The Guillotine Choice

by Michael J Malone

  Arab merely looked Hadj Yahia over, his expression full of scorn. His face read of his contempt for the once powerful ruler of his family.

  ‘Look at you. You are… nothing. A weak man. An embarrassment to this family. Why did we ever think you could make decisions for us?’

  * * *

  At this time, Arab continued working his land, playing the part of the impoverished farmer, with no sign of wealth in his family. He knew that the minute he spent one sous of the stolen money he would be marched to the steps of the guillotine. So he was prepared to wait. Once matters had died down he could slowly start to spend the money. He would become a man of importance in the region. A man to be reckoned with. In the meantime he would keep his powder dry and wait. He would leave the money in a safe place and control his greed.

  There was, however, one thing out of his control and that was the wagging tongues of gossips. No one in the area thought for a minute that Kaci was guilty of such a crime. They all knew that the murdered Frenchman had been a real friend to the young man, and Kaci had impressed everyone with his strength of character. As for Ali, the gossips sang, he was a weak man. Far too pretty by far. No, the real culprit was sure to be Arab. The whispers grew. People spoke behind their hands. Many eyes tracked his movements through the surrounding area. Fingers pointed, but Arab would show them all. He had committed the perfect crime and he would get away with it.

  After a couple of weeks, he was sure that the storm of gossip had passed and he visited Maillot during a market day. While doing his shopping he noticed people looking at him and pointing. He gritted his teeth and carried on. He would not be bowed by the small minds of these people. Then he overheard someone speak.

  ‘Here is the killer.’

  Arab flew into a rage. Through the mist of his fury he identified the man who spoke and launched himself at him. People scattered. Stalls were overturned. Voices were raised. Arab was oblivious to it all. He kicked and punched his victim, completely unmindful of the damage he was doing. Men tried to intervene and were punched and kicked in turn. No one could stop him. He was always a strong man but the fear of his discovery had built in him to such an extent that now he had an outlet for it, he was like an enraged bull. The gendarmes in the vicinity were called and a rifle butt to the back of his head rendered him unconscious.

  His victim, a man by the name of Chuma, was taken to hospital where he spent a couple of days in recovery. On his release, he pressed charges. He was furious that a man such as Arab would publicly beat him. Usually, the French were reluctant to use their valuable time on prosecuting violence between the indigènes, but for once, the authorities were happy to listen. They were aware who Arab was and his connection to the men already in jail for the murder of Samson.

  Arab was arrested, convicted and sentenced to three months in prison at Bouira.

  * * *

  In prison he was reunited with his brother. Ali had never been a strong man, but Arab was astonished nonetheless at the change a few weeks in prison had made to his brother. This was still not enough for Arab to relent and inform the French of his culpability in the Samson murder. He would keep his mouth shut, keep his head down and get through his sentence.

  ELEVEN

  A Hiding Place

  The sunshine was relentless. The exercise yard was fully in its glare. In some prisons time spent out in the fresh air was a reward for good behaviour. In Bouira prison it was part of the punishment. The walls were so high there was no breeze and the yard was sited to take the full force of the North African sunshine. Guards patrolled the high walls, rifles lazily slung across their shoulders.

  Prisoners gathered in clumps within the confines of the white walls. Listless under the heat, the two brothers crouched in a corner. Such was Arab’s reputation that the other prisoners largely left them to their own devices. In only a few weeks he had beaten up several of them to ensure his position in the prison pecking order.

  ‘You have to let them know who’s boss,’ was how he explained his actions to Ali after he had aimed a kick at the backside of a local man called Ramzi. ‘The law of the jungle,’ he added with a self-satisfied smile when Ramzi picked himself up and walked away.

  Ali simply nodded, knowing that his brother took pleasure in violence. He didn’t do it to cement his position. He did it because he could. He did it because he enjoyed hurting others.

  ‘Brother, this is hot. Thanks be to Allah I have only three more weeks,’ said Arab.

