Autumn, All the Cats Return

by Philippe Georget

  “The OAS strikes when it wants, where it wants.”

  CHAPTER 6

  Gilles Sebag was waiting in the double-parked car while his partner bought a supply of cigarettes at the tobacconist’s shop. The passersby were walking with their heads down because of the wind; the tramontane was making an angry return after a few days of rest.

  Molina dived into the car and tried to close the door, but a gust beat him to it and slammed the door in his face.

  “I almost had a work-related accident,” he complained.

  “People always say that tobacco is dangerous,” Sebag replied mockingly.

  “I know, but I can’t stop. At my age, I think it’s too late.”

  “No, you aren’t going to change now. We’re going to arrive late because of the detour that you’ve just forced us to make.”

  Sebag started the engine and drove off. He continued to tease his partner until Molina finally interrupted him:

  “Turn left, it’s here. Rue Joseph Jaume. I have a feeling we’re going to spend some time in this neighborhood.”

  The offices of the Pied-Noir Circle were in a small house with a garden, located across the street from the entrance to the Moulin-à-Vent quarter. Constructed in the early 1960s on the heights above Perpignan, this neighborhood of white apartment buildings with red tile roofs had quite naturally taken in many of the French returning from Algeria. And even if the Pieds-Noirs had later moved all over the region, many of them still lived in the Moulin-à-Vent quarter or around it. Bernard Martinez’s apartment was only three hundred meters from the offices of the Circle.

  Guy Albouker had white hair and a beard of the same color. He received them with a smile. Sebag found him astonishingly young despite his snowy hair and the heavy bags under his eyes. The president of the Circle asked them to follow him down a narrow hall that led to what must originally have been a living room but now more resembled a conference room. Looking out on a little garden, the room was furnished chiefly with a few tables and chairs.

  “During the Circle’s first few years, we had our offices in a building across the way,” Albouker explained. “But when we saw that this house was for sale, we took advantage of the opportunity. This place is larger, and, especially important, there’s a garden. Once a month we make couscous and when the weather is good, it’s nice to eat outdoors.”

  Albouker’s voice was warm and pleasant, and had a slight accent. Only a few drawling stresses on certain syllables betrayed his origins.

  “For us, conviviality remains the main thing. Even so far away from our country.”

  This way of putting it struck Sebag. Albouker had spoken of “his country” as though it had not disappeared more than fifty years before. He refrained from pointing that out. It wouldn’t have been a good way of opening the conversation.

  “Jean-Pierre!”

  Sebag jumped.

  “Jean-Pierre!” Albouker shouted again before turning back to the policemen. “My treasurer lives upstairs. He was finally able to get away. I insisted on it; he knows Bernard much better than I do. They belong to the same generation.”

  The policemen sat down. Guy Albouker introduced the man who had just come in.

  “Jean-Pierre Mercier.”

  The treasurer of the Pied-Noir Circle stared at them for a long time before going to sit down at the other end of the room. His austere physique and his grave eyes conveyed no warmth, but the policemen were used to being received coolly. Albouker sat in the middle, with his back to the French window. An awkward silence followed for a few seconds. Sebag put down the little notebook in which he wrote his observations regarding the current investigation. He took out a ballpoint pen and clicked it. For Molina, that was the signal to open the discussion.

  “As I told you on the phone last night, Bernard Martinez was found dead in his apartment. He had been murdered.”

  The two men nodded soberly. Albouker gestured toward the local newspaper lying on a corner of the table. A short article reported the macabre discovery, but made no allusion to the OAS. By common agreement the police superintendent and the prosecutor had not yet told the press about the inscription found at the victim’s apartment.

  “Today we’re pursuing routine questioning of people who knew Mr. Martinez, in order to draw up a portrait of him that is as precise as possible. Have you known him a long time?”

  Albouker and Mercier glanced at each other. The president of the Circle answered first:

  “So far as I’m concerned, five or six years, I think.”

  “I’ve known him for about fifteen years,” the treasurer added. “He joined our association when he came to live in Moulin-à-Vent.”

  “Did you know him . . . well?”

  “I can’t say that,” Albouker replied. “For a Pied-Noir, he was rather discreet and reserved.”

  “He was in fact rather shy,” Mercier explained, “but in a small group he was more expansive. I’ve often been either his partner or his opponent in games of pétanque, and he could be a grumbler and even a very bad loser.”

  “What did you know about his life?”

  “What he was willing to tell us,” the treasurer replied. “For thirty-five years, he lived in Terrats, where he owned a vineyard, but despite all his efforts he never really managed to live off it. I think that was very hard on him. He’d come back from Algeria with a little nest egg he’d saved, an inheritance, I think, and he’d invested it all in the vineyard. He lost everything.”

  Sebag took notes while Molina conducted the interview. He often looked up to observe their interlocutors.

  “Had he never married?” Molina asked.

  “No.”

  “Why?”

  “We never talked about it.”

  “You didn’t?”

  “We were probably not close enough. And then we belong to a generation that does not easily discuss such personal matters.”

  “He had a woman friend, I think?”

