What the day owes the nigth

12

ANDRÉ INVITED everyone in Río Salado to the opening of his ‘American Diner’. While it was easy to imagine André as a feudal lord, prowling his vineyards, slapping his riding crop against his boots, beating his workers and dreaming of Olympus, the idea of the son of Jaime J. Sosa running a bar, opening bottles of beer, left us speechless. André had changed since his trip to the United States, where his friend Joe had taken him on a dazzling odyssey. America had opened his eyes to a life we could not even begin to understand: something he referred to with mystical fervour as ‘the American dream’. When asked what exactly he meant by it, he’d shift from one foot to the other, then frown and explain that it meant living however you pleased and to hell with taboos and propriety. André wanted to shake us out of our bourgeois provincial habits – he found it intolerable that young people in Algeria did as they were told, played only when they were permitted and did not go out unless they were invited. Society, he maintained, could be judged by the energy, the spirit, the passion of its youth. It was the arrogance of the young that revitalised each new generation. According to him, the youth of Río Salado were deferential, docile sheep, chained to the customs and ideas of a bygone era, completely out of touch with the brave new world in which young men should ‘burn, burn, burn like fabulous yellow Roman candles exploding like spiders across the stars’. In Los Angeles, in San Francisco, in New York, he told us, young people were busy wringing the neck of filial pieties, shaking off the yoke of family to spread their wings, like Icarus.

The winds of fortune had shifted and now favoured the American way, André maintained. A country’s fortunes could be judged by its thirst for change, for revolution, but in Río Salado generation followed generation and nothing ever changed. André had decided that urgent changes were needed, and could think of nothing better than a California-style diner, to shake us out of our obscene, provincial, antiquated sheep-like instincts; to turn us into rebels with a cause.

André’s diner was outside the village, behind the R.C. Kraus vineyards, on a patch of waste ground where we had played football as children. For the opening night, some twenty tables, each with a huge parasol, had been set out on a gravel terrace. As soon as we saw the boxes of wine and lemonade, the crates of fruit, and the grills set up around the perimeter, we relaxed.

‘We’re going to eat till we throw up.’ Simon sounded excited.

Jelloul and a handful of other workers moved between the tables, laying out napkins, setting out carafes and ashtrays. André and his cousin José, Stetson hats pushed back off their heads, legs apart, thumbs hooked into their belts, stood proudly on the steps leading up to the diner.

‘You should buy a herd of cattle,’ Simon said, nodding at André’s ten-gallon hat.

‘You don’t like my diner?’

‘As long as there’s food and drink . . .’

‘Well then, stuff your face and shut up.’

André came down the steps and hugged us all, groping Simon’s crotch playfully.

‘Hey! Hands off the family jewels!’ Simon yelped, jumping back.

‘Some jewels!’ André quipped, herding us towards the bar. ‘You’d be lucky to get two francs on a flea-market stall.’

‘What are you betting?’

‘Whatever you like . . . I’ll tell you what, a number of beautiful young ladies will be joining us this evening. If you can manage to seduce one, I’ll pay for a hotel room – and not just any hotel; I’m talking about the Martinez.’

‘Deal!’

‘Dédé is like a machine gun,’ said José, who considered his cousin to be a paragon of rectitude and gallantry. ‘When he goes off, there’s no stopping him.’

André took us on a tour of his ‘revolution’. The diner was nothing like any café we had ever seen. It was painted in bright, garish colours; behind the bar was a huge mirror with a silhouette of the Golden Gate Bridge etched into the glass. There were tall upholstered bar stools, brass shelves groaning beneath the weight of bottles and curios, bright neon signs and strange gadgets. The walls were plastered with huge photographs of Hollywood stars. The shutters were closed and the curtains drawn, so the ceiling lights gave off a warm muted glow while wall sconces cast blood-red shadows all around. The seats, bolted to the floor, were arranged in booths like the seats of a train around rectangular tables on which were scenes of the American Wild West.

In the next room, a pool table took pride of place. No café in Río Salado or Lourmel had a pool table. The one André had imported for his guests was a work of art, beautifully lit by a hanging lamp that all but touched the table.

Picking up a pool cue, André chalked the tip, then leaned over the table and lined up his shot using his knuckles as a rest. The rack of coloured balls exploded across the table, ricocheting off the cushions.

‘From now on,’ he declared, ‘people here won’t go to a bar to get drunk. At my place, they’ll come to play pool. And this is only stage one. I’ve got three more tables on order, which should be here by the end of the month. I’m planning to set up a regional tournament.’

José appeared with beers for the others and a soft drink for me, and suggested we go take a table on the terrace until the other guests arrived. It was about seven p.m. The sun was slipping slowly behind the hills, shooting its last glimmers through the vineyards. From the terrace, we had a perfect view of the surrounding plains and the road that wound its way to Lourmel. A bus dropped passengers just outside the village: people from Río Salado on their way back from Oran, and Arab labourers coming in from the building sites in the city. The labourers, clearly exhausted, cut across the fields with bundles under their arms, heading for the dirt track that led to their village of squalid shacks.

Jelloul watched me watching them, and as the last labourer disappeared around a bend in the dirt track, he turned and shot me an unsettling glance.

As the sun sank behind the hills, the Rucillio clan rolled up – Pépé’s two youngest sons, some of their cousins and their brother-in-law, Antonio, who worked as a cabaret singer in Sidi Bel-Abbès – in a spanking new Citroën straight from the factory, which they parked near the entrance where everyone could see it.

André greeted them all with the back-slapping good humour of the rich, and then escorted them to the best seats.

‘You can be rolling in it and still smell horse shit for miles around,’ complained Simon, piqued that the Rucillio family had walked past without so much as a nod to us.

‘You know what they’re like,’ I said.

‘I don’t care – they could at least have said hello. We’re hardly the dregs of society: you’re a chemist, Fabrice is a poet and a journalist, I’m a civil servant.’

It was not quite dark as the terrace began to fill with beautiful girls and young men dressed to the nines. Older couples arrived in gleaming cars, the ladies in evening gowns, their escorts wearing suits and bow ties. André had invited the cream of Río Salado society and every notable family for miles around. In the crowd we could make out the son of the richest man in Hammam Bouhadjar. His father owned a private plane and on his arm was one of Oran’s rising singing stars, who was surrounded by eager fans showering her with compliments, eager to light her cigarette.

Chinese lanterns were lit and floated above the terrace. José clapped his hands for silence and the noise died away. André went up on to the stage and thanked his guests for coming to celebrate the opening of his diner. He began with a crude joke that made his guests, who were more used to refinement, somewhat uncomfortable, then, deploring the fact that his audience was not broad-minded enough to let him continue in a similar vein, he cut short his speech and left the stage to the musicians.

The evening began with music the like of which no one in Río Salado had ever heard, all trumpets and a double bass. The audience were left cold.

‘It’s jazz, for God’s sake!’ André cursed them. ‘How can anyone not like jazz?’

The jazz band began to realise that if Río Salado was only sixty miles from Oran, its musical taste was a million miles away. Being professionals, they continued to play for a while, then, as an encore, they played something that sounded like a curse. The crowd barely noticed when they finally left the stage.

Though André had anticipated that this might happen, he had at least expected his guests to treat the finest jazz band in Algeria with some respect. We watched his grovelling apology to the furious trumpeter, who seemed to be saying that he would never again set foot in this godforsaken, culturally benighted hole.

As André and the bandleader argued, José introduced a second band – a group of locals this time. From the moment they took the stage, the whole audience heaved a sigh of relief, and the floor was suddenly filled with people dancing and swaying.

Fabrice Scamaroni invited the mayor’s niece to dance and eagerly led her on to the floor. I asked a shy girl, who politely refused me, though I managed to convince her friend to take the floor. Simon did not dance, but sat in some strange state of rapture, his plump, childish face in his hands, gazing at what seemed to be an empty table at the far end of the terrace.

When the musicians took a break, I walked my dancing partner back to her seat, then went back out to where Simon, oblivious of my presence, sat smiling vaguely, still staring into the distance. I waved a hand in front of his eyes but he didn’t react. I followed his gaze and I saw . . . her.

She was sitting alone at a table that had been hastily added and so had no tablecloth or napkins. I glimpsed her as she appeared and disappeared between the swaying dancers. Suddenly I knew why Simon – who could usually be relied on to turn any social event into a circus – seemed so serene. The mere sight of this girl had left him speechless.

She was wearing a pale, figure-hugging dress and elbow-length gloves; her black hair was pulled up into a chignon. With a smile as delicate as a wisp of smoke, she gazed out at the dancers without seeing them, her chin perched on her gloved fingertips, absorbed in her own thoughts. From time to time she vanished behind the shadows that whirled about her, only to re-emerge like a nymph appearing from a lake.

‘Isn’t she beautiful?’ Simon gasped.

‘She’s magnificent.’

‘Just look at those eyes. I’ll bet they are as black as her hair. And her nose! Her nose, it’s perfect . . .’

‘Easy does it.’

‘And her lips, Jonas, have you seen her tiny rosebud lips? How does she manage to eat?’

‘Hey, Simon, come back down to earth!’

‘What would I want to do that for?’

‘Because it’s a long drop from that cloud of yours.’

‘I don’t care . . . For a beauty like that, I’m happy to take a tumble.’

‘And how exactly do you plan to win her over?’

At length he looked at me, and I saw a sad smile steal over his face.

‘You know perfectly well I’ve got no chance,’ he said. The sudden change of tone was heartbreaking, but he soon rallied. ‘Do you think she’s from Río Salado?’

‘I don’t think so. We would have seen her before now.’

‘You’re right.’ Simon smiled. ‘I could never have forgotten a face like that.’

We both held our breath as we watched a young man saunter over to the girl and ask her to dance, then both of us let it out in a sigh of relief when she politely declined.

Fabrice came back from the dance floor bathed in sweat, dabbing his face with a handkerchief. He leaned over to us and whispered:

‘Have you seen the girl sitting on her own, at the far end of the terrace?’

‘You bet we have,’ Simon replied. ‘I don’t think there’s a man here who can look at anyone else.’

‘I’ve just been dumped because of her,’ Fabrice explained. ‘The girl I was dancing with nearly gouged my eyes out when she caught me looking at her. Have you any idea who she is?’

‘She must be visiting family,’ I said. ‘From her dress and the way she acts, she looks like a city girl. I’ve never seen any girl around here who looks like that.’

Suddenly the girl turned and looked at the three of us, and we froze as though we’d been caught trying to steal her handbag. Her smile broadened a little and the brooch on the neckline of her dress seemed to flash like a lighthouse in the darkness.

‘Isn’t she stunning?’ Jean-Christophe said, appearing from nowhere. He took the empty chair, spun it round and straddled it.

‘There you are,’ said Fabrice. ‘Where did you get to?’

‘Where do you think?’

‘Have you and Isabelle been fighting again?’

‘Let’s just say that for once, I sent her packing. Can you believe it? She couldn’t decide what jewellery to wear. I waited in the living room, I waited in the hall, I waited outside, and mademoiselle still couldn’t decide which brooch to put on.’

‘So you left her there?’ Simon was incredulous.

‘Why shouldn’t I?’

‘Congratulations!’ Simon got to his feet, clicked his heels and saluted Jean-Christophe. ‘It’s about time someone told that priggish bitch where to go. I salute you!’

Jean-Christophe tugged Simon’s arm and pulled him down. ‘Sit down, you’re blocking my view, you big lump.’ He nodded to the girl at the table. ‘Who is she?’

‘Why don’t you go over and ask her?’

‘With the Rucillio clan over there in the corner? I might be stupid, but I’m not crazy!’

Fabrice crumpled his napkin, took a deep breath, pushed back his chair and announced:

‘Well, I’m going.’

He didn’t even have time to get up from the table before a car pulled up and the girl got to her feet and walked towards it. The four of us watched as she climbed into the passenger seat, and flinched when she slammed the door.

‘I know I’ve got no chance,’ said Simon, ‘but I have to try. First thing tomorrow, I’m going to take my glass slipper and go round every girl in the village until I find one my size.’

We all burst out laughing.

Simon picked up a teaspoon and unthinkingly began stirring his coffee again. He had stirred it three times now and still had not taken a sip. We were sitting on a café terrace in the village square, making the most of the glorious weather. The sky was clear and the March sun spilled its silver light over the avenue. Not a breath of wind stirred the leaves. In the silence of the morning, broken only by the babble of the fountain, the village heard an echo of itself.

The mayor, shirtsleeves rolled up, stood watching a group of workers paint the curb of the pavements red and white. In front of the church, the priest was helping a carter unload sacks of coal, which a boy was stacking against the wall. On the far side of the square, housewives stood gossiping around the market stalls, watched over by Bruno, a policeman who was barely out of his teens.

Simon set the teaspoon down.

‘I didn’t sleep a wink at Dédé’s last night,’ he said.

‘Is this about that girl?’

‘You catch on fast . . . I’ve got a serious crush on her.’

‘Really?’

‘What can I say? I’ve never in my life felt the way I feel about this dark-haired girl with the mysterious eyes.’

‘Did you find out who she is?’

‘Of course! First thing I did the morning after the party was track her down. The only problem is, I found out I’m not the only person interested. Even that brainless moron José is hanging around her. You can’t have a fantasy in this godforsaken town without a bunch of cretins gatecrashing it.’

He swatted an imaginary fly with a brutal, angry gesture, then picked up the spoon and went back to stirring his coffee.

‘I wish I had your blue eyes, Jonas, and your angelic face!’

‘Why?’

‘So I could try my luck. Just look at me: I’ve got an ugly mug, a pot belly, a pair of stumpy legs . . . I’ve even got flat feet.’

‘Girls aren’t just interested in looks . . .’

‘Maybe, but as it happens, I don’t have much else to offer them. I don’t have a vineyard or a wine broker’s or a fat bank account.’

‘You’ve got other things – your sense of humour, for a start. Girls love guys who can make them laugh. And you’re honest, you’re sincere, you’re not a drunk, you’re not two-faced. That stuff means a lot.’

Simon batted away my compliments.

There was a long silence. He bit his lip and looked awkward.

‘Jonas,’ he asked, ‘do you think love trumps friendship?’

‘What do you mean?’

‘Well . . . I saw Fabrice flirting with our vestal virgin the day before yesterday . . . It was down by Cordona’s wine cellars. Fabrice was leaning on the hood of his mother’s car, arms folded, looking cool . . . and she didn’t look like she was in a hurry to go home.’

‘It’s only because Fabrice is everyone’s favourite person in Río Salado these days. Girls, guys, even old men stop him in the street – he’s our poet.’

‘I know, but I didn’t get the impression they were talking about literature, and it didn’t look like a one-off thing.’

‘Hey, peasants!’ André called to us, parking his car across the street. ‘Why aren’t you down at my diner initiating yourself into the glories of pool?’

‘We’re waiting for Fabrice.’

‘You want me to go on ahead?’

‘We’ll come over in a little while.’

‘I’m counting on you.’

‘We’ll be there.’

André brought two fingers to his temple in a salute and floored the accelerator, raising a growl from an old dog curled up in a doorway.

Simon grabbed my hand.

‘I haven’t forgotten how you and Chris fell out about Isabelle. I don’t want that happening to me and Fabrice. His friendship means a lot to me.’

‘Don’t get ahead of yourself.’

‘Even thinking about it, I feel ashamed of my feelings for this girl.’

‘There’s no reason to be ashamed of our feelings when they’re positive – even if they seem unfair.’

‘Do you really believe that?’

‘Everyone has an equal chance in love; everyone has the right to try his luck.’

‘Do you think I’ve got a chance? I mean, Fabrice is rich and he’s famous.’

‘Do I think, do I think . . . Every time you open your mouth these days you ask me that. Well, I’ll tell you what I think – I think you’re a coward. I think you’re going round in circles when you should be getting somewhere. Anyway, here’s Fabrice – let’s change the subject.’

André’s diner was crowded and too noisy for us to really enjoy our escargots à la sauce piquante. Besides, Simon obviously felt awkward. More than once he seemed about to confess everything to Fabrice, only to change his mind as soon as he opened his mouth. For his part, Fabrice was oblivious to what was going on. He took out his notepad and began scribbling down a fragment of a poem, crossing out and rewriting as he went. His blond fringe fell over his eyes like a barrier between his thoughts and Simon’s.

André came over to ask if we needed anything, leaning over the poet’s shoulder to read what he was writing.

‘Do you mind?’ Fabrice said, irritated.

‘A love poem! So, are you going to tell us who’s making your heart beat faster?’

Fabrice snapped his notebook closed and looked André up and down.

‘I guess I’m ruining your inspiration,’ grumbled André.

‘You’re winding him up is what you’re doing,’ Simon barked. ‘Just go away and leave us alone.’

André pushed his Stetson back off his head and put his hands on his hips.

‘What the hell is up with you? Why are you so pissed off at me?’

‘Can’t you see he’s in the middle of writing a poem?’

‘It’s just hot air . . . Pretty words are not the way to a girl’s heart, take my word for it. All I have to do is click my fingers and I can have any girl I want.’

Disgusted by André’s crassness, Fabrice picked up his notebook and stormed out of the diner. Stunned, André watched him leave, then turned back to us. ‘What did I say? Has he lost his sense of humour or what?’

We were all slightly shocked by Fabrice’s sudden departure. Ordinarily, he was the most considerate and polite of us and the least likely to take offence.

‘Must be the side effects of being in love,’ Simon said bitterly, realising that what he had seen between Fabrice and his fantasy girl with the mysterious eyes was not just an idle chat.

That night we went over to Jean-Christophe’s house. He had something he wanted to talk to us about; he wanted our advice. He ushered us into his father’s small study on the ground floor. He watched us sip fruit juice and eat crisps for a minute, then announced:

‘It’s all over . . . I’ve finally broken up with Isabelle.’

The rest of us expected Simon to be overjoyed at this news, but he said nothing.

‘Do you think I made a mistake?’

Fabrice rested his chin in his hands and thought.

‘What happened?’ I found myself asking, though I had long sworn never to get involved in their affairs.

Jean-Christophe, who had been waiting for an excuse to tell all, gave a weary shrug and said: ‘Isabelle’s too complicated. She’s always finding fault, always correcting me about stupid things, always reminding me that my family is poor and she’s doing me a favour just by being with me . . . I’ve threatened to break up with her lots of times, and every time she says: “Go ahead!” This morning was the last straw. She nearly lynched me right in the street in front of everyone just because I looked at that girl we saw the other night at the party.’

A tremor ran around the room. The table seemed to shake. I saw Fabrice’s Adam’s apple bob and Simon’s knuckles go white.

‘What?’ asked Jean-Christophe, astonished at the sudden silence. Simon glanced at Fabrice, who cleared his throat and stared at Jean-Christophe.

‘Did Isabelle catch you with that girl?’

‘No . . . I haven’t even seen her since the party. I was just walking Isabelle to the dressmaker’s and the girl was coming out of Benhamou’s shop.’

Fabrice looked relieved; he relaxed a little and said:

‘You know, Chris, none of us can tell you what you should do. We’re your friends, but we don’t really know what goes on between you and Isabelle. You’re always saying you’re going to dump her, then the next day we’ll see the two of you walking hand in hand, so it’s hard to believe you’re really serious. In any case, it’s your business. You need to decide what you want to do. You and Isabelle have been together ever since you were at school. You know better than we do where you stand.’

‘But that’s my point – we’ve been together since we were at school, and I still don’t know where I stand. I don’t know if I’m happy. It’s like Isabelle owns my soul. Even though she can be difficult and she orders me around, sometimes I can’t imagine my life without her. I swear that’s the truth. There are times when all her faults just make me love her more . . .’

‘Forget her!’ said Simon, his eyes blazing. ‘I always said she wasn’t right for you. You can’t go through life with her like some chronic illness. A handsome guy like you, you shouldn’t give up on life. Besides, all this fighting and making up is getting boring.’ As he said this, he got to his feet – just as Fabrice had done at the diner that morning – and stormed out.

‘Did I say something stupid?’ Jean-Christophe asked, astonished.

‘He hasn’t really been himself lately,’ Fabrice said.

‘What’s the matter with him?’ Jean-Christophe turned to me. ‘You know him better than anyone; what’s going on in his head?’

I shrugged. ‘I don’t know.’

Simon had got it bad, and his frustration was beginning to get the better of his natural good humour. All the insecurities he had spent a lifetime hiding from were finally coming to the surface. His clowning around and his self-deprecating jokes had been a way of hiding his faults – being fat, being short, being awkward with women. The sudden appearance of this dark-haired girl was forcing him to face up to the unspoken truths that were ruining his life.

Simon and I ran into each other by accident a week later. He was on his way to the post office and was happy for me to tag along.

His rage since the flare-up with Jean-Christophe had not abated. He looked as though he hated the whole world.

We walked though the village in silence, like shadowgraphs on a wall. Having collected his forms from the post office, Simon seemed lost. He did not know what to do. We met Fabrice as we were coming out of the post office. He wasn’t alone. She was with him, and she had her arm through his. All we had to do was look at them – Fabrice in his tweed suit and her in a flowing pleated dress – and we knew. In an instant, all the bitterness drained from Simon’s face. How could he not accept this when they looked so perfect together?

Fabrice quickly introduced us.

‘This is Simon and Jonas, I told you about them, they’re my best friends.’

Framed by the sun, the girl was even more beautiful now – she was not flesh and blood but a blaze of sunlight.

‘Simon, Jonas, this is Émilie, Madame Cazenave’s daughter.’

It was as if someone had thrown a bucket of cold water over me. Simon and I simply nodded and smiled – speechless, though for very different reasons. By the time we had regained our composure, they had left. We stood on the steps of the post office for a long time, unable to utter a word. How could we resent them? How could we question such loving completeness without appearing brutish?

Simon owed it to himself to concede defeat, and this, with considerable flair, he did.

13

SPRING WAS gaining ground. The dew on the hills shimmered in the dawn light like a sea so inviting you wanted to strip off, dive in and swim until, exhausted, you found a shady tree where you could lie and dream, one by one, of the things the good Lord had made. Every intoxicating morning was a miracle, every stolen moment a fragment of eternity. In the sunshine, Río Salado was a marvel. Everything the sunlight touched turned to dream; nowhere in the world had my soul ever found such peace. News of the outside world filtered through as garbled rumours that did nothing to disturb the pleasant rustle of the vines. We knew Algeria was at war, that a seething anger festered among the people, but the villagers in Río Salado seemed to care little about this. They built high walls around their happiness; walls with no windows on the outside world. They were content to gaze at their handsome reflections in the mirror, then head off into the vineyards to harvest the sunshine.

Río Salado was unperturbed. The burgeoning harvest promised good wines, a dazzling whirl of dances and fruitful marriages; the ominous thunderclouds gathering elsewhere could not be allowed to darken a sky of such pure, perfect blue.

Often, after lunch, I would sit in the rocking chair on the veranda for half an hour so I could gaze out over the dappled greens of the plains, the ravines of ochre clay and the many-coloured mirages rising in the distance. The view was almost otherworldly in its serenity. I would gaze out across the fields and doze. Sometimes Germaine would find me, head thrown back, mouth open, and would tiptoe away so as not to wake me.

Río Salado was waiting expectantly for summer. We knew time was on our side, that soon the beaches and the grape harvest would breathe new life into us the better to enjoy the feasting and the riotous bacchanalia. Already summer loves blossomed in the idle hours like flowers in the sunlight. Girls strolled down the main street, dazzling in their summer dresses, flaunting bare arms or a flash of tanned shoulder. The boys on the café terraces were wont to fly into a rage if someone began delving into their secret sighs and fantasies.

But the very things that made some hearts beat faster becalmed others. Jean-Christophe and Isabelle broke up. The whole village gossiped about their turbulent relationship. I watched as my friend shrivelled. Usually Jean-Christophe was always quick to call attention to himself; he loved to shout to people across the street, to stop traffic, to yell to a barman for a beer. He had always been self-centred and self-seeking, proud to be the centre of his own universe. Now he could not bring himself to look people in the eye, pretended not to hear when some called to him from across the road. He could be tortured by an innocent smile and would analyse the least comment for some malicious implication. He became quick-tempered, distant, and half mad with heartache. I was worried about him. One evening, having spent the day roaming the hills far from wagging tongues, he went to André’s diner, and after knocking back several bottles, was so drunk he could barely stand. José offered to give him a lift home, but Jean-Christophe punched him in the face, then picked up an iron bar and drove the rest of the customers out of the diner. Alone amidst the empty benches and tables, he clambered up on to the bar and, reeling and staggering, his nose streaming with blood, pissed copiously over the flower beds, roaring that he would do the same to the bastards talking about him behind his back. It took considerable skill to steal up on him, take the iron bar, tie him up and carry him home on a makeshift stretcher. The incident provoked a howl of indignation in Río Salado. They had never seen the like of it. This was hchouma – mortal shame – something no Algerian village could forgive. Anyone might stumble, fall and pick themselves up again, but having sunk so low, a man lost the respect of others and often their friendship. Jean-Christophe knew that he had overstepped the mark, and knew that he could not show his face in the village again. He set off for Oran, where he spent his days wandering aimlessly from bar to bar.