  ‘You have three weeks. I have the rest of my life, brother,’ Ali answered him, colouring the title ‘brother’ with the bile of bitterness.

  Arab refused to rise to the bait. He simply sucked on his teeth and stared his younger brother out.

  Ali was resolute. His gaze remained fixed on Arab.

  ‘How many times do we have to have this conversation?’ asked Arab. ‘Do you think me insane that I would tell the truth? I have no wish to face the blade.’

  ‘You murdered a man. It is no more than you deserve.’

  ‘And yet, here you are.’

  Ali shoved his face into Arab’s. ‘Do you feel no guilt, brother?’

  Arab shrugged and with little effort pushed his brother away. ‘The strong survive.’ He shrugged. ‘There is no other way.’

  * * *

  The next day Ali continued his campaign.

  ‘Arab, you have to help me,’ begged Ali. ‘I have done nothing. I am an innocent man.’

  ‘There is nothing I have to do, brother. Except breathe and eat. Making more children would also be nice.’ He grinned.

  ‘Something I’ll never be able to do again, thanks to you, brother,’ Ali said and then spat at his brother’s feet.

  Arab rounded on Ali, his infamous temper getting the better of him once again. He pinned him to the wall with one hand, while pressing the knuckles of his other hand against Ali’s jaw.

  ‘If you weren’t my brother…’ he growled.

  ‘What? You’d what? What else could you possibly do to someone not of your own flesh that could be worse than what you have done to me?’ Ali sobbed.

  Just then another inmate walked past them.

  ‘I thought you Saoudis were too close to fight,’ he joked.

  ‘What do you want, Boudjemaa?’ asked Arab. Boudjemaa was a small, handsome light-skinned man, who lived just outside Maillot. He had been locked up for public drunkenness and was due to be released in just a few days.

  Boudjemaa looked pointedly upwards at the guards who were now looking down at them, no doubt attracted by the rough voices and Arab’s barely stifled anger.

  Both brothers thanked Boudjemaa silently with a smile, who walked away with one hand scratching his head, while the other scratched his arse.

  ‘Your anger is in the wrong place, Ali.’ Arab’s anger dissipated after Boudjemaa’s intervention and he relented at the sight of his weeping sibling. ‘It is not me who brought you here.’

  There was silence and then both brothers said the same name at the same time.

  ‘Minouche.’

  A plan started to gel in their minds. The money was safely hidden, Arab was adamant that nothing would make him give it back. However, it had come in a leather satchel engraved with the name of the hydro-electric company.

  ‘What might the authorities think if that was found close to someone else’s home?’ Arab thought aloud.

  ‘What if that someone else was someone the French had used to investigate the murder?’ Ali continued his line of thought.

  Again, they both repeated the same name at the same time.

  ‘Minouche.’

  ‘They would see that you couldn’t possibly be the killer and set you free,’ Arab cheered and thumped his brother on the back.

  * * *

  To put their plan into place, Arab had to get in touch with his wife. Permitted visits were rare and, besides, a lone female couldn’t travel the distance from Maillot to Bouira. A letter would be the best way to get in touch, but neither Arab
nor Ali could write, and they had no idea at that time where Kaci was.

  Given that most of the inmates were illiterate, anyone with an education became a very important person in Algeria’s prisons. Word went out that Arab required a writer. One was located and given the job of noting down Arab’s instructions. The letter detailed that an important item was hidden in a field and that it needed to be moved. A location was suggested. One that would do the most damage to the Minouche family.

  Now that the letter was written, the next task was to get it safely into the hands of his wife. To get the letter out of prison, they needed someone who was due for release.

  ‘Of course,’ said Ali. ‘Boudjemaa is ideal. He is getting out next week and he lives nearby. It would only be a short detour for him to safely pass on the letter.’

  Boudjemaa was approached at the next exercise session. It was decided that Ali would ask him, given that no one in the whole establishment had a good word to say about Arab.

