SIX
The Possibility of Threat
Nicolas and Francois raced alongside his horse as Kaci made his way back home after an evening meal with the Samsons.
‘When are you coming back, Kaci?’ Nicolas’ small face was turned up to catch Kaci’s answer. He was the more serious of the two boys.
‘When he feels like it, stupid,’ François answered on Kaci’s behalf, and aimed a punch at his brother’s shoulder. Which was difficult to do when they were both running alongside a walking horse.
‘As soon as I can,’ answered Kaci. ‘Now go back to the house before my horse runs over you both.’ He turned in his saddle and waved back at the house where the boys’ parents were standing at the doorway of their home watching him ride away. They both waved as if their arms were linked to the same brain signal. Kaci wouldn’t have been surprised if they were. Rarely had he seen such a devoted couple.
‘Will you bring Finette the next time?’ Nicolas stopped running and shouted after him. François, pleased that his brother gave up before him, kept running for several more paces before he too stopped.
‘I’ll try,’ answered Kaci. The truth was that it was not always possible to bring his dog with him, but he knew how fascinated the boys were with her, so evasion was easier on them than the truth.
Soon the boys were only a dot in the distance behind him and he was close to home. He was already anticipating the looks of pleasure on the faces of his family when he shared out the goodies that the Samsons had given him.
Every day he blessed Allah for bringing them into his life. They gave him and his family access to many things that most other Algerians could only dream of during these harsh times.
He was sure that Ali or Arab would be at the house when he got there. The Saoudi mountain home was not out of bounds to them as was the house in Maillot. And here, Kaci could share his newfound wealth without his father’s disapproval, while he worked to calm his cousins down and to bring them back into the family fold.
Just as he expected, Arab was hunched by the door as if he’d been waiting there for hours.
‘Hello, cousin,’ Arab greeted him, teeth flashing in the gloom.
Kaci jumped off the horse, ignored the dog that was clamouring for his attention and pressed a package into his cousin’s hand.
‘What’s this?’ Arab asked while pulling at the brown paper. ‘Butter.’
Was it Kaci’s imagination or did Arab sound disappointed? Most people would have loved the opportunity to have some French butter with their bread.
‘Should I give it to someone else?’ asked Kaci, holding out his hand as if to retrieve it.
‘Oh, no, no, no.’ Arab carefully wrapped the package up. He looked at Kaci. ‘Although another kind of golden material might be more welcome.’
Kaci tethered the horse to a tree and ruffled the ears of his dog. What could Arab be talking about? The man talked in riddles sometimes.
‘Friday is the day you take the gold up to the Moroccans, eh?’ Arab was pulling at his moustache.
‘What of it?’ asked Kaci. In his mind he was already discounting the idea of Arab attempting to steal any of the money.
‘Who knows? Maybe one day I’ll be there to take it off your Frenchman’s hands.’
SEVEN
Gunfire in the Djurdjura
On Saturday 2nd July, 1927, Kaci strode off to work with a huge smile on his face. Even the sun shone brighter this morning, as if sharing in his joy. He was going to be a father.
His own father had woken him that morning.
‘Time to go to work, Mohand,’ he said. Knuckling sleep from his eyes, Kaci joined his father at the fresh water barrel at the side of the squat building.
‘Arab was up and about early this morning,’ Hadj Yahia said as he splashed water over his face.
‘Mmm,’ replied Kaci, struggling to clear his mind of the fog of sleep.
‘He must be giving the fig trees some dokar.’ Hadj Yahia was referring to the Berber practice that was used to encourage a better harvest. It had to be done before the sun rises. There was something about the cool breeze of the pre-dawn that made the treatment more effective.
Before leaving Kaci returned to his wife to kiss her goodbye. His marriage at first had not been promising. He didn’t take to her. She was too dark. She didn’t talk enough. She talked too much. But now he realised that the enforced change in his lifestyle caused this and he simply had to learn to adjust to the fact that he was a married man.
He gave her the nickname of ‘Senegal’. Dark one. And before long he began to court her smiles. Smiles that would flavour his mind as he made his way up the mountain in the morning. His mind conjured up the image of her face and his own response surprised him. He was in love.
That morning he had held her smiling face in his hands and kissed her nose. ‘You have made me the happiest man in the world.’
‘I will give you such a son that will make you burst with pride,’ she whispered. Then she cast her eyes to the floor. Pride was a shameful thing in Islam, but perhaps her whispers would not carry to the ears of the djinns that wait to pray on such a careless utterance.
Kaci judged her reaction to her own words and felt his heart swell. Poor thing. He didn’t want to leave her side. He could stay here with her and watch as she worked with the other women.
Of course this was impossible. The women would laugh at him. They’d throw comments suggesting that she had hidden his manhood under her pillow. Then there was Samson. It was Saturday. He needed Kaci to ride with him down the mountain.
With a long sigh, he had kissed his wife one more time and with the sensation of her lips pressing against his committed to memory, he left for his day’s work.