Simon, for his part, was pragmatic. He took his fate in his own hands. He had long been tired of being a factotum, frittering his life away in an office that smelled of mildew and interminable lawsuits. It was a job ill-suited to his sense of himself as the life and soul of the party. He had neither the temperament nor the forbearance for a career as a badly paid pen-pusher. The office walls were closing in; his world was reduced to a sheet of yellow paper. He was suffocating, waiting like a dumb animal for a bell to tell him he could go home. Worst of all, he realised, the worries and anxieties of his job were the only things that still reminded him that he was human. One morning after a blazing row with his boss he resigned, determined to set himself up in business and be his own boss.

I barely saw him any more.

Fabrice, too, had less and less time to spend with me, but I understood. His relationship with Émilie seemed serious. They met every day behind the church, and on Sundays I could see them from my balcony walking through the vineyards, or heading out of the village on their bicycles, his shirt billowing, her hair whipped back by the wind. It was a joy to watch them ride up the hill, out of the village, away from the gossips. Sometimes, in my mind, I would go with them.

Then, one morning, a miracle occurred. I was stocking the shelves in the pharmacy when I saw my uncle slowly come down the stairs in his dressing gown, cross the room and go outside. Germaine, who was two steps behind him, could hardly believe her eyes. My uncle had not set foot outside the house for years. That morning he stood on the steps of the shop, hands in the pockets of his dressing gown, looking around him, his gaze lingering on the orange groves and then flitting towards the distant hills on the horizon.

‘It’s a beautiful day,’ he said, grinning, and so unaccustomed was he to smiling, I thought his lips might crack. Germaine and I watched as laughter lines spread across his face like the ripples from a pebble in a pond.

‘Would you like me to bring out a chair?’ Germaine asked with tears in her eyes.

‘What for?’

‘You can sit in the sun. I’ll set it next to the window with a little table and make some fresh mint tea and you can watch the people go past.’

‘No.’ My uncle shook his head. ‘No chair today. I think I’ll take a little walk.’

‘In your dressing gown?’

‘If it were up to me, I’d walk around naked,’ said my uncle, and he stepped off the porch.

A prophet walking on water would not have amazed us any more than the sight of my uncle stepping into the street, hands in his pockets, his back straight, walking with a slow, almost military gait. He headed towards a little orange grove and wandered among the trees. Then, catching sight of a partridge taking to the wing, he turned and, following the bird’s flight, disappeared into the vineyards. Germaine and I sat on the veranda, holding each other’s hand, until he came back.

A few weeks later, we bought a second-hand car. Germaine’s nephew Bertrand – now a mechanic – delivered it in person. It was a tiny bottle-green car with hard seats and curved bodywork like a tortoise’s shell. The steering wheel was so big it looked like it belonged in a truck. Bertrand told Germaine and me to climb in and he would put the engine through its paces. It felt like being in a tank. In time, everyone in Río Salado learned to recognise our car a mile off. Hearing the deafening roar of the engine, someone would shout: ‘Attention, here comes the artillery!’ and people would stand on the kerb and salute as we passed.

André offered to give me driving lessons. He took me out to a patch of waste ground, and every time I made a mistake he called me all the names under the sun. Once or twice I was so panicked by his swearing I nearly killed us both. As soon as he had taught me to drive around a tree without grazing it, and do a hill start without stalling, he went back to working at his diner, relieved to have come through the ordeal without a scratch.

One Sunday, after mass. Simon suggested we go down to the beach. He had had a tough week and needed some fresh air. Deciding to head for the port of Bouzedjar, we set off after lunch.

‘Where did you buy that rust bucket? Army surplus?’

‘Okay, maybe it doesn’t look like much, but it gets me where I want to go, and so far it’s never broken down.’

‘I’m surprised you’re not deaf . . . it’s like listening to a steamboat on its last legs.’

‘You get used to it.’

Rolling the window down, Simon stuck his head out, and as his hair was swept back by the wind, I noticed he was already going bald. Seeing my friend suddenly looking older, I glanced in the mirror to see if I did too. We drove through Lourmel and headed straight for the coast. Now and then, when the road crested the peak of a hill, it seemed as though we could almost touch the sky. It was a beautiful late-April morning; the sky was an immaculate blue, the horizon majestic and all around was a feeling of completeness. The last days of spring in Río Salado were often the most splendid. The orange groves thrummed with the sound of early cicadas, and clouds of gnats glittered over stagnant pools like fistfuls of gold dust. If it were not for the squalid shacks scattered here and there, you would have thought you were in paradise.

‘Isn’t that Fabrice’s car?’ Simon pointed to a car parked beneath a lone eucalyptus in the scrubland.

I pulled up on the hard shoulder and in the distance saw Fabrice with two girls having a picnic. Intrigued by the sudden appearance of the car, Fabrice got up and put his hands on his hips, clearly on the defensive.

‘I always said he was short-sighted,’ Simon whispered as he clambered out.

Fabrice walked a hundred metres before realising it was my car. Relieved, he stopped where he was and waved for us to join them.

‘Did we give you a scare?’ said Simon, hugging Fabrice.

‘What are you guys doing out here?’

‘We’re just out for a drive. Are you sure we’re not interrupting?’

‘Well, we didn’t bring enough cutlery, but if you can wait while we finish our apple tarts, it’s no problem.’

The two girls readjusted blouses and tugged their skirts down past their knees to appear decent when they greeted us. Émilie Cazenave gave us a smile; the other girl simply looked quizzically at Fabrice, who quickly reassured her:

‘Jonas and Simon, my best friends.’

Then, turning to us, he said, ‘This is Hélène Lefèvre, a journalist with the Écho d’Oran. She’s writing an article about the area.’

Madame Cazenave’s daughter turned her deep, dark eyes on me and I had to look away.

Fabrice went back to his car and found a beach towel, and laid it out on a patch of grass so that Simon and I could sit down. Simon crouched down by the wicker basket, rummaged inside and found a piece of bread, then, taking a penknife from his pocket, cut slices of saucisson. The girls glanced at each other quickly, clearly amused by his nerve.

‘Where were you headed?’ Fabrice asked us.

‘Down to the port to see the fishermen unload,’ said Simon. ‘What about you, what are you doing out here with these two charming girls?’

Émilie stared at me again. Could she read my thoughts? And if so, what did they say? Had her mother said something about me? Had Émilie detected some hint of me in her mother’s bedroom, a scent I had been unable to erase, the trace of a kiss, the memory of an embrace? Why did I suddenly feel that she could read me like a book? And her eyes . . . They held me hypnotised. How could they plunge into mine, know my every thought, my every doubt? For an instant I saw her mother’s eyes back in their vast house on the marabout road – eyes so radiant that one needed no other light to see into the deepest depths, discern the most secret weaknesses . . . I felt unsettled.

‘I think we’ve met before. A long time ago.’

‘I don’t think so, mademoiselle. I’m sure I would remember.’

‘It’s strange, your face seems familiar,’ she said, then added, ‘What do you do for a living, Monsieur Jonas?’

Her voice had the gentle murmur of a mountain stream. She said ‘Monsieur Jonas’ just as her mother had, accentuating the ‘s’, and it roused the same feelings in me, stirred the same emotions.

‘Nothing much,’ said Simon, jealous of the attention I was getting from his first real crush. ‘Me, I’m a businessman. I’m setting up an import-export business. In two, three years, I’ll be rich.’

Émilie ignored Simon’s teasing. I could feel her eyes on me, waiting for my answer. She was so beautiful I could not meet her gaze without blushing.

‘I work in a pharmacy, mademoiselle.’

A lock of hair fell over her eyes and she swept it away with an elegant hand, as though lifting a veil to reveal her beauty.

‘A pharmacy, where?’

‘Río Salado, mademoiselle.’

Something flitted across her face, she arched her eyebrows and the piece of apple pie between her fingers crumbled. Fabrice noticed her confusion, and now, confused himself, quickly rushed to pour me a glass of wine.

‘You know he doesn’t drink,’ Simon said.

‘Oh, sorry . . .’

The journalist took the glass and brought it to her lips.

Émilie did not take her eyes off me.

Twice, she came to visit me at the pharmacy. I made sure that Germaine was with me. What I saw in her face disconcerted me and I had no intention of hurting Fabrice.

I began to avoid her. I told Germaine that if Émilie phoned she should say I was out and she didn’t know when I would be back. Émilie quickly realised that I found her attentions unsettling, that I could not deal with the friendship she was offering. She stopped trying to see me.

The summer of 1950 swaggered into Río Salado like a carnival strongman. The roads teemed with holidaymakers, the beaches were overrun. Simon’s new business secured its first big contract and he took us all to dinner in one of the most fashionable restaurants in Oran. Simon – who had always been the life and soul of the party – surpassed himself. His antics and his clowning had the whole restaurant in stitches; the priggish women at the adjoining tables giggled whenever he raised his glass and launched into some hilarious new tirade. It was a wonderful evening. Fabrice and Émilie had come, as had Jean-Christophe, who spent the whole evening asking Hélène to dance. Seeing Jean-Christophe enjoying himself after the months of black depression put the finishing touch to the celebrations. The four of us were together again, inseparable as the tines of a pitchfork, and all would have been for the best in the best of all possible worlds had it not been for that one awkward, inappropriate gesture. Under the table, I felt Émilie’s hand slide along my thigh. My drink went down the wrong way and I almost passed out, gasping and choking as the others thumped me on the back. When I came to, it seemed that most of the restaurant was leaning over me. Simon heaved a sigh of relief when he saw me grab the table leg and hoist myself back on to my chair. Émilie’s eyes had never seemed so dark, nor her face so pale.

The following day, when Germaine and my uncle had gone out – they were in the habit of walking in the vineyards every morning now – I was shocked to see Madame Cazenave come into the pharmacy. Although silhouetted against the sunlight, I recognised the curve of her figure, the singular way she held herself, shoulders back, head high.

She hesitated in the doorway for a moment, probably to be sure that I was alone, then strode into the shop, a rustle of shadows and light, her heady perfume pervading the space.

She was wearing a grey trouser suit and a hat adorned with cornflowers pulled down slightly over her turbulent face.

‘Good morning, Monsieur Jonas.’

‘Good morning, madame.’

She took off her dark glasses . . . but the magic did not work now. She was just another customer, and I was no longer the teenage boy who felt he might faint at the sight of her smile. This realisation disconcerted her somewhat, and she began drumming her fingers on the counter top.

‘Madame . . . ?’

My innocent tone irritated her. Fire flickered in her eyes but she kept her composure; she could be uncompromising only if she was in control. Madame Cazenave was the sort of person who planned everything she did in meticulous detail; she chose the battleground and calculated her entrance to the last second. Knowing her as I did, I imagined she had spent the night plotting every move, every word of her performance. What she had not realised was that the boy she was expecting was no longer in the audience. My composure unsettled her; it was something she had not expected. She tried to adapt her plans, but the cards had already been dealt, and spontaneity had never been her strong suit.

She pressed the tip of her sunglasses to her lips to stop them quivering, but there was nothing she could do to hide her apprehension – her whole face was trembling; it seemed as though it might crumble like a piece of chalk.

‘If you’re busy, I can come back later,’ she ventured.

Was she playing for time? Hoping to retreat so she might return better prepared?

‘I am not particularly busy. How can I help you, madame?’

She grew more uneasy. What was she afraid of? I knew she had not come for a prescription, but I could not think why she should be so tense.

‘Make no mistake, Monsieur Jonas,’ she said, as though reading my mind, ‘I am in full possession of my faculties. I simply do not know how to begin.’

‘I’m listening . . .’

‘I find your tone rather arrogant. Why do you think I am here?’

‘I’m afraid you will have to tell me.’

‘You haven’t the slightest idea?’

‘No.’

‘Really?’

‘Really.’

She took a deep breath, held it for a several seconds, then, taking her courage in both hands, in a rush of breath – as though afraid I might interrupt her – she said quickly:

‘I’ve come about Émilie.’

It was like watching a balloon suddenly deflate. Her throat tightened, she swallowed hard, but she appeared relieved, as though a great weight had been lifted from her. But the battle was just beginning and she looked as though she had expended her last reserves of energy.

‘My daughter, Émilie.’

‘I know who you mean. But I don’t see the connection.’

‘Don’t play the innocent with me, young man. You know exactly what I’m talking about. What is the nature of your relationship with my daughter?’

‘I’m afraid you’ve got the wrong person, madame. I have no relationship with your daughter.’

She twisted the frame of her sunglasses, her eyes watching mine, waiting for some sign of weakness. I did not look away. She no longer scared me. Her suspicions had little effect on me, but they did make me curious. Río Salado was a small village, walls were thin and the best-kept secrets quickly became the source of idle gossip. What were people saying about me?

‘She talks of nothing but you, Monsieur Jonas.’

‘Of our gang . . .’

‘I’m not talking about your gang. I am talking about you and my daughter. I want to know the precise nature of your relationship, and your intentions. I want to know whether you have made plans, whether your intentions are serious . . . I want to know whether anything has happened between you.’

‘Nothing has happened, Madame Cazenave. Émilie is in love with my best friend Fabrice. I would never even think of doing anything that might ruin his happiness.’

‘You are a sensible young man, Monsieur Jonas, as I believe I’ve told you before.’

She clasped her hands over the bridge of her nose, then, after a moment’s thought, raised her head again.

‘I shall get right to the point, Monsieur Jonas . . . You are a Muslim – a good Muslim from what I have heard – and I am a Catholic. A long time ago, in a moment of weakness, we gave in to temptation. May the Lord forgive us. It was a fleeting mistake. But there is one sin that He will never absolve or pardon – incest!’

She shot me a venomous look as she said the word.

‘It is a terrible abomination.’

‘I don’t understand where you’re going with this.’

‘But we’re already there, Monsieur Jonas. You know that to sleep with a mother and her daughter is an offence against God, against the saints, against angels and demons!’

Her face was flushed purple now and the whites of her eyes curdled like milk. Her trembling finger was intended as the sword of justice as she thundered:

‘I forbid you to go near my daughter.’

‘The thought had not even crossed my mind.’

‘I don’t think you understand me, Monsieur Jonas, I don’t care what goes on in that mind of yours. You can think whatever you want. What I want is for you to stay as far away from my daughter as possible, and I want you to swear you will respect my wishes.’

‘Madame . . .’

‘Swear it!’ She screamed as though it were an order.

Madame Cazenave had intended to remain icily calm, to let me know that she was in control of the situation. From the moment she stepped into the shop she had carefully curbed her mounting anger, uttering a word only when she was sure that it would not rebound on her. Now, at the moment she most needed it, she had lost control. She tried to regain her composure but it was too late; tears were welling in her eyes.

She brought her hands up to her temples, focused on a single point, waited until her breathing was under control again, then, her voice almost inaudible, she said:

‘I apologise. I am not in the habit of raising my voice to people. But this whole thing has shocked me deeply. To hell with hypocrisy. I’m completely at a loss. I can’t sleep . . . I hoped to be firm, to be strong, but this concerns my family, my daughter, my faith, my conscience. It’s too much . . . I never imagined such a yawning abyss might open up at my feet. If it were just that, just an abyss, I would throw myself in if it would save my soul. But that would not solve the problem.

‘It must not happen, Monsieur Jonas; nothing good can come of your relationship with my daughter. It cannot happen, it must not happen, I need to be clear about that. I need to go home with a clear conscience. I need to be at peace. Émilie is just a child. She is fickle. She can fall for a boy because of his laugh, do you understand? And I do not want her to fall for you. So I am begging you, for the love of God and His prophets Jesus and Muhammad, promise me you will give her no encouragement. It would be appalling, immoral; it would be horribly obscene.’

She took my hands in hers and squeezed them. This was not the woman I had dreamed of long ago. Terrified at the thought of this abomination, frightened at the idea that she might live in infamy for all eternity, Madame Cazenave had renounced her charms, her spells, her lofty throne; the woman who stood before me was simply a mother. Her eyes sought mine; with a blink, I could have sent her straight to Hell. I felt ashamed to have the power to damn someone I had once loved, someone whose grace and generosity I had thought of as sin.

‘Nothing will happen between me and your daughter, madame.’

‘Promise me.’

‘I promise.’

‘Swear it.’

‘I swear.’

She slumped on to the counter. A great weight had been lifted from her, yet she seemed crushed, and she took her head in her hands and sobbed.

14

‘IT’S FOR you.’ Germaine waved the phone at me.

‘Are you angry with me?’ It was Fabrice.

‘No . . .’

‘Has Simon done something to upset you?’

‘No.’

‘Have you and Jean-Christophe fallen out?’

‘Of course not.’

‘Then why have you been avoiding us? You’ve been sulking at home for ages. We waited for you all day yesterday. You said you’d come over, and by the time we ate, everything was cold.’

‘I’ve been busy.’

‘Come off it . . . it’s not like there’s an epidemic in the village, and don’t tell me your uncle is sick, because I’ve seen him walking in the orange groves every morning. He’s fit as a fiddle.’

He cleared his throat and his voice was calmer now.

‘I’ve missed you, Jonas. You live down the road from me but it’s like you’ve disappeared off the face of the earth.’

‘I’ve been sorting out the shop. I have to get the accounts up to date, and there’s an inventory to do.’

‘Do you need a hand?’

‘No . . . it’s fine.’

‘Okay, if everything’s fine, I’ll expect you at my house for dinner tonight.’

I didn’t have time to say no; he had already hung up. By the time he called for me at seven p.m., Simon was in a foul mood.

‘Can you believe it? All that work I put in, for nothing. Like an idiot, I got my figures wrong. I’m the only one who lost out. The way they explained it, everyone stood to make a profit, but when the delivery showed up, I’m the one who has to pay the difference out of my own pocket. I can’t believe I let myself get conned . . .’

‘That’s business, Simon.’

Jean-Christophe was waiting for us a couple of blocks away. Dressed in his Sunday best, he was freshly shaven, hair plastered down with a thick layer of Brylcreem, holding a big bunch of flowers and looking as nervous as an actor in his first role.

‘I feel embarrassed now,’ said Simon. ‘What are me and Jonas going to look like, showing up empty-handed?’

‘They’re for Émilie,’ Jean-Christophe admitted.

‘Émilie’s coming?’ I said, disheartened.

‘Of course she’s coming,’ said Simon. ‘She and Fabrice hardly spend a minute apart. But what are you doing bringing her flowers, Chris? She’s somebody else’s girlfriend, and that somebody else happens to be Fabrice.’

‘All’s fair in love and war.’

Simon frowned, shocked by Jean-Christophe’s comment.

‘Are you serious?’

Jean-Christophe threw his head back and laughed.

‘Of course I’m not serious, it was a joke.’

‘Well it’s not remotely funny,’ said Simon, who was a stickler for points of principle.

Madame Scamaroni had set out a table on the veranda. She met us at the door. Fabrice and his beloved were lounging in a pair of wicker chairs under a small arbour in the garden. Émilie looked stunning. She was wearing a simple gipsy skirt, her hair hung loose down her back and her shoulders were bare. She looked good enough to eat. I immediately felt ashamed and put the thought out of my mind.

Jean-Christophe’s Adam’s apple was bobbing like a yoyo, and his tie had almost come undone. He offered the flowers he was carrying to Madame Scamaroni.

‘For you, madame.’

‘Oh, thank you, Chris, you’re an angel.’

‘We all chipped in,’ Simon said, feeling jealous.

‘You did not,’ Jean-Christophe shot back.

Everyone burst out laughing.

Fabrice set down the manuscript he had been reading to Émilie and came over to greet us. He put his arms around me and hugged me a little hard. Over his shoulder, I saw Émilie’s eyes seeking mine. I heard Madame Cazenave’s voice in my head. Émilie is just a child. She is fickle. She can fall for a boy because of his laugh, do you understand? And I do not want her to fall for you. A wave of shame, worse than the first, meant that I did not hear what Fabrice whispered in my ear.

All evening, while Simon told jokes and had everyone in stitches, in the face of Émilie’s insistent offensive, I beat a retreat. Not that she put her hand on my thigh this time; in fact she did she not even speak to me. She simply sat opposite me, and in doing so obscured the whole world.

She was gracious. She pretended to be interested in the laughter and joking, but it was forced, she was just laughing to be polite. I watched as she fidgeted, plucked at her skirt, nervous and anxious like a frightened schoolgirl waiting to be called to the blackboard. Sometimes, when the others were falling about laughing, she would look over to see if I was laughing too. I only half heard the jokes. Like Émilie, I was only laughing to be polite; like her, my thoughts were on other things. I didn’t like what was going on in my head; thoughts blossoming like poisonous flowers . . . I had promised . . . I had sworn. Strangely, though my scruples caught in my throat, they did not choke me – I took a certain perverse pleasure in allowing myself to be tempted. Why did my promises, my vows suddenly mean so little to me? Time and again I tried to concentrate on Simon’s antics, but it was hopeless; I quickly found myself staring at Émilie again. I was enveloped in unearthly silence, which muffled the sounds of the night, the chatter on the veranda. I was suspended in a void and Émilie’s eyes were my only beacon. I couldn’t go on like this. What I was doing was treachery, it was a betrayal and I felt tainted. I had to leave, I had to go home as soon as possible. I was terrified Fabrice would realise what was happening. That was a thought I could not bear, any more than I could bear to look at Émilie. Every time her eyes met mine, they took away another fragment of my being; like ancient battlements worn by time, I was crumbling.

While the others were distracted, I went into the living room and phoned Germaine. I asked her to call me back; ten minutes later she did so.

‘Who was that on the phone?’ Simon asked, seeing the look on my face as I came back out on to the veranda.

‘It was Germaine . . . my uncle isn’t well.’

‘Do you want me to drop you home?’ Fabrice asked.

‘No, it’s okay.’

‘Call me if it’s something serious.’

I nodded and left as quickly as I could.

Summer that year was sweltering, and the grape harvest was superb. The usual round of lavish balls was in full swing. Every morning we headed for the beach, and every night, by the light of hundreds of Chinese lanterns, there was a party. A dizzying succession of bands and orchestras played in the marquees and we danced until we could barely put one foot in front of the other. There were weddings and birthdays, civic celebrations and engagement parties. In Río Salado, a banquet could be something as simple as a makeshift barbecue, and we could conjure an imperial ballet from a twist of the gramophone.

Half-heartedly I went to the parties and stayed for as short a time as possible. I was always the last to arrive, and often left so quickly no one realised I had come. Everyone was always there, and our gang would invariably be on the dance floor. I could not bring myself to interrupt Émilie and Fabrice during a slow dance; they looked so perfect together – although it seemed increasingly obvious that the relationship was one-sided. The eyes can lie, but the gaze cannot, and the glow in Émilie’s was fading fast. Whenever I was around, she would look at me imploringly. It was pointless to turn away, since her distress signals reached me loud and clear. Why me? I racked the depths of my brain. Why does she look at me like this and never say anything? Émilie’s beauty was matched only by the heartache that she tried to hide behind her radiant smile. She never betrayed what she was feeling, willed herself to be happy with Fabrice, but she was not happy. At night, when they huddled together in the sand dunes and Fabrice talked to her about the night sky, she did not see the stars. Twice I had almost stumbled on them in the darkness, wrapped in each other’s arms on the beach, and though I could not see their faces, I knew that when Fabrice held her, Émilie was elsewhere.

And then there were Jean-Christophe’s bouquets. He had never bought so many flowers. Every day he stopped by the florist on the village square and then went to the Scamaronis’ house. Simon took a dim view of his gallantry, but Jean-Christophe did not seem to care; it was as though he had lost all sense of judgement, all notion of propriety. In time, Fabrice began to notice that his dates with Émilie were often interrupted as Jean-Christophe became more brazen, more intrusive. At first he thought there was nothing to it, but finding that he rarely had a moment alone with Émilie, he began to wonder. Jean-Christophe barely let them out of his sight; it was as though he was watching their every move.

Finally, the inevitable happened.

It was a Sunday afternoon and we were all at the beach in Terga. Holidaymakers skipped across the scorching sand like grasshoppers and dived into the cool water. Simon was having his usual afternoon nap, having just wolfed down a string of merguez sausages and drunk a whole bottle of wine. His fat hairy belly rose and fell like a blacksmith’s bellows. Fabrice, however, was wide awake. A book lay at his feet, but he was not reading; he was watching Jean-Christophe and Émilie as they laughed and splashed in the waves, timing each other to see who could hold their breath longest, then swimming out to sea until they almost disappeared. As he watched them turn somersaults in the water, legs thrust above the waves, a sad smile played on Fabrice’s lips and doubts shimmered in his dark eyes. When they emerged from the waves, Émilie and Jean-Christophe, in a gesture that seemed to surprise them both, grabbed each other around the waist, and Fabrice’s face darkened as he watched his dreams and plans slip through his fingers.

