The Angels Die

by Yasmina Khadra

  For my part, I had found Francis’s anger excessive, even unlikely. He himself had no qualms about kicking the backsides of Arab boys who tried to sell us snacks. Seeing him defend my honour so ferociously made me sceptical. It really wasn’t like him. I had often caught him complaining that I behaved ‘like an unpredictable, narrow-minded country bumpkin’. Whenever I disagreed with him about something, he’d raise his eyes to heaven as a sign of irritation, as if I wasn’t entitled to express an opinion. He had never really taken me to his heart. Even though he did his best to hide it, I knew he hated me for preferring Gino to him. According to him, I had pulled the rug out from under him … This business of the newspaper article was only a way of driving me to do something wrong, with, as a bonus, a long stay in prison that would put a definite end to my career as a boxer. Francis was quite capable of going that far; he was cunning and resentful.

  A one-armed beggar approached our table. He was wearing a tattered cape over his naked, grimy torso, a rag that must once have resembled a pair of trousers, and torn canvas shoes.

  ‘Clear off!’ Salvo cried. ‘You’re going to attract every fly in the place.’

  The beggar took no notice of him. He was examining me with a smile, his chin between his thumb and index finger. He was young but skeletal, his face withered and furrowed. His arm had been severed at the elbow, displaying a horrible bare stump.

  ‘Aren’t you the boxer in the posters?’ he asked me.

  ‘I might be.’

  His face seemed familiar, but I couldn’t place him.

  ‘I knew a Turambo once, years ago,’ the beggar went on, still smiling. ‘In Graba, near Sidi Bel Abbès.’

  A succession of faces flashed through my mind – the Daho brothers, the kids in the souk, the neighbours’ children – but I couldn’t place this man. And yet I was certain he was familiar to me.

  ‘Sit down,’ I said.

  ‘Out of the question!’ thundered a waiter standing in the doorway of the brasserie. ‘How will I disinfect the chair afterwards?’

  The beggar was already beating a retreat. He crossed the road and hastened towards the Derb, limping slightly. He quickened his pace when he heard me running after him.

  ‘Stop, I just want to talk to you!’

  He hurried on straight ahead. I caught up with him behind the theatre.

  ‘I’m from Graba,’ I said. ‘Do we know each other?’

  ‘I didn’t want to upset you. It wasn’t right, what I did. You were with your friends and I turned up like that and made you feel ashamed. I apologise, really, I apologise —’

  ‘Never mind that. Who are you? I’m sure we know each other.’

  ‘We weren’t together for long,’ the beggar said, impatient to go on his way. ‘And besides, it’s all in the past. You’ve become someone; I have no right to bother you. When I saw your picture on the poster with your name above it, I recognised you immediately. And then I saw you at that table and I just had to approach you. I couldn’t help myself. Now I know I was wrong. I realised it when your friends were embarrassed by me.’

  ‘Not me, I assure you. But tell me who you are, damn it!’

  He looked at his stump, weighed up the pros and cons then looked up at me and said in a thin voice, ‘I’m Pedro the gypsy. We used to hunt for jerboas. And you often came with me to the camp.’

  ‘My God! Pedro. Of course, Pedro … What happened to your arm?’

  ‘You remember I always dreamt of joining a circus.’

  ‘Oh, yes! You could juggle, throw knives, wrap your legs round your neck …’

  ‘Well, I did join a circus in the end. I wanted to be a trapeze artist. The owner had seen my work but didn’t want to take any risks. I was too young. To keep me on, he hired me as a stable boy. I’d feed the animals. One morning, I got careless outside one of the cages, and a lion took my hand in his mouth. It’s a miracle he didn’t pull me in through the bars … The owner kept me on until my arm healed, then started to find excuses, and finally threw me out.’

  ‘My God!’

  ‘I’m hungry,’ he admitted, turning towards a soup vendor.

  I bought him a bowl. He crouched on the pavement and started eating very quickly. I bought him a second bowl, which he knocked back in a flash.

  ‘Do you want another one?’

