by Don Swaim
The best part was that no one knew I spoke German, so they blabbed freely around me.
Glockner, who regarded me as an object of his amusement, made a point of kicking my ass on a daily basis, sometimes hourly. In the military, a private was the lowest of the low, but Glockner boasted something even lower. Me. To toady up to his sergeant, a brute named Fiedler, Otto began sharing me with him.
One day as I polished their boots, I listened to them prattling, oblivious of my worthless presence.
“Sarge, when are we getting out of this shithole?” Glockner asked Fiedler. “This ain’t no place for Waffen-SS. Why are we even here? We’re like security guards. It’s time we got back to our original division saw some action.”
“You’re about to get your wish, private, but if you say a fucking word to anyone I’ll see to it you’ll be eating scheisse the rest of your lousy military career. I ain’t supposed to know this, but I do my own poking around in the colonel’s office while he’s out getting laid. Rommel’s assembling an Afrika Korps, and our unit is joining a Panzer division to bail out the guineas. We’re about to ship out to Cyrenaica as part of a big, new offensive in February against the Brits.”
“Where the hell is Cyrenaica?”
“You better start boning up on Libya, you flachwichser.”
Word of an impending offensive in North Africa was worth gold to the Allies. Rommel’s planned intervention in Libya may have been ominous, but identifying his ETA was why God made spies.
Hyde, my contact, and I arranged cloak-and-dagger meetings on a palm-shaded bench near a fountain in Le Jardin d’Essai du Hamma in the Mohamed Belouizdad district, and this was one of the best pieces of intel I was able to give him.
I was almost going to miss not having Otto Glockner to kick me around anymore.
Meanwhile, in my pose as Stephen P. Swan of Nemosys Technologies of Dallas—offices in Tulsa and Baton Rouge—I made an appointment to see Félix Brosseau, chief executive officer of Travers Poissonnier, Ltd., an oil and gas consortium.
Brosseau was a Pied-Noir, by inclination more French than Algerian, but he spoke unblemished English, the result of four years at MIT.
“Do you know Boston, Mr. Swan?”
“Like the back of my hand. I could write the book on Roxbury.”
Boston was an old stomping ground, and I once worked in Dorchester with a pair of IRA gunrunners, nice guys actually, although a little too fond of their Guinness.
Brosseau happened to be a Red Sox fan. This led to a rigorous debate regarding the BoSox versus the Yanks, although my heart was secretly with the Wichita Oilers, 1930 Western League champs—until they defected to Muskogee.
Then we got down to business.
“Word travels fast, Mr. Swan. How did you learn about our natural gas strike in Hassi R’Mel? I didn’t know the news had reached America.”
“When you come right down to it, the oil and gas industry is clannish, and there aren’t a lot of secrets. Nemosys Technologies gets in on the ground floor wherever pipelines and valves are needed.”
I gave him my pitch, even though Nemosys existed only on paper and a dummy phone line, ostensibly to Dallas, but actually maintained discreetly by the gals at Mrs. Prunella Mayhem’s Accurate Answering Service.
“Nemosys manufactures a complete line of high- and low-pressure valves such as balls, plugs, butterflies, and gates.” Blah, blah, blah. “Depending on the hydrocarbon product and pressure requirements, our products are an excellent choice to route high pressure natural gas.” Blah, blah, blah. “We recommend expanding gate-type actuators for mainline pipeline block valves and top/bottom support ball valves in compressor stations.” Blah, blah, blah.”
It sounded like I knew what the hell I was talking about, and Brosseau seemed to be impressed.
“Mr. Swan, we believe there are petroleum assets in the Sahara just waiting to be tapped, though no doubt the war will slow development.”
“Have any other, ah, parties shown interest in your find at Hassi R’Mel?”
“As a matter of fact, we’ve been approached by a representative of Siverdt Trossingen Systems of Munich, Germany. A Herr Matts.”
Bingo.
Another score for Hyde.
Félix Brosseau invited me to a reception in the Abd al-Qadir Room of the Saint George, where I met any number of Germans including the consul, the Wehrmacht military attaché, a banker from Stuttgart, and Jan Matts, the man from Siverdt Trossingen.