  “Josette Vidal, yes. She used to have a tobacconist’s shop in the neighborhood, on the Ramblas du Vallespir. She lost her husband ten years ago. She’s been seeing Bernard for a couple of years. But they seldom went out together, they were very independent. And then Mme Vidal is not a Pied-Noir, and Bernard always came to our meetings alone.”

  “Had you noticed a change in Mr. Martinez’s behavior lately? Did he seem worried, for instance?”

  Albouker and Mercier glanced at each other again, then shook their heads.

  “Did he have any enemies that you know of?”

  The two men seemed surprised, almost shocked.

  “Do you think he might have had some?” said Albouker. That would surprise me: he was really a very ordinary fellow.”

  “Frankly, apart from a few pétanque players annoyed by some of his remarks, I can’t think of any,” Mercier confirmed.

  The treasurer of the Circle was beginning to relax. Sebag put down his pen and decided to participate in order to guide the discussion.

  “Did he often talk about Algeria?”

  “Very often,” Albouker immediately replied.

  His eyes narrowed, making the bags underneath look even bigger. Then a broad smile came to his lips. He added:

  “Very often, yes, but perhaps a little less than most of us.”

  “And what did he say?”

  The question seemed to surprise them.

  “Nothing special,” Albouker said. “He talked about memories of his childhood, his youth, he talked about the country. Nostalgia is very strong among us, you know. And very often, the older one gets, the more intense it becomes. We’ve all retained a love for our country.”

  He struck his breast with the flat of his hand.

  “It’s still alive here,” he added melodramatically. “And so long as we have a breath of life, it will continue to live.”


  His face closed on his sorrow. Only the corners of his mouth trembled. Sebag had the feeling that the president of the association was having a hard time holding back tears. He was astonished. Albouker noticed.

  “Today, there are two things that still bind our community together,” the president said after he got a grip on himself. “The first is our love for this lost country. The second is the incomprehension and even the hostility of other French people when they see that this love is still intact.”

  Sebag felt that Albouker had seen through him, and did not try to hide it. Nonetheless, he continued.

  “I’d like you to give us some more details. Do you know what kind of work he did in Algeria?”

  “He worked in his father’s hardware store in Algiers, in the Bab-El-Oued quarter,” Mercier answered. “But he had studied viticulture to some extent. That was already his passion.”

  “He couldn’t stay in Algiers if he wanted to do that,” Molina remarked.

  “He’d found a job with a colonist in the interior, but his father wanted him to come back and help him in his shop. His only employee had been killed in an FLN attack. A bomb at the Casino de la Corniche, in June, 1957.”

  Mercier’s voice vibrated under the effect of a rancor that was still trying to find a way to express itself.

  “Ten people died and about a hundred were wounded. All of them young people who’d gone there to dance and have fun.”

  Sebag seized the opportunity.

  “What did Bernard Martinez think about the FLN’s attacks?”

  The two men seemed surprised again.

  “He thought as we all do,” Mercier replied tartly. “That you had to be a coward to put bombs in public places and kill innocent people that way!”

  “And what was his opinion regarding the independence of Algeria?”

  “There, too, he thought what all the French of Algeria think. That independence was a stupid mistake and that nobody had the right to make us leave the country where we were born, the country that our parents and grandparents had constructed and made prosperous . . . ”

  Sebag sensed that Albouker had more reservations. He asked him his opinion.

  “Some Pieds-Noirs were more moderate than others, however. In my family, for example, everyone belonged to the SFIO.3 We thought the system wasn’t perfect but that it could evolve. We were prepared to accept a certain number of reforms and concessions so that Algeria could remain French. The war destroyed all our hopes. When guns and bombs speak, only the extremists can still make their voices heard.”

  “And was Bernard Martinez one of those extremists at that time?”

  “At that time and still today,” Albouker sighed. “He continued to talk in a way that was very . . . uncompromising.”

  Mercier approved vigorously. Sebag decided it was time to bring up the main question.

  “Did Martinez ever talk to you about the OAS?”

  Albouker and Mercier looked at each other. They suddenly seemed wary,

  “May I ask what that question means?” Albouker retorted.

  Sebag played dumb.

  “My question has no particular meaning. I think it’s rather clear. But I can make it more direct: In your opinion, what did Martinez think about the OAS?”

  “Is that question really of interest for your investigation?”

  Albouker appeared indignant. Sebag tried to reassure him.

  “It really is of interest, yes. And I don’t understand why this question annoys you.”

  “It annoys me because for the past half-century too many French people conflate Pieds-Noirs with the OAS. According to them, if you were born in Algeria, you’re necessarily in favor of the OAS and the extreme right. And we were necessarily rich colonists who were exploiting the Arabs. For people like me, who come, as I told you, from leftist families, I find that insulting.”

  “I understand, Mr. Albouker,” Sebag said, trying to calm him. “My question wasn’t general in nature, but specific. I can’t tell you anything at the moment, but I need to know whether you think Martinez might have had ties to the OAS.”