  ‘Yes,’ he said, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. ‘I haven’t eaten a thing for days.’

  I waited until he’d finished his fourth helping. He stuffed the food into his mouth without taking the trouble to chew. His chin was dripping with sauce and his fingers left black marks on the rim of the bowl. It was as if he was trying to fill himself up to prepare for fasts to come. Pedro was nothing but a walking scarecrow. He had lost his teeth and some of his hair; his eyes wore a veil as faded as his face. From his wheezing, I guessed that he was sick, and from his sallow complexion that he might be dying.

  ‘Would you buy me some shoes?’ he said suddenly. ‘I don’t have any skin left on the soles of my feet.’

  ‘Anything you like. I don’t have enough money on me now, but I’ll wait for you tomorrow in Rue Wagram and we’ll go shopping. Do you know where Rue Wagram is?’

  ‘No. I don’t know anyone here.’

  ‘You see that alleyway crossing the Derb? At the end of it, there’s a little square. On your right, there’s a workshop. The gym where I train is opposite. Just ask the doorman and I’ll be there for you. I’ll buy you shoes and clothes and take you to have a bath. I’m going to take care of you, I promise.’

  ‘I wouldn’t like to take advantage.’

  ‘Will you come?’

  ‘Yes …’

  ‘Do you give me your word?’

  ‘Yes, my word as a gypsy … Do you remember when my father used to play the violin? It was good, wasn’t it? We’d sit around the fire and listen. We didn’t notice the time passing … What was your friend’s name?’

  ‘No idea.’

  ‘Is he still with you?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘He was weird, that boy …’

  ‘And how’s your father?’

  Pedro passed his good hand over his face. His gestures were jerky, his voice shaky. When he spoke, his eyes darted in all directions as if trying to escape his thoughts.

  ‘I don’t know where my people are … I’ve met lots of caravan drivers, nomads, gypsies, nobody has seen my people. They may have gone to Morocco. The Mama was born there. She was determined to be buried in the place where she’d come into the world … Thanks for the soup,’ he said, getting up abruptly. ‘I really needed that. I feel better now. And I’m sorry if I embarrassed you in front of your friends. I have to go …’

  ‘Where are you going?’

  ‘I have to see someone. It’s important.’

  ‘Don’t forget, Rue Wagram tomorrow. I’m counting on you.’

  ‘Yes, yes …’ He stepped back to prevent me hugging him. ‘I’m crawling with insects. They jump on anyone who comes close to me, and then you can’t get rid of them.’

  He nodded by way of goodbye, gave me a last smile and descended the steps leading to Old Oran. I waited for him to turn round so that I could wave goodbye to him, but he didn’t. Something told me this was the last time I would see him. My intuition was correct. Pedro didn’t come to the gym, either the next day or ever, and I never found out what happened to him.

  8

  Aïda planted her elbow on the pillow and rested her cheek in the palm of her hand to watch me getting dressed. The satin-soft sheet emphasised the harmonious curve of her hip. She was magnificent, posing there like a nymph exhausted from lovemaking and getting ready for sleep. Her long black hair flowed over her shoulders, and her breasts, which still bore the marks of my embraces, were like two sacred fruits. How old was she? She looked so young, so fragile. Her body was like porcelain, and whenever I took her in my arms, I was careful to be gentle with her. For two months now, I had been coming here to recharge my batteries in her perfumed
room, and whenever I saw her, my heart beat a little faster. I think I was in love with her. Born to a great Bedouin line from the Hamada, she had been married off at the age of thirteen to the son of a provincial governor somewhere in the High Plains. Rejected after a year because she had not given birth, Aïda was disowned by her family, who considered her dismissal an insult. Now that she was known to be infertile, none of her cousins deigned to take her as a wife. One morning, she set off across the plains, walking straight ahead without turning round. Nomads dropped her at the entrance to a colonial village where she was found by a Christian family. Late at night, her employers’ sons came in turn and abused her in the cellar where she had been given lodging, surrounded by spiders’ webs and old junk. When the abuse turned to torture, Aïda had no choice but to run away. After weeks of wandering about, she was forced into prostitution. Passed from one pimp to another like contraband goods, she at last found herself at Madame Camélia’s.