I wasted no time in talking them up.
“America is officially nonaligned,” I assured them, “and the our Congress has passed no fewer than four neutrality acts. President Roosevelt guarantees that Americans will never fight on European soil. Pigs will fly before that happens.”
Everyone knew it was a lie, and that the pigs would fly sooner than later. But all went along with the charade.
I slipped to the bar to replenish my gin rickey as Berber musicians performing taghanimt, nafir, ginbri, and tabl entertained with native songs and dances.
I felt a tap on my shoulder.
“Tokol?” A woman’s voice.
Turning, I saw Gazala Lazaar, whom I had known in Algiers in, shall I say, a variety of ways—pre-Diana. She was wearing a stunning karakou with a velvet jacket embroidered with gold threads and sequins, and a long skirt trimmed with lace. Gazala had lost neither her youth nor her penchant for traditional Algerian attire.
“I’m afraid you’re mistaken, ma’am. My name’s Stephen P. Swan from Dallas, Texas. Married, two daughters.”
“I’d know you anywhere, Tokol, even though it’s been years. Don’t you remember me? Gazala. Those nights we spent on Rue de l’Abreuvoir in the Third District? I still live there on the same floor with the same, romantic view.”
“Miss Gazala, I assure you—”
“Lazaar. Gazala’s my first name. But you know that, Tokol, don’t you?”
“Ma’am, I’m in Algiers on business. I’ve never been in this city before.”
“I’d recognize your face with my eyes closed. You’re hard to forget.”
“Lots of people look alike, Miss Lazaar.”
“Tokol, the baby wasn’t yours.”
“I have no idea what you’re talking about, ma’am. Please excuse me…”
“We need to speak.”
“You’re mistaken.”
“Tokol, I can’t believe that I—”
“I must go, ma’am.”
“Are you staying here at the Saint George?”
“Sorry.”
Awkwardly, I managed to shrink from the crowded room, presumably unobserved. Damn. Gazala nearly compromised me. She was as enticing as ever, but I’d need to go out of my way to avoid her in the future.
Did she say baby?
Gazala aside, I forged ahead, wining and dining my new acquaintances, the most accessible being Jan Matts of Siverdt Trossingen Oil, ostensibly a friendly competitor. For a German, he proved to be a decent boozing companion, a consummate fan of Marlene Dietrich, the films of Ernst Lubitsch, Lotte Lenya singing Kurt Weill, and the guitar of Django Reinhardt. But best was finding out from Matts about a new German pipeline under construction in Tobruk.
Mornings, afternoons, and sometimes at night, I performed my usual scullery duties at the Nazi Consulate, accepting Private Glockner’s abuse with a humility worthy of Gandhi. Then the fateful day came when Otto confronted me near the ash heap.
“al-Abdoo, you butthole, get over here. I got news for you.”
“Indeed, effendi, anything, effendi.”
“You’re out of here as of right now. Our detachment of Waffen SS, which shouldn’t be here in the first place, ships out in the morning, and the consulate don’t want you around no more—or any other of your kind.”
“But, effendi, surely…”
“So scram the fuck out. You stick your camel snoot in here again and you’ll be shot on sight. But, say, I’ll drink a stein in your honor tonight when me and my pals celebrate our leaving.
Now, schnell, you sand monkey.”
I was sacked. Just like that after weeks of gathering worthy intel while enduring Glockner’s pitiless indignities. But all was not lost. Since I was now persona non grata at the consulate, I decided to give Otto a farewell gift.
What the hell did I have to lose now?
He and his pals gathered for a farewell fete at Brauhaus Veronika on Place Bugeaud, the only German café in Algiers. Through the front window I, dressed in my usual peasant duds, watched them ingurgitating thirstily while singing off-key their German drinking songs. Weißt nicht wie gut ich dir bin / Ja, ja, ja, ja, weißt nicht wie gut ich dir bin. Fortuitously, as I was plotting how to separate Glockner from his chums, he emerged to take a piss in the empty alley.
“Achtung!” I shouted, before he had a chance to button his fly.
His shoulders stiffened in the Pavlovian way of all good Germans. One thing about the Krauts, rarely was there an order they didn’t obey.