  “Do you mean that there might be a connection between that organization and Bernard’s death?” Mercier asked with concern.

  Sebag did not reply; instead he leaned back in his chair. Molina understood and took over the questioning again:

  “We have to respect the secrecy of the investigation. All we can say is that we are exploring all possible hypotheses. So I’ll ask you our question again: so far as you know, did Bernard Martinez have ties to the OAS?”

  “I don’t know a goddamn thing about it!” Albouker exploded. “We don’t talk much about that among us, you know.”

  “So what do you talk about at your meetings?”

  “Politically, we have our demands. They focus mainly on compensations. Some of us had to give up everything over there. Even if we weren’t all big landowners, we still had some property that we couldn’t fit into our suitcases: an apartment, a house, a few pieces of furniture, sometimes a business . . . ”

  “And also tombs,” Mercier added under his breath.

  Since he seemed not to want to say more, Albouker tried to explain:

  “Our ancestors are buried over there, in cemeteries that have been abandoned. We’d like to be able to maintain them; that’s one of our demands.”

  The president of the Circle paused before continuing:

  “But the goal of our association is not merely to obtain satisfaction on that point, it is also a meeting place for the French of Algeria, a place of memory and the preservation of our culture. During our events, we talk more about cooking than about politics. We exchange memories, reminisce about common friends, and many other things as well. We talk a lot, we talk loudly, we give our accents free rein and let our pataouète come out.”

  “Your pata-what?” Molina asked in surprise.

  The pataouète! It’s our own patois. A mixture of various Mediterranean languages and patois from French regions. It emerged in the suburbs of Algiers and in the interior. People don’t realize that the majority of Pieds-Noirs were not originally French. Some of them came from Spain, Italy, Switzerland, and even Germany. And then there were quite a lot of Maltese. Today, the pataouète still testifies to all these contributions.”

  Sebag thought all this was pleasant but not to the point. He decided to reframe the conversation. He turned to the treasurer.

  “We still have only touched on the question, and I’d like to have your opinion, Mr. Mercier, regarding Bernard Martinez’s feelings about the OAS.”

  The treasurer grimaced. Apparently he’d thought he’d escaped the question and that had suited him fine.

  “You want to know if Bernard was a member at the time, is that it?”

  “For example.”

  Mercier reflected. Visibly, he was trying to weigh each of his words carefully.

  “Frankly, I can’t say for sure that Bernard belonged to the OAS . . . but based on what I recall of the way he talked and what he said, I think it’s not impossible.”

  “What did he say, and how did he talk?”

  Mercier let out a long breath.

  “I don’t remember any particular discussion, but my general feeling is that he must have been pretty close to those ideas back then, yes.”

  He gestured vaguely toward the president.

  “But with the exception of a few families, most of the Pieds-Noirs felt close to the OAS. Even if we didn’t approve of everything it did, we supported it. It was the only movement that defended our ideas. But . . . how should I put it? Our support was mainly verbal, as we gathered around a bottle of anisette and a kémia . . . ”

  “A kémia?” Molina asked.

  “It’s the equivalent of your tapas,” Albouker translated.

  Sebag was afraid that the conversation
would go off track again. Fortunately, Mercier continued his explanations.

  “Among us, there was always more palaver than action, and that’s probably why we lost the war. However, Bernard spoke differently about the OAS, but without overdoing it, on the contrary, keeping his distance. And he remained fervently anti-Gaullist.”

  “Did he tell you anything in that regard?”

  Sebag had let Jacques take over again.

  “His anti-Gaullism was such a gut-level thing that it came out in any political discussion.”

  “What about the OAS? Did he confide anything to you about that?”

  “No, never.”

  There was a long silence. Molina seemed to have run out of questions, and he kept turning to look at his partner. Sebag was thinking. He was reluctant to reveal the reasons for their interest in the OAS. But Perpignan was a small city, and everything always ended up coming out. Very quickly. So why not?

  In the end, he didn’t see what divulging this information would contribute to their conversation, so he decided to respect the superintendent’s instructions regarding discretion. He scribbled a few more words in his notebook and then looked up and asked:

  “Anything else you’d like to say?”

  His two interlocutors glanced at one another once again before shaking their heads.

  “Fine.”

  Sebag closed his notebook and put his pen back in his jacket pocket. Molina stood up. Sebag and Albouker did the same. Jean-Pierre Mercier remained sitting, pensive.

  “Gentlemen, I’ll walk you out,” the president suggested.

  On the threshold, the three men shook hands. Sebag had one last question to ask, a question that had been bothering him from the outset but which he hadn’t brought up, because it had no connection with the investigation.

  “May I ask how old you are?” he blurted out.

  “I’m fifty-five,” Albouker said sadly and then, anticipating the next question, added: “When my parents left Algeria in 1962, I was six years old. I have very few real memories of my native country, but that doesn’t change anything. In our association, you will find many Pieds-Noirs who were born here in France. They are not necessarily the least passionate, you know, because Algeria is not merely a homeland, the idealized country of our family roots . . . Algeria, our Algeria, is first of all a disease, a cancer, a plague.”