Ian St James Compendium - Volume 1

by Ian St. James

  Then in '65 I was in London and I met a girl at a cocktail party. She was a TV producer, documentaries and current affairs stuff, a high-powered go-go type, who had arrived at the top without turning butch the way some do. Anyway, she was doing a series on the Middle East and asked me to do the background stuff for her. Big fat fee and all the trimmings. So I left the paper and turned freelance. After the first series we knocked out another one, then a third and by then I was rolling in it. I even began to think about settling down. After all, I was forty-two and had been batting round the world almost non-stop for nineteen years. And the girl and I worked so well together that one thing led to another and the following year we were married.

  Farida and Suzy came over for the wedding and stayed on in London for a holiday. Suzy was eighteen then, and it was time we started to think of a career for her. But she had worked it out for herself and her mind was already set on what she wanted to do. International law of all things. Still, why not? There was money in it and by then she had added Russian to her list of languages, so what with Arabic and the others she was halfway there. Four years at the Sorbonne she said, and I said okay. Elaine - my brand new wife - was a bit snotty about upping Suzy's allowance, but then Elaine got snotty about spending a penny if it wasn't tax deductible.

  Suzy started at the Sorbonne in '67. France was totally different from the France of today. All that Algerian agony and trembling on the brink of civil war, governments in and out like bad actors playing auditions, and De Gaulle doing his Moses coming down from the Mount bit. And it got worse. Riots, strikes, demonstrations, Jacques Soustelle and his lot. All leading up to the student riots in '68. And when they broke out, I grabbed a camera crew and caught the first flight to Orly. The opening weeks were chaos. I really thought France was done for, it seemed that close to civil war. Then De Gaulle put riot squads on every street corner and began to get a grip.

  Anyway, it was the third week. The black flags of anarchy and the hammer and sickle hung from every window in Paris, and the air shook with the scream of police sirens. We were at Quai des Orfevres and all hell had broken out. The students had ripped the paving stones up from the road and were forcing the police back, yard by yard, toward the entrance to the Prefecture. The Gendarmerie had brought up a couple of water cannons, but somehow the kids had got at the water supply and rendered them useless. And the mob were keeping up such a solid bombardment that the flics were virtually trapped behind their own riot shields. Then a company of mobiles arrived and mounted a counter-charge. We were filming from the top of a truck at this stage. Two of my cameramen had been hit by stray bricks, so I was shooting with one of those old Pathe 350s and shouting twenty to the dozen into a tape recorder strapped to my chest. The noise was deafening, the kids screaming and cat-calling, the police bellowing back over loudspeakers, stones and bricks bouncing everywhere and glass smashing as a car had its windows hacked out.

  I was trying to keep the camera on Danny the Red - Cohn-Bendit - and his crowd - because they were the leaders and would be at the centre of any police counter-attack. One moment I had the shot I wanted and in the next the crowd would surge forward and I would lose it again. And then I saw Suzy. It sounds crazy now, but never once had I expected to see her there. Of course, she was at the Sorbonne and I had thought of her, but only in the sense of her studies being interrupted. I had never suspected her of even being interested in politics, let alone imagined that she would be involved. Yet there she was, in the thick of it, four or five away from Cohn-Bendit himself, with one arm linked to the person next to her and the other curved like a javelin thrower's to hurl a stone. Then a squad of Compagnie Republicaine de Securite arrived and the battle was joined in earnest. The CRS charged in a flying V formation with the leaders making straight for Cohn-Bendit, while the men at the sides scythed away furiously with riot clubs. A dozen kids went down with split heads before the CRS regrouped. Then a second terrible charge was mounted and another dozen demonstrators were felled, but this time the squad dragged a kid back with them - two of them frogmarching him backwards, while others tried to stop his feet from lashing out all over the place.