I hated that summer; the long months of confusion and heartache and increasing isolation, of lies and half-truths. Later, I came to call it ‘the dead season’, the title of Fabrice’s first novel, which began: When love betrays you, it is proof that you were undeserving; to be noble one must set it free – only if you are prepared to pay this price can you say that you have truly loved. Ever courageous, noble even in defeat, Fabrice kept on smiling, though his heart fluttered weakly in his chest like a caged bird.

Simon was sickened by what was happening, by the hypocrisy and the duplicity. To him, Émilie’s betrayal was unforgivable. He could not understand how she could turn her back on Fabrice, who was gentle and unfailingly kind; who had given himself to her body and soul. But if Simon felt that Fabrice had been wronged, he did not blame Jean-Christophe – who was deeply depressed since his break-up with Isabelle, and seemingly unaware of how much he was hurting his best friend. To Simon, the blame clearly lay with Émilie, the ‘preying mantis’, an outsider who did not understand the ways or the principles of Río Salado.

I tried not to get involved. I found excuses not to be with my friends, to avoid the dinners and the parties.

Simon now despised Émilie and, like me, began to find excuses not to be with her. He and I would go to André’s diner and play pool all night.

Fabrice left Río Salado for Oran, where he holed up in his mother’s apartment on the Boulevard des Chasseurs, working on newspaper articles and sketching out his first novel. He rarely set foot in the village. On the one occasion I went to see him in the city, he seemed resigned to his fate.

Late that summer, Jean-Christophe invited Simon and me to his house, as he always did when he needed to make an important decision. He was hopelessly in love with Émilie, he told us, and intended to ask her to marry him. When he saw the look on Simon’s face, he quickly went on, desperate to convince us:

‘It’s like I’ve been reborn . . . After what I’ve been through,’ he said, referring to his break-up with Isabelle, ‘I needed a miracle, and the miracle happened. I’m telling you, this girl was sent to me by God.’

Simon gave him a mocking smile.

‘What? You don’t believe me?’

‘I don’t have to believe you.’

‘So why are you laughing?’

‘I’m laughing because if I didn’t laugh I’d cry.’ Simon rose up in his seat, veins standing out on his neck. ‘I’m laughing to keep myself from being sick.’

‘Go on then,’ Jean-Christophe said. ‘Give me your two cents.’

‘Two cents? More like two million. Okay, you’re right, I don’t believe you. What’s more, I’m angry with you, I’m disgusted – the way you’ve treated Fabrice is despicable, it’s unforgivable.’

Jean-Christophe accepted this; he knew he owed us an explanation. We were sitting in his living room. On the table stood a jug of lemonade and a jug of coconut water. The window to the street was open, the curtains billowed in the breeze and in the distance dogs barked, their yelps and growls echoing in the silent darkness.

Jean-Christophe waited until Simon had sat down again, then, his hands trembling, he brought his glass to his lips and took a long drink. He set down the glass, wiped his mouth with a napkin and, not daring to look at us, began to speak in a slow, deliberate voice.

‘This isn’t about Fabrice, it’s about love. I didn’t steal anything, didn’t take anything from anyone. It was a thunderbolt – love at first sight – it happens all the time all over the world. That thunderbolt is a moment of grace, a blessing from the gods. I don’t feel despicable, and I don’t feel ashamed either. I’ve loved Émilie from the first time I saw her, and there’s nothing shameful about that. Fabrice has always been my friend. I’ve never been one for talking. I take things as they come.

‘I’m happy, for God’s sake.’ He banged his fists on the table. ‘Is it a crime to be happy?’ He turned angrily to Simon.

‘What’s wrong with loving someone and being loved? Émilie isn’t a thing – she’s not a painting you can buy in a gallery, she’s not a deal to be haggled over. She’s got the right to choose who she wants to be with . . . This is about two people sharing a life together, Simon! As it happens, Émilie feels about me the way I do about her. Where’s the shame in that?’

Simon was not about to back down. Hands balled into fists, nostrils flaring, he glared at Jean-Christophe and, stressing every syllable, said:

‘If you’re so sure of your decision, why did you invite us? Why force Jonas and me to listen to your speeches if you’ve got nothing to be ashamed of? Are you trying to ease your conscience? Or were you hoping we’d give your sordid little affair our blessing?’

‘You’re wrong, Simon, I didn’t invite you here to ask for your blessing, or to try and convince you of anything. This is my life, and I’m old enough to know what I want . . . I plan to marry Émilie before Christmas. I don’t need advice; what I need is money.’

Realising he had overstepped the mark, Simon leaned back in his chair and stared at the ceiling. Jean-Christophe was right, he had no business questioning his decision.

‘Don’t you think you’re moving a bit fast?’

‘Do you think I’m taking things too fast, Jonas?’ Jean-Christophe turned to me.

I didn’t answer.

‘Are you sure she really loves you?’ Simon asked.

‘What makes you think that she doesn’t?’

‘She’s a city girl, Chris, she’s not like us. When I think of the way she dumped Fabrice—’

‘She didn’t dump Fabrice!’ shouted Jean-Christophe, infuriated.

‘Okay, I take it back . . . Have you talked to her about your plans?’

‘Not yet, but I’ll have to soon. The problem is, I’m broke. What money I had, I frittered away in bars and brothels in Oran after I broke up with Isabelle.

‘That’s what I mean,’ said Simon. ‘You’re only just over your break-up with Isabelle. You’re still not your old self. I think this thing with Émilie is just an infatuation. I think you should wait a while, see how she feels. Don’t go putting a rope around your neck. I have to say, I thought maybe you were just trying to make Isabelle jealous.’

‘Isabelle is ancient history.’

‘No she’s not, Chris, you don’t get over someone just by clicking your fingers.’

Offended by Simon’s remarks and my refusal to say anything, Jean-Christophe got to his feet, walked over to the door and slammed it open.

‘You’re throwing us out?’ said Simon indignantly.

‘Let’s just say I’ve heard enough. If you don’t want to lend me the money, Simon, that’s fine, but don’t lecture me, and for God’s sake don’t talk about things you don’t understand.’

Jean-Christophe knew that this was unfair. He knew Simon would give him anything he asked. He was deliberately trying to upset him, and he succeeded, because Simon stormed out of the room. I had to run to catch up with him on the street.

My uncle called me into his study and asked me to sit on the sofa where he liked to lie and read. He had regained much of his colour and put on some weight; he looked years younger. His fingers still trembled and his grip was weak, but there was a spark of life in his eyes again. I felt happy that the man I had so admired before the police raid in Oran was almost his old self again. He spent his time reading, writing; he smiled. I loved to see him walking arm in arm with Germaine, so intimate they barely registered the world around them. In the effortlessness of their relation ship, the ease of their conversation, there was a tenderness and an honesty that was almost sacred. They were the most honourable couple I had ever known. Though they needed nothing and no one to complete them, still, when I watched them, I felt inspired and filled with a joy as beautiful as their modest happiness. Their love demanded no compromise, it was perfect. According to sharia law, a non-Muslim must convert to Islam before marrying a Muslim. My uncle had not seen things that way. It did not matter to him whether his wife was a Christian or a kafir. If two people love each other, he told me, they need not fear excommunication, for love appeases God – it cannot be negotiated or compromised, for to do so is to dishonour something sacred.

He set his pen back in the inkwell and looked at me pensively.

‘What’s the matter, son?’

‘What do you mean?’

‘Germaine thinks there is something bothering you.’

‘I can’t think of anything. I haven’t said anything.’

‘Sometimes, when we think our problems only concern ourselves, we don’t talk about them . . . I just want you to know that you are not alone, Younes, that you can talk to me any time. Never think that you might be disturbing me. You are the person I love most in all the world. You are my future. You are at an age when young men have great concerns. You’re thinking of marrying, of having a home of your own, of earning a living. That’s normal. Every bird yearns to fly on his own wings.’

‘Germaine is talking nonsense.’

‘That’s not a bad thing. You know how much she loves you. Her every prayer is for you. Don’t hide things from her. If you need money, if you need anything at all, we are here for you.’

‘I know, I know.’

‘I’m glad.’

Before he let me go, he picked up his pen, scribbled something on a piece of paper and handed it to me.

‘Could you go to the bookshop and pick this up for me?’

‘Of course. I’ll go now.’

I slipped the piece of paper into my pocket and headed out, wondering what could have made Germaine think that I was worried.

The sweltering heat of recent weeks had calmed somewhat. In a sky exhausted by the heatwave, a big cloud ravelled its wool, using the sun as its spinning wheel, its shadow gliding over the vineyards like a ghost ship. Old men began to emerge from their shacks, relieved to have survived the heat; they sat on their stools in shorts and sweat-soaked shirts, eating lunch, their red faces half hidden by their broad-brimmed hats. It was almost dark; the breeze from the coast was cool and gentle. I touched the scrap of paper in my pocket and headed for the bookshop. The shop window was groaning with books and crude watercolours by local amateurs. When I pushed open the door, I was shocked to see Émilie standing behind the counter.

‘Hello,’ she said, taken aback.

For several seconds I forgot why I had come. My heart hammered like a demented blacksmith on his anvil.

‘Madame Lambert hasn’t been well,’ she explained. ‘She asked me to fill in for her.’

My hand rummaged for a moment before finding the piece of paper at the bottom of my pocket.

‘Can I help you?’

Speechless, I simply handed her the piece of paper.

‘The Plague, by Albert Camus,’ she read, ‘published by Gallimard.’

She nodded and hurried off behind the bookshelves, while I tried to catch my breath. I could hear her pushing a stepladder, searching along the shelves, repeating: ‘Camus . . . Camus . . .’, climbing down from the stepladder, pushing it down the aisle, then crying:

‘Ah, here it is . . .’

She reappeared, her eyes more vast than a prairie.

‘It was right under my nose,’ she said, increasingly bewildered.

As I took the book, my hand grazed hers and I felt a spark thrill through me just as I had in the restaurant in Oran when she made a pass at me under the table. I looked at her and her face was flushed, but I knew it was a mirror image of my own.

‘How is your uncle?’ she asked, still blushing.

I didn’t understand what she meant.

‘You seemed worried that night at Fabrice’s house . . .’

‘Oh . . . yes, yes . . . No, he’s much better now.’

‘I hope it wasn’t serious.’

‘No, it wasn’t serious.’

‘I was really worried when you left.’

‘It was just a scare . . .’

‘I was worried about you, Monsieur Jonas, you were so pale.’

‘Oh me . . . you know . . .’

She was no longer blushing now, she was in control, and her eyes held mine, determined not to let go.

‘It was a pity you had to leave. I’ve barely had a chance to talk to you. You don’t say much.’

‘I’m shy.’

‘I’m shy too. It can be so exhausting. And we miss out on so much. After you left, I was bored.’

‘Simon seemed to be having fun . . .’

‘I wasn’t.’

Her hand slipped from the book on to my wrist and I quickly jerked it away.

‘What are you afraid of, Monsieur Jonas?’

Her voice! Now the quavering had stopped, it had gained in confidence; it was clear, powerful, as commanding as her mother’s.

Her hand took mine again; I did nothing to stop her.

‘I’ve wanted to talk to you for a while now, Monsieur Jonas, but you always seem to disappear. Why are you avoiding me?’

‘I’m not avoiding you . . .’

‘That’s not true, I can tell. When people try to lie there are little things that betray the truth. I would so like us to spend some time together, Monsieur Jonas. I think we have a lot in common, don’t you?

‘I . . .’

‘We could meet up, if you like.’

‘I’m busy at the moment.’

‘I need to speak to you in private.’

‘What about?’

‘This isn’t the time or the place . . . Why don’t you come to my house. It’s out on the marabout road. It won’t take long, I promise.’

‘But I don’t know what we have to talk about. Besides, Jean-Christophe . . .’

‘What about Jean-Christophe?’

‘This is a small town, mademoiselle, people talk. Jean-Christophe might not appreciate . . .’

‘Might not appreciate what? We’re not doing anything wrong. Besides, what business is it of his? Jean-Christophe is a friend, there’s nothing between us.’

‘Don’t say that, please. He is in love with you.’

‘Jean-Christophe is a lovely person, I like him . . . but I don’t intend to spend the rest of my life with him.’

I was shocked.

Her eyes glittered like the blade of a scimitar.

‘Don’t look at me like that, Monsieur Jonas. I’m telling the truth. There is nothing between us.’

‘Everyone in the village thinks you’re engaged.’

‘Then they’re mistaken . . . Jean-Christophe is a friend, nothing more. My heart belongs to someone else,’ she said, and pressed my hand to her breast.

‘Bravo!’

The voice was like an explosion. Émilie and I froze: in the doorway of the bookshop stood Jean-Christophe, holding a bouquet of flowers. I could feel his hatred like scalding lava. He stood, appalled, incredulous, trembling beneath the ruins of the sky that had fallen. Face distorted with rage, he struggled to express his fury.

‘Bravo!’ he said again, then threw the flowers on the floor and stamped on them. ‘I bought these roses for the woman I love. It turns out they’re a funeral wreath. I’ve been so stupid . . . and you, Jonas, you are an utter bastard!’

He raced out, slamming the glass door so hard it cracked, and I rushed after him. He zigzagged wildly through the side streets, lashing out at everything in his path. Seeing me behind him, he turned and pointed an accusing finger.

‘Stay where you are, Jonas, don’t come near me or I swear I’ll kill you.’

‘You’re making a mistake. There’s nothing between me and Émilie, I swear.’

‘Go to hell, and take her with you! You’re a bastard, a fucking bastard!’

Furious, he rushed at me and slammed me against the wall, spraying spittle in my face as he screamed insults at me. He punched me hard in the stomach. I fell to my knees.

‘Why do you have to ruin my happiness?’ He was close to tears, his eyes bloodshot, his lips flecked with spittle. ‘Why, for God’s sake, why did you have to ruin everything?’

He kicked me in the side.

‘Curse you, and curse the day I ever met you,’ he shouted, running off. ‘I never want to see you again, I never want to hear your name, you miserable two-faced bastard!’

I lay on the ground, unsure which was worse, the pain from the beating, or my heartache.

Jean-Christophe did not go home. André had spotted him running across the fields after our argument, but no one had seen him since. Days passed. Jean-Christophe’s parents were sick with worry; their son had never disappeared without letting them know where he was. He had gone away after his break-up with Isabelle, but he had phoned his mother every night so that she would not worry. Simon came to see me to ask what had happened. He was clearly worried – Jean-Christophe had just recovered from a serious depression; he might not survive a relapse. I feared the worst too. I could not sleep for thinking about what might have happened. Sometimes I would get up, fetch a jug of water, and drink it as I paced up and down the balcony. I didn’t want to talk about what had gone on in the bookshop. I felt ashamed; I tried to pretend it had never happened.

‘I’m sure that bitch did something to upset him,’ Simon growled. ‘I’d swear to it. That little pricktease has something to do with this.’

I couldn’t bring myself to look him in the eye.

After a week of phoning Jean-Christophe’s friends in Oran and making discreet enquiries in Río Salado, his father finally called the police.

When he heard about Jean-Christophe’s disappearance, Fabrice rushed back to Río Salado.

‘What the hell happened?’

‘I’ve no idea,’ Simon told him.

The three of us set off for Oran and combed the brothels and the bars, the sordid fondouks in La Scalera where for a few francs you could hole up with the ageing whores, drinking cheap wine and smoking opium. There was no sign of Jean-Christophe. We showed his photograph to the brothel madams, the barmen and the bouncers at the cabarets, to the moutchos in the hammams, but no one had seen him. Nor was there any news of him at the hospitals and the police stations.

Émilie came to see me at the pharmacy. My first thought was to throw her out. Madame Cazenave had been right: nothing good could come of my relationship with her daughter; when I looked into her eyes, a horde of demons was set loose. And yet when she stepped into the shop, all my anger drained away. I had felt she was to blame for Jean-Christophe’s disappearance and for anything that might befall him; but in her face all I could see was an immense sadness, and I could not help but pity her. She stood at the counter, her fingers nervously twisting her handkerchief, pale, heartbroken, helpless.

‘I’m so sorry.’

‘How do you think I feel?’

‘And I’m sorry I got you mixed up in all this.’

‘What’s done is done.’

‘Every night I pray no harm has come to Jean-Christophe.’

‘I just wish I knew where he was.’

‘There’s still no news?’

‘Nothing.’

She stared at her hands. ‘What do you think I should do, Jonas? I was completely honest with him from the beginning. I told him I was in love with someone else. But he didn’t believe me, or maybe he thought he had a chance. Is it my fault that he never had a chance?’

‘I don’t know what you’re talking about, mademoiselle. Besides, this is neither the time nor the place—’

She cut me off. ‘You’re wrong. This is the time and the place to tell the truth. It’s because I didn’t have the courage to tell the truth, to say what I really felt, that all this has happened. I’m not cruel, I never meant to hurt anyone.’

‘I don’t believe you.’

‘You have to believe me, Jonas.’

‘I can’t. You showed no respect for Fabrice. You put your hand on my thigh while you sat in that restaurant smiling at him. But that wasn’t enough. You had to break Jean-Christophe’s heart. And now you’ve dragged me into your little game.’

‘It’s not a game.’

‘What do you want from me?’

‘I want you to know . . . that I love you.’

I felt the room crumble around me.

Émilie did not flinch. She stared at me with her big black eyes, her fingers still clutching her handkerchief.

‘Please, mademoiselle, go home.’

‘Don’t you see? The only reason I flirted with other boys was so you would notice me; the only reason I laughed was so you would hear me. I didn’t know what to do, how to say I love you.’

‘Then don’t say it.’

‘Can a heart be silent?’

‘I don’t know, but I don’t want to hear it.’

‘Why not?’

‘Please, don’t say any more . . .’

‘No, Jonas! I love you and I need you to know that. You don’t know how hard this is for me, how humiliated I feel, baring my soul to you, telling you I love you when you don’t seem to feel anything for me. But it would be much worse to go on saying nothing when everything inside me, every breath I take, is screaming “I love you”. I loved you the first time I saw you . . . That was ten years ago, in this very pharmacy. I don’t know if you remember, but I’ve never forgotten it. It was raining that morning, my gloves were soaking wet. I’d come for my injection; I used to come every Wednesday. You had just come home from school. I remember the colour of your school bag with the studded straps, the jacket you were wearing, the fact that the laces of your brown shoes were untied. You told me you were thirteen. We talked about the Caribbean. While your mother was giving me my injection in the back room, you pressed a rose between the pages of my geography book.’

I felt a spark, and suddenly memories whirled dizzyingly in my mind and it all came back to me: Émilie . . . a little girl with a hulking man who seemed to be carved from a standing stone. Suddenly I remembered her face at the picnic when I told her I worked in a pharmacy. She was right. We had met before, a long time ago.

‘Do you remember?’

‘Yes.’

‘You asked me what Guadeloupe meant, and I told you it was a French island in the Caribbean . . . When I found the rose in my geography book, I was so touched and I hugged the book. There was a rose bush in a pot over there on the sideboard. And there used to be a statue of the Virgin Mary behind the counter, on that shelf . . .’

As she talked, the scene flooded back with extraordinary clarity and her soft voice held me spellbound; I felt as though I was being carried away by a great wave. Madame Cazenave’s voice was ringing in my head, trying to drown out her daughter, pleading with me, imploring me, and yet I could still hear Émilie’s voice over her mother’s shrieking, clear and sharp as a needle.

‘Younes . . .’ she said. ‘That’s your name, isn’t it? I remember everything.’

‘I . . .’

‘Please, don’t say anything.’ She pressed her finger to my lips. ‘I’m afraid of what you might say. I need time to catch my breath.’

She took my hand and held it to her breast.

‘Can you feel my heart beating, Jonas . . . Younes?’

‘This is wrong,’ I stammered, but I did not take my hand away.

‘Why is it wrong?’

‘Jean-Christophe loves you. He is madly in love with you,’ I said, trying to drown out the voices of mother and daughter, locked in mortal combat in my head. ‘He told us you were getting married.’

‘Why are you talking about him? I was talking about us.’

‘I’m sorry, but Jean-Christophe’s friendship means more to me than some childhood memory.’

My words clearly shocked her, but she was graceful.

‘I don’t want to hurt you.’ I tried to make up for my rudeness. ‘I’m sorry.’

She pressed her finger to my lips again. ‘You have nothing to apologise for, Younes. I understand. Maybe you were right, this isn’t the time or the place. I just needed you to know how I feel. It’s not just a childhood memory to me. I love you, and I have a perfect right to feel that way. There is no crime, no shame in love, except to sacrifice it, even for the best of reasons.’

She left the shop without another word, without turning back. Never in my life had I felt as alone as I did the moment she stepped out into the roar of the street.

15

JEAN-CHRISTOPHE was alive.

Río Salado heaved a sigh of relief.

One night, when she had almost given up hope, he phoned his mother to tell her he was all right. According to Madame Lamy, her son was rational. He spoke calmly, in simple phrases, and his breathing was normal. She asked why he had disappeared, where he was calling from, but Jean-Christophe answered with vague platitudes: there was more to the world than Río Salado, there were other places to explore. He was evasive about where he was living, how he was surviving, given that he had left with no money and no bags. Madame Lamy did not press him; she was happy simply to know her son was alive. She sensed there was something wrong, that Jean-Christophe was being rational as a means of hiding it; she was afraid that if she pushed him too hard, turned the knife in the wound, she might hurt him further.

Later, Jean-Christophe wrote a long letter to Isabelle telling her that he loved her, and regretting that he had not made things work. She thought the letter was a last testament of sorts; she cried her heart out, convinced that her spurned fiancé had thrown himself off a cliff or under a train after sending it. The postmark was illegible, so it was impossible to know where it had been posted.

Three months later, Fabrice received his letter, this one filled with apologies and regrets. Jean-Christophe admitted that he had been selfish, that, blinded by his passion, he had lost sight of what was important, had forgotten common decency and the loyalty he owed to Fabrice, whom he had known since primary school and whom he still thought of as his best friend . . . There was no return address.

Eight months later, Simon – who in the meantime had gone into partnership with Madame Cazenave to open a fashion house in Oran – received his letter. It included a recent photograph of Jean-Christophe in a soldier’s uniform, head shaved, holding his rifle. On the back it read: It’s a great life, thank you, Sergeant. The envelope had been postmarked somewhere in Khemis Miliana. Fabrice decided to go and find him, and Simon and I went with him to the local barracks, where we were told that for the past three or four years they had only been recruiting ‘natives’. They suggested we ask in Cherchell, but no one at the military school there or the one in Kolea had heard of Jean-Christophe. We checked with the garrisons in Algiers and Blida, but we could not find him. We were chasing a ghost. We went back to Río Salado exhausted and empty-handed.

Fabrice and Simon still had no idea why Jean-Christophe had left. They suspected Émilie had been cheating on him, but they could not be sure. Émilie did not seem to think she had done anything wrong. We saw her from time to time, in the bookshop helping Madame Lambert, or window-shopping on the main street. Jean-Christophe’s decision to join the army surprised a lot of people – it was something that would not have occurred to most boys in Río Salado. It was as though he was punishing himself. He had said nothing in his letters about the reason why he had turned his back on his freedom, his family, his village in favour of army regulations and a life of willing obedience.

Simon’s was the last letter.

I never received mine.

Émilie still came by to see me. Sometimes we just stood and stared at each other, not saying a word, not even a greeting. Was there anything left to say? We had said all we had to say to one another. Émilie believed I needed time, and was prepared to be patient; I felt that there could never be anything between us, but how could I convince her of this without offending her or outraging the whole village? Her suggestion that we should be together was impossible, unnatural. I was distraught, I didn’t know what to do, so I did nothing. Émilie did not try to rush me, but she did everything in her power to keep in touch. She thought I was feeling guilty about Jean-Christophe and that sooner or later I would get over it, that her great dark eyes would wear me down, would overcome my inhibitions. Now that we knew that Jean-Christophe was alive and well, things between us were less tense, but though he was not here, his absence was the gulf that separated us, cast a shadow over our thoughts, clouded our plans. Every time she came, Émilie would see it in my face. She would arrive with some speech she had spent the night preparing, but when the moment came, her courage failed her. She no longer dared to take my hand or place her finger on my lips.

She invented bizarre ailments so that she could come to the pharmacy for some exotic medication. I would jot everything down on my notepad, call her when her prescription arrived. When she came to collect it, she would think for a moment, make some trivial comment, ask some anodyne question about how she should take the medication and then leave. She desperately hoped she could force me to react, trigger some realisation that would allow her to open her heart to me again. I did nothing to encourage her, pretended not to notice her mute insistence, struggled not to give in, convinced that if I showed any weakness she would redouble her efforts.

Though I reluctantly persevered in this crude strategy, I felt heartsick. Every time Émilie came into the shop – or rather every time she left – I realised that she occupied my every waking thought. At night, I could not sleep until I had summoned up her every gesture, her every silence. During the day as I worked behind the counter, waiting for her to appear, every customer who stepped through the door reminded me of her absence, and I found myself pining for her. I flinched every time I heard the door chime, became irritable when I realised it wasn’t her. What was happening to me? Why did I hate myself for being a sensible young man? Should decency prevail over honesty? What was love if it could not triumph over blasphemy and sacrilege, if it bowed before taboos, if it did not stay true to its own wild obsession? Seeing Émilie heartbroken seemed to me to be worse than breaking my promise to her mother, worse than all the blasphemies in the world.