  In telling me of her misfortunes, Aïda showed neither anger nor resentment. It was as if she were recounting the tribulations of a stranger. She took her misfortune with a disarming stoicism. When she realised that her misadventures made me uncomfortable, she would take my face in her hands and look deep into my eyes, a sad smile on her lips. ‘You see? Don’t force me to rake up what might spoil our evening. I’d hate it if I made you sad. That’s not what I’m here for.’ I confessed to her that it was hard for me to remain insensitive to her sorrows. She would give a little laugh and scold me. I asked her how she managed to bear these trials which clung to her like ghosts. She replied in a clear voice, ‘You learn to cope. Time sees to it that things are bearable. So you forget and convince yourself that the worst is behind you. Of course, when you’re alone the abyss catches up with you and you fall into it. Curiously, as you fall, you feel a kind of inner peace. You tell yourself that’s the way things are, and that’s all there is to it. You think about people who suffer and you compare your suffering with theirs. It’s easier to bear your own after that. You have to lie to yourself. You vow to pull yourself together, not to fall back in the chasm. And if, for once, you manage to pull yourself back from the edge of the precipice, you find the strength to turn away. You look elsewhere, at something other than yourself. And life reasserts itself, with its ups and downs. After all what is life? A big dream, nothing more. We may buy, we may sell ourselves, but we’re only passing through life. We don’t possess much in the end. And since nothing lasts, why get upset about it? When you reach that conclusion, however stupid it is, everything becomes bearable. And so you let yourself go, and everything works.’ It was the only time she really confided in me. Usually, one sentence was enough to start her talking, and then I wished she would never stop. Her voice was so soft, her words so full of sense. She gave the impression that she was strong and resolute, and that calmed me a little. I wanted so many things for her; I wanted her to be Aïda again, to draw a line under her past and start again on the right footing, hardened but triumphant. I forbade myself to think for a second that her life could end in this dead-end place, on a violated bed, at the mercy of cannibals with contaminated kisses. Aïda was beautiful, too beautiful to be nothing but an erotic object. She was young and pure, so pure that the stains of her profession disappeared on their own as soon as she was alone in her room after her clients had gone. I liked her company a lot. Sometimes, I didn’t feel the need to take her; I was content just being near her, sitting face to face, she on the edge of the bed and me in the armchair. When the silence became oppressive, I would regale her with stories about my life. I told her about Sid Roho, Ramdane and Gomri, and she would laugh at their quirks as if she knew them really well. I was proud when I amused her and I loved setting off her crystalline laugh, which always started from below, like little bells, before reaching the heights, so high that it touched the sky … But our time was limited. I had to leave at a certain time. I had to wake from my dream. Aïda had other lovers waiting in the parlour. Much as I tried to ignore them, the maid with the impassive face keeping guard on the landing was there to rebuke me. She would knock at the door and Aïda would open her arms wide as a sign of apology.

  What I felt for Aïda belonged only to the two of us. I parted from her with the feeling I was leaving my own body.

  How I wished we could walk together through the thicket and forget ourselves in the shade of a tree, far from the whole world! I had suggested that she go with me to the city, but she couldn’t. The rules of the house only allowed its residents to go to Oran once a month. Not to walk about, but to buy clothes. A car would take Aïda, with other prostitutes, to the same shops, closely guarded by a servant. Once they had made their purchases, they were taken directly back to the house. No prostitute was allowed to wander in the parks or even sit down on a café terrace, let alone greet a client in the street.

  It was like being in prison.

  The maid knocked at the door. Insistently this time. Aïda got out of bed.

  ‘He’s just getting dressed,’ I heard her whisper in the corridor.

  ‘It’s not that,’ the maid said in a low voice. ‘Madame sent me. She wants to see the young man before he leaves.’

  ‘All right. He’ll be down in a minute.’