  Suzy was close to the action then, and I had her in focus. I saw her face when they got this kid's feet under control. Suddenly she knew what they were going to do to him. A horrible certainty of what would come next showed itself in her expression. And I think I knew too. By this time the kid was spreadeagled, with his legs splayed so far apart they damn near split him like a chicken. Then the club smashed down into his groin and Suzy was back at the camp watching Idris being mutilated. Her mouth opened in a scream, veins in her throat knotted like rip cords and her eyes bulged in horror. It was as if something snapped inside her brain. She threw herself at men twice her size. Somehow she got her fingers inside one man's protective visor and the next instant his face was streaked with blood. Then the world fell apart as the clubs descended over her head and shoulders. I was down from the truck and running as fast as I could by now, but the crowd blocked me. They panicked, flooding back toward me like a tidal wave as the CRS men launched another strike. Then tear gas canisters started to land everywhere and the rout was complete.

  The next few days were a nightmare. The riot squads had taken Suzy somewhere but finding her - getting access to her - was impossible. France was shaken to the core. Graffiti daubed every wall and Marcuse's theory about violence being justified for oppressed minorities blazed across Paris in letters six feet high. A state of emergency was declared and the police reacted with a security clampdown as tight as a locked safe. I tried every trick in the book to get at Suzy, but to no avail. In the end I hired a battery of lawyers to help raise hell around the corridors of power, but even with them it was tough going. It took a week to reach her.

  "Hello, Harry."

  She sat on the other side of a bare table in a cell at the St. Antoine Prison, her hands neatly folded in front of her. The rough grey prison dress was a size too large for her and somehow it added a touch of childishness to her appearance. But there was nothing childlike about her expression. One glance was enough to dispel any notion of vulnerability. Or even of innocence. Her dark eyes were calm and assured, completely without fear and strangely knowing. Suzy was nineteen years old and seemed to have grown up overnight.

  "We'll soon have you out of here," I said as cheerfully as possible. "I'm sorry it took me so long—"

  "Don't apologise. You're always doing it. Did you know that? Every time you come to see us you say how sorry you are that you don't visit more often."

  "Oh."

  Her calmness astonished me. I had expected tears, hysteria perhaps, relief at seeing me, fear of her surroundings, all sorts of things. Instead I found something approaching serenity. Her attitude made me nervous and I fumbled for words.

  "I didn't realise."

  "How's Mama?"

  "Worried sick about you of course - but she's okay."

  "I'm glad you didn't bring her to this place."

  "I didn't know if I'd be able to see you myself. I waited hours upstairs and—"

  "It's difficult. It's because they're afraid."

  "Afraid?"

  She nodded. "Afraid of us, of what we represent. What we stand for and what we'll do when we get out of here."

  "I hadn't realised - about you being interested in politics."

  "No."

  I think that shook me most of all, the way she said "no." Such a flat, unemotional voice. Not reproachful, just indifferent.

  I said, "I've hired some lawyers, Suzy. They'll be in to see you tomorrow. They'll want a statement, of course. I've already said you were provoked and—"

  "Yes, a statement would be good," her mouth tightened in a way which gave a spiteful expression to her face. "But not about what happened at the Quai des Orfevres."

  I wondered if she was suffering from shock. "Suzy, I don't understand?"

  "About being raped."

  I thought she meant figuratively - the rape of freedom t
hat kind of thing, the extravagant language of the protest marchers. She spoke with such detachment. But then she added, "The pigs raped all the girls."

  "Oh Christ! Suzy, no!"

  She looked right through me. "It's not uncommon. But all the same we ought to issue a statement about it."

  "Suzy, for God's sake!"

  "Six times. Twice in the van and four times at St. Germain before they shipped us here."

  "The police raped you?"

  If she hadn't been so clinical I might have understood more readily, might have accepted more easily what she said, but her manner confused me. I said, "Can you prove it?"

  She half smiled. "After a week? Can you disprove it?"

  "We need an immediate doctor's report. I'll see the lawyers—"

  "After a week,"she repeated, still half smiling. "Why do you think they kept you away so long?"