“Glockner, ihre Schubladen fallen. Schnell!”
He was about to comply and drop his drawers, but stopped when he observed me in the shadows, my face only partially hidden, by design.
“al-Abdoo,” he said, “is that you, you damned camel jacker?”
“Do as I say, private.”
“Naw, can’t be al-Abdoo. He’s a stupid, ignorant raghead that don’t speak no German.”
“Nein, dummkopf.”
I withdrew a seventeenth-century, single-edge nimcha from the scabbard affixed to my waist, and flourished it like a corsair. It was a gorgeous twenty-one inch saber of fine steel engraved with sun, moon, and stars, with a hilt composed of tortoiseshell and mother of pearl. Instead of merely slicing through the belt of Private Glockner, as it managed in a flash, the sword properly belonged to a museum of antiquities. In fact, it did. Borrowed precisely for this ceremonial occasion from the Musée National des Antiquités on Boulevard Krim Belkacem.
“What the hell?” Glockner said, with his trousers bunched down around his ankles.
“Now your tunic, Otto.”
“You can’t make me—”
Woosh, went the sword as it slashed through the upper layer of his clothes. He tried to run, but with the trousers enclosing his shoes he tripped, pitched forward, and fell face down on the piss-soaked cobblestones. His fat ass was such a tantalizing target, I couldn’t help but jab him in the rear, just enough to make it count.
“Eeyow,” he cried. “Don’t you know I’m a member of the Waffen—”
I interrupted him with a number of healthy thwacks with the flat side of the blade, and a few more pricks in the shape of a swastika, just for fun, enough to bring a little decorative blood to the surface.
“Why are you doing this?” Glockner moaned, then began bawling like a kleinkind.
“You’re a fine example of the master race, Otto. If Sergeant Fiedler only could see you… Hmmm. Maybe he will.”
I was tempted to send Glockner to wherever Nazis went when they left this sphere, one less Heinie to whack on the battlefield, but it was too easy so I spared him.
“Stand up, Otto. Make sure everything’s off. Every stitch. Yeah, shoes and socks too.”
At nimcha point, I marched him, naked, bleeding, sniveling, and humiliated to the busy street, paraded him around a bit, then prodded him back into the restaurant, where the sight of his reeking chassis brought a halt to the rambunctious drinking ditty his buddies were singing.
“So lange, sauger,” I called, as I disappeared into the sidewalk crowds.
Looking back, I saw Glockner’s pals led by Sergeant Fiedler pour from the restaurant into the street looking for me, but I was way ahead of them.
As I returned to the Casbah, I observed Humphrey Bogart and John Huston drunkenly weaving out of a saloon on Rue d’Isly. I’d never run into Bogie, but I knew John through his father Walter. I first met Walter backstage after a performance of Weill’s Knickerbocker Holiday at the Barrymore in which he played Peter Stuyvesant. Son John proved to be a real hell raiser.
But I didn’t dare identity myself, particularly in peasant garb and carrying a sword.
I heard John say, “I don’t give a damn what you claim, Bogie. God’s not dead, he’s drunk.”
“Yeah, me too. I never should have switched from scotch to martinis.”
“Say, I forget. Where are we? Algiers or Casablanca?”
“I dunno. It’s all Africa, isn’t it?”
The Casbah sprawled mazelike on a hillside sloping toward the Mediterranean, since the sixteenth century an unfathomable jungle of earthen brick, stucco, stone, and wooden abodes, punctuated by the occasional telephone or electric wire, quarters for tens of thousands of Muslims. The rooftops and terraces constituted a second precinct, where people lived, died, worshipped, mated, built their fires, and hung their laundry.
After my morning ablutions, I left my cave to walk the twisting alleys to the tiny shop where I regularly stood drinking coffee with the thickness of mud and eating almond cakes drenched in honey. I heard a clamor from outside, and when I peeked out I saw gendarmes and uniformed Nazis swaggering arrogantly, shoving people around in the narrow street, congested with vendors, shoppers, loafers, tadghtita pipers, beggars, even a few souls with real places to go.