  The soon-to-be-released Boudjemaa was no fool. He may have been unable to read but it was clear from both Arab and Ali’s body language that this was more than an ordinary letter. He himself was a repeat offender and a frequent visitor to the Algerian prison system. Both of his sons had died during a famine some years previously and his subsequent anger was turned inwards. An anger that he tried to drown repeatedly with as much wine as he could get his hands on. A habit that, unfortunately, kept getting him locked up.

  A drunken sot he may have been, but he was no idiot. Smuggling a letter out of prison could get him into more trouble than he had ever been in his life. Before he agreed to do this he told the Saoudi brothers that he needed time to think it through.

  He thought about it out loud, to the man who slept in the bunk above him, Ramzi. Unfortunately for the success of the plan, this was a man who had been beaten by Arab on too many occasions, and he was ripe for revenge. Ramzi grasped the opportunity he had just been offered by his fellow prisoner.

  ‘What harm could it do?’ he said to Boudjemaa while his mind worked out how he could best take advantage of this situation. ‘A simple letter to his wife. What man doesn’t want to pour out his heart to the woman he loves?’

  ‘Ach, you are right, Ramzi. I am like an old woman. Worrying about nothing.’

  The next day, Boudjemaa told the brothers that in the interests of keeping romance alive, he would happily pass on the letter.

  At that very moment Ramzi was seeking an audience with the prison warden. He had heard the gossip that flowed around Arab. He was a murderer. He had killed at least five Frenchmen and he had hidden a king’s ransom of gold in the mountains. Ramzi knew how gossip grew but he was prepared to believe that some of this was based on fact and, if that was the case, the authorities might be prepared to extend leniency to a man who helped the cause of the French. He guessed that this letter might allow him to curry favour with the prison authorities if it proved to be as important as he thought.

  The next morning, the hapless Boudjemaa prepared himself for the search he knew would happen before he was released to his freedom. He had considered the best place to hide the letter about his person and decided upon his chewing tobacco holder. Surely the guards wouldn’t think to look inside there?

  Boudjemaa was duly stopped just before the prison gates and subjected to his search. An experienced inmate, he knew to simply stand still as a lump of stone and to allow the guards to do their job. It became apparent quickly however that this was no ordinary search. They’d never been quite so thorough with him before. With a sinking heart he watched as they went through every item on his person. The last thing they looked at was his tobacco holder, where they discovered the letter folded and tucked away inside.

  * * *

  The authorities wasted no time. A huge convoy of gendarmes swooped down on Maillot, where they picked up a few Algerian collaborators before continuing toward Boufanzar in the mountains.

  When they arrived at the house, they pushed the front door and entered the courtyard. It was early morning and the family was just rousing for the day. They were shocked to find themselves invaded by all these men in uniforms carrying guns on their shoulders.

  In a frightening replay of the day of the murder, the family were lined up against a wall and one of the collaborators was told to explain why they were there.

  ‘We have found a letter addressed to your cousin Arab’s wife. In this letter he tells her to hide a certain bag. A bag that held the money stolen from the murdered Frenchman.’

  Gasps sounded along the wall. Then there was silence. Then everyone clamoured to be heard.

  ‘Ridiculous.’

  ‘What crazy talk is that?’

  ‘Silence,’ the captain of the troops roared above them all, brandishing a rifle above his head. ‘We have a letter…’ As he spoke he was looking at his colleagues with his hand out, asking for one of them to give him the damning evidence.

  They all looked at each other, each expecting the other to reach into a pocket and furnish their captain with the missing item. No one moved.

  All of the Saoudis looked at each other and stifled smiles behind sleeves.

  Clenching his teeth against his administration and its laughable inefficiency, the captain ordered silence once again. Needing to save face, he was about to tear a strip out of his youngest officer when someone remembered that the bag was hidden in a place that started with the name ‘Alma’.