  We were interrupted by the prison warder who declared the meeting finished. I protested of course and only gave in when I obtained a promise of being allowed to visit again tomorrow. After which I went directly to the lawyers.

  The following day we obtained statements from Suzy and two other girls, all alleging multiple rape. Some of it was a bit vague, but descriptions were given of some of the policemen involved and the lawyers seemed halfway satisfied.

  The case made headlines three weeks later. The girls were all good-lookers and there was enough evidence of police brutality elsewhere in Paris for some credibility to be attached to accusations of rape. But on the third day of the trial an especially fierce outburst of cross-examination trapped the youngest girl into first changing her story and then admitting it was a pack of lies designed to discredit the CRS. Suzy maintained that the girl had changed her story as a result of police intimidation. Then she embarked upon a bitter denunciation of the police in general and of the conditions of their confinement in particular. But the damage was done and the allegations were rejected.

  I went through an hour of misery as I listened to the closing speeches, half expecting Suzy to be sent to prison for at least six months. But in the end the court was lenient and decided that the time already spent in custody was penalty enough, so the girls were released. They posed for cameramen on the court steps and Suzy made a statement bitingly critical of the entire judiciary, declaring the proceedings no more than a whitewash job for the CRS. At the time I didn't know what to make of it, still don't I suppose; there were moments when I believed every word she said, but other times when I doubted the truth of it. Her attitude was so changed that it was difficult to recognise her as the same girl. Farida was heartbroken when we got Suzy home. Neither of us could get through to her. She was polite enough, but as unresponsive as granite. I wanted her to go away for a while, Farida too, to England or almost anywhere for a holiday, but Suzy refused, saying she had too much to do in Paris. And' "too much to do" turned out to mean attending endless meetings in cafes and bars and on street corners.

  By this time I had been in Paris for almost two months. My work schedule was in tatters and the TV crowd were on my back screaming about breach of contract and God knows what else. They were especially adamant about one engagement. I had promised to leave for Algeria with a film crew at the end of the month and the TV people were insistent that I go. I hated like hell to leave Paris. Farida was coping as best she could, but Suzy was still behaving in this strangely disturbed fashion, cool and remote about anything not connected with politics. Some of the Algerian dissidents had linked up with the Palestinians and Suzy had joined that crowd, so that after that she was forever talking about the refugees and the sins of Israel. Farida and I were even blamed for taking her away from the camp in Lebanon, as if it had been some kind of desirable finishing school. But in the end I could delay my departure no longer and after making sure Farida was okay for cash, I left for London to join up with the TV crew.

  Algeria was like a bad horror movie. Too much death, too much torture, too much corruption and barbarity. The only good thing which came out of the trip was that I found myself again. Making money and a settled way of life were all very well, but London had been slowly stifling me. It was too far away from the real action and the TV thing involved too much team work for my taste. I was used to working alone, digging up my own stories, sniffing out the kind of news officials were trying to hush up. Being met with a scowl was something I could live with, whereas being met with open arms unsettled me. Arriving with a TV crew too often meant scripted interviews with the bite taken out of the questions I would have liked to ask, so that the finished product was too often a plug for some politician instead of a report on what was really happening. Perhaps it was just that I had been doing my own thing for too long. Whatever it was, something convinced me to kick the London deal in the head and go back on the paper - if they would have me.

  Back in Paris Suzy was making her own headlines. She had become something of a cult figure in the protest movement and hardly a day passed without some mention of her appearing in France-Soir or Paris Match or another of the French papers. She was good-looking and sincere and articulate, which makes good copy for any newsman, and she was giving almost daily press conferences at the apartment in the Rue Mouffetard. Even in Algiers her name and face were widely recognised, which was another aspect of the whole affair which filled me with misgivings. Notoriety attracts all sorts, and from Farida's letters I gathered that she and Suzy could hardly get through the front door each morning for the crush of hangers-on who laid siege to the place. It made me anxious to get back to Paris in the vague hope of being able to do something about it - though do what was never precisely defined in my mind. I just felt uneasy, as if some impending disaster was growing increasingly imminent and that my presence in Paris might somehow avert it. In the event I got back a day too late. Negib Katoul had called before me.

