The Guillotine Choice

by Michael J Malone

  ‘They are well and they send their love. So do not worry about them.’ He stopped speaking and searched his son’s eyes. Mohand was in the process of popping another piece of lamb into his mouth. He stopped with his fingers just before his lips.

  ‘What?’

  ‘The lawyers tell me that this case is tried before you even step foot in the court. Even before the jury is called you have all been found guilty.’ Hadj Yahia closed his eyes and found the energy to ask the question one last time. He allowed a little hope to glitter in his eye as his mouth formed the words.

  ‘You only need tell them the truth. Everyone knows you are innocent. We only need to hear it from your lips and you will be set free.’ He fought to keep the pleading tone from his voice as he spoke. ‘I spoke with Caid Mezaine before I left the village.’ This was a man that he knew his son had come to hold in the highest regard and he hoped that by invoking the name of this sage he could sway his son. ‘He told me to tell you that you must do the right thing.’

  ‘Dad, I could never look another man in the eyes’, Mohand stared directly into his father’s, ‘if I let my cousin be guillotined in public in front of our enemies. That, for me, is the right thing.’

  ‘I hear you, my son,’ Hadj Yahia said. Was there a slight waver in Mohand’s voice? A pause before he answered? He searched Mohand’s eyes for something. Anything that might give him hope. ‘Your wife needs you, Mohand. Your son needs you.’ Emotion tightened his voice. ‘Hana Addidi needs you. We all need you.’

  Mohand breathed deeply and appeared to consider his father’s words. Hadj Yahia imagined what his son’s thoughts might be. With the right words of his own, Mohand would be a free man. He would see his son reach adulthood. He would once again hold his wife in his arms, feel a mountain breeze whisper across his face, smell mountain herbs as he…

  But.

  ‘Father,’ he said. Two syllables laden with apology. He shook his head slowly. He couldn’t.

  Hadj Yahia grasped Mohand’s hands in his own. He looked down at the two pairs of hands. His old skin folded over and between the unlined, firm skin of his child. He knew that he had no choice but to accept the position and decision of the man he was proud to call his son. But in that moment something in him died. The hope and fight that had sustained him through these long, dark months wilted before the glare of his son’s certainty.

  He left the prison that day knowing with stomach-churning certainty that he had lost his son for good.

  SIXTEEN

  The Hearing

  On the day of the hearing Ali and Arab were taken to the first floor while Mohand was left on the ground floor. The cell he was taken to was full, with seventy prisoners waiting to stand trial. It seemed all seventy turned to stare as he entered. Their eyes fixed on him for only a moment, as if their attention had been torn from their own desperate musings and they were anxious to return there.

  Earlier that morning, cleaners had been asked to prepare the death row cells. Word quickly reached the ears of the other prisoners. Everyone was aware that one among them was to be charged with the murder of a Frenchman. Everyone was equally aware that this was a crime the colonial power would not condone.

  Perhaps the new man was the one waiting to put his neck on the chopping block? Mohand could hear the whispers and the looks of pity. He felt a tremble in his thighs and prayed to Allah for the strength to endure. He could not allow people to see that he was afraid. It was the unknown, the waiting for someone to decide whether you going to live or die, that he was finding hard to deal with. He would almost rather get it over with; he would prefer to face down this evil judge and take his punishment. He only hoped they would make it quick.

  It may have been hours, or only minutes, when the approaching sound of heavy boots filled the cell. The murmurs died down. Seventy men held their breath. In his mind Mohand could see the key inserted in the keyhole and hear it turning from the other side. The door opened and, with the certainty of the condemned, he knew that his name was about to be called.

  A rough voice shouted, ‘Saoudi Kaci ben Yahia.’

  He blinked. Once. Twice. This is it.

  ‘Good luck, son,’ someone said in Berber. Several other voices joined in and soon all the prisoners were wishing him good luck. The guard, with not a sign of care on his face, pulled him aside, chained his feet and hands together and dragged him down the corridors towards the courtroom.

  Entering the court, he was guided into a securely guarded box where Ali and Arab were waiting. He was unchained and seated while surrounded by a phalanx of guards. He looked across at his cousins. They were both wearing matching expressions, the skin tight on their faces, their jaws set.

  Mohand made himself look around at the people in the room. Facing him was a long barrier made from a dark, rich wood. Behind it sat a man on a seat that might have resembled a throne. So this was the infamous Monsieur Truck. He seemed such an insignificant being to hold such a position. He had a small face, centred with a large nose on which was perched a pair of half-moon spectacles. A former teacher of Mohand’s wore such a pair of glasses and on him they lent a benevolent air, but with Truck the effect was quite the opposite. It was as if the eyes behind them had shrunk to a black dot and the person peering out from them lost his soul the second he put them on. Befitting his position as one of the men most responsible for sending the indigènes to Madame Guillotine, he was dressed in black robes. The only spot of colour was a white collar.

  Tearing his eyes away from the judge, Mohand looked to the left and the twelve members of the jury. They were all French. All the lawyers including the defence were French.

