it. My goodness, she thinks of everything, your wife. Hear that, Chikhi? The man in question nods with the tip of his sparrow-hawk nose, smiling along. There were funny moments, says Fernand: one time, we were at a dance party and this girl comes up to me where I’m sitting next to Hélène. After checking out my hand, she suggests we spend an evening on the beach. What did your wife say? asks Bakri. Her, nothing, but me, I said I couldn’t, I was married. And the girl looked at my hand again, she must’ve thought she was doing it discreetly, but in fact she wasn’t at all, and asked where my wife was. She’s here, right beside you, I answered. And Hélène found it hilarious. Bakri claps his hands while rocking backwards, with all due respect, brother, your wife she sounds even crazier than you!
Fernand drew a hammer and sickle in one of his notebooks and wrote Prisoner no. 6101’s notebook—property of Fernand Iveton, sentenced to death on 11-24-56. Pardoned on … In another, he wrote out from memory the lyrics to those songs he used to hum, when he was outside. This helped him pass the time and, with a few of these light verses, think of something else than that damned heavy ellipsis: Pardoned on … He knows “Kalou” by Yvette Giraud in full, and sang it one evening, two days ago perhaps—or yesterday, time loses its bearings when trapped in cement—to his two cellmates. Don’t laugh, my fine love is not a game / Kalou, Kalou / In my heart jealousy burns its flame / Kalou, Kalou / My desire no longer finds a happy echo in you / I believe neither your kisses, nor your promises / And yet you do with me what you please / All the time / Kalou, Kalou / Here I am like a slave at your feet / In my flesh you’ve left a mark so deep / And my soul has suffered so / With you I’d be happy in Hell below / I am weak but I’ve kept enough love / To one day open my heart / To your return, and my delight … Bakri had clapped again, my God that’s romantic, brother, is that how you charmed your wife? And Chikhi, in a surprisingly beautiful voice, Fernand thought at once—as if, a strange idea after all, the voice he possessed should bear any relation to the face that housed it (a face that was, truth to tell, remarkably unsightly)—sang a traditional Kabyle air. A warm voice, grave and low. With a little something of infinite tragedy.
The prison chaplain introduces himself, after entering, as Jules Declercq. In his fifties but aging well—firm shoulders, bristly beard. Beneath his clothes can be discerned stout limbs and staunch bones. His hands, particularly hairy, make him look more like a lumberjack than a priest. Fernand is taken aback by his visit. The chaplain explains that he was intrigued by the presence within these walls of a European reputed to be in the anteroom of death (Declercq says this breezily, as if it were simply a status, a vulgar administrative detail). The days are long here, with or without the Lord, and Fernand, on reflection, accepts his interlocutor’s disinterested proposition: to talk just for the sake of it. For the sole pleasure of exchanging words. Declercq returns three times during the week, the same smile stretched under his boxer’s nose. The chaplain used to be a rural priest: he knows the land and its hardships, its remote corners, forgotten, far from cities and the Progress these embody; he has seen with his own eyes what Camus had written after having seen it, too, in his report for Alger républicain, the ferocious inequalities in education and wages … Not until his fourth visit does Declercq confide to Fernand that he has, in his heart, taken the side of Algerian independence. But he must, in view of his public role, be careful about uttering his most private feelings. Fernand admits for his part that he is concerned about Hélène: how is she managing without her husband’s earnings, since she was sacked? He knows, from her letters, that she is selling a number of belongings but fears she may be hiding, so as not to worry him, the full extent of her predicament. Declercq promises to go to their home and find out.
Joë Nordmann comes in a few hours later, brimming with news: the Secretariat of the National Federation of Electric, Nuclear and Gas Industries summoned its union leaders to overwhelm René Coty with telegrams and petitions demanding Iveton’s immediate pardon. Parisians, along with gas workers from Aubervilliers, dropped two petitions off at the Elysée; a section of the CGT sent a telegram to Coty. What about our press? asks Fernand. The lawyer’s smile fades: nothing … Well, yes, the Huma is still talking about you. They call for your freedom, but in the inside pages. It’s not taking off … what a load of shit. This is the first time Fernand has heard his lawyer curse. Don’t worry, Joë, everything’s going to turn out well, Coty will pardon me, I’m sure: I didn’t loosen a single screw, didn’t knock a single tile down: how could they cut my head off for that? I know nothing about the law but this doesn’t stand up. Nordmann agrees wholeheartedly. Yes, in legal terms, your case is easy to defend, but it’s come at the wrong time. War and law have never had a very functional relationship, the state of emergency, they say … In any case, I managed to get a meeting with Mitterrand’s technical counsel and the director of Criminal Affairs and Pardons. And how’s it going with Smadja and Laînné? asks Fernand. I’m not quite sure, to tell you the truth, I sometimes get the impression that they want to go it alone. We don’t always agree on the line to follow, but everything will sort itself out in the end, don’t worry.