* * *
As he walked, a shadow formed in a recess of Kaci’s mind. As the morning grew around him, so did the shadow. The sights and sounds he knew so well from coming this way each morning seemed muted. Even the birds were silent. What was happening? Just moments ago he had been the happiest he had ever been in his life. Was he worrying that it might all be taken away from him? It was not the lot of his countrymen to find such happiness in their life, was he about to pay a price for his own?
He gave himself a mental shake. He was thinking like an old woman. He was a fortunate man. Allah was smiling on him and nothing could go wrong.
Still, the sense of foreboding continued as he moved on his way to the rendezvous point with Samson. He joined one of the numerous footpaths that criss-crossed the mountain, walking west until he reached the main road, where he continued north for one kilometre.
Arab’s voice sounded in his mind. So strong was it that he looked about himself, convinced that his cousin was at his side. Of course, he was alone. If this is what happens when you find love then you can forget it. There was nothing to worry about. Nothing.
Arab’s voice persisted. Each night when Kaci returned home he’d change into his more comfortable Berber robes and join the men by the big tree. There they’d chat over the large and little things of life while watching the sky changing from blue ozone to red then to black with billions of stars shining like beacons, as if lighting the way to the possibility of a better life.
Each night Arab would find a way to bring the conversation round to the gold that paid the Moroccans.
‘This should be our money, so it really wouldn’t count as theft.’
‘How much did you say these men are paid each week?’
‘It is an insult to the memory of our ancestors that this work goes on each week.’
Just that previous night Arab became more daring than he had ever been.
‘I can shoot you in the leg and make it look like a robbery. And then I’ll share the money with you.’
Until that moment Kaci had dismissed Arab’s talk. He was an angry man who needed to point to other people’s failings to cover his own. He needed to make as much noise about others as he could to make himself feel better. This talk of theft and viol
ence was simply an extension of that.
Surely even Arab wouldn’t consider stealing from the French? And to throw in the threat of violence? There was only one way that could end. At the guillotine.
Confused and stunned by the outburst, Kaci fell quiet and ignored him.
‘I will kill the Frenchman and you will have to throw me the bags if you want to live,’ Arab added.
‘Enough.’ Kaci jumped to his feet. ‘Samson has been good to this family. You will not harm a hair on his head.’
‘Allah be praised,’ laughed Arab as he stood up. ‘The pup has teeth.’
‘And these teeth will tear out your heart if you harm my friend,’ Kaci countered, hoping that no one else could hear his heart hammering at his ribs. He stared down his cousin, knowing that if he looked away it would be seen as a weakness.
Arab merely smiled. ‘Maybe the pup will have to die, too.’
Ali laughed from his corner of the carpet. ‘No one will die, you miserable pair of jackals.’ He called them both such an obscene and improbable insult that everyone laughed and the tension was immediately lifted.
His father had been visiting the mountain home that day to look over his cattle and he had caught the end of the conversation as he came back from his fields. He took Kaci to the side before everyone prepared for sleep.
‘Mohand, please be careful,’ he said. Kaci knew things were serious when his father called him Mohand.
‘It is fine, Father,’ Kaci answered, placing his hand on his father’s shoulder. ‘Arab tells a fine story, but he is nothing but a desert wind. Hot air.’
‘And when a desert wind blows it destroys all in its path,’ his father countered. ‘I might have agreed with you recently. But there is something about his behaviour that has me worried.’ He paused. His eyes under the bush of his brows were creased with worry. ‘Be careful, son.’
Kaci brushed his father’s warning aside, murmuring, ‘I know what I am doing, Dad. And Arab wouldn’t dare.’
* * *
Kaci arrived at the offices around 5am. Samson greeted him with a strong, black coffee.
‘Here,’ he smiled, ‘this will set you up for the day.’
‘Thanks,’ grinned Kaci and accepted the cup. His grin withered as his mind returned to the mood that had grown on him the further he had walked from his house.
‘Everything okay?’ asked Samson.
‘Yes.’ Kaci gave himself a mental shake and thrust some energy into his answer. ‘Bien sûr.’ Then he considered what his friend’s response might be when he told him his good news. The grin returned to his face in full force.
‘That’s better,’ said Samson. He tilted his head to the left in that way Kaci noticed he did when something had occurred to him. ‘What?’ asked the Frenchman.
‘What do you mean… what?’ asked Kaci, wanting to draw the moment out.
‘Your smile. There was something big. No…’ He thought for a moment. ‘Something profound behind it.’
Kaci thought his face was about to split in two if his smile was to grow any bigger. He looked at his friend, puffed out his chest and told him.
‘I am going to be a father.’
Samson whooped with delight. He punched Kaci’s arm and then drew him into a bearhug.
‘Fantastic news, my young friend. This is fantastic news.’
Kaci warmed to the Frenchman’s enthusiasm for his news and compared it to his father’s. Hadj Yahia had simply nodded and patted his son on the shoulder. Children were a boon to the Algerians, particularly if it was a healthy boy, but they were also an added pressure. Due to the complete lack of healthcare, mothers and children regularly died during pregnancy and childbirth. As had happened to Kaci’s mother. Hadj Yahia could no longer see the glint of promise without it being dulled by the fog of threat.