“Do you know what’s going on?” I asked the sullen shopkeeper.
“The Sûreté Nationale likes to bully us while posturing for the Nazis.”
“Any reason in particular?”
“Seems some béni-oui-oui thrashed a German enlisted man last night in an alley on Place Bugeaud. The gendarmerie were here before dawn searching for the bugger. They’ve put up a reward and wanted posters.” He looked at me suspiciously. “Say, the sketch of the hooligan in the poster looks a lot like, well, you. Indeed, very, very much like you.”
I had thought I looked a lot like nobody, and now I was a béni-oui-oui, a Muslim collaborator with the colonials.
He said, “Humble people like us in the Casbah do not need trouble with the Germans or the French.”
I threw down a couple of coins to pay for my coffee and cake.
I was beginning to believe the Casbah was no longer safe for me.
Eluding the gendarmes, I switched to my other guise and returned to my room at the Hotel Saint George, only to find that someone had broken in. The place was a shambles, my bag rifled, papers strewn about, the mattress slashed open. It was not a simple burglary. Whoever got in was looking for something, although I had left nothing revealing, only my Hart Schaffner & Marx suit, labels removed, in the closet.
Clearly, I had been found out.
But by whom?
I met Hyde at our usual bench in Le Jardin d’Essai du Hamma.
Under the shade of the date palms, he said, “The information you’ve given us has been first rate, Tokol, and we’ve even been in touch with that young Camus fellow in Lyon. But clearly you’ve been compromised. And your intemperate attack on some Nazi private in an alley on Place Bugeaud last night didn’t help.”
“It wasn’t intemperate, Henry. They booted me out of the consulate, so effectively my work there was done. I couldn’t go back. Besides, the Kraut had it coming.”
“Clearly, your cover as a Dallas businessman has been prejudiced as well.”
“That’s a different story. Someone gave me away.”
“Any suspicions?”
“It might have been a German pipeline guy I met at a reception at the Saint George, Jan Matts. Since we’re both interested in Travers Poissonnier’s business, the break-in could have had something to do with that. Then again it could be Félix Brosseau himself. He studied in America. Still…”
“A good spy suspects everyone.”
“Maybe I got too close.”
“Tokol, it’s obvious your usefulness here has come to an end, and it’s no longer safe for you.”
“You’re kicking me out.”
“For your own good. I’ve been in touch by shortwave with your fiancée, Miss Dryad, and s
he’s waiting for you in London. A Navy Boeing 314 Clipper will fly you from Algiers, so you need to report to the pier at dawn tomorrow. Until then you should remain in your hotel room. We’ll post a man outside.”
“Forget the protection, Henry. There’s someone I have to see. If she agrees.”
“I can’t guarantee your safety.”
“If you can’t, who can?”
“Precisely.”
Back at the hotel, I phoned Gazala Lazaar.
“Somehow I knew you’d call, Tokol.”
“I think I should explain myself before I leave.”
“Yes, you should.”
“Shall we meet at your place?”
“That wouldn’t be a good idea right now. I have certain, ah, commitments. Do you know the Hayreddin Barbarossa Hotel on Rue de Constantine?”
“Yes, it’s across from the park.”
“I’ll meet you there at three in the garden café.”
Despite Hyde’s fears, I was my usual cautious self. If the Nazis had my number, no doubt they’d try to trail me, which might compromise Gazala, and God knew I’d pained her enough. But I had lots of experience giving bad guys the shake, and in this instance I rode in no fewer than three hacks taking an excursive route. Regardless of the heat, I wore my worsted with my roscoe strapped in an ankle holster.
Despite a name dating to antiquity, the Hayreddin Barbarossa was a colonial hotel with the usual French touches. Its garden, visible from the street, was shaded by palms and cork oak, and adorned with lavender, malope, and paperwhite. Gazala, looking elegant in a cloche hat, sat alone at a table smoking a cigarette in a long holder. Only a few other tables were occupied, mostly by women of a certain age. It appeared safe.
I glided into the chair across the table from her.
“You’re late. Just like the Tokol I remember.”
She smiled, but it was impossible to tell if the expression was genuine or not. Gazala was sometimes inscrutable.