  I tucked my shirt into my trousers. Aïda came up behind me, planted a kiss on the back of my neck and put her arms round me.

  ‘Come back soon, my champion. I’m going to miss you.’

  ‘I’d like to introduce you to my mother.’

  ‘I’m not the kind of girl you introduce to your parents.’

  ‘I’ll tell her you’re my girlfriend.’

  ‘That kind of word is not part of our traditions, champion. And besides, can you imagine me turning up at your mother’s house dressed and made up like the wanton woman I am?’

  ‘You’re not a wanton woman, Aïda. You’re a good person.’

  ‘That’s not enough. Your mother mustn’t suspect that her beloved son goes with whores. She wouldn’t be able to bear it. For our people, vice is worse than sin … Hurry up, Madame hates being kept waiting.’

  The maid was lying in wait for me at the end of the corridor. She gestured to me to hurry up. At the foot of the stairs, Larbi the servant was chuckling at my tardiness. In the main room, the girls in their flimsy camisoles and lace knickers were busy bewitching their clients. At the counter, their victims were ruining themselves to impress their harem. Mouss, the tall black man, was in an alcove, with two languid beauties on his knees. Automatically, perhaps to thank him for coming to my last fight, I waved at him. He bared his gold teeth in a grin and grunted, ‘Don’t proclaim victory too soon, kid. Sigli’s just a nobody who thinks he’s the cat’s whiskers. He’s nothing but a lot of hot air.’

  ‘It doesn’t matter,’ I retorted angrily. ‘He didn’t hold out for a minute.’

  ‘I wasn’t surprised. He was already scared to death before he got in the ring.’

  Larbi pulled aside a curtain and pointed to a padded door at the end of a corridor. Madame Camélia sat enthroned behind a small desk, with her severe bun and her inscrutable face, a twill shawl over her shoulders. There was no window in the room, which was dimly lit by two candles on a chest of drawers. The mistress of the house seemed averse to electricity. She must have felt more comfortable in the semi-darkness, which gave her a certain mystical air.

  Her eel-like smile was intended as a barrier between us.

  With her hand in its white elbow-length glove, she pointed to a velvet-upholstered chair, waited for me to sit down, then pushed a piece of paper in my direction.

  ‘What’s this?’

  ‘The address of an excellent little brothel in Oran,’ she said in a falsely cheerful tone. ‘Not far from the centre of town. The girls are pretty and very nice. That way, you won’t have to get Monsieur Bollocq’s chauffeur to bring you all the way here. You can just hop on a tram or even walk there; it’ll only take you a few minutes.’

  ‘I like it here.’

 
‘Young man, all these girls are alike. Isn’t it better to have them close at hand?’

  ‘I’m fine here. I have no desire to look elsewhere.’

  ‘Nobody’s forcing you. Go to that address and judge for yourself. I’m sure you’ll soon change your mind.’

  ‘I don’t want to change my mind.’

  Madame Camélia pursed her lips in a disappointed grimace. She breathed deeply through her nose, betraying an effort on her part not to implode. Her eyes had an unhealthy gleam in the flickering light of the candles. ‘Does Monsieur Bollocq know about your constant comings and goings in my house?’

  ‘He’s the one who sends me his chauffeur.’

  ‘When charity is blind, it makes beggars greedy,’ she said in a drawling voice full of disdain.

  ‘Pardon, Madame?’

  ‘I was talking to myself … Don’t you think you’re abusing your benefactor’s generosity, young man?’

  ‘You benefit from it more than I do, don’t you?’

  She put her fingers together and placed both hands on the table, inwardly struggling to keep calm. ‘I’m going to be honest with you, my boy. Some of my clients are complaining about your presence in my house. They are men of a certain rank, if you know what I mean. They don’t like to share their private moments with strangers from a world … how shall I put it? … not entirely accustomed to the special features we offer. My clients are officers, financiers, businessmen, in other words, important people, and they are all married. They need to preserve their reputations and their marriages. In this kind of place, discretion is of the essence. Put yourself in their shoes …’