The Frenchman, by comparison, had simply been caught up in the wonder of the news. In his privileged position, news of progeny was a time to celebrate; time to consider the joy of children and of a brighter future.
‘Let’s leave the horse this morning,’ said Samson. ‘A father-to-be needs to build up his fitness if he is to chase a son over these hills.’
Kaci nodded his agreement and hefted a pannier of coin over his shoulder. It was heavy, worth the equivalent of 38,559 French francs. A sum that could keep his family in food for years, but it could have been rocks he was carrying for all he considered it.
Their conversation filled the air as they walked. Samson was full of the possibilities of a future Algeria where Kaci’s sons and his sons would play together, grow together and then as adults work together to bring prosperity to all. Kaci, who was almost fifteen years younger, could only smile at the naivety of his boss. As pleasing as the notion was, he was more tuned in to the chasm that lay between the two races. It would take more than a group of childhood friends to heal that.
Soon, they settled into a companionable silence. The sun was bright, its heat softened by the breeze this high up. There was not another human within miles of them and the only sound apart from their breathing and the crunch of their footsteps on the scree under-foot was the occasional call of a bird.
They were about half a kilometre from the dam offices when a loud noise broke the deep silence. The echo of this sound seemed to bounce across the mountains. Kaci’s brain was trying to relay the information to him. Confused, he followed the echo, trying to work out what had caused a noise that seemed to go on forever. His mind then separated the noise from the gasp that sounded behind him. A gasp and a grunt that sounded mere seconds after the gunfire.
Gunfire.
He turned just as Samson collapsed to the ground clutching his chest.
A gun. The noise was gunshot. Kaci instinctively fell to a crouch in order to make a smaller target. The gold. That was the real target.
Samson.
Unmindful of the gold, he threw it from his shoulder and went to his friend.
Scrambling to his knees, he placed Samson’s head on his lap.
‘Don’t die,’ he ordered. ‘I’ll get help. Please don’t die.’ Raising his voice he shouted for help. Surely the report from the gun would reach the dam offices and the workers’ camp. Surely people would come running to investigate.
‘Help me!’ he screamed against the echo of the gunfire that still rang in his ears.
Blood from his friend’s wound was soaking his trousers and his hands. There was so much blood. How could a body contain so much?
Only then did he realise that he himself might be in danger.
He sensed movement behind him. A shadow was moving quickly from one bush to the next as it moved closer to the bag of money. The man was dressed in black, his face covered with rags. Only a pair of eyes were visible. All it took was one glance and Kaci knew who was responsible.
Arab.
‘What have you done?’ he screamed. ‘What have you done?’ The response of the French would be rapid and brutal. They would not stop until the perpetrators were caught and punished.
He should go. He should run.
Now.
If the police caught him like this, drenched in the blood of a Frenchman, they would march him straight up the steps of the guillotine. He’d never see his father, or his brothers, or Hana Addidi again. Or his wife.
His son. He’d never see his son.
He should run. Run for miles and never stop, but his legs betrayed him. They didn’t move. Couldn’t move. Trapped under the weight of his dying friend.
How could he talk of running while his friend’s blood was draining from his veins? Samson’s eyes fluttered open.
‘Don’t die, Samson,’ Kaci wept. ‘You have everything to live for. You have two strong sons.’
‘What… will happen… to my boys, Kaci?’ Samson struggled to speak.
The anguish from his friend was palpable. He was near death, yet he was mourning the loss of seeing his sons grow into their futures.
‘Ssssh,’ Kaci spoke through his tears. ‘Don
’t talk of these things. You will live to see your boys grow up to be strong men.’
Just then Arab reached the bag and lifted it on to his shoulder. With a look of hate, he glanced at Kaci and the dying Frenchman and then turned and ran into the bushes.
‘What have you done?’ Kaci screamed as the figure quickly grew smaller in the distance. ‘What have you done?’
Samson coughed and looked up at Kaci.
‘You know him, don’t you?’ he asked, his voice weak with pain.
‘I… I…’ Kaci didn’t know how to answer. ‘Help. Help,’ he shouted, fighting to distract Samson from an answer he could never give.
The look of betrayal that formed in his friend’s face was more than he could bear. He continued to shout himself hoarse rather than face it.
EIGHT
Under Guard
The sound of the gun and Kaci’s calls for help attracted people from nearby and some co-workers carried Samson back to the offices and called the authorities. When the gendarmes arrived on the scene they found the Frenchman still had a pulse.
While they tended to Samson’s wounds as best they could, preparing to take him down the mountain to the hospital, they argued among themselves.
‘We should just make him as comfortable as we can,’ said one. ‘His wounds are too great.’
‘Nonsense,’ said another. ‘He’s as tough as old boots. He’ll be fine.’
While they argued, a pair of them stood over Kaci, their rifles aimed at his head. They had already decided on his guilt. He was an indigène. He was present when a Frenchman’s blood had been spilled. His guilt was as evident as the blood that stained his trousers.
The Guillotine Choice Page 5