Christmas.
A pink Christ blubbering in his blanket.
Three decades with Man will cure him of fellow feeling.
I write these few lines to let you know how much I’ve thought of you today. I felt a little blue earlier, but now everything is much better and I’m in terrific spirits. A new letter from Fernand has arrived in the mail. There’s still hope and I have a lot of it because I didn’t kill or intend to kill anyone, as
the trial proved; I think this will be reviewed with a cool head in France. She stops, then continues. My sweet love, I end this letter here in the hope to read you soon because for me your letters are the best medicine. Also many kisses from the bottom of my heart.
A mayor is felled by an FLN bullet. Straight to the heart, inside his vehicle.
Arabs lynched in the streets, shops looted.
Flames and gunfire riddling the country’s skin.
Monday, January 14: Bakri’s sentence has been served. Chikhi bids him farewell in Arabic. They hug. Fernand in turn embraces him, good luck brother, be like the inmate who’s only a few minutes from not being one, it’s going to be alright you’ll see, they’ll get you out of here. Fernand smiles at him. He is glad, sincerely glad for him. Of course, he would love to be in his place, to leave these colorless walls and the death they promise, of course he would, but Bakri, dear Bakri, your good cheer helped me endure, it kept my head above water. Hug your family for me. Have children, Bakri, grow little heads upon this dirty earth, to wash out all the blood … The guard takes him, he turns around one last time with his same sunny smile, nods, the door is as gray as these damn walls, bye, Bakri.
One hour later, in comes registered number 5821.
Zamoun is the man’s name, or that’s how he introduces himself to Fernand and Chikhi. Like them he wears a jacket cut from a blanket, on the back of which are sewn the initials PCA (Prison Civile d’Alger). His pants are made of the same cloth, marked with a yellow cross. His face is long and narrow, his eyes tiny: sinister and sunken, like pin heads. His forehead is bare, his jaw prognathous and his teeth planted apparently at random, sprouting like weeds.
Twelve seconds is all it took, on the night of September 8, 1954, for Orléansville to collapse under the hammer of an earthquake.
Buildings bent over, roofs sundered, façades eviscerated, streets obstructed by telegraph poles or blocked by stones, schoolbooks scattered among the corpses … 1,500 dead, in no time or less, in the snap of a finger during a night which must have seemed, at first, exactly like all others—though some say (a singular omen) that cows and pigeons anticipated the tremors.
The church is open, gaping, its cross face down, its stomach spewing entrails of glass and wood; the Baudouin Hotel has spreadeagled over its clients, their skulls smashed by the walls which, minutes before, had protected them as they slept; the prison pierced from side to side. Like the aftermath of a massive bombardment, and yet no planes had passed above: these wings drilled in the deep. Debris and rubble under a stupefied dawn, heaps of blasted homes. A donkey lying against a car, an old man flattened under dust and roof tiles, a young woman curled tight—no doubt for protection—under an uprooted tree …
Hélène and Fernand have come to help, with others from all over the country and sometimes from farther afield. The city is almost empty: the survivors fled, fearing a second wave of tremors. The heat is unbearable—more so for Hélène, who is not yet accustomed to the Algerian sun. Moist skin, sticky, uncomfortable clothes, sweat running down backs and foreheads. Pharmacists and doctors oversee the relief efforts—the army, firefighters, gendarmerie and police already, a few days ago, accomplished the “bulk” of this grim labor: evacuated the injured, gathered the bodies, searched for the missing under the ruins. Hélène is busy with a group of women volunteers (Algerian-Europeans and Muslims); Fernand distributes medication to all those who, traumatized by what they have seen or by the conditions in which they have since been forced to live, get in line to obtain what they need for themselves or their close ones, who may reside in Orléansville or the surrounding, equally affected villages. Hélène hands out food parcels during the day. Essential supplies—enough to hold out until a new roof is found.