‘How much longer is this going to go on?’ she finally asked me.

‘I don’t know what you’re talking about.’

‘Of course you know. I’m talking about us . . . Why are you treating me like this? I come to this dingy little pharmacy to see you, and you pretend you can’t see that I’m suffering, that I’m hanging on, that I’m waiting. It’s as though you want to humiliate me. Why? What have you got against me?’

‘I . . .’

‘Is it because I’m a Christian and you’re a Muslim?’

‘No.’

‘What, then? Don’t tell me you don’t care about me, that you don’t feel anything. I’m a woman, I can sense these things. I don’t understand what the problem is. I’ve told you how I feel about you; what more can I do?’

She was angry and tired, close to tears, her fists clenched as though she wanted to grab me by the throat and shake me until I came apart.

‘I’m sorry.’

‘What does that mean?’

‘I can’t.’

‘You can’t what?’

I felt embarrassed and miserable. Like Émilie, I was infuriated by my cowardice, my indecisiveness, my inability to give her back her freedom and her dignity, even if I knew that whatever was between us could not last. I felt that I was lying, that I was somehow testing myself even though there was nothing to prove, nothing to overcome. Was I trying to punish myself? How could I decide? Émilie was right, I did have feelings for her, but every time I tried to accept the fact, my heart rebelled. What would this love be that was built on sacrilege, with no blessing, no dignity? How could it survive the scorn and contempt that would rain down on it?

‘I love you, Younes . . . Are you listening?’

I said nothing. ‘I’m leaving now. This time I won’t come back. If you feel the same way, you know where to find me.’

A tear trickled down her cheek, but she did not wipe it away. I was drowning in her great dark eyes. Slowly she drew herself up and left.

‘Pity . . .’

My uncle was standing behind me. It took me a moment to realise what he was referring to. Had he heard what we were saying? He was not a man to eavesdrop. He and I had talked about everything – everything except women. The subject was taboo, and in spite of his wisdom, his liberal values, a sense of propriety prevented him from raising the subject with me. In our community, such things were traditionally only ever alluded to, or they were dealt with by proxy – by asking someone else to do so. My uncle would have asked Germaine to speak to me about it.

‘I was in the back office, the door was open . . .’

‘It doesn’t matter.’

‘Maybe it’s for the best. An accidental indiscretion can be fortuitous. I overheard you talking to that girl, and I thought: close the door. But I didn’t close it. Not out of misguided curiosity, but because I have always loved to hear one heart speak to another – to me it is the most glorious music in the world. May I?’

‘Of course.’

‘You can stop me whenever you want, son.’

He sat on the bench, studying his fingers, then, looking down, he said in a distant voice:

‘For a man to think he can fulfil his destiny without a woman is a misunderstanding, a miscalculation; it is recklessness and folly. Certainly a woman is not everything, but everything depends on her. Look around you, look at history, think about the whole world and tell me what man is without woman; what are his promises, his prayers when it is not her praise he sings? A man may be as rich as Croesus, as poor as Job, he may be a slave or a tyrant, but there is no horizon wide enough if woman turns her back.’

He smiled as though speaking to some distant memory.

‘When woman is not the supreme ambition of man, when she is not the goal of all things in this world, then life holds no joys, no pains.’

He slapped his thigh and got to his feet.

‘When I was young, I used to go out to the Great Rock and watch the sunset. It was magnificent. This, I thought, was true beauty. Later I saw plains and forests shrouded in a quiet mantle of snow, I saw palaces set in glorious gardens and many wonders, and I wondered if this was what paradise would be like.’

He laid a hand on my shoulder.

‘Well, I can tell you now that without women – without the houris – paradise would be a still life.’

His trembling fingers dug into my flesh, shaking my whole being. Like a salamander, my uncle had been reborn from his ashes.

‘Sunset, springtime, the blue of the sea, the stars in the sky, all the things that entrance us exert their magic only in the orbit of woman, my son . . . Because beauty, the one, true, unique beauty is woman. The rest, all the rest, exists simply to adorn her.’

His other hand seized my other shoulder. He stared into my eyes, searching for something. Our noses were almost touching, our breath mingled. I had never seen him like this, except perhaps on the day he came to tell Germaine that his nephew had become their son.

‘If a woman loves you, Younes, if she truly loves you, and if you have the wisdom to appreciate this great privilege, then there is no god to touch you.’

Before going back upstairs to his study, standing with one hand on the banister, he said:

‘Run after her . . . One day, man will surely be able to catch a comet, but all the glories of this world will not console the man who allows the real opportunity in his life to slip away.’

I did not listen.

Fabrice Scamaroni married Hélène Lefèvre in July 1951. It was a beautiful wedding; there were so many guests that the marriage took place in two acts: one for the village, the other for colleagues – a contingent of journalists including the editorial team of L’Écho d’Oran – artists, athletes and much of the cream of Oran society, among them the celebrated writer Emmanuel Roblès. Act One took place in Aïn Turck, on the vast beachfront estate owned by a rich friend of Madame Scamaroni. I felt ill at ease at the reception. Émilie was there on Simon’s arm. Madame Cazenave was there, looking a little lost. Her partnership with Simon was thriving; their fashion house already dressed the richest ladies in Río Salado and Hamman Bouhadjar, and in spite of tough competition was becoming the leading fashion house among well-to-do women in Oran. During the crush at the buffet table, Simon stepped on my foot. He didn’t apologise. He looked for Émilie in the crowd and headed straight for her. What had she told him? Why was my oldest friend suddenly behaving as though I did not exist?

I was too tired to ask him.

Act Two was for the people of the village; Río Salado was determined to celebrate the marriage of its favoured son in privacy. Pépé Rucillio donated fifty sheep and paid for the finest méchoui specialists to come from Sebdou. André’s father, Jaime Jiménez Sosa, offered the newly-weds a vast swathe of his estate for the occasion, which was bounded by palm trees hung with drapes and silks and garlands. Plush benches were set out among the trees, tables groaned under the weight of food and flowers. In the centre, a huge marquee had been erected, lavishly decorated with rugs and cushions. The servants, mostly Arab boys and beautiful young black men, were dressed as eunuchs in embroidered waistcoats, billowing calf-length breeches and yellow turbans studded with jewels – it looked like a scene from the Thousand and One Nights. Here, too, I felt awkward. Émilie did not leave Simon’s side for a moment, while Madame Cazenave watched me like a hawk as though afraid of some jealous tantrum. In the evening, a famous orchestra of Arabo-Judaic music from Constantine, the mythical hanging city, thrilled the assembled company. I was barely listening, sitting on a crate at the far end of the festivities. Jelloul brought me a plate of food and whispered in my ear that the look on my face would curdle all the happiness on earth. I knew I looked miserable; I knew that instead of sitting sulking, spoiling everyone else’s enjoyment, I should go home. But I couldn’t. Fabrice would have been offended, and I was determined not to lose him too.

With Jean-Christophe gone, Fabrice married and Simon being elusive since starting up in business with Madame Cazenave, my world felt emptier. I got up early, spent my day in the pharmacy, but as soon as I pulled down the shutters in the evening, I had no idea what to do. At first I went to André’s diner and played pool with José and then headed home; later I stopped going out at night altogether. I would go up to my room, pick up a book and read the same chapter over and over without making any sense of it. I could not seem to concentrate, even when serving customers in the pharmacy. More than once I misread a doctor’s scrawl and handed over the wrong medicine. Sometimes I would stand in front of the shelves for minutes at a time, unable to remember where something was. At dinner, Germaine would have to pinch me under the table to wake me up. I barely ate. My uncle felt sorry for me, but he said nothing.

Events seemed to gather pace, but since I was too tired to keep up, they began to leave me behind. Fabrice and Hélène had their first child – a beautiful chubby-cheeked little boy – and moved to Oran. Shortly afterwards, Fabrice’s mother sold her house in Río Salado and moved to Aïn Ture. Whenever I walked past their derelict, boarded house, I felt a lump in my throat. A part of my life had disappeared, an island had vanished from my archipelago. I began to avoid the street, to go around the block, to pretend that part of the village had never existed. André married a cousin three years older than him and took off for the United States. They went there for a month, but the honeymoon was indefinitely extended. He left José to run the diner, though it no longer drew the crowds it once had now that the novelty of playing pool had palled.

I was bored.

I didn’t like to go to the beach. Now that all my friends had gone, I no longer wanted to laze idly in the sun. The breaking waves snuffed out my dreams; there was no one there to share them with me. When I did go to the beach, as often as not I didn’t even get out of my car. I would park on a clifftop and sit behind the steering wheel, staring out at the rocks and the waves breaking against them in soaring sprays. I could lose myself for hours, parked in the shade of a tree, with my hands on the wheel or my arms behind my head. The cries of the seagulls and the children whirled around me, distracting me from my worries, bringing a sort of peace that I clung to until darkness came and the last glow of a cigarette had flickered out.

I thought about moving back to Oran. I was miserable in Río Salado. I no longer seemed to recognise the place. I was living in a parallel world. I recognised familiar faces, but I was afraid that if I should reach out to touch them, there would be nothing but the wind. It was the end of an era; a page had been turned, and the new page before me was blank, frustrating, unpleasant to the touch. I needed to take stock. I needed a change of scenery, a new horizon. And – why not? – to sever the ties that no longer bound me to anything.

I felt rootless.

I thought about trying to trace my mother and sister. I still missed them terribly. Without them I felt helpless and heartbroken. From time to time I would go back to Jenane Jato in the hope of gleaning some piece of information that might lead me to them. But here, too, I had misjudged things. Jenane Jato was a world of survival and of festering discontent – no one had time to worry about a woman and her deaf-mute child. Every day, thousands of people poured into Jenane Jato. What had once been a shanty town in the scrubland was now a teeming neighbourhood of noisy streets, angry carters, watchful stallholders, crowded hammams, asphalt roads and smoky workshops. Peg-Leg was still there, surrounded now by competition. The barber no longer sat on a munitions crate to shave old men; he had a proper salon now, with a swivel chair and a brass cabinet for his tools. The courtyard house we had once lived in had been completely rebuilt, and Bliss, the broker, was in charge again. He wouldn’t recognise my mother, he told me, since he had never spoken to her. No one knew where my mother and sister were; no one had seen them since the fire. I managed to track down Batoul, who had traded tarot cards and crystal balls for ledgers and accounting books. She was better at business than she had been at dealing with other people’s misfortune, and her Turkish baths were always full. She had promised to let me know if she heard anything about my mother. It had been two years since I had spoken to her.

I thought that looking for my mother again might take my mind off the misery I had felt since Jean-Christophe left, the absence that gnawed at my heart whenever I thought about Émilie. I couldn’t bear to go on living in the same village as her, seeing her in the street, walking past as though I felt nothing when in fact my days and nights were haunted by the thought of her. Now that she no longer came to see me at the pharmacy, I felt the terrible scope of my loneliness. I knew that the wound would not quickly heal, but I could think of no cure. Émilie would never forgive me; she felt terribly bitter, perhaps she even hated me. Her anger was so palpable it burned into my brain. She did not even have to look at me – in fact these days she never looked at me – since even when she turned away I could feel the blaze in her eyes, like underwater volcanoes that a million tons of water and the darkness of the deep could not extinguish.

I was sitting having breakfast in a little café on the seafront in Oran when someone knocked on the window. It was Simon Benyamin. He was wearing a thick winter coat, and when he pushed his hood back, I saw he was almost entirely bald now.

He was surprised and delighted to see me. He pulled open the door and came inside, trailing an icy blast of wind.

‘Come on,’ he said. ‘I’ll take you to a real restaurant, where the fish is as tender as a teenage girl’s buttocks.’

I told him I’d almost finished. He frowned, then took off his coat and scarf and sat opposite me.

‘So, what’s good in this greasy spoon?’

He waved to the waiter and ordered lamb kebabs, a green salad and a half-bottle of red wine; then, rubbing his hands excitedly, he said:

‘So, are you playing hard to get, or are you just sulking? I waved at you the other day in Lourmel and you completely ignored me.’

‘In Lourmel?’

‘Yeah, last Thursday. You were coming out of the dry cleaner’s.’

‘There’s a dry cleaner’s in Lourmel?’

I couldn’t remember. For some time now I would simply jump into my car and drive wherever it took me. Twice I had found myself in the bustle of the souk in Tlemcen without knowing how I had got there. I was suffering from a waking form of sleepwalking that took me to places I barely knew. Germaine would ask me where I had been and I could not remember.

‘You’ve lost a lot of weight. What’s wrong with you?’

‘I don’t know, Simon. I ask myself the same question . . . What about you, what’s wrong with you?’

‘I’m fine.’

‘Then why do you look the other way when you see me in the street?’

‘Me? Why would I look away when I see my best friend?’

‘People are fickle. It’s been more than a year since you dropped by my house.’

‘That’s just the business. It’s growing so fast and the competition is vicious. I spend more time in Oran than I do in Río Salado. Surely you don’t think I was ignoring you?’

I wiped my mouth. I was finding the conversation irritating. There were too many false notes. The Simon who was sitting across the table was not the Simon I knew – the life and soul of the party, my confidant, my ally. In his meteoric rise, he had left me far behind. Maybe I was jealous of his success, of the new car he parked on the village square so the local kids could crowd around and gawp, of his radiant health, the fact that he had lost weight. Maybe I resented his partnership with Madame Cazenave. But I knew it was none of these things. The fact was that I was the one who had changed. Jonas was fading and Younes was coming to the fore. I was becoming bitter and mean, a latent spitefulness, never articulated, that welled in me like heartburn. I could no longer stomach the parties, the weddings and the balls, the people on café terraces. Their good humour irritated me. And I had learned to hate . . . I hated Madame Cazenave, hated her with every fibre of my being. Hatred is corrosive; it eats away at the soul, lives inside your head, takes possession of you like a djinn. How had I come to loathe and despise a woman who no longer meant anything to me? When you can find no reason for your misery, you look for someone to blame. Madame Cazenave was my scapegoat. Hadn’t she seduced and abandoned me? Wasn’t it because of that fleeting mistake that she had made me swear to give up Émilie?

Émilie!

Just thinking of her, I felt myself wasting away.

The waiter brought a basket of bread and a salad of black olives and cornichons. Simon thanked him and asked if he could have his kebabs as soon as possible, as he had a meeting. After two or three mouthfuls, he leaned over the table and whispered, as though afraid someone would overhear:

‘I’m sure you’re wondering what I’m so excited about . . . If I tell you something, can you keep it a secret? You know what people are like . . .’

In the face of my indifference, his excitement faded. He frowned.

‘There’s something you’re not telling me, Jonas, something serious.’

‘It’s just my uncle . . .’

‘Are you sure you’re not pissed off with me?’

‘What makes you think I’m pissed off with you?’

‘Well, here I am about to tell you a wonderful piece of news and you have a face that could stop a clock.’

‘Go on, then, tell me, maybe it’ll cheer me up.’

‘Oh, it will! Madame Cazenave offered me her daughter’s hand in marriage, and I accepted. But don’t say anything, it’s not official yet.’

I was speechless.

In the restaurant window, my reflection was still sitting impassively, but inside I was falling apart.

Simon was trembling with excitement – the same Simon who had called Émilie a ‘preying mantis’ and a ‘pricktease’! I could no longer take in what he was saying; all I could see was the jubilation in his eyes, his smile, his nervous fingers tearing a piece of bread, crumpling his napkin, hesitating between knife and fork, his whole body quivering with happiness . . . He wolfed down the kebabs, drank his coffee, smoked a cigarette, talking all the while. Then he got to his feet, and saying something that I couldn’t hear for the shrieking in my head, put on his coat and left, waving to me through the window before he disappeared.

I sat glued to my chair, my mind a blank. I did not come to myself until the waiter came to tell me the restaurant was closing.

Simon’s plan did not remain a secret for long. In a few short weeks his secret machinations were common knowledge. In Río Salado, when he drove past, people waved and shouted ‘You lucky devil!’; girls stopped Émilie in the street to congratulate her. Malicious gossips said that Madame Cazenave had sold her daughter out. Everyone else simply looked forward to the celebrations.

Autumn tiptoed away and the winter that followed was particularly harsh. Spring arrived, and with it the promise of a glorious summer. The hills and plains were cloaked in deep lush green. The Cazenaves and the Benyamins planned to celebrate their children’s engagement in May and their wedding with the first grape harvests.

A few days before the engagement party, just as I was bringing down the shutters, Émilie showed up. She pushed me back inside the pharmacy. She had crept through the village wearing a peasant shawl, a nondescript grey dress and flat shoes so that no one would recognise her.

She was so upset, she did not call me Monsieur Jonas.

‘I suppose you’ve heard. My mother forced my hand. She wants me to marry Simon. I don’t know how she got me to say yes, but nothing is sealed. Everything depends on you, Younes.’

She was ashen. She had lost weight and her eyes had lost their power to command. She seized my wrists and, trembling, pulled me to her.

‘Say yes,’ she said, choking. ‘Just say yes and I’ll call it all off.’

Fear blighted her beauty, she looked as though she had just recovered from some terrible illness. Wisps of tangled hair spilled out of the scarf, her lips trembled and her anxious eyes glanced from me to the street. Her shoes were white with chalk dust, her dress smelled of the vines, her throat glistened with sweat. She had clearly gone around the village and cut through the fields to get here without arousing curiosity.

‘Say it, Younes. Tell me you love me like I love you, that I mean as much to you as you do to me. Take me in your arms and hold me . . . You’re my destiny, Younes, the life I want to live, the risk I want to take. I will follow you to the ends of the earth. I love you . . . Nothing and no one is more important to me. For the love of God, say yes . . .’

I said nothing. I stood dazed. Frozen. Speechless. Agonisingly silent.

‘Say something, for God’s sake, say anything. Say yes, say no, but don’t just stand there! What’s the matter with you? Have you lost your voice? Don’t torment me like this, just say something.’

She became more heated; she could not stand still, and her eyes blazed.

‘What am I supposed to think, Younes? What does this silence mean? That I’m a fool? You’re a monster . . . a monster!’

She beat her fists against my chest, piteous and angry.

‘There’s not a grain of humanity in you, Younes. You are the worst thing that has ever happened to me.’

She slapped my face, pounded on my chest again, screamed at me to drown out her sobs, and still I stood there speechless. I felt ashamed at what I was putting her through, ashamed that all I could do was stand there, mute and lifeless and a scarecrow.

‘I hate you, Younes. I’ll never forgive you for this, never . . .’

And she fled.

The following morning, a little boy brought me a package. He didn’t tell me who had sent it. I removed the paper, carefully. I knew instinctively what I would find. Inside was a book about the French islands of the Caribbean, and when I opened the cover, I found the remains of a rose as old as time itself; the rose I had slipped between the pages of this very book a million years before, while Germaine was treating Émilie in the back office.

The evening of their engagement party I spent in Oran with Germaine’s family. I told Simon that there had been a death in the family.

The wedding was planned for the start of the grape harvest. This time, Simon insisted, I was not to leave Río Salado under any circumstances. He asked Fabrice to keep an eye on me. I had no intention of absconding. It would be ridiculous. What would my friends and everyone else in the village think? How could I not attend the wedding without arousing suspicion? Or was it more honest to arouse suspicion? None of this was Simon’s fault. Simon would have done anything for me, just as he would for Fabrice. How would it look if I ruined the happiest day of his life?

I bought a suit and a pair of dress shoes for the ceremony.

As the wedding party drove through the village in a thunderous roar of car horns, I put on the suit and walked out to the big white house on the marabout road. A neighbour offered to give me a lift, but I said no. I needed to walk, to synchronise my footsteps to the rhythm of my thoughts, to deal with them rationally one by one.

The sky was cloudy and a fresh breeze whipped my face. Outside the village, I walked past the Jewish cemetery, and coming to the marabout road, I stopped and stood at the crossroads, looking up at the festive lights at Madame Cazenave’s house.

A light drizzle had begun to fall, as if to rouse me from my thoughts.

Only after something is done do we truly realise it cannot be undone. Never had a night seemed to me so ill-omened; never had a celebration seemed to me so unjust, so cruel. The music drifting on the breeze sounded like an incantation that conjured me like a demon. I felt excluded from the joy of these people as they laughed and danced. I thought about the terrible waste my life had become . . . How? How could I have come so close to happiness and not had the courage to seize it with both hands? What terrible sin had I committed that I was forced to watch love seep though my fingers like blood from a wound? What is love when all it can do is survey the damage? What are its myths and legends, its victories and its miracles if a lover is not prepared to rise above, to brave the thunderbolt, to renounce eternal happiness for one kiss, one embrace, one moment with his beloved? Regret coursed through my veins like a poisonous sap, swelled my heart with loathsome fury. I hated myself, this useless burden abandoned by the roadside.

I went home, drunk on grief, leaning against walls so as not to fall. My bedroom seemed unwilling to accept me. I slumped against the door, eyes closed, and listened as every fibre of my being clanged. I got up and trudged to the window as though it was not my bedroom but a desert I was crossing.

A lightning flash lit up the shadows. Rain was falling gently. The window panes themselves were weeping. Be careful, Younes, I thought, you’re wallowing in self-pity. But what did that matter? This was what I saw: the windows crying. I wanted to see tears streak the window panes, I wanted to feel sorry for myself, I wanted to dissolve body and soul into my grief.

Maybe it’s for the best, I thought, Émilie was not meant for me. It’s as simple as that. You cannot change what is written in the stars. Lies! Later, much later, I would come to this realisation: nothing is written. If it were, there would be no need for trials, morality would be an ageing hag and shame would not blush in the presence of virtue. Though there are things beyond our understanding, for the most part we are the architects of our own unhappiness. We fashion our faults with our own hands, and no one can boast that he is less to be pitied than his neighbour. As for what we call fate, it is nothing but our own dogged refusal to accept the consequences of our weaknesses, great and small.

Germaine found me slumped by the window, face pressed against the glass. For once, she did not disturb me. She tiptoed out of the room and soundlessly closed the door.

16

I THOUGHT about jumping on a train and getting as far away from Río Salado as possible. I thought of Algiers. Of Bougie. Of Timimoun. But I could not picture myself strolling down a boulevard, or sitting on a rock staring out to sea, or meditating in a cave. I could not run away from myself. Whatever train or plane or boat I took, I would end up trailing this unshakeable thing that filled me with its bile. But I knew I could not go on brooding in my room. I had to go away. It did not matter whether I went a thousand miles or simply to the next village, I needed to be somewhere else. It was impossible for me to live in Río Salado now that Simon had married Émilie.

I remembered a deranged evangelist who used to preach on market days in Jenane Jato. He was a tall man, thin as a rake, who wore a threadbare cassock. Every week he would stand on a rock, ranting and raving: ‘Misery is a dead end that stops at a brick wall. If you want to escape it, you must back out carefully, never taking your eyes off the wall. That way it looks as though the wall is receding.’

I had gone back to Oran, to the neighbourhood where I had lived with my uncle. Perhaps I was trying to go back in time to my schooldays so that, older, wiser, I might return to the present, a virgin in mind and body, with a thousand opportunities open to me and the wisdom not to waste them. Seeing my uncle’s old house did nothing to ease my pain. I did not recognise the place – it had been repainted green, the bougainvillea had been ripped out, leaving the low wall bare, the shutters on the windows were closed. There was no echo of my childhood here.

I knocked on the door of the house across the street, but it was not Lucette who opened it. ‘She’s moved,’ a strange woman said to me. ‘She didn’t leave a forwarding address.’

I wandered around the city, listening to the dull roar from the football stadium, but it could not drown out the roar within me. In Medina J’dida – the ghetto where Arabs and Kabyles lived – I sat on a café terrace and watched the crowds on the Tahtaha square, convinced that I would eventually spot the ghost of my father in his green coat. Men in starched white burnous moved among beggars in rags and tatters. An ancient world was being rebuilt here of bazaars and hammams, silversmiths, cobblers and tailors. Down the centuries, Medina J’dida had never given up hope. It had survived cholera, it had survived scorn and contempt. It was Muslim, Arabic and Berber to its fingertips. Cut off behind the Moorish walls of the mosques, it rose above the insults and the slander, considered itself dignified and noble, proud of its craftsmen, of folk heroes like S’hab el Baroud and his Raqba – respectable criminals who charmed children and women of easy virtue and made the locals feel secure. How had I managed to live without this part of my birthright? I should have come here regularly to fill the gaps in my identity. Río Salado and I no longer spoke the same language; how should I speak now? When I lived in Río Salado, had I been Jonas or Younes? Why, when my friends laughed, did I hesitate a moment before laughing with them? Why had I always felt that I had to carve out a place for myself among my friends? Why did I feel guilty whenever I met Jelloul’s eyes? Had I simply been tolerated, integrated, biddable? What had stopped me from being myself, forced me to identify with the society I was growing up in and turn my back on my own people? I was a shadow, indecisive, easily led. I was constantly listening for some slight, some insult, the way an adopted child is more aware of his parents’ momentary indifference than he is of their love. But even now, as I tried to redeem myself in the eyes of Medina J’dida, I suspected I was still deluding myself, absolving myself and looking for someone else to blame. If Émilie had slipped through my fingers, who was to blame – Río Salado, Madame Cazenave, Jean-Christophe, Simon? The fault, I knew, was mine; I had not had the courage of my convictions. I could find excuses for myself, but the blame would still be mine. Now that I had lost face, I was looking for a place to hide.