  So the captain of the gendarmes ordered the family to tell them all of the places nearby that began with ‘Alma’. Despite the seriousness of the situation, the family again bit down on their smiles. The family allowed that it was not the fault of the stupid French that they did not know that alma in Berber means ‘green field’. There were many such places throughout the country. It became something of a game as people shouted out place names that began with a green field.

  Eventually someone mentioned ‘Alma Boughni’. The soldiers recognised this name instantly and demanded to be taken there.

  Once they arrived they spread their forces across the area and started searching. The family was made to stay indoors. After a couple of hours without results, the person in charge ordered reinforcements by calling Moroccan workers from the dam. They were duly shipped in and in the middle of the afternoon someone eventually shouted, ‘I found it.’ The bag was pulled out from under the earth, dusted down and identified.

  With this evidence in their hands, Arab was now officially known to be involved in the crime. However, they still did not know which of the three men in custody fired the fatal shot.

  TWELVE

  A Father’s Desperation

  Hadj Yahia came to know the route from Maillot to the prison in Bouira like he knew the lines of trees in his olive groves; like he knew the land around his home. He had built this land up over decades, buying as much as he could afford to keep it away from the Pieds-Noirs.

  Following Kaci’s arrest he was thankful for his vision on this issue, for now he had something to sell that he could use to finance his son’s legal defence. His son’s freedom was now more important to him than his name on the title for a parcel of earth. Piece by piece he began to sell the land in order to afford a French lawyer. He knew that his son was innocent and he would simply not accept that he could lose him.

  However, the French lawyer was prohibitively expensive and his land and his money began to run out. In desperation he then turned his mind to the money Arab had stolen from the French. There would surely be a certain irony in using this money in the defence of his kin.

  He wasted no time and walked over to Arab’s house and approached his wife, Saadia. As he walked he wondered what situation he would find her in. If she looked well fed and as if she was prospering, his suspicions would be aroused immediately. He then berated himself for being so naive. Surely she would be slow to spend any of the money so as not to alert the powers that be? No matter, he told himself, whatever the situation he had no other choice. Money was running o
ut. He needed to find the stolen francs.

  He found Saadia crouched in the yard in front of the house. She was on her knees mending a threadbare gandora, looking every inch the destitute wife of a suspected criminal. He immediately felt sorry for his suspicions and vowed to take a more gentle tone.

  ‘I need the money, Saadia.’ He stood over her. His sympathy for her plight withered before the storm of his fear for his son.

  She looked up at him and squinted into the sun.

  ‘Do I look like I have money, Uncle?’

  ‘You must know where your husband hid the money.’

  ‘He never told me,’ she replied, casting her eyes to the ground at Hadj Yahia’s feet. ‘I am merely his wife. Arab only tells me what he thinks I need to know.’

  ‘You expect me to believe that?’ Anger added weight to his words.

  ‘Surely you can hear the truth in them? Arab is a difficult man, Uncle.’ As Saadia spoke her voice cracked with emotion. ‘But as a good wife I know my duty.’

  Hadj Yahia looked around himself. He was at a loss as to what to say next. Always a confident man, the plight his family was now in had robbed him of the certainty that tailored his previous actions. Here at his feet was a woman of his family whose husband faced a terrible punishment. This was no crime of hers. And now that she was a woman on her own she was reliant on the other male relatives to provide for her. Life in Algeria was difficult, but for a lone female it was impossible.

  His eyes roamed the land around the house. It actually looked well tended. Her sons must be good workers. There were a couple of cattle down by the stream that ran through their land, along with some goats and sheep. He counted them. He couldn’t be sure, but he was surprised that Arab had quite so many.

  He looked down again at Saadia who, aware of his scrutiny, had her eyes fixed on the cloth in her hands. Could she be lying to him, he wondered. Was this all an act? Then her eyes met his briefly and he could read shame and sorrow in them. Shame that she was reduced to such a state that she was trying to repair a garment which should by rights be thrown out. Sorrow that she was now a woman on her own in a male-dominated society.