As planned, Fernand left France in January. Cured. He looked for a home that could welcome Hélène and Jean-Claude, and finally found it, thanks to a friend of his father’s, at 73 rue des Coquelicots—in his childhood neighborhood. He devoted all his leisure time to “patching it up,” as he liked to say to his neighbors when announcing the arrival, more or less soon but in any case certain, of a “big surprise.” He expected, and was even a little wary of it, that the change would be brutal for Hélène. At least their nest, their little den just for them, which however scarce their resources he’d planned and conceived as a cocoon, would allow her to find her feet, catch her breath between its cool walls, should the North African air be a bigger shock than she expected. Yet when she arrived in the first days of spring (early morning, traveled overnight), he had to acknowledge that his fears were unfounded: Hélène took to her new life at once. She had to make a few compromises, obviously, with local custom, and the strictness specific to those two cultures she was discovering for the first time: Muslim and “European.” She understood that she could not smoke in public, unless she wanted to be thought a whore: a woman could not parade herself like that, cigarette in mouth, flagrant with smoke and indecency (Fernand was ashamed to admit that he cared about opinion, the rumors and the neighbors’ stares, the gossips chattering in the shade of small courtyards; Hélène did not fail to point out that he had no issue with his “reputation” when it came to politics, even though his positions there were more dissonant than a simple smoke lit on the street). She liked the houses’ pale whitewash and the sea, always present, unmistakable; she liked the pastries that people in the neighborhood offered her during Ramadan; she liked the Casbah’s tortuous, rickety backstreets and its peppers, fish, citrus fruits, and severed sheep heads; she liked the archways in downtown Algiers and the Grande Poste’s white elegance; she liked its harbor bristling with masts and piers, the gray swells of the Mediterranean; she liked the uprooted palm tree in their neighborhood, where passersby gathered to talk or relax; she also liked the kid, despite never learning his name, who asked for her hand one morning while she was going to the cobbler; she liked hearing that unknown Arabic tongue pour from windows, markets, cafés, rolling and billowing like cloth in dark mouths; she liked the interactions and collisions of a city between two worlds, Haussmann-style buildings and Moorish mosques, the strange face-to-face of colors and cultures.
What she did not like, however, was the daily arrogance she detected—or rather witnessed, since nothing was or is hidden—in the Europeans’ dealings with the Muslims (she soon observed the verbal inventiveness humans can employ to describe those they do not wish to see amongst them: crouilles, ratons, melons, bicots, bougnoules). She was still amazed, months later, that seats in trolleybuses were never given up to Muslim women traveling with children. She also disliked the omnipotence of men, often Arab men, and their domination of public spaces (a presence that was never discussed or mentioned, as though it were normal, not to say “natural,” to exclude women from the conversational arena—but in unspoken fashion, which perhaps made it more violent still, in that it was perfectly accepted and assimilated by all).
Fernand wanted her to stay at home, to enjoy the apartment and her new life, but she had other ideas. There was no reason she shouldn’t be working and she was quick, soon after her arrival, to find a job—a couple, the husband an engineer, needed a maid. Jean-Claude came that summer, after finishing the school year in Seine-et-Marne. The change proved to be more difficult for the fourteenyear-old (who, if he thought well of Fernand, still could not bring himself to address him informally, as tu, to the latter’s disappointment). He missed his friends. And quieter streets.
Hélène’s family was at first somewhat baffled by the news. The famous “traite des Blanches,” as the supposed traffic and forced prostitution of white women was known, was thought to be rampant in Arab lands. It scared her mother for a while, until all the family grew used to the idea of her living in Algeria, and even began to see the whole thing as a novel adventure. A bit of a thrill. Mystery and exoticism. Enough to keep the neighbors supplied with anecdotes, and so not without a certain pride.
We have just sent a letter to Guy Mollet, says Nordmann, protesting the tortures
you suffered. You must now press charges on your own account. It’s important for the case. I’ll write it, you’ll only have to sign. It’ll be simpler that way, I’ll send it to you. Fernand thanks him: he approves, of course. I don’t know if you’ve heard (no, Fernand has not heard), but Djilali has been arrested. Shit, the prisoner blurts. And Jacqueline? Likewise. She confirmed that you didn’t intend to kill anyone. Djilali’s been transferred here, by the way, but I don’t know where they put him. Maybe you’ll pass each other in the yard … Fernand asks if he was tortured. Highly surprising if he wasn’t, they beat up everything they can get their hands on. Fernand relates that the prison chaplain visits him regularly, and he enjoys their conversations. Those who believed in heaven and those who didn’t, Nordmann murmurs. Sorry? It’s a line from Aragon. Never read him. You should, his poetry is beautiful. I got to know him during the Occupation: one day I was instructed to give him some papers, which I concealed in my underwear, rolled up inside the seams. It was in Nice, a little house in the old part of Nice. I ring the bell, Elsa—his wife—opens. And there’s Aragon. He had a luminous gaze. He’d heard nothing from the Party for months. Fernand interrupts, with apologies, to ask what those papers contained. Testimonies on hostage executions …
Tomorrow They Won't Dare to Murder Us Page 8