Tahtaha loosened the vice-like grip of my fears and failings, and my pain subsided as I wandered through the crowds, watching the tireless dance of the water-sellers, bells on their ankles, water skins slung across their chests, coloured hats whipping in the wind as they pirouetted in a whirl of frills and flounces, pouring cool water flavoured with oil of cade into copper goblets, which passers-by drank down like magical elixirs. I imagined myself slaking my thirst with the crowd, smiling as the water-seller performed a quick dance, frowning as someone ran off without paying, ruining his good humour . . .

‘Are you sure you’re all right?’ The waiter roused me from my thoughts.

I wasn’t sure of anything . . .

And why wouldn’t people leave me in peace?

The waiter stared at me, puzzled, when I got up to leave, and it wasn’t until I got back to the European part of the city that I realised I had left without paying.

In a smoky bar where discarded cigarette butts lay smouldering in the ashtray, I stared at the glass in front of me, which seemed to be mocking me. I wanted to drink myself senseless – I felt myself unworthy to resist temptation – but though I tried to pick the glass up a hundred times, my arm refused to bring it to my lips. ‘Got a cigarette?’ asked the woman sitting next to me. ‘Pardon?’ ‘Guy with a handsome face like yours has no business being miserable.’ Her breath stank of alcohol. I was exhausted. I could barely see clearly. She was so caked in make-up that she barely had a face. Her eyes were invisible behind grotesque false eyelashes, her large mouth was flaming red, her teeth stained from smoking. ‘You got troubles, pretty boy? Well don’t worry, I’m here to sort them out . . . The good Lord sent me to find you.’ She slipped her arm through mine and, with a jerk, pulled me away from the bar. ‘Come on . . . there’s nothing for you here . . .’

For seven days and seven nights she kept me in a squalid little room on the top floor of a fondouk that stank of hashish and beer. I can’t say whether she was blonde or brunette, young or old, fat or thin. I remember only her big lips and her voice, ruined by cigarettes and cheap booze. Then one night, she told me I’d had my money’s worth and pushed me towards the door, kissing me on the mouth – ‘That one’s on the house.’ Before I left she said, ‘Get a grip on yourself. There’s only one god here on earth, and that’s you. If you don’t like the world, make one you like better. Fortune smiles on those who smile on her.’

Strange how sometimes we find the wisdom we lack in the most unlikely places. My life had been turned upside down, and it was a drunken whore who set me on my feet again with a few choice words in a sordid room in a dark, dingy hotel that reeled and swayed with the sound of sex and fighting. By the time I reached the door of the fondouk, I was feeling better and the evening breeze cleared my head completely. I walked from one end of the seafront to the other, looking out at the boats in the port, the cranes on the quays, and deep in the night, the trawlers moving over the silent waters like fireflies mirroring the stars. Then I went to a Turkish bath, where I scrubbed myself clean and slept the sleep of the just. The next morning at dawn, I caught the bus back to Río Salado, determined that if I caught myself wallowing in self-pity for even a moment, I would rip my heart out with my bare hands.

I went back to work in the pharmacy. I was a little different, but I tried to remain clear-headed. At times I lost my patience trying to decipher some doctor’s scrawled prescription, or snapped at Germaine, who constantly fussed and worried over me, but then I would sigh, pull myself together and apologise. In the evenings, after we closed up, I would go out for a walk. I would go to the village square and watch Bruno, the young policeman, strutting about, twirling his police whistle round his finger. I liked his calm enthusiasm, the way he wore his kepi at a rakish angle, the exaggerated politeness he lavished on the pretty girls. I would sit on the terrace of a café, sipping my lemonade, and wait until it was dark before heading home. Sometimes I would lose myself, rambling through the orange groves. I was not lonely, but I missed having company. André had come back from America and business at the diner had picked up, but I was bored of playing pool, and José always beat me. Germaine thought about marrying me off. She invited a number of nieces to Río Salado in the hope that I might fall for one of them; I barely even noticed when they left.

I saw Simon from time to time; we would say hello or wave to each other. Sometimes we’d sit together for a few minutes in a café and make small talk. At first he ticked me off for ‘skipping’ his wedding like some boring class at school, but he forgave me. I suppose he had more important things to think about. He was living at Émilie’s place, in the big house on the marabout road. Madame Cazenave had been insistent. Besides, there were no houses available in the village, and the Benyamins’ family home was small and unattractive.

Fabrice had a second child and everyone got together to celebrate – everyone except Jean-Christophe, of whom we had had no news since his letter to Simon – in a beautiful villa on the cliff road outside Oran. It was here that André introduced us to his cousin, now his wife, a strapping Andalusian girl from Granada, tall and broad-shouldered with a powerful face and extraordinary green eyes. She was funny, but strict when it came to her husband’s manners. It was during the celebrations that I noticed that Émilie, too, was expecting a child.

Some months later, Madame Cazenave went to French Guyana. The body of her husband, who had been prison governor at Saint-Laurent-du-Maroni and had disappeared in the jungle during a manhunt, had been discovered by smugglers and identified from his personal effects. She never returned to Río Salado, not even to celebrate the birth of her grandson, Michel.

In the summer of 1953, I met Jamila, the daughter of a Muslim lawyer my uncle had known since university. We met by accident in a restaurant in Nemours. Jamila was not particularly beautiful, but she reminded me of Lucette; I loved her serene face, the pale, delicate hands that cradled everything they touched – a napkin, a spoon, a bag, an apple – as delicately as though they were sacred relics. She had dark, intelligent eyes, a small round mouth and a seriousness that betrayed a strict but modern education that had prepared her for life and its challenges. Jamila was studying law, and hoped to be a barrister like her father. She wrote to me first, a few anodyne lines on the back of a postcard depicting the oasis at Bou Saada, where her father worked. It was some months before I wrote back. We exchanged letters and cards for many years, neither of us straying beyond polite formalities; both of us too shy and too reserved to make any declarations.

On the first spring morning in 1954, my uncle asked me to take the car out of the garage. He was wearing the green suit he had not put on since the dinner in honour of Messali Hadj in Oran thirteen years earlier, a white shirt with a bow tie, a gold fob watch in the pocket of his waistcoat, black dress shoes and a fez he had bought recently in an old Turkish shop in Tlemcen.

‘I want to go and visit the grave of the patriarch,’ he informed me.

Since I did not know where the tomb of the patriarch was, my uncle had to direct me through the villages and the hamlets. We drove all morning without stopping for lunch or even to rest. Germaine, who could not stand the smell of petrol, felt ill, and the road, twisting steeply up and down, almost finished her off. In the late afternoon we came to the summit of a rocky peak. Below, on the plains, a patchwork of olive groves struggled to maintain their lushness. Here and there the ground was cracked and eroded and the scrubland turned to desert. A few small reservoirs tried to keep up appearances, but it was clear that before long the drought would drain them dry. Several flocks of sheep grazed at the foot of the hills, as far from each other as the dusty hamlets. My uncle brought a hand up to shield his eyes and looked out towards the horizon. Apparently he could not see what he had come to find. He climbed a steep stony path to a copse, in the midst of which stood a crumbling ruin. It was the remains of a marabout, a shrine to a Muslim holy man, or a sepulchre from another age that harsh winters and sweltering summers had worn away to rubble. In the shade of a low wall, half-buried beneath a pile of stones, was a faded, broken headstone. This was the tomb of the patriarch. My uncle was heartbroken to find it in such a state. He picked up a beam, leaned it against the dirt wall and considered it sadly, then he reverently opened a worm-eaten door and stepped inside the crypt. Germaine and I waited in silence in the small courtyard overgrown with thick brambles. My uncle stayed in the tomb of the patriarch for a long time. Germaine went and sat on a rock and held her head in her hands. She had not said a word since we left Río Salado. When she was silent like this, I always feared the worst.

My uncle rejoined us just as the sun was setting. The shadow of the sepulchre was now long and misshapen, and a cool breeze began to whistle through the brambles.

‘Let’s go home,’ he said, heading towards the car.

I waited for him to talk to me about the patriarch, about our clan, about Lalla Fatna, about what had suddenly brought him here to this rocky peak fashioned by the wind; he said nothing. He sat next to me and did not take his eyes off the road even for a moment. We drove late into the night. Germaine fell asleep on the back seat. My uncle did not complain; he was lost in his thoughts. We had not eaten since morning, but he did not seem to notice. Looking at him, I saw his face was pale, his cheeks sunken; the look in his eyes reminded me of the look he used to have before he slipped into the nether world that had been his prison and his refuge for many years.

‘I’m worried about your uncle,’ Germaine told me some weeks later. I too was worried, though my uncle showed no real signs of having relapsed. He continued to read and write, to eat with us, to go out every morning and stroll through the vineyards; but he no longer spoke to us. He would nod, sometimes he would smile at Germaine to thank her when she brought him tea or smoothed his jacket, but he did not utter a word. Sometimes he would sit in the rocking chair on the balcony, staring out at the hills, then, when it grew dark, he would go back to his room, put on his slippers, and lock himself in his study.

One night, he took to his bed and asked for me. His pallor was worse now and his hand, as he gripped my wrist, was cold, almost icy.

‘I would have liked to have lived to see your children, Jonas. I know they would have gladdened my heart. I’ve never bounced a baby on my knee.’

His eyes glistened with tears.

‘Take a wife, Younes. Only love can make good the misfortunes and the evils of this world. And remember this: if a woman loves you, no star is beyond your grasp, no god can touch you.’

I felt the cold coursing through him begin to flood through me with every shudder of his hand on my arm, seeping into my very being. My uncle went on talking to me for a long time; with every phrase he withdrew a little further from this world. He was slipping away. Germaine was weeping, slumped at the foot of the bed. Her sobs drowned out my uncle’s words. It was a strange night, profound and yet unreal. Outside, a jackal howled as I had never heard a beast howl. My uncle’s fingers, tight as a tourniquet, cut off the circulation to my fingers, leaving a purple bruise; my arm went numb. It was only when I saw Germaine cross herself and close her husband’s eyes that I accepted that someone I loved had the right to depart this life like the sun at dusk, like a candle with a breath of wind, and that the pain we suffered at his passing was simply a part of life.

My uncle would not see his country take up arms. Destiny had judged him unworthy. How, otherwise, to explain the fact that he passed away five months before the long-awaited, oft-postponed firestorm erupted for independence? All Saints’ Day 1954 caught us unawares. The café owner stood behind the counter, cursing, reading his newspaper. The war of independence had begun, but ordinary mortals, after a brief outburst of indignation quickly forgotten, were not about to lose sleep over the burning of a handful of farms in Mitidja. There were a number of deaths in Mostaganem: policemen surprised by armed assailants. So what? they said. More people die in road accidents. What they did not know was that this time war had truly begun and there was no possible way back. A handful of revolutionaries had decided to take action, to shake up a population stupefied by a hundred years of colonisation, sorely tested by the various uprisings by isolated tribes that the colonial army, mythic and omnipotent, invariably quickly crushed after a few skirmishes, a few punitive raids, a war of attrition lasting several years. Even the famous Organisation Secrète, which become famous in the 1940s, had simply been a source of entertainment for a handful of bellicose Muslims. Surely the attacks that took place at midnight precisely on 1 November 1954 all over northern Algeria would turn out to be a flash in the pan, a fleeting spark of discontent by disorganised natives incapable of rallying to a cause?

Not this time. The ‘acts of vandalism’ spread across the country, at first sporadically, then with increasing violence, and with terrifying audacity. The newspapers spoke of ‘terrorists’, of ‘rebels’, of ‘outlaws’. There were skirmishes here and there, notably in the djebels, and sometimes soldiers killed in the fighting were relieved of their weapons and their ammunition. In Algiers, a police station was razed to the ground, policemen and civil servants were murdered on street corners, traitors had their throats cut. In Kabylia, there was talk of suspect groups, even groups in full battle-dress with old guns, laying ambushes for the police and then vanishing into the scrubland. In the Aurès mountains, there were rumours of colonels leading whole squadrons, of elusive guerrilla armies and no-go areas. Not far from Río Salado, in the Felaoucene district, men began to leave the villages in droves for the hills, where nightly they would set up underground units. Closer still, barely a few kilometres away, Aïn Témouchent posted news of rebel attacks in the town square. Everywhere graffiti appeared, always the same three letters: FLN – Front de Libération Nationale – a vast organisation. The FLN had its own laws, its own directives. It made calls for a general uprising, decreed curfews and embargoes. It had its own tribunals, an administrative wing, well-organised, labyrinthine networks, an army and a clandestine radio station that streamed into every house at night, when the shutters were closed . . .

In Río Salado, we were on another planet. News from elsewhere came to us tempered by an endless series of filters. True, there was a strange gleam now in the eyes of the Arabs working in the vineyards, but they still arrived at dawn and worked without let-up until sunset. In the cafés, people continued to gossip over a glass of anisette. Even Bruno, the policeman, did not think it necessary to take the safety catch off his gun; it was nothing, he said, a passing storm, everything would go back to the way it had been. It was several months before the ‘rebellion’ disturbed the tranquillity of Río Salado. Strangers burned an isolated farm; three times they burned vineyards and then blew up a wine cellar. This was too much. Jaime J. Sosa set up a private militia and set up a cordon around his vineyards. The police tried to reassure him, explaining that they were taking all necessary measures, but it was futile. By day, the farmers combed the area carrying their hunting rifles; by night, there were full military patrols complete with passwords and warning shots.

Apart from a few dead boars, shot by trigger-happy militiamen, not a single suspect was arrested.

In time, vigilance was relaxed and people once again began to walk the streets at night without fear.

The grape harvests were celebrated in traditional style. Three big orchestras were brought in to play at the ball, and Río Salado danced until it was exhausted. Pépé Rucillio made the most of the season to marry a singer from Nemours forty years his junior. At first his sons protested, but given that their father’s fortune was incalculable, they went to the wedding, ate like pigs and dreamed of other banquets. It was during the wedding ceremony that I came face to face with Émilie. She was getting out of a car with her husband, cradling her child; I was coming out of the ballroom with Germaine on my arm. For a split second Émilie turned pale, but then she quickly turned to Simon and smiled and the two of them went in to join the festivities. I walked home, leaving my car parked next to my friend’s.

Then tragedy struck.

No one was expecting it. The war was now in its second year, and with the exception of the early acts of sabotage, Río Salado remained untouched. People went about their business as though nothing had happened, until one morning in February 1956. There was an atmosphere of fear in the village, the people seemed petrified, literally overtaken by events: when I saw the mob around André’s diner, I realised why.

The body was lying on the ground, half inside and half outside the bar. One of the shoes was missing; lost as the man tried to fend off his attackers, or tried to run away. There was a gash that ran from the man’s heel to his calf . . . José had crawled some twenty metres before he died, as was obvious from the marks in the dust. His left hand was still clutching the door jamb. He had been stabbed over and over; his shirt had been ripped from top to bottom and there were a number of stab wounds visible on his bare back. He lay in a thick, dark pool of blood that dripped over the threshold of the diner. A shaft of sunlight lit up part of his face, and it was as though he had his ear pressed to the ground listening for something, the way, as kids, we’d pressed our ears to the railway track to see if a train was coming. His expression was like that of an opium addict; eyes wide but unseeing.

‘He used to say he was dung the Lord had stepped in,’ André said quietly. He was sitting slumped on the floor beside the bar, chin resting on his knees, hugging himself.

He was barely visible in the half-light.

He was crying.

‘I wanted him to live the good life, like the rest of my cousins, but he would never take anything from me. He was afraid I’d think he was taking advantage.’

Simon was there, propped on the bar, his head in his hands. Bruno, the policeman, was sitting on a chair at the far end of the room, trying to recover from the shock. Two other men stood next to the pool table, dumbstruck.

‘Why him?’ André was overcome with grief. ‘José would have given anyone the shirt off his back if they’d asked.’

‘It’s not fair,’ I heard someone behind me say.

The mayor arrived and, seeing José’s body, clapped his hand over his mouth to stifle a scream. Cars began to pull into the diner’s car park. I heard doors slam. ‘What happened?’ someone asked. No one answered. In a few scant minutes, the whole village was there. José’s body was covered with a blanket. Outside, a woman began to wail. It was José’s mother. Her family stopped her from coming near the body. There was a stir when André stepped out of the diner. He was livid, his eyes flashing with fury.

‘Where’s Jelloul?’ he roared, his whole body shaking with rage. ‘Where’s that idiot Jelloul?’

Jelloul made his way through the crowd and stood before André. He was dazed; he didn’t know what to do with himself.

‘What the fuck were you doing while José was being stabbed?’

Jelloul stared down at his shoes. André lifted the servant’s head with the tip of his riding crop.

‘Where the hell were you, you bastard? I told you not to leave the diner.’

‘My father was sick.’

‘Your father’s always sick. Why didn’t you tell me you were going back to your shack? José wouldn’t have come to take over from you and he’d still be alive now. And how come this happens the one night you’re not here?’

Jelloul bowed his head, and André forced it up again with his riding crop.

‘Look at me when I’m talking to you . . . What cowardly bastard did this to José? You know who, don’t you? You were in it together, weren’t you? You went back to your shack so your accomplice could murder José; that way you’d have an alibi, you son of a bitch . . . Look at me, I said. Maybe it was you . . . You’ve been bitter and resentful for years, haven’t you, you fucker? What are you looking at the ground for? José is there!’ André screamed, pointing to the doorway. ‘I’m sure it was you. José would never have let himself be caught unawares by a stranger. It had to be someone he trusted. Show me your hands.’

André checked Jelloul’s hands, his clothes, looking for some trace of blood, and finding nothing, started to whip him with his crop.

‘I suppose you think you’re clever? You murder José, then go home and change and come back here. That’s what happened, I’d stake my life on it. I know you.’

Enraged by his own words, blinded by grief, he knocked Jelloul to the ground and began laying into him. No one in the crowd lifted a finger. André’s grief was too deep, it seemed, to be challenged. I went home, torn between anger and indignation, ashamed and degraded, pained by both José’s death and Jelloul’s suffering. That’s how it’s always been, I said to myself. When you can’t find a remedy for your pain, you look for someone to blame, and there was no better scapegoat at the scene of the crime than Jelloul.

Jelloul was arrested, handcuffed and taken to the police station. There were rumours that he had confessed, that the murder had little to do with the upheavals festering all over the country. Even so, death had struck the village and no one could be sure that there might not be something to these ideas. The farmers redoubled their patrols, and from time to time, gunfire punctuated the howls of the jackals in the night. The following morning there would be talk of fending off suspected intruders, of undesirables taken out like vermin, of arson attempts foiled. One morning, heading towards Lourmel, I saw a crowd of excited farmers with guns by the roadside. Lying at their feet was the bloody body of a young Muslim dressed in rags, displayed like a hunting trophy. Next to him was a battered old gun, the damning evidence against him.

A few weeks later, a puny, sickly boy came to see me at the pharmacy. He asked me to go with him. A weeping woman was sitting on the pavement on the opposite side of the street, surrounded by a brood of children.

‘That’s Jelloul’s mother,’ the little boy told me.

She threw herself at my feet. I couldn’t understand what she was trying to say; her words were drowned out by her sobbing, her frantic pleading panicked me. I led her into the back office of the pharmacy and tried to calm her down so that I could work out what she was saying. She was talking quickly, getting the sequence of events mixed up, every sentence trailing off into trancelike silence. Her cheeks were covered in scratches. She had clearly been clawing at her face in grief. Finally, exhausted, she accepted a glass of water and collapsed on to a bench. She told me of the problems her family had been having, her husband who had had both arms amputated, the prayers she had said at every marabout in the area, before throwing herself at my feet again and begging me to save Jelloul.

‘He’s innocent, everyone in the douar will tell you. Jelloul was with us the whole night the roumi was killed, I swear. I went to the mayor, to the police, to the kaids, but no one will listen. You’re our last hope. Monsieur André is your friend, he’ll listen to you. Jelloul is not a murderer. His father took a turn that night and I sent my nephew to fetch him. It’s not fair. They’re going to execute him for no reason at all.’ The little boy was the nephew she had mentioned. He confirmed what she had said, that Jelloul had never raised a hand to José, that he was very fond of him.

I did not see what I could do, but I promised to talk to André. After they left, I lost my nerve and decided to do nothing. I knew that the decision of the court would be final and that André would not listen to me. Since José’s death, he had been in a state of constant fury, beating the Arabs working in his fields for minor infractions. I spent a restless night, my sleep filled with nightmares so terrifying that more than once I had to turn on the lamp on my bedside table. The grief of this half-mad woman and her brood filled me with a petrifying unease. My head was filled with wailing and inchoate lamentations. The following morning, I did not have the energy to work in the pharmacy. I thought about what I should do and decided it was best to stay out of things. I couldn’t imagine pleading Jelloul’s case with André, who was almost unrecognisable he was so filled with hate and anger. He was quite capable of treating my intervention as a Muslim siding with a murderer from his own community. Hadn’t he brushed me off when I tried to offer my condolences at José’s funeral; hadn’t he said that all Arabs were ungrateful cowards? Why would he say such a thing in the Christian cemetery where I was the only Muslim if not to hurt me?

Two days later, I was surprised to find myself pulling up outside Jaime Jiménez Sosa’s farm. André was not at home. I asked to see his father. A servant told me to wait in my car while he went to find out whether the master was prepared to see me. He reappeared a moment later and led me to a hill overlooking the plains. Jaime Jiménez Sosa had just come back from a ride and was entrusting his horse to his groom. He stared at me for a moment, puzzled by my visit, and then, having slapped the horse’s rump, he walked towards me.

‘What can I do for you, Jonas?’ he said brusquely as he approached. ‘You don’t drink wine and it’s not grape-picking season.’

A servant rushed over to take his pith helmet and his riding crop; Jaime waved him away contemptuously, then walked straight past me without stopping to shake my hand.

I followed him.

‘What’s the problem, Jonas?’

‘It’s a bit complicated.’

‘Then get to the point.’

‘You’re not exactly making it easy, rushing off like that.’

He slowed a little, then, pushing his helmet off his face, he looked at me.

‘I’m listening . . .’

‘It’s about Jelloul.’

He flinched and clenched his jaw, and taking off his helmet, mopped his face with a handkerchief.

‘You disappoint me, young man,’ he said. ‘You’re not cut from the same cloth, and you’re better off where you are.’

‘There’s been some misunderstanding.’

‘Really? And what might that be?’

‘Jelloul might be innocent.’

‘Don’t be ridiculous. I’ve been employing Arabs for generations, I know what they’re like . . . Vipers, the lot of them. And that vermin confessed. He’s been found guilty and I’ll personally see to it that he goes to the guillotine.’

He came over to me, took me by the arm and suggested I walk with him a while.

‘This is serious, Jonas. This isn’t some hothead making speeches; this is war. The country is crumbling; this is no time to sit on the fence. We have to strike hard, we cannot tolerate any laxness. These crazy murderers need to know that we are not going to give in. Every bastard we get our hands on has to pay for the others.’

‘His family came to see me—’

‘Jonas, poor little Jonas.’ He cut me off. ‘You don’t have the first idea what you’re talking about. You are an honest, sincere, well-brought-up young man. You need to steer clear of these thugs. It will only confuse you.’

He was furious at my insistence and outraged at having to lower himself to speak about the fate of a manservant. He let go of my arm, forced a wry smile, put his handkerchief back in his pocket and nodded for me to follow him.

‘Come with me, Jonas . . .’

He walked on ahead, grabbing a glass of orange juice held out to him by a servant who had appeared from nowhere. Jaime Jiménez Sosa was a stocky man, but he seemed to have grown several inches. A large sweat stain blossomed on his shirt as it billowed in the wind. Wearing jodhpurs, with his pith helmet slung around his neck, he looked as though with every step he was conquering the world.

When we got to the top of the hill, he stood, legs apart, his hand describing a large arc, holding his glass like a sceptre. Down below, vineyards stretched away across the plains as far as the eye could see. In the misty grey distance, the mountains seemed like sleeping prehistoric monsters. Jaime surveyed the landscape, nodding as he did so: a god contemplating his universe could not have been as inspiring.

‘Look, Jonas . . . isn’t it magnificent?’

His glass trembled in his hand.

‘It is the most wonderful sight in the world.’

When I said nothing, he shook his head slowly and went back to surveying his vineyards, which stretched all the way to the horizon.