  Between tears Farida told me about it. "Suzy went out with him in the morning and when she came home she knew everything. Everything Harry - that I'm not really her mother! About Haleem dying in childbirth. Even about Deir Yassin!"

  She rocked back and forth in the chair, hugging herself, tears streaming down her face. "What could I say to her? She's more to me than my own child - she's my life! What else is there for me? What have I lived for since they took poor Idris away?"

  I made her swallow some cognac and did what I could to comfort her, but she was almost hysterical. "Harry, I can't reach her any more. I've tried to explain, but she won't listen. All she wants to know about is politics, politics, politics! France, Algeria, Israel and Palestine - what do I know about these things? What does she know? Except for what her friends tell her. Friends! They'll bring her nothing but grief and disgrace - I've told her, I've warned her a dozen times that—"

  "Where is she now?"

  "Who knows? Once I knew where she was every minute of the day. But now?"

  It took me an hour to calm Farida before I left in search of Suzy. It was mid-afternoon and Paris throbbed with the heat of an unending summer, so empty of breeze that dust settled in layers on the chestnut leaves along the Avenue de L'Observatoire. I worked my way through the rabbit warren of streets and alleyways which make up the Latin Quarter and along the Boulevard Montparnasse, checking the bars and cafes as I went. Paris was still a frightened city. Police klaxons screamed, newspaper placards shouted headlines about Big Charlie's latest crisis measures, graffiti still adorned the walls and pavements. Whenever I saw a cafe full of students rather than tourists I would stop and ask where I might find Suzy Muhair - but if they knew they weren't telling, at least they weren't telling me. Twice I telephoned Farida in case Suzy had returned home, but I knew even as I made the calls what the answer would be.

  It was almost eight o'clock when I found her. She was in one of those little cafes in Saint-Germain-des-Pres, not far from the Palais Bourbon. There was a crowd of students with her, mostly French, but sprinkled with Germans and a few Algerians. About twenty of them had shoved three tables together and were arguing in loud
excited voices. Next to them two old men were trying to finish a game of chess, while in a far corner a middle-aged Englishman explained his wife's shortcomings to a girl half his age.

  I took a table along one wall and disappeared behind a copy of L'Express. Even if they had lowered their voices I would have heard most of it. Lots of chat about the Algerian war with excited references to Palestine and the rest of the Middle East. There were plenty of Maoist remedies spiced up with the teachings of Che and Herbert Marcuse, with proper respect being accorded to Cohn-Bendit and Red Rudi Dutschke. Marcuse had preached that the revolution would be led by the students, and I wondered if he would be proved right, especially when all the heady talk of personal freedom prompted the girl in the corner to remove the Englishman's hand from under her skirts.

  Suzy saw me half an hour later. I was spreading some over-ripe brie on a crust of bread and thinking about another bottle of Algerian, when the sudden hush in their conversation made me look up. Suzy was watching me, her face white with fury. For a second she just stared, then rose so violently that her chair fell over as she started across to my table.

  "Who gave you the right to spy on me?"

  "Suzy?" I pretended surprise. "Suzy, how marvellous. I didn't know you used this place?"

  It was enough to make her hesitate, and by then I was pulling a chair out for her to join me. She sat down without even thinking.

  "You know this place?"

  "Come here whenever I'm in Paris. Discovered it years ago. Ask the patron - he'll tell you."

  The patron stood at the kitchen door, his eyes moving quickly to the crowd of students who watched me with open hostility. You could see what they were thinking - someone was causing their girl trouble, and any minute now they were going to take a hand in the matter, which meant a fight and broken furniture - and maybe the police and more broken furniture. The patron shrugged and flicked some bread crumbs from a tablecloth. He turned away - maybe he knew me, maybe he didn't, a man like him serves many customers.