  What chance of justice, he thought. The only Algerian present in the court, other than the prisoners, was an interpreter, and as most of the proceedings would be carried out in French, Mohand was sure his real job was to translate a one-word verdict decided before he had even entered the room: guilty.

  * * *

  The hearing started with the declaration of the accused. Then the cousins were called one at a time and questioned by the prosecution lawyers. Arab was his usual surly self and answered with an aggression that bordered on the suicidal. Ali was quiet, diffident and had to be asked on several occasions to speak up.

  When it came to Mohand’s turn he endeavoured to answer with as much pride as he could muster. He was asked the questions in Berber and that was how he answered them. He knew how the assembled French might see his ability to speak perfect French. He would not give them the satisfaction of thinking that this was one indigène who had taken their gift of an education and turned against his ‘benefactors’.

  Where the judge was a small man, his prosecution lawyer looked like he ate his way through a bakery for breakfast, a patisserie for lunch and the butcher’s for dinner. His face was bright red and he kept dabbing at his forehead with a square of white linen. The questions were thrown rapidfire at Mohand and translated by the court worker.

  Yes, he worked for the North African Hydro-Electric Company.

  Yes, he was taken on and treated like family by Monsieur Samson.

  Yes – and here his voice caught in his throat – he was present when the Frenchman was murdered.

  No, he did not do it.

  No, he was not able to identify the killer.

  Here the lawyer paused and took some more time to dab at the area where his jawline melted into his chin.

  ‘Is it not true that you were in collaboration with the killer? You knew there was a great deal of money being transported up the mountain and in your greed weren’t you desperate to get your hands on this money,’ he paused for dramatic effect, his eyes glinting, ‘despite everything Monsieur Samson had done for you?’

  Mohand didn’t answer. Couldn’t answer. Fury trembled in every line of his body and robbed him of coherent speech.

  The lawyer persisted.

  Mohand continued to choke on the words that he feared would send him to his death.

  ‘In the interests of
justice, I insist that you answer my question, young man.’

  The storm broke.

  ‘Justice, you say. Justice?’ Before he knew what he was doing Mohand was on his feet. Despite his earlier promise to himself not to speak French, Mohand couldn’t help himself. ‘Nothing about today is to do with justice…’

  ‘Silence,’ shouted the judge.

  ‘Your court makes a mockery of justice.’

  Gasps sounded from the jury at the sight of this young indigène so boldly speaking up in a French court. ‘This whole event is a farce that couldn’t be bettered by the pen…’

  ‘Silence,’ shouted Truck once again, his voice surprisingly loud and wrapped in an unquestionable authority. ‘There will be no such insolence in my courtroom, young man. Or you and your fellow accused will feel the full weight of my office.’

  A hand reached out to Mohand’s shoulder and pushed him roughly to his seat. Ali pulled at his trousers and begged him to calm down with a look full of fear.

  Grinding his teeth, Mohand burned with indignation as he listened to the lawyer declaim loudly to the court the arrogance of the indigènes and their lack of ability to behave when faced with the might of the French system.

  The questions began again.

  No, he could not and even if he could, he would not point out the man who shot Monsieur Samson.

  Soon the lawyer was finished with Mohand and then followed the questioning of the witnesses. The indigènes were easily differentiated from the French in the court by their threadbare clothing and their weatherbeaten faces. At first Mohand listened carefully to everything that was being said, but quickly he came to realise that there was little point.

  Most of the people that were speaking before the court were strangers to him and none of them could possibly have witnessed the shooting. However, this didn’t deter them: one by one they described a course of events that could only have been planted in their heads by the authorities. The main thrust of events as concocted by the prosecution was that one of the accused, Mohand, had been the guide that led Monsieur Samson to his death and the other accused were both seen in the vicinity of the shooting directly thereafter. The stocky one, Arab, was seen hiding a gun. The slim, tall one was seen carrying a heavy bag.

  A long line of people were questioned in order to help the prosecution establish these events as fact in the eyes of the jury. Then they began to call witnesses to testify to the character of the men in the dock. Thieves, bullies, brigands and responsible for surely more than the one death they were facing the charge for – that was the proclamation for the next group of witnesses to testify to. Such was the passion and authority with which witnesses talked about this side of his character that Mohand almost wondered if there was some form of djinn wandering the Kabylie masquerading as him.

  One of the witnesses called during this time was the director of Serkadji prison. Once he was sworn in and asked about the nature of the men before the court, he talked about Ali and Arab in similar terms to the previous witnesses. Then he allowed all of his frustration at Mohand’s behaviour to colour any script he may have been handed.

  ‘In Serkadji prison,’ he reported with an indignant tone while pointing at Mohand, ‘a certain prisoner knows the law better than the lawyers themselves.’

  One prosecution witness refused to follow the script. Dubourouz worked in the administration offices for the North African Hydro-Electric Company, and presumably the prosecution thought it would help their case to have a fellow employee disparage the youngest Saoudi in front of the assembled court. At seventy-six, he could have been forgiven for thinking that he should have an easy life from here on in. He was thin and wiry, and pale at the thought of what he was about to say, but his conscience would not allow any answer other than the truth. The crown of white hair on his head bristled with righteous anger as he spoke.