‘Sometimes . . .’ he said, ‘sometimes when I come here to look at it, I think of the men who, long ago, did just as I am doing, and I wonder what they saw. I try to picture this landscape through the ages, to stand in the shoes of the Berber nomad, the Phoenician explorer, the Christian evangelist, the Roman centurion, the Vandal chief, the Muslim conqueror – all the men whom destiny brought this way and who stopped on the brow of this hill exactly where I’m standing now.’

He turned and glared at me.

‘What did they see when they looked out here down through the centuries?’ he asked me. ‘I’ll tell you. Nothing. There was nothing to see, nothing but a wilderness of rats and snakes and a few hills covered with weeds; maybe a pond that’s dried up since, and a path leading nowhere . . .’

As he threw his arms wide to encompass the whole plain, drops of orange juice glittered in the air. He came back and stood next to me and went on:

‘When my great-grandfather set his sight on this god forsaken hole, he believed he would go to his grave without ever making a profit from it. I’ve got photos back at the house. There wasn’t a shack for miles, not a tree, not so much as a skeleton blanched by the sun. But my great-grandfather did not move on; he rolled up his sleeves, he made the tools he needed with his bare hands, and he hoed and weeded and tilled this land until his hands could barely hold his knife to cut bread. It was hard labour; he worked day and night, and the seasons were hellish. But my family did not give up, not once, not even for a second. Some died from exhaustion, others from disease, but not one of them had any doubts about what they were building here. And thanks to my family, Jonas, thanks to its sacrifices and its faith, this land was tamed. Generation after generation it was transformed into vineyards and orange groves. Every tree you see around you is a chapter in the history of my ancestors. Every orange you pick contains a drop of their sweat, every mouthful of juice the taste of their dedication.’

He gestured theatrically, his hand sweeping over the farm.

‘That mansion I think of as my castle, the huge white house where I was born, where I played as a child, my father built it with his own hands like a monument to the glory of his ancestors. This country owes everything to us . . . We built the roads, we laid the railway lines that run to the edge of the Sahara, we threw bridges across the rivers, built towns and cities each more beautiful than the last and idyllic villages in the depths of the scrubland. From a thousand-year-old wasteland we built a great and thriving country; from barren rock we created the Garden of Eden . . . And now they expect us to believe that we did all this for nothing?’

His roar was such that I felt his spittle on my face.

His eyes grew dark and he waved his finger pompously beneath my nose.

‘Well I don’t believe it, Jonas. We didn’t wear out our bodies and our hearts for a puff of smoke. This land knows its people, and we are that people, we have served it as few sons have served their mother. This land is generous because she knows we love her. The grapes she gives us, she drinks with us. Listen to her, and she will tell you that we have earned every plot of land we hold. We came here to a dead place and we breathed life into it. It is our blood, our sweat that feeds its rivers. No one, Monsieur Jonas, no one on this planet or any other can take from us the right to go on serving her until the end of time. Especially not the idle vermin who think that by shooting a few farmers they can cut the ground out from under us.’

The glass in his hand was shaking. He stared at me, his eye attempting to bore straight through me.

‘These lands do not belong to them. If the land could speak, she would curse these criminals just as I curse them whenever I see them burn down another farm. If they think they can frighten us, they are wasting their time and ours. We will never give up. We created Algeria, it is our finest creation, and we will not let some unclean hand despoil our crops, our harvests.’

From a dim corner of my memory where I had thought him buried came an image of Abdelkader, red with shame, standing at the front of my primary school class. I could picture him squirming in pain as the teacher twisted his ear, and hear Maurice’s voice explode in my head: ‘Because Arabs are lazy and shiftless, sir.’ A wave of shock ran though my body like an underground explosion rippling through a castle moat. The same blind fury I had felt that day at school surged through me like a stream of lava coursing from deep in my belly. Suddenly I forgot why I had come, forgot the consequences for Jelloul, his mother’s worry, and could see only Monsieur Sosa in all his arrogance, the repulsive glare of his overweening pride, which seemed to give a purulent tinge to the sunlight.

Unconsciously, unable to stop myself, I drew myself up to my full height and in a voice clear and sharp as the blade of a scimitar, I said:

‘A long, long time ago, Monsieur Sosa, long before you and your great-grandfather, a man stood where you are standing now. When he looked out over the plains, he could feel at one with it. There were no roads, no railroad tracks and the mastic trees and the brambles did not bother him. Every river, dead or alive, every shadow, every pebble reflected the image of his own humility. This man was self-possessed, because he was free. He had nothing, nothing but a flute to calm his flock of goats and a club to ward off the jackals. When he lay down in the shade of this tree here, he had only to close his eyes and he could hear himself live. The crust of bread and the slice of onion he ate tasted better than a thousand banquets. He was lucky enough to find abundance even in frugality. He lived to the rhythm of the seasons, believing that peace of mind lies in the simplicity of things. It is because he meant no ill to anyone that he felt safe from aggression until the day that, on the horizon he furnished with his dreams, he saw the approaching storm. They took away his flute and his club, took away his lands and his flock, took away everything that comforted his soul. And now they expect him to believe that he was here merely by accident; they are amazed and angry when he demands a little respect. Well, I disagree, monsieur. This land does not belong to you. It belongs to that ancient shepherd whose ghost is standing next to you, though you refuse to see it. Since you do not know how to share, take your vineyards and your bridges, your paved roads and your railway tracks, your cities and your gardens and give back what remains to its rightful owners.’

‘You are an intelligent boy, Jonas,’ he retorted, unmoved. ‘You were brought up in the right place. Stay here. The fellagas do not know how to build; if they were given paradise they would reduce it to rubble. All they can bring to your people is misfortune and disappointment.’

‘You should take a look at the villages around you, Monsieur Sosa. Misfortune holds sway here since you reduced free men to the rank of beasts of burden.’

With that, I left him standing there and walked back to my car, my head whistling like a desert wind.

17

JEAN-CHRISTOPHE showed up unexpectedly in the spring of 1957. It was Bruno the policeman who gave me the news as I came out of the post office.

‘So, how was the reunion?’

‘What reunion?’

‘You mean you don’t know? Chris is home, he got back two days ago . . .’

Two days ago? Jean-Christophe had been back in Río Salado for two days and no one had told me? I had seen Simon the night before; we had even talked a little. Why hadn’t he told me?

Back at the pharmacy, I phoned Simon at his office, though it was only a stone’s throw from the post office – I don’t know why I decided to phone him rather than call and see him. Maybe I was afraid of making him feel embarrassed, or afraid of seeing in his eyes what I already suspected: that Jean-Christophe still bore a grudge against me and did not want to see me.

Simon’s voice quavered on the other end of the line:

‘I thought you knew.’

‘Really?’

‘I swear, I thought you knew.’

‘Did he say anything to you?’

Simon cleared his throat. He was embarrassed.

‘I don’t follow you.’

‘It’s okay, I understand.’

I hung up.

Germaine, who had just come back from the market, set her basket down on the floor and gave me a lopsided look.

‘Who was that on the phone?’

‘Just some customer complaining,’ I reassured her.

She picked up her basket and went upstairs to the apartment. When she got to the landing, she stopped for a second, then came down a few steps and looked at me.

‘Is there something you’re not telling me?’

‘No.’

‘You would say that, wouldn’t you . . . Oh, by the way, I’ve invited Bernadette to come down for the end-of-season ball. I hope you’re not going to let her down too. She’s a fine girl; she might not look it, but she’s clever. Not educated, I’ll grant you, but you won’t find a better match than her. And she’s pretty, too . . .’

I had met Bernadette when she was a little girl, at the funeral of her father, who had been killed in the attack on the naval base at Mers-el-Kébir in 1940 – a skinny child who’d stood a little apart while her cousins played with a hoop.

‘You know perfectly well that I don’t go to balls any more.’

‘Precisely . . .’

And she went upstairs.

Simon called me back, having had time to think.

‘What did you mean, you understand, Jonas?’

‘I find it strange that you didn’t tell me that Chris was back. I thought we were still friends.’

‘Nothing about our friendship has changed; I’m still as fond of you as ever. I know my job hasn’t left me much time off, but you’re always in my thoughts. You’re the one who’s been distant. You’ve never come to visit us at the new house, not once. Every time we run into each other in the street, you’re always in a hurry to get off somewhere. I don’t know what’s got into you, but it’s not me who’s changed. And I swear I thought you knew Chris was back. Actually, I haven’t seen much of him, I left him to his family. If it makes you feel any better, I haven’t even phoned Fabrice to tell him the good news. I’ll do it now. The four of us can get together, just like the good old days. I know a great bistro in Aïn Truck. What do you say?’

I knew he was lying. He was talking too quickly, as though rattling off something he’d learned by heart, but I gave him the benefit of the doubt. He promised to pick me up after work so we could go to Jean-Christophe’s house together.

I waited, but he didn’t come. I closed up the shop and waited a little longer. When it got dark, I sat out on the steps of the shop, watching shadows moving in the streets, trying to pick out Simon’s. He didn’t come. I decided to go to Jean-Christophe’s house on my own . . . Which was a mistake. Simon’s car was parked outside the front door, beneath an avalanche of mimosa; next to it was André’s car and the mayor’s car and the grocer’s car for all I knew. I was furious. Something told me to turn around and go home, but I didn’t listen. I rang the doorbell. Somewhere a shutter creaked then slammed shut. It was a long time before someone opened the door. A woman I didn’t know, probably a visiting relative, asked what I wanted.

‘I’m Jonas, I’m a friend of Chris.’

‘I’m sorry, he’s asleep.’

I felt like barging past her, storming straight into the living room where everyone was holding their breath and surprising Jean-Christophe there with his friends and relatives. But I did nothing. There was nothing to be done. Everything was crystal clear. I nodded, took a step back, waited for the woman to close the door, then drove home. Germaine did not ask me where I’d been; it was kind of her.

The following day, Simon showed up looking tight-lipped.

‘I swear I don’t understand what’s going on,’ he stammered.

‘There’s nothing to understand. He doesn’t want to see me, that’s all. And you’ve known that from the beginning. That’s why you didn’t say anything when I ran into you two days ago.’

‘Okay. You’re right, I did know. In fact it was the first thing he said to me, that I wasn’t allowed to mention your name. He actually insisted I tell you that he didn’t want you to come by and see him. I refused, obviously.’

He lifted the hatch and came behind the counter, wringing his hands. His forehead was slick with sweat; his receding hairline glistened in the light.

‘Don’t hate him. He’s had it rough. He fought on the front line in Indochina. He was captured and wounded twice. He was demobbed when he got out of hospital. You have to give him some time.’

‘It doesn’t matter, Simon.’

‘I was going to come by and pick you up yesterday, like I promised.’

‘I waited . . .’

‘I know. I went round to see Jean-Christophe first, to try to persuade him to see you. I could hardly just bring you round; he would have been furious, and that would just have made matters worse.’

‘You’re right, there’s no point forcing his hand.’

‘That’s not what I mean. He’s unpredictable. He’s not the same. Even with me. When I invited him round to meet Émilie and the kid, he flew into a rage. Never! he screamed at me. Never! You’d think I’d suggested taking him to hell. I don’t understand. Maybe it’s because of what he went through in the war. Sometimes I look at him and it’s like he’s a little crazy. If you saw his eyes – empty as the twin barrels of a rifle. I pity him. Don’t hate him, Jonas. We have to be patient.’

When I did not reply, he tried another tack:

‘I called Fabrice. Hélène told me he’s in Algiers on account of what’s happening in the Casbah. She doesn’t know when he’ll be back. Maybe by the time he gets home, Chris will have come round.’

Resentment prickled in me, insistent and biting, and I lashed out.

‘You were all there last night.’

‘Yes,’ he admitted with a tired smile.

He leaned towards me, watching every twitch of my face.

‘What happened between the two of you?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘Come on, you can’t expect me to believe that. You had something to do with him leaving in the first place, didn’t you? It was because of you that he signed up and allowed himself to be torn to pieces by those slitty-eyed bastards. What the hell happened? I didn’t sleep a wink for thinking about it. I thought of every possible scenario, but it doesn’t make sense.’

‘You’re right, Simon. Let’s give it time – time can’t keep a secret, it’s bound to tell us some day.’

‘Is it something to do with Isabelle?’

‘Simon, please, just drop it.’

That weekend I saw Jean-Christophe, from afar. I was coming out of the shoemaker’s and he was coming out of the town hall. He was so thin he looked six inches taller. His hair was shaved, with a single blonde lock that fell over his forehead. He wore a thick coat in spite of the weather and limped slightly, leaning on a walking stick. Isabelle was with him, holding his arm. I had never seen her so beautiful, so down-to-earth. Her humility was almost admirable. They were walking slowly and chatting. It was Isabelle who did the talking; Jean-Christophe just nodded from time to time. They seemed to glow with a sort of serene happiness, something ageless and enduring. I could not help but feel a pang of affection for them, this couple who could grow and mellow in silence and in questioning, made stronger by the tribulations they had come through together. I felt my heart go out to them, like a prayer that their reunion might last for ever. Perhaps because seeing them reminded me of my uncle and Germaine strolling through the orange groves. Seeing them together again, it was as though nothing had ever happened. I realised that I could not but go on being fond of one and loving the other. And yet I felt overwhelmed by a grief as terrible as I had felt when my uncle had died.

I felt tears prick my eyes, and I cursed Jean-Christophe for moving on with his life and leaving me stranded on the platform. I felt as though he had dismissed me on the basis of one snap judgement. I wasn’t sure I wanted him to forgive me. Forgive me for what? What had I done? I felt I had more than paid for my loyalty; that my misdeed had hurt me first and foremost, hurt me much more than it had hurt others. It was strange. I was love and hate tied up in a single package, imprisoned in a straitjacket. I felt myself slipping towards something I could not quite define that was pulling me in all directions, distorting my perceptions, my thoughts, the very fibres of my being, like a werewolf transforming in all his monstrosity under cover of darkness. I was consumed by an inner fury that was insidious, corrosive. I was jealous when I saw others find their place in the world even as mine was crumbling around me. I was jealous when I saw Simon and Émilie walking together on the avenue, their little boy running on ahead; jealous of the intimacy they shared, an intimacy that excluded me; jealous of the aura that surrounded Jean-Christophe and Isabelle; jealous of every couple I met in Río Salado, in Lourmel, in Oran, of the couples I stumbled on by accident, as I roamed restlessly like the god of a shattered universe who realises that he does not have the energy to re-create a new one. I found myself spending the empty days wandering through the Muslim neighbourhoods of Oran, sitting at tables with people I didn’t know, whose very presence deepened my loneliness. I found myself back in Medina J’dida, drinking water flavoured with oil of cade, getting to know an ageing Mozabite bookseller in a baggy sarouel, learning from a young imam of staggering erudition, listening to the ragged shoeshine boys – the yaouleds – talking about the war that was ripping Algeria apart. They knew much more about it than did I, the educated, intelligent pharmacist. I began to memorise names hitherto unknown to me, names that sounded in my mouth like the call of the muezzin: Ben M’hidi, Zabana, Boudiaf, Abane Ramdane, Hamou Boutlilis, the Soummam, the Ouarsenis, Djebel Llouh, Ali la Pointe, the names of places and of heroes of a populist movement that I had never for a moment suspected was so sincere, so committed.

Was I trying to compensate for the defection of my friends . . . ?

I went to Fabrice’s house up on the cliff road. He seemed happy to see me, but I could not bear Hélène’s aloofness. I never set foot in their house again. Whenever I ran into him, we would go to a café or a restaurant, but I politely declined any invitations to their house. I had no intention of putting up with his wife’s snobbishness. I once said as much to him. ‘You’re imagining things, Jonas,’ Fabrice said, piqued. ‘What made you think Hélène doesn’t like you? She’s a city girl, that’s all, she’s not like the girls round here. Oh, I admit she’s got some strange ideas, but that’s just the city in her . . .’ Even so, I did not go back to their house. I preferred to lose myself in the old quarters of Oran, in La Calère, around the Pasha Mosque and especially the Bey’s Palace, watching the boys squabbling at Raz-el-Ain. After a life of crippling shyness, I suddenly found myself shouting at referees at football matches, buying black-market tickets to bullfights to watch Luis Miguel Dominquin deal the death blow to a bull at Eckmühl arena. Suddenly I liked nothing better than the roar of the crowd; it kept me from brooding over things I did not want to think about. I became a keen fan of USMO, the Muslim football team. I went to boxing matches, and when a young Muslim boxer floored his opponent, I felt within myself a murderous rage I had never suspected. Their names were as intoxicating as a whiff of opium: Goudihb, Khalfi, Cherraka, the Sabbane brothers, Abdeslam, the extraordinary Moroccan. I barely recognised myself. Like a moth to a candle flame I was drawn to violence and to crowds. There could be no doubt: I was at war with myself.

Jean-Christophe married Isabelle at the end of the year. I found out the day after the wedding. No one had deigned to mention it to me, not even Simon, who – to his annoyance – had not been invited. Nor Fabrice, who had gone home at dawn so as not to have to apologise for I don’t know what. All this simply served to push me even further away from their world. It was appalling.

Jean-Christophe decided they should settle somewhere far from Río Salado. The village was not enough to satisfy his desire to make up for lost time; to atone for certain memories. Pépé Rucillio gave them a beautiful house in one of the most fashionable areas of Oran. I was on the village square when the newly-weds left. André drove them to the city in his car, with a huge truck filled with furniture and wedding gifts following behind. Even today, though I am an old man now, I can still hear the horns blaring as the car moved off; still feel the pain I felt that day. And yet, strangely, I was relieved to see them go; it was as though some major artery in my body, long blocked, was suddenly clear again.

People were leaving Río Salado in droves. I felt like a castaway adrift on an empty ocean. The streets, the vineyards and the orange groves, the gossip in the cafés, the farmers’ jokes, none of it meant anything to me now. Every morning I woke up eager for night to come so that I could retreat from the chaos of the day; every night I went to bed dreading the fact that I would wake again to this terrible emptiness. I began to leave Germaine to run the pharmacy and spent my time in the brothels of Oran. I never touched the prostitutes; I just listened to them recount their turbulent lives and pour scorn on their shattered dreams. I was comforted by their contempt for illusion. To tell the truth, I was looking for Hadda. Suddenly, for some reason, she mattered to me. I wanted to find her again, to find out if she still remembered me, to see if she knew anything that might help me find my mother. But even in this, I was lying to myself: Hadda had left Jenane Jato before the fire that had destroyed our old house. She could not possibly help me find my mother. But that was what I had planned to say to her to win her sympathy. I needed a friend, a confidant, someone I had known long ago, anyone who could offer me a feeling of closeness now that my friends in Río Salado had vanished.

The madame who ran the Camélia told me that Hadda had gone off with a pimp one night and never come back. I managed to track down the pimp – a hulking thug with hairy arms covered with tattoos of pierced hearts and profanities. He warned me not to get involved unless I wanted to end up in the obituary column of the local paper. That same day, stepping off a tram, I thought I saw my childhood friend Lucette walking with a baby in a pram – a chubby young woman in a trouser suit and a white canvas hat. But it could not have been Lucette – she would have seen my smile, recognised something in the blue of my eyes. In spite of her eloquent indifference, I followed this woman along the boulevard, then, realising that what I was doing was somehow indecent, I turned back.

It was then that I came face to face with war . . . with the terrible reality of war, the succubus of Death, the fertile concubine of Disaster, this truth I had not wanted to face. I had read the newspaper reports of bombings in towns and villages, of police raids on douars suspected of harbouring FLN supporters, of the thousands of people displaced, the deadly clashes, the manhunts, the massacres, but to me it had been like a fiction that never seemed to end. Then, one day, as I was sitting on the seafront sipping an orange juice, a large black car pulled up, machine guns bristling from the windows. The gunfire lasted only a few seconds before it was drowned out by the squeal of tyres, but the shots kept ringing in my head for a long time. Bodies lay sprawled on the pavement opposite, while onlookers ran for safety. The silence was so total that the cries of the seagulls drilled into my temples. It was like I was dreaming. I stared at the broken bodies and I started to tremble. My hand juddered like a shutter in the wind, splashing me with orange juice; the glass fell and shattered at my feet and someone at the next table screamed. People stumbled from shops and offices, from their cars, shocked and dazed. A woman fainted in her friend’s arms. I didn’t dare to move. I sat, open-mouthed, heart hammering in my chest, frozen in my chair. The police arrived in a blast of whistles. Soon, a crowd had gathered around the victims: three people were dead – among them a young girl – and five more gravely wounded.

I went back to Río Salado, locked myself in my room and did not come out for two days.

For months, I couldn’t sleep. From the moment I got into bed, I felt a terrible dread pulling me under, it was like tumbling into an abyss. I dared not let myself fall asleep: my dreams were grotesque and bloody nightmares. When I could no longer bear to stare at the ceiling, I sat up, put my head in my hands and stared at the floor. My feet left bloody prints, gunshots ricocheted through my head – it was useless to stop my ears, because I could still hear them, deadly, deafening, my body jolting with each shot. I left my bedside light on until morning to try to keep these ghosts at bay. The slightest rustle, the smallest sound, every creak of the woodwork, seemed loud enough to split my skull.

‘You’re in shock,’ the doctor told me. This was something I already knew. What I needed to know was how to get over it, but he had no magic cure to offer. He prescribed tranquillisers and sleeping pills, but they did not help. I was depressed. I knew I was lost, but I had no idea how to find myself again. It was as though I was a different person, an infuriating, disappointing yet indispensable person whose body was my only home.

I constantly felt claustrophobic and would go out and stand on the balcony. Sometimes Germaine would come and keep me company. She tried to talk to me but I didn’t listen. Listening to her exhausted me and aggravated my anxiety. I needed to be alone. So I went out – night after night, week after week. The silence in the village did me good. I liked to stroll through the deserted square, wander up and down the main street, sit on a bench and think about nothing.

One moonless night as I stood thinking on the pavement, I saw a bicycle lamp weaving in the distance, the rattle of the bicycle chain echoing from the walls in a thousand high-pitched whimpers. It was Madame Cazenave’s gardener. When he saw me, he braked hard, almost sending himself over the handlebars. Pale and dishevelled, he kept pointing back the way he had come, unable to speak. Then he climbed back on to his bike and, in his hurry to ride off, hit the kerb and fell backwards.

‘What is it?’ I asked. ‘You look like you’ve seen a ghost.’

Shaking, he got to his feet, climbed back on his bicycle and managed to stammer:

‘I’m going to the police . . . something terrible has happened at the Cazenave house.’

It was then that I noticed the huge reddish glow behind the Jewish cemetery. ‘Oh my God,’ I screamed, and started to run.

The house was on fire, great flames lighting up the surrounding orchards. I cut through the cemetery, and as I came closer to the house, I realised the scale of the catastrophe. Fire was raging though the ground floor and was already threatening the first floor. Simon’s car stood burning in the driveway, but I could see no sign of him or of Émilie. The gates were open. The climbing vine on the trellis crackled and blazed. I had to shield my face to breach the wall of fire and get to the fountain. In the courtyard, two dogs lay dead. It was impossible to reach the house, which was now an inferno. Flames licked the walls, shooting out like tentacles. I tried to call to Simon, but no sound came from my parched throat. A woman sat huddled under a tree. It was the gardener’s wife. Hands clapped to her face, she stared trancelike at the house as it burned.

‘Where’s Simon?’

She turned and pointed up the hill to the old stables. I plunged into the blaze, deafened by the crack of burning wood and shattering windows. The hill was cloaked in thick, acrid smoke; the old stables were shrouded in a silence even more terrifying than the cataclysm behind me. In the distance I saw a body lying face down on the grass, arms crossed, illuminated by the distant flickering flames. My knees locked. I realised I was utterly alone, and I did not feel I could face this thing without someone to help me. I waited, hoping the gardener’s wife would follow me, but she did not move. I could hear only the roar of the fire, see only the body lying before me. Motionless and naked but for a pair of underpants, it lay in a pool of blood so black it looked like pitch. I recognised the bald head: it was Simon! This surely was some nightmare; I was at home, asleep . . . But a graze on my arm throbbed, reminding me that I was awake. The body gleamed in the glow of the fire. The face looked as though it had been carved from a block of chalk; there was no light in the eyes. Simon was dead.

I crouched down next to the body of my friend. I was in a daze. I no longer knew what I was doing, what I was thinking. Automatically, I reached out to the body as if to wake him.

‘Don’t touch him!’ a voice screamed out of the darkness.

Émilie was crouched by a corner of the stable. Her face was so pale it seemed luminous. Her eyes burned with a fire as vast as the flames behind me. Her hair spilled down her back. She was barefoot and wearing only a silk night-dress, which somehow made her seem more naked. Her son Michel huddled against her.

‘I forbid you to touch him,’ she shouted in an unearthly voice.

A man appeared behind her holding a rifle: it was Krimo, Simon’s chauffeur. Krimo was an Arab from Oran who had worked in a restaurant on the corniche until Simon hired him just before he got married. He stepped away from the wall and moved cautiously towards me.