  ‘During this very sad incident I was in France, so I can’t possibly testify to the actual events, but what I can say…’ At this point he paused as if working through some internal battle. Once he reached his decision he looked Mohand firmly in the eyes. ‘What I can say is that from the knowledge I have of Kaci Saoudi, I am certain that he had nothing whatsoever to do with this evil action.’

  At this point the prosecution lawyer realised that this particular witness was not going to plan and he began to hurriedly thank Dubourouz and order him from the stand.

  The old man, however, had other plans. Now that he had spoken up he had even more to say.

  ‘Don’t worry about the family, Kaci,’ he said, unaware of Mohand’s thus far inarticulated decision to change his name. ‘Yvette is devastated by her husband’s death, but she knows it was not you.’

  ‘Enough,’ Monsieur Truck shouted above the old man. ‘Remove this man from my court,’ he ordered. A pair of guards pulled the frail old man from where he was standing and carried him from the court. Above the clamour, Mohand could hear Dubourouz’s voice as it grew fainter and fainter, but six words shouted over and over again reached his ears like a prayer.

  ‘She knows it was not you.’

  * * *

  At the end of the first day, they were chained again and dragged back to their cells. In Mohand’s, all was silent as the men inside waited to hear the news. As soon as the door closed behind him, voices clamoured for information.

  The cell was almost in darkness, but he could see enough to avoid the bodies that littered the naked floor. As he walked over to his corner, questions were thrown at him. Mohand began to describe the day. But how to encapsulate the otherwordly mixture of monotony and fear? Each answer he gave resulted in further questions and Mohand felt moved by the brotherhood expressed in those questions. They were all suffering under the yoke of the French and even such a small gesture as the concern shown from a fellow prisoner was proof that humanity ran strong in the group of men he was locked up with.

  He was easily the youngest man in the room and he was aware that each of the men in that dim cell saw their own sons bound up in his frame. They feared for the future of their sons, but would take strength from the obduracy he was showing in the face of the French.

  From his days in the French school he remembered tales from their book of religion. One such story sprang to mind. He would be an Algerian David to the French Goliath and show them that their sons would have the courage and strength to face whatever the colonial power would throw at them.

  Then the story of Joseph popped into his head. And the words of Caid Mezaine.

  ‘May your prison be like that of Joseph.’

  Of course. Joseph was a prominent figure in both the Bible and the Koran. He was sold into slavery: betrayed by his family, but then rose to prominence. Could this be what Mezaine saw might be in his future?

  * * *

  The next day was the turn of the defence. Artur Legrand was an experienced lawyer and although Mohand could see that he was trying his best, he could also see that there was a resignation in the shape of his slender frame. In his bones Legrand knew this was a case he could not win, but he would still give it his best efforts.

  Late on in the afternoon Mohand understood that part of his lawyer’s tactic was to beat down the opposition. He went over and over every piece of testimony from the prosecution, demonstrating the weakness of their argument. This dragged on until 8pm.

  When Mohand returned to his cell late that day, his cellmates were in a state of worry: it had taken so long, they could only think of one outcome. As he entered this world of deep silence, every head turned in his direction. With the door still open behind him, he headed towards his spot on the floor. He tried to hide his frustration and terrible disappointment. He refused to drag his feet. He kept his head up and his chest out and chewed on the thought that with his closing statements his lawyer had given up on him.

  Usually at this point the prisoners would start talking among themselves, but this time there was a deep silence. Knowing the gravity of his case, they thought that he had come back to
get his belongings before being moved to the death row cells. When he reached his place and made himself comfortable, there was a sigh of relief.

  ‘So what happened then?’ The man next to him broke into the quiet.

  ‘The case is not finished yet, we have to go back tomorrow.’

  Everyone demanded to know what had happened. They all started talking, questioning, sounding like a field of crows.

  ‘Praise be to Allah you are still safe,’ he heard one man say.

  Mohand cleared his throat. For a moment he couldn’t trust himself to speak, so moved was he by the concern shown.

  ‘My defence lawyer went through everything. At first he fought like a lion in that court of the damned French, trying to show that each of the witnesses from the day before spoke nothing but lies.’ He paused while he tried to find something positive in the way that the session had ended. But he could find nothing. ‘Then he finished… he said that he doubted the role played by the accused… hence he asked for a sentence of forced labour for life at perpetuity in Cayenne.’

  His neighbour could only look at him in surprise.

  ‘Is this not good news? Sounds like you won’t be sent to the guillotine.’

  Mohand turned to the speaker, anger making a mask of his face. ‘I am innocent. A man I loved like a brother was killed and I am to be grateful to receive a life sentence of forced labour?’

  It was only when he felt a couple of other men pulling at him that he realised his fingers were round his neighbour’s throat. He coughed, offered a weak apology and fell into a crouch on the floor.

  Forced labour for life. Better that they sent him to the guillotine. Then his life would be over quickly rather than having to face a lifetime suffering a slow death.

  He paused in his thoughts. Who was this stranger taking over his mind? He was better than this. But he was in a situation with no hope. There was no way out. He had no will. No choice. No control.