‘I’ve already shot one of them,’ he yelled.

‘Who did this?’

‘Fellagas. They slit Simon’s throat and torched the place. By the time I got here, they’d gone – I saw them running through the valley and I fired. The cowards didn’t even fire back, but I heard one of them scream.’

He stood in front of me, the glow from the flames accentuating the contempt on his face.

‘Why Simon?’ he asked me. ‘What did he ever do to them?’

‘Go away,’ Émilie screamed. ‘Go away and leave us in peace. Make him go away, Krimo!’

‘You heard her.’ Krimo raised his rifle. ‘Fuck off out of here.’

I nodded and turned away. It felt as though my feet did not touch the ground, as though I were gliding through a void. I went back past the burning house, cut through the orange groves and headed back to the village. Headlights swept around the cemetery and headed up the marabout road. Behind the cars, I could see the shadows of people running. Their breathless voices came to me in snatches, but their shouting was drowned out by Émilie’s words, a maelstrom that was swallowing me up.

Simon was buried in the Jewish cemetery. The whole village was in attendance, crowded around Émilie and her son. Émilie wore black and her face was hidden by a veil. She was determined to be dignified in her grief. She was flanked on either side by members of the Benyamin family from Río Salado and elsewhere. Simon’s mother sat on a chair, devastated, weeping, deaf to the whispers of her husband, an ageing, sickly man. Some rows back, Fabrice and his wife stood holding hands. Jean-Christophe was with the Rucillio clan, with Isabelle invisible in his shadow. I stood at the far end of the cemetery, behind everyone, as though I had already been banished.

After the ceremony was over, the crowd silently dispersed. Krimo helped Émilie and her son into a small car that the mayor had lent. The Rucillio family left. Jean-Christophe exchanged a brief word with Fabrice, then rushed off to join the rest of the family. Car doors slammed, engines droned, the cemetery slowly emptied. Only a group of militiamen and a few policemen remained around the grave, clearly devastated that they had let the tragedy occur. From a distance, Fabrice gave me a little wave. I had thought he might come over and comfort me; but he helped his wife into their car and without turning back, climbed in and drove off. When the car disappeared behind the cemetery wall, I realised that I was alone among the dead.

Émilie left Río Salado for Oran, but she never left my thoughts. I felt sad for her. Since no one had heard anything from Madame Cazenave, I could only guess at the depths of Émilie’s loneliness, of her grief. What would become of her? How would she start again in a city like Oran, surrounded by thousands of people she didn’t know? In the city, she would not find the compassion and the sympathy she had known in the village. There, relationships were based on self-interest, and a newcomer had to negotiate difficult hurdles in order to be accepted. Especially while a war was raging, one that grew more bitter with every passing day. The streets of Oran were dangerous; there were attacks, violent reprisals and kidnappings; every morning the citizens awoke to some fresh horror. I could not imagine how she would survive in the madness of that city, that war zone drenched in blood and tears, with a son to provide for, far from everything she knew.

In the village, everything had changed. The end-of-season ball was cancelled for fear that a bomb might turn the event into a tragedy. Muslims were no longer tolerated in the streets. They no longer had the right to leave the fields and the vineyards without permission. The day after Simon’s murder, the army launched a wide-ranging manhunt, combing Dhar el Menjel and the surrounding scrubland. Helicopters and planes shelled any suspect village. After four days and three nights, the soldiers returned to their barracks exhausted and empty-handed. Jaime Jiménez Sosa’s militia set up ambushes throughout the area, a tactic that eventually paid off. In their first ambush, they intercepted a group of fidayin on a supply mission for the rebels. They slaughtered the mules on the spot, burned the provisions, then drove the bullet-riddled bodies of the fidayin through the streets of Río Salado on a cart. Krimo enlisted with the harkis– the Algerian soldiers loyal to the French – came upon eleven rebels hiding out in a cave, lit a fire and asphyxiated them with the smoke. Emboldened by his feat, he later lured a whole squad of mujahideen into an ambush in which he killed seven and dragged two, badly wounded, back to the village square, where the crowd all but lynched them.

I did not dare go out any more.

There followed a period of calm.

I thought of Émilie constantly. I missed her. Sometimes I would imagine she was there with me and talk to her for hours. Not knowing where she was, what had become of her, tormented me. When I could bear it no longer, I went to see Krimo to ask if he could help me find her. He gave me a chilly reception. He was sitting in a rocking chair outside his shack, an ammunition belt strung across one shoulder, his rifle between his legs.

‘Vulture!’ he said. ‘She hasn’t even grieved for her husband and you’re already thinking about how to win her round.’

‘I have to talk to her.’

‘About what? She was pretty clear the other night. She doesn’t want anything to do with you.’

‘This is none of your business.’

‘Oh, but that’s where you’re wrong. Émilie is my business, and if you ever try to contact her, I’ll rip your throat out with my teeth.’

‘What did she tell you about me?’

‘She didn’t need to tell me anything. I was there when she told you to go to hell, and that’s enough for me.’

I had no hope of getting any information from the man.

For months I wandered the districts of Oran hoping to run into Émilie. I haunted the schools when class let out, but saw no sign of Michel or his mother among the parents. I hung around the stalls and the supermarkets, the gardens and the souk, but there was no sign of her.

A year to the day after Simon’s murder, when I was finally about to give up, I saw her. She was working in a bookshop. I could barely breathe. I went to the café across the road, took a table half hidden by a pillar and waited. At closing time, she left the bookshop and caught a tram from the stop at the end of the street. I didn’t dare get on the tram with her. I had seen her on a Saturday, so the whole of Sunday I was forced to kill time. Early on Monday morning, I went back to the café opposite the bookshop and sat at the same table. At nine a.m. Émilie arrived wearing a black trouser suit, her head covered with a scarf. My heart shrivelled in my chest like a sponge being wrung out. A thousand times I took my courage in both hands and set off to cross the road, but every time, the very thought of speaking to her seemed somehow indecent.

I don’t know how many times I walked past the bookshop and watched her serve a customer, climb a stepladder to get a book, ring something up on the till, rearrange the shelves, and still I did not dare push the door open. The simple fact that she was alive, that she seemed well, filled me with a vague but tangible joy. I was happy just to watch her live her life. I was afraid that if I came too close, she might disappear like a mirage. This went on for over a month. I spent little time at the pharmacy, leaving Germaine to cope as best she could. Often I would forget to phone to tell her I would not be home. I slept in a dingy fondouk so that I could be there, every day, watching Émilie from the café.

One evening, as the bookshop was about to close, I ventured from my hiding place, and, like a sleepwalker, crossed the road and found myself stepping through the door of the shop.

There were no customers, and the bookshop was almost in darkness. A fragile silence hovered over the shelves. My heart was beating fit to burst and I was sweating. The unlit lamp above my head was like a sword that might fall at any moment. I was seized by doubt: what was I doing here? Why was I determined to reopen old wounds? I gritted my teeth: I had to do this, I could not go on constantly brooding over the same questions, the same fears. A cold sweat clawed at my back like nails. I took a deep breath to try to expel the poison I could feel inside. Outside on the street, cars and pedestrians moved in a strange and intricate dance. The blare of car horns slashed at me like steel blades. I waited. Inside me, I heard a voice say: leave . . . I shook my head and the voice was still. Darkness unfurled, filling the shop, delicately silhouetting the towering piles of books . . .

‘Can I help you, monsieur?’

She was behind me. Fragile, ghostly, she had appeared out of the half-light just as she had on the night of the fire. A night she still wore about her, her black dress, black hair, black eyes bearing mute witness to a grief a year had done nothing to diminish. In the darkness, I had to peer to make her out. She was standing three feet away and I saw that she had changed, that her beauty had withered. She was a shadow of the woman she had been, a heartbroken widow who paid no attention to her appearance. Life had taken from her more than it could ever repay. I immediately realised my mistake. I was not welcome here. I was a knife in a wound. Her icy aloofness bewildered me and made me realise just how wrong I had been to think I could come here and make right something that I myself had shattered. And then there had been the word monsieur, peremptory, disarming, unendurable, hurling me into an abyss, wiping me from the face of the earth. I truly believed that she had survived that tragedy only so that she might hate me. She did not need to say it; I could read it in the blank, expressionless eyes, which repelled me, dared me to try to hold her gaze.

‘What do you want?’

‘Me?’ I said stupidly.

‘Who else? You came by last week and the week before and almost every day in between. What are you playing at?’

I felt my throat tighten. I couldn’t swallow.

‘I was just passing . . . I thought I saw you through the window . . . I wasn’t sure . . . I wanted to say hello . . . to talk to you . . . but I didn’t dare . . .’

‘Have you ever dared, Younes? Even once in your life?’

She realised she had hurt me. Something stirred in those dark eyes filled with night. Something like a shooting star that flickered out as soon as it appeared.

‘So you found your tongue. All the time I’ve known you, you’ve had nothing to say. What did you want to talk to me about?’

Only her lips moved; her face, her pale, slender hands, her body remained motionless. Nor were they really words, just a rush of breath, like a spell, like a curse . . .

‘Maybe I’ve come at a bad time.’

‘I hope there’ll never be another time. I want this over with. What did you want to talk to me about?’

‘About us.’ My words seemed to come by themselves.

A faint smile played on her lips.

‘About us? Was there ever an us?’

‘I don’t know where to begin.’

‘I can imagine.’

‘You don’t know how sorry I am. I’m so, so . . . Do you think you can ever forgive me?’

‘What difference would it make?’

‘Émilie . . . I’m so sorry.’

‘They’re just words, Younes. Oh, there was a time when one word from you would have changed everything, but you couldn’t bring yourself to say it. You need to understand that it’s over.’

‘What’s over, Émilie?’

‘Something that never really began.’

I was shattered. My head was exploding, I couldn’t hear my heartbeat, couldn’t feel a pulse in my temples. I could hardly believe I was still standing.

She stepped towards me as though emerging from the wall behind her.

‘What did you think, Younes? Did you think I’d rush into your arms? Why? Was I expecting you to come? Of course not. You never allowed me to expect anything from you. You took my love for you and strangled it before it could take flight. Just like that . . . My love for you was dead before it even hit the ground.’

I said nothing. I was afraid that if I opened my mouth I might burst into tears. I realised now the pain I had put her through, realised that I had crushed her hopes, her dreams, trampled her wholesome, innocent joy, the artless confidence that had once set her eyes ablaze.

‘Can I ask you something, Younes?’

There was a lump in my throat, all I could do was nod.

‘Why? Why did you turn me away? If there was someone else, I might have understood. But you never married . . .’

Taking advantage of a moment’s inattention, a tear slipped through my lashes and trickled down my cheek; I did not have the courage or the strength to stop it. Not a single muscle in my body responded.

‘It tormented me night and day,’ she went on, her voice lifeless. ‘What was it about me that made you reject me? What did I do wrong? He doesn’t love you, I told myself, it’s as simple as that. There’s nothing wrong with you, he just doesn’t love you. But I didn’t believe it. You were devastated after I got married. It was then I realised there was something you weren’t telling me . . . What are you hiding, Younes? What is it that you can’t bring yourself to tell me?’

The dam burst; tears spilled out, coursing down my face, my neck, and as I wept, I felt everything drain away: the pain, the remorse, the deceit. I cried and cried and never wanted to stop.

‘You see,’ she said. ‘You still can’t bring yourself to talk to me.’

By the time I looked up, Émilie had vanished as though she had been swallowed up by the wall behind her, by the encroaching darkness. The bookshop was deserted but for a trace of her perfume drifting between the shelves, and in another aisle, two old ladies who stared at me pityingly. I wiped my tears away and walked out of the bookshop feeling as though a fog from nowhere was enveloping the last rays of sunlight.

18

IT WAS seven p.m. on a spring day in late April 1959, the sky licked by the last rays of sunset as a lone cloud, straying from the flock, hung suspended over the village waiting for a gust of wind to carry it away. I was stacking boxes in the back office and getting ready to close. When I came back into the shop, I found a young man standing in the doorway to the street. He was nervous, and clutched at his jacket as though hiding something.

‘I’m not here to hurt you . . .’ he stammered in Arabic.

He was sixteen, perhaps seventeen; his face was pale and I could clearly see a fine down on his upper lip. He looked like a runaway. He was skinny as a rail and wore trousers ripped at the knees, muddy boots, and a scarf around his throat.

‘It is closing time, isn’t it?’

‘What do you want?’

He opened his jacket to reveal a pistol tucked into his belt. My blood ran cold.

‘I was sent by El-Jabha – the FLN. Close up the shop. Nothing’s going to happen to you if you do what you’re told.’

‘What the hell is this about?’

‘It’s about your country.’

When I hesitated, he drew the gun though he did not aim it at me. He repeated his orders. I pulled down the shutters, my eyes fixed on the barrel of the gun.

‘Now go back inside.’

He was almost as scared as I was. Terrified that his fear might get the better of his sense, I put my hands up to reassure him.

‘Turn on the lights, then close the shutter on the window.’

I did as he said. In the silence of the back room, my heart hammered like the piston of a runaway train.

‘I know your mother is upstairs. Is there anyone else in the house?’

‘I’m expecting friends,’ I lied.

‘Then we’ll wait for them together.’

He wiped his nose on his sleeve and jerked his head for me to go upstairs. As I climbed the stairs, I felt him push the barrel of the gun into my side.

‘Like I said, nothing will happen to you if you do what you’re told.’

‘Put the gun away, I promise I’ll—’

‘You don’t give the orders here, and don’t go by how old I look – there’s more than one who didn’t live to regret it. I’m an agent of the Front de Libération Nationale. They think you can be trusted; don’t disappoint them.’

‘Can I ask what they want with me?’

‘Do I have to remind you we’re at war?’

On the landing, he pushed me against a wall, listening to the clatter of dishes being washed in the kitchen. A muscle in his cheek twitched.

‘Call her.’

‘She’s old, she’s not well . . . Why don’t you put the gun away?’

‘Call her.’

I called to Germaine. I expected her to scream when she saw the gun and was bewildered to find her perfectly calm. The sight of the pistol barely raised an eyebrow.

‘I saw him coming through the fields,’ she said.

‘I’m with the Maquis,’ the boy said in an arrogant tone he hoped was commanding. ‘Both of you, sit in there in that big room. If the phone rings or there’s someone at the door, don’t answer. You’ve got nothing to worry about.’

He jerked the gun towards the sofa. Germaine sat down, crossing her arms over her chest. Her coolness made me feel more calm. She tried not to look at me, probably hoping I would do the same. The boy crouched down in front of us, staring at us as though we were just two more pieces of furniture. He seemed to be holding his breath. I couldn’t work out what was going on in his head, but I was relieved to see he was less nervous than when he first arrived.

The living room was utterly dark. His gun pressed against his thigh, the boy crouched in the darkness; there was no movement but for the glitter of his eyes in the darkness. I suggested turning on the lights. He didn’t respond. After several hours, Germaine started to fidget. She was not nervous or even tired – she obviously needed to go to the toilet and, out of a sense of propriety, could not bring herself to ask this strange boy for permission. I did it for her. The boy clicked his tongue.

‘What are we waiting for?’ I asked.

Germaine nudged me to signal me to stay calm. A flash of lightning lit up the room, and the darkness afterwards seemed more opaque. I could feel the sweat on my back grow cold; I had a fierce urge to pull my shirt away from where it clung to my skin, but the boy’s stillness persuaded me otherwise.

The sounds of the village grew less frequent. A car engine roared somewhere in the distance, then faded, and a deafening silence fell over the streets and the fields. Towards midnight, a stone rapped against the shutter. The boy ran and peered into the shadows below, then turned to Germaine and ordered her to go downstairs and open up. While she was going down, he pressed the barrel of the gun to the back of my neck and forced me to walk to the head of the stairs.

‘If you try to scream, madame, I’ll kill him.’

‘I understand,’ Germaine said simply.

She shot back the bolt and suddenly there was the sound of a scuffle downstairs. I wanted to know what was happening, but the gun kept my face pressed against the wall.

Germaine reappeared; I could just make out her shadow faltering on the staircase. ‘Turn the light on, you idiot!’ growled a hoarse voice. Germaine flicked the switch and the landing light revealed four armed men clumsily attempting to carry a body on a makeshift stretcher. I recognised Jelloul, André’s former manservant. He had a machine gun slung over one shoulder and was wearing a tattered combat uniform and muddy boots. He pushed me aside and helped the other three lug their burden up the stairs and set it down in the living room. He paid no attention to us, but told his cohorts to be careful laying the patient out on the dining table.

‘Dismissed,’ he barked. ‘Return to your units. Laoufi, you stay with me. There’s no need to come back for us. If there are any problems, I’ll manage.’

Two of the men went back downstairs and disappeared silently into the night. Not once had they acknowledged our presence. The boy took the barrel of his gun from my neck and pushed me into the living room.

‘Thanks, kid,’ Jelloul said. ‘You were great. Now get going.’

‘You want me to wait outside?’

‘No, go back to you know where.’

The boy gave a military salute and disappeared.

Jelloul winked at me.

‘How are things?’

I didn’t know how to answer this.

‘Do something useful, go lock the door.’

Germaine looked at me imploringly. She was pale, her whole face a mask of fear. I went downstairs. When I got back, Jelloul was removing a bloody commando jacket from the man on the table.

‘If he dies, you’ll be going to the next world with him.’ His voice was menacing but calm. ‘This man is more important to me than my life. He took a bullet during a clash with the police. It wasn’t around here, don’t worry. I brought him here so you can get that lump of lead out of him.’

‘What with? I’m not a surgeon.’

‘You’re a doctor, aren’t you?’

‘A pharmacist.’

‘I don’t care. Your life depends on saving his. I haven’t come all this way for him to die now.’

Germaine pulled my arm.

‘Let me examine him.’

‘That’s better . . .’

Germaine bent over the wounded man, carefully pulling aside his bloodstained shirt; the entry wound, just above his left nipple, was hidden by a thick layer of congealed blood. It was an ugly wound and would be difficult to treat.

‘He’s lost a lot of blood—’

‘Well then, let’s not waste any time.’ Jelloul cut her off. ‘Laoufi,’ he said to his colleague, ‘you help the lady. Laoufi here is our nurse. Go down to the pharmacy with him and get whatever you need to operate on the captain. Do you have everything you need to sterilise the wound and extract the bullet?’

‘I’ll deal with it,’ Germaine said. ‘Jonas wouldn’t be any help. And if you don’t mind, I won’t have guns in my living room. I need to be able to work in peace. Your nurse can stay, but you and my son . . .’

‘That’s exactly what I planned to do, madame.’

Germaine was trying to protect me; she was doing her utmost to stay calm but having me there made her anxious. I couldn’t see how she could possibly deal with this. She had never held a scalpel in her life. What was she thinking? What if the man died? She glanced at me, urging me to leave the room, wanting me as far away as possible. She was trying to tell me something, but I could not understand her. She was obviously afraid for me and trying to shield me. Later she told me she would have brought the dead back to life if it would have saved me.

‘Go into the kitchen and get yourself something to eat. I’ll be more comfortable without you breathing down my neck.’

Jelloul nodded. I led him into the kitchen. He opened the fridge, took out a plate of boiled potatoes, cheese, slices of cured meat, some fruit and a bottle of milk and set them on the table next to his machine gun.

‘Have you got any bread?’

‘In the larder, on your right.’

He took out a large baguette and bit into it as he sank into a chair; he ate with astonishing voracity, picking at random a piece of fruit, a piece of cheese, a potato, a slice of meat . . .

‘I’m starving,’ he said, burping loudly. ‘You’ve got it easy here, haven’t you? The war doesn’t affect you; you go on living the good life while we’re out breaking our balls in the bush. Some day you’re going to have to pick a side, you know.’

‘I don’t like war.’

‘It’s not a question of liking or not liking. Our people have had enough of suffering in silence; they’ve revolted. Of course, being caught between two stools, you can do what you like, you can side with whoever suits you.’

He took a penknife from his pocket and cut a slice of cheese.

‘Do you see much of André?’

‘Not these days.’

‘They say he and his father have set up a militia.’

‘That’s true.’

‘I can’t wait to come face to face with him . . . He does know I escaped?’

‘I’ve no idea.’

‘Nobody in Río Salado said anything about me escaping from prison?’

‘I didn’t hear anything.’

‘It was a miracle. They sent me to the guillotine but my head grew back. Do you believe in destiny, Jonas?’

‘I don’t feel as though I have one.’

‘I do. I was being transferred from Orléansville prison when one of the tyres blew and the van went head first into a ditch. When I came to, I was lying in a bush. I got up and walked away, and when no one came after me, I kept on walking. I had to pinch myself to make sure I wasn’t dreaming. You don’t think that’s a sign from heaven?’

He pushed his plate away and went to see what was happening in the living room, deliberately leaving his machine gun on the table. When he came back he said:

‘He’s in a bad way, but he’s strong . . . he’ll pull through. He has to pull through, otherwise . . .’ He did not finish the sentence, but looked me up and down and changed his tone. ‘I keep the faith. After our clash with the police when my senior officer was injured, I didn’t know what to do. That’s when your name popped into my head. I swear I heard it. I even turned around, but there was no one there. I didn’t try to understand, I just set off. Two nights we spent, cutting through the woods; even the dogs didn’t bark when we went past. Isn’t that amazing?’

He pushed the machine gun to one side, pretending to be distracted.

‘I’ve run into dozens of ambushes, but they never caught me, never hit me; eventually I became fatalistic. My time will come when God decides. I’m not afraid of men or thunderbolts any more . . . But what are you afraid of? The revolution is going well, we’re winning on all fronts, even abroad; we have the support of our own people and the international community. The great day is coming soon. What are you waiting for? Why don’t you join us?’

‘Are you going to kill us?’

‘I’m not a killer, Jonas, I’m a soldier. I am prepared to lay down my life for my country – what are you prepared to do for it?’

‘My mother doesn’t know much about surgery.’

‘Neither do I, but someone’s got to do it. You know who my commander is? It’s Sy Rachid – “the elusive Sy Rachid” they talk about in the newspapers. I’ve seen a lot of fire-brands, but no one with the personality of this man. A lot of times we’ve been cornered and he’s managed to get us out just by clicking his fingers. He’s extraordinary. I won’t let him die. The revolution needs him.’

‘Okay, but what happens if he does die? What are you going to do to us?’

‘Coward – all you can think about is saving your own skin. There’s a war on out there – hundreds, thousands of people are dying every day, but you don’t care. I’d kill you like a dog if I didn’t owe you . . . By the way, why is it that I still can’t bring myself to call you Younes?’

He didn’t shout, he didn’t thump the table; he spoke quietly, reluctantly, scornfully. He was too tired to exert himself. But the contempt he felt for me was infinite, and it reawakened in me a fury I had not felt since Jean-Christophe rejected me.

The nurse knocked at the kitchen door before coming in; he was sweating.

‘She did it.’

‘God be praised,’ Jelloul said with an air of detachment. He nodded at me. ‘You see? Even fate is on our side.’

He ordered the nurse to guard me and hurried off to see his commander. The nurse asked if there was anything to eat. I pointed him to the fridge and the larder. He told me to move back to the window and not to try anything clever. He was a scrawny kid, still in his teens, his face pink and downy. He was wearing a thick sweater much too big for him, baggy trousers held up by a length of rope, and a pair of grotesquely large boots that made him look ridiculous. He ignored the fridge and the larder and ate what was left on the table.

Jelloul called me. The nurse nodded for me to leave the kitchen and watched me as I walked down the hall. Slumped in a chair, Germaine was trying to regain her composure. I could see her heart beating; she was bathed in sweat. The wounded man still lay on the table, his bare chest wrapped in bandages. The sound of his rasping breath filled the room. Jelloul dipped a compress in a bowl of water and mopped his commander’s face, his every movement charged with reverence.

‘We’re going to stay here for a few days while the captain builds up his strength,’ he announced. ‘Tomorrow morning you’ll open the pharmacy just like any other day. Madame will stay up here with us. If there are any messages to be done, you’ll do them. You can come and go as you please, but if I notice anything out of the ordinary – well, I don’t need to paint a picture. All we’re asking for is a little hospitality. I’m offering you the opportunity to serve your people. Try not to let me down.

‘I’ll look after the pharmacy and do the shopping,’ Germaine interrupted.

‘I’d prefer him to do it . . . is that all right, Jonas?’

‘How do I know you won’t kill us before you leave?’

‘You’re pathetic, Jonas.’

‘I trust you,’ Germaine said.

Jelloul smiled. It was the same smile he had once given me in that little douar of squalid shacks behind the marabout’s hill, a mixture of scorn and pity. He took a small revolver from the pocket of his trousers and handed it to me.

‘It’s loaded. All you have to do is press the trigger.’

The feel of cold metal made my hair stand on end.

Germaine turned pale, her hands, white-knuckled, clutching her dress.

‘You want me to tell you something, Jonas? You break my heart. What kind of pathetic loser turns away from a chance to fulfil his destiny?’

He took the gun back and slipped it into his pocket.

The wounded man groaned and began to stir. He was about my age, perhaps a year or two older. He was tall, blonde, with well-defined muscles. A reddish beard hid much of his face, he had bushy eyebrows and his nose, slightly curved, was thin and sharp as a razor blade. He stirred again, reached out and tried to turn on to his side, but the movement sent a shooting pain through him that brought him round. It was then that I recognised him, in spite of what the years had taken out of him. It was Ouari, my partner in crime years ago in Jenane Jato, the boy who had taught me the art of camouflage and how to trap goldfinches. He looked prematurely old, but the eyes were still the same: dark, metallic, impenetrable – I would never forget those eyes.

Ouari was clearly coming out of a deep coma, because, not recognising me, his first reaction was one of self-defence. He grabbed me by the throat and hauled himself to his feet.

‘It’s all right, Sy Rachid,’ Jelloul whispered. ‘You’re safe here.’

Ouari did not seem to understand. He stared vacantly at his fellow soldier and went on choking me. Germaine rushed to try and help me, but Jelloul ordered her to go back and in a soft voice tried to explain the situation to his commanding officer. The hands around my throat still did not relax. I was having trouble breathing but had to wait until the wounded man came to his senses. By the time he let me go, my face was numb. Ouari collapsed on to the table, arms hanging limply by his sides; he shuddered for a moment and then lay still.

‘Step back,’ barked the nurse, who had come back into the room to see what the noise was.

He examined the injured man, took his pulse.

‘It’s all right, he just fainted. We have to get him into bed; he needs rest.’

The rebels stayed with us for almost two weeks. I went about my daily business as though nothing had happened. Worried that someone might show up unexpectedly, Germaine phoned her family in Oran and told them she was going out into the desert, to Colo-Béchar, and would call them when she got back. Laoufi, the nurse, put the captain in my room and sat by his bed day and night. I slept on the old sofa in my uncle’s study. Jelloul constantly came in to lecture me. He was angry and disgusted at my indifference to our people’s war of independence. I knew if I said anything it would simply make him angrier, so I said nothing. One evening, having tried to engage me in conversation while I sat reading a book, he said:

‘Life is like a movie: there are actors who move the story forward and bit players who fade into the background. The bit players are part of the film, but no one cares about them. You’re a bit player, Jonas. I don’t hate you, I pity you.

My continued silence infuriated him. He roared:

‘How can you just look the other way when the whole world is right there in front of you?’

I looked up at him, then went back to my reading. He ripped the book from my hands and hurled it against the wall.

‘I’m talking to you!’

I went over, picked up the book and went back to the sofa. He tried to snatch it away again, but this time I grabbed him by the wrist and pushed him away. Surprised by my reaction, Jelloul looked at me, amazed, and muttered:

‘You’re nothing but a coward. Don’t you see that our villages are being napalmed, our heroes guillotined in the prisons, soldiers lying dead in the scrubland, rebels languishing in prison camps? Can’t you see what’s happening? What sort of madman are you, Jonas? Can’t you understand that a whole nation is fighting for your salvation?’

I didn’t say anything.

He slapped me across the face.

‘Don’t you touch me,’ I said.

‘You think I’m scared? . . . You’re a coward, nothing but a coward. I don’t know why I don’t just cut your throat.’

I set down my book, got to my feet and stood in front of him.

‘What do you know about cowardice, Jelloul? Who do you think is the coward, the man with a gun to his head or the one holding the gun?’

He looked at me in disgust.

‘I’m not a coward, Jelloul, I’m not deaf, I’m not blind and I’m not made of stone. If you really want to know, I don’t much care about anything in this world now. Not even the gun that allows people like you to treat people like me with contempt. Wasn’t it humiliation that first led you to pick up a gun? So why do you go around humiliating other people?’

He was trembling with rage, struggling to stop himself from grabbing me by the throat. He spat on the ground and went out, slamming the door behind him.

After that, he did not bother me. If we passed each other in the hall, he stepped out of my way with distaste.

All the time they stayed with us, Jelloul forbade me from going near the captain. If I needed something from my room, I would tell the nurse where it was and he would go and get it for me. Only once, as I came out of the bathroom, did I see the patient through the open door. He was sitting on the bed, a clean bandage around his chest, his back to me. I thought back to Jenane Jato, to the time when he was my protector, my friend, I remembered his bird coop filthy with droppings, our trips into the scrubland behind the souk to catch goldfinches. Then suddenly my heart contracted as I remembered the vacant look in his eyes as he watched Daho torment me with the snake. At that moment, the burning need I had felt since he arrived to tell him who I was suddenly vanished.

On the last day, the three maquisards bathed, shaved, put their clean clothes and boots into a bag, dressed in some of my clothes and gathered in the living room. My suit was too big for the nurse, who kept looking at himself in the mirror. All three of them tried to hide their nervousness. Jelloul was wearing the suit I had bought for Simon’s wedding, and the captain one Germaine had given me some months earlier. At noon, after they’d had lunch, Jelloul told me to hang white sheets over the balcony. When it got dark, he went into the room that overlooked the vineyards and turned the light on and off three times. When he saw a light flash in the distance beyond the sea of vines, he ordered me to take the nurse into the back office and give him all the drugs and supplies he would need. We packed three boxes full and put them in the boot of the car, then went back upstairs, where the captain, still pale, was pacing up and down the hallway.

‘What time is it?’ Jelloul asked.

‘A quarter to ten,’ I said.

‘It’s time. You can drive, I’ll tell you where to go.’

Germaine, who was standing off to one side, clasped her hands in silent prayer. She was shaking. The nurse went over to her. ‘Everything will be all right, madame.’ He patted her shoulder. ‘Don’t worry.’ Germaine hid her face in her hands.

The captain and the nurse took the back seat of the car, their guns at their feet. Jelloul climbed into the passenger seat, tugging at his tie. I opened the garage door and Germaine closed it after we left. I drove with the headlights off until we reached Kraus’s wine cellar, opposite André’s diner. There were people in the bar and out on the terrace; we could hear shouting and laughter. Suddenly I was afraid that Jelloul had come to settle old scores with his former employer. But he simply gave a bitter smile and jerked his chin towards the road that lead out of Río Salado. I turned on the headlights and drove into the darkness.

We took the road towards Lourmel, turning off before we reached the village and taking the dirt road towards Terga. A motorcycle was waiting for us at a railway crossing. I recognised the rider as the boy with the gun who had showed up at the pharmacy that first day. He turned the motorcycle around and rode on ahead of us.

‘Drive slowly,’ Jelloul ordered. ‘Don’t try to catch up with him. If you see him coming back, switch off your headlights and turn the car round.’

The motorcycle did not come back.

After about twenty kilometres, I saw him waiting by the side of the road. Jelloul told me to pull up next to him and turn off the engine. Shadows appeared from the bushes carrying rifles, with knapsacks on their backs. One of them was leading a donkey that was just skin and bone. The three men got out of my car and went over to greet them. The nurse came back to me, told me to stay in the car, and opened the boot. The boxes of drugs and supplies were loaded on to the mule. After that, Jelloul waved for me to go. I didn’t move. Surely they weren’t just going to let me leave? I could easily turn them in as soon as I got to the first roadblock. I tried to look into Jelloul’s eyes, but he had already turned away and was walking off with his captain, whom I had not heard speak a word since that first night when he had tried to strangle me. The mule stumbled up the steep path, staggered around a rocky outcrop and disappeared. The shadows of the others moved through the scrubland, helping each other up the hill, then disappeared into the darkness. Soon, all I could hear was the breeze rustling the leaves.

My hand refused to turn the key in the ignition. I was convinced that Jelloul was hiding somewhere nearby, rifle aimed at me, waiting for the sound of the engine to drown out the shot.

It took me an hour before I really believed that they had gone.

Months later, I found a letter with no stamp and no address among the post. Inside was a scrap of paper torn from an exercise book and on it a scribbled list of medications. There were no instructions. I bought the medicines on the list and packed them into a cardboard box. A week later, Laoufi came and picked them up. It was three o’clock in the morning when I heard the pebble hit the shutters. Germaine heard it too; I found her in the hall, wrapped in a dressing gown. She didn’t say anything, she simply watched as I went downstairs to the back office. I gave the box to Laoufi, locked the door and went back up to my room. I was waiting for Germaine to come in and ask me questions, but she simply went back to her room and locked herself in.

Laoufi came to pick up supplies five more times. It was always the same: an envelope would be slipped through the letter box with a list of medicines. Sometimes it listed other supplies: syringes, bandages, scissors, a stethoscope, some tourniquets. Then a pebble would be thrown up at the window. The nurse would be waiting outside. Germaine would be standing in the doorway to her bedroom.

One night, I got a phone call. Jelloul asked me to meet him at the spot where I had dropped them off. Seeing me take the car from the garage early the next morning, Germaine made the sign of the cross. It was then that I realised that we no longer spoke to each other. When I arrived at the place, Jelloul wasn’t there. He called me as soon as I got back to the pharmacy and told me to drive back to the spot again. This time there was a shepherd waiting for me with a briefcase full of banknotes. He told me to hide the money until someone came to fetch it. I kept the briefcase for two weeks, until Jelloul phoned one Sunday and told me to take the ‘package’ to Oran and wait in the car outside a small cabinetmaker’s shop behind the BAO Brasserie. I did as I was told. The shop was closed. A man walked past the car, then walked back again and stopped when he came to the car. Flashing the butt of the gun under his jacket, he told me to get out. ‘I’ll be back in fifteen minutes,’ he said as he drove off. The car was brought back to me a quarter of an hour later.

This other life went on all through the summer and into autumn.

The last time Laoufi came to the pharmacy, he was more nervous than usual. Glancing around suspiciously, he emptied the contents of the box I handed him into a backpack, threw it over his shoulder and gave me a look I had never seen before. He wanted to say something, but the words would not come. Standing on tiptoe, he kissed the top of my head – a mark of great respect. His body trembled as I hugged him. It was four a.m. and the sky was beginning to brighten. Was it the dawn that bothered him? He was clearly worried about something. He said goodbye and hurried into the vineyards. I saw him disappear into the darkness; listened for the dying rustle of the leaves as he moved away. The moon in the sky looked like a bitten fingernail. A faltering wind gave a brief gust and then died away.

Leaving the light in my bedroom off, I sat on the edge of the bed, alert, watchful. Suddenly gunfire ripped through the silent darkness and dogs began to bark.

At dawn there was a knock on my door. It was Krimo, Simon’s former chauffeur. He was standing on the pavement, feet apart, hands on his hips, his rifle tucked under his arm. The expression on his face was one of vicious triumph. Six armed men, auxiliaries, were standing in the street around a wheelbarrow in which lay a bloody corpse. It was Laoufi. I recognised the oversized boots and the torn backpack.

‘A fellaga,’ said Krimo. ‘A dirty stinking fellaga . . . It was the stink that led us to him.’

He took a step forward.

‘I was wondering what this fucking fellaga was doing in my village. Who did he come to see? Where did he come from?’

He pushed the wheelbarrow towards me. The nurse’s head lolled against the ground. Part of his skull had been blown off. Krimo picked up the backpack and threw it at my feet; the medications spilled out on to the pavement.

‘There’s only one pharmacy in Río Salado, Jonas, and that’s yours . . . And then I understood.’

He slammed the butt of his rifle into my jaw. I heard the bone crack and Germaine scream, then everything went dark.

I woke up in a filthy cell surrounded by rats and cockroaches. Krimo wanted to know who the fellaga was, how long I had been supplying him with drugs. I said I had never seen him before. He forced my head into a bucket of cheap wine and whipped me with a riding crop, but I kept telling him I had never seen the fellaga. Krimo swore, he spat at me, he kicked me as I lay on the ground. I didn’t tell him anything. He handed me over to an emaciated old man with a long grey face and piercing eyes. The old man began by telling me that he understood, that no one in the village believed I had anything to do with these ‘terrorists’, that they had forced me to help them. I continued to deny everything. I was passed from one interrogator to another; some tried to outwit me, others tried to beat the truth out of me. Krimo waited until nightfall to come back and torture me again. I held out.

In the morning, the door opened, and there stood Pépé Rucillio.

Next to him was an officer in combat uniform.

‘We haven’t finished with him, Monsieur Rucillio.’

‘You’re wasting your time, Lieutenant. This has been a terrible misunderstanding. The boy was simply in the wrong place at the wrong time. Your colonel agrees with me on this. You hardly think I’d try to protect a criminal?’

‘That’s not the problem . . .’

‘There is no problem, and there won’t be any problem,’ Pépé Rucillio assured him.

They gave me back my clothes.

Outside, in the gravel-strewn courtyard of what seemed to be a barracks, Krimo and his fellow officers watched, angry and outraged, as I slipped through their fingers. They knew that Río Salado’s most respected figure had pleaded my case to the highest authorities and had personally vouched for me.

Pépé Rucillio helped me into his car and got behind the wheel. He saluted the soldier at the gate, then drove off.

‘I hope I’m not making the biggest mistake of my life,’ he said.

I didn’t answer. My mouth was bleeding and my eyes were so swollen I could barely keep them open.

Pépé did not say another word. I sensed him wavering between his doubt and a moral dilemma, between the efforts he had made on my behalf and the inconsistencies in what he had told the colonel to clear me of suspicion and have me released. Pépé Rucillio was more than simply a respected local figure, he was a legend, a moral compass, a man as towering as his fortune, but like many prominent people who put honour before all other considerations, he was as fragile as a porcelain monument. He could get people to do whatever he wished, and his integrity was worth more than any official document. Influential people of his stature, the mention of whose name could settle the stormiest argument, could be magnanimous, even extravagant, and they were granted a certain impunity, but in matters of honour – when they gave their word – no laxity was tolerated. If they gave their word on something that proved to be unfounded, there was no way back. Having personally vouched for me, Pépé Rucillio was wondering whether he had made a serious mistake; it was a possibility that clearly worried him deeply.

He drove me back to the village and dropped me outside my house. He didn’t help me out of the car, leaving me to cope as best I could.

‘My reputation is at stake here, Jonas,’ he muttered. ‘If I ever find out that you’re a liar, I’ll personally see to it that they execute you.’

I don’t know where I found the strength to ask him:

‘Jean-Christophe?’

He shook his head. ‘No . . . Isabelle. I never could refuse her anything. But if she’s wrong about you, I’ll disown her on the spot.’

Germaine came out to help me inside. She was so relieved to have me back alive that she did not reproach me; she simply ran a bath for me and made me something to eat. Afterwards, she cleaned my wounds, bandaged the most serious ones and put me to bed.

‘Did you phone Isabelle?’

‘No . . . she phoned me.’

‘But she’s in Oran . . . how could she possibly know?’

‘Everyone in Río Salado knows.’

‘What did you say to her?’

‘I told her you were innocent, that you had nothing to do with this business.’

‘And she believed you?’

‘I didn’t ask.’

My questions hurt her, more especially the way I had asked them. The half-heartedness of my tone, the implicit criticism of what I was asking turned her joy at having me back safe and sound into a vague feeling of irritation and later mute anger. She looked at me and there was a bitterness in her eyes I had never seen before. I realised that the ties that had bound me to her had finally sundered. This woman, who had been everything to me – mother, fairy godmother, sister, confidante, friend – now saw me simply as a stranger.

19

THE WINTER of 1960 was so harsh that even our prayers froze; we could almost hear them dropping from heaven and shattering on the hard ground. As if the overcast sky was not enough, dark clouds flocked like falcons over the sun, cutting off what little light might have warmed our numbed souls. Storms were brewing everywhere and no one now was under any illusions: war had found its calling and the cemeteries were answering.

At home, things were becoming complicated. Germaine’s silence saddened me. It upset me that she would walk past me without a word, sit silently with me at dinner staring at her plate, clear the table as soon as I had finished and immediately go upstairs to her room without saying good night. I felt heartsick, and yet I could not find it in me to make peace with her. I didn’t have the strength. Everything exhausted me, everything disgusted me. I would not see reason; I didn’t care I was in the wrong: all I wanted was a dark corner where I refused to let myself wonder what I should do, think about what I had done, decide whether or not I had acted for the best. I was bitter as rose-laurel root, sullen and angry as something I dared not name. At times I heard Krimo’s insults exploding in my head. I would find myself imagining him suffering horribly, then I would shake off these thoughts and clear my mind. I felt no hatred; I had no more rage; my whole being felt so bloated that a breath of air might cause it to explode.

In calmer moments, I thought about my uncle. I did not miss him, but the gaping void he had left reminded me of those who had cut me off. I felt as though I had nowhere to turn for support, that I was floating in a suffocating bubble, a bubble that could be burst by the smallest twig. I had to do something, I felt myself slipping away, slowly disintegrating. So I summoned my dead. My uncle’s memory supplanted mine; his ghost kept at bay all the horrors I had suffered. Perhaps, after all, I did miss him. I felt so alone that I almost faded away myself, like a shadow consumed by darkness. While I waited for my bruises to become less noticeable, I shut myself away in my uncle’s study and pored over his notebooks – a dozen exercise books filled with comments, remarks and quotes from writers and philosophers from all over the world. He also kept a diary, which I found by accident in the bottom drawer of his desk, under a vast swath of newspaper cuttings. He wrote about the dispossessed of Algeria, about the nationalist movement, about the absurdity of the human species that reduces everything in life to a vulgar power struggle, to the deplorable and mindless need of one group to enslave another. My uncle was a supremely cultivated man, both educated and wise. I could still remember his expression when he closed his notebook and looked up at me; an expression that radiated compassionate intelligence.

‘I hope my writings will prove useful to future generations,’ he had said.

‘They will be your gift to posterity,’ I replied, thinking it best to flatter him.

His features tensed. ‘Posterity has never made the grave’s embrace less cruel,’ he said. ‘It simply assuages our fear of death, because there is no better cure for our inevitable mortality than the illusion of a beautiful eternity. But there is one illusion I still hold dear: that is the thought of an enlightened nation. That is the only future I still dream of.’

When I looked out into the distance from my balcony and saw nothing looming on the horizon, I wondered if there was life after war.

A week after Pépé Rucillio’s speech, André Sosa came to see me. He parked his car opposite the vineyards, leaned out of the window and waved for me to come down. I shook my head. He opened the car door and stepped out. He was wearing a large beige coat, unbuttoned to reveal his pot belly, and a pair of leather boots that came up to his knees. From his broad smile, I knew he had come in peace.

‘Fancy coming out for the day in the old banger?’

‘I’m fine where I am.’

‘Okay, then, I’ll come up.’

I heard him say hello to Germaine in the hallway, climb the stairs, then open the door to my room. Before he stepped out on to the balcony to join me, he glanced around at the unmade bed, then crossed the room to the mantelpiece on which sat the wooden horse Jean-Christophe had given me a lifetime ago, after he beat me up at school.

‘Those were the good old days, weren’t they, Jonas?’

‘Days don’t get old, Dédé, we’re the ones who get old.’

‘You’re right. It’s just a pity we don’t improve with the years, like our wine.’

He came outside, propped his elbows on the balcony and surveyed the vineyards.

‘No one in the village thinks you had anything to do with the fellagas. Krimo was completely out of order. I saw him yesterday and told him to his face.’

He turned to me, trying not to look at my bruises.

‘I feel bad that I didn’t come sooner.’

‘What good would it have done?’

‘I don’t know . . . You don’t fancy coming with me to Tlemcen? Oran is impossible now, people are being murdered every day, but I need a change of scenery. Río Salado depresses me.’

‘I can’t.’

‘We won’t stay long. I know a little restaurant . . .’

‘Don’t, Dédé.’

He shook his head slowly.

‘I understand – not that I approve. It’s not good to hole up here, brooding over your bitterness.’

‘I’m not bitter. I just need to be on my own.’

‘Am I bothering you?’

I stared off into the distance so I would not have to answer.

‘It’s insane, this thing that’s happening,’ he sighed, leaning on the balcony again. ‘Who would have thought our country would be brought so low?’

‘It was obvious, Dédé. A whole nation lay down while we walked all over them. Sooner or later they were bound to get up. That’s when we lost our footing.’

‘Do you really believe that?’

This time I turned to him and said:

‘Dédé, how much longer can we go on lying to ourselves?’

He brought his fist up to his mouth and blew on it, measuring his words carefully.

‘It’s true, there was a lot wrong with how things were, but to go from there to waging a vicious, all-out war? It’s not right. There are hundreds of thousands dead, Jonas; that’s too many people, isn’t it?’

‘Are you asking me?’

‘I’m lost . . . I honestly don’t understand what’s happening to Algeria. And the French obviously don’t either. They’re talking about self-determination. What exactly do they mean by that? Does it mean we wipe the slate clean and start again with everyone equal, or . . .’

He did not finish the sentence. His disquiet turned to anger; his knuckles were white.

‘De Gaulle doesn’t understand a fucking thing about our suffering,’ he said, referring to the General’s famous statement to the Algerians on 4 June 1958 – ‘I have understood you’ – which had stirred up the crowds and given their illusions a stay of execution.

A week later, on 9 December 1960, the whole population of Río Salado went to the neighbouring village of Aïn Trémouchent, where the General was holding a meeting that the parish priest called the ‘last prayer mass’. The rumours circulating had prepared people for the worst, but they were not to be persuaded. They were united by fear and so blinkered they would not see the harsh truths bearing down on them. I had heard them, at dawn, taking their cars out of the garages, forming a convoy, joking and laughing to each other, shouting to drown out the insistent voice that would not let them sleep, the voice that said endlessly, relentlessly, that the die was cast. They laughed, they argued, they pretended they still had some say in the matter. But they no longer believed it; their brash self-assurance was belied by their bewildered faces. They hoped that by keeping their spirits up, by keeping up appearances, they might compel destiny to see reason, force its hand, produce a miracle. They had forgotten that the countdown had already begun, that there was nothing left to salvage. Only a blind man would have carried on walking through their dark Utopia, waiting for a day that had already dawned on a new era; an era in which they were to play no part.

I went out and wandered the deserted streets. Then I headed out past the Jewish cemetery to see the charred ruins of the house where, in a fleeting moment, I had had my first sexual experience. A horse stood grazing next to the old stables, indifferent to the shifting fortunes of men. I sat on a low wall; sat there until noon, trying to picture Madame Cazenave. All I could see was Simon’s car in flames, and Émilie, half naked, clutching her child.

The cars came back from Aïn Trémouchent. They had left Río Salado that morning in a fanfare of horns, waving the tricolour; they returned like a funeral cortège, their flags at half-mast. A pall fell over the village. Every face bore the signs of mourning for a hope long since doomed, a dream they had tried to keep alive with prayers and incense. Algeria was to be Algerian.

The following morning, on the front of one of the winemaker’s cellars, someone had had daubed in red paint the letters FLN.

In the spring of 1962, Oran held its breath. I was looking for Émilie. I feared for her. I needed her. I loved her and had come back to tell her so. I felt ready to brave hurricanes and thunderbolts, to flout every sacrilege, every blasphemy. I could not bear to go on longing for her, reaching out to touch her only to feel her absence in my fingertips. I told myself, she will turn you away, she will say terrible things, she will bring your world crashing down around you, but still I went. I was no longer afraid of breaking the oath I had made, of crushing my soul in my fist; I was no longer afraid of offending the gods, of living in infamy to the end of my days. At the bookshop, someone told me that Émilie had left work as usual one night and that they had not heard a word from her since. I remembered the number of the tram she had taken the last time I had come here. At every stop I got off and scoured the nearby streets. I thought I recognised her in every woman I passed on the street, in every shadow disappearing round a corner or into a doorway. I asked for her in grocers’ shops and police stations; I asked the postmen and although I came back empty-handed every night, never for a moment did I feel I was wasting my time. How could I hope to find her in a city under siege, in this midst of the chaos, the fury of men? Algerian Algeria was being delivered by forceps in a torrent of tears and blood as French Algeria lay bleeding to death. And even after seven years of war and horror, though both were on the brink of exhaustion, they still found the strength to go on slaughtering one other.

The week in January 1960 in which pieds-noirs erected barricades and seized government buildings in Algiers had done nothing to stop the inexorable march of history. The putsch in April 1961, a failed coup d’état instigated by a quartet of generals intent on forming a breakaway republic, served only to propel the people into even greater torment. The military were overtaken by events; they fired indiscriminately on civilians, fighting off one community only to be attacked by another. Those who felt they had been sold out by the machinations in Paris – that is, those who supported a complete break from the mother country – took up arms and vowed to reclaim the Algeria being taken from them piece by piece. Towns and villages where plunged into a horrifying nightmare. There were attacks and counterattacks, executions and reprisals, kidnappings and military raids. A European seen fraternising with a Muslim or any Muslim seen with a European risked his life. Demarcation lines divided towns and villages into isolated communities who banded together, anxiously policed their borders and did not hesitate to lynch an unwary passer-by who got the wrong address. Every morning there were broken bodies in the street; every night ghosts fought pitched battles. The graffiti on the walls was like epitaphs – amid the scrawls that read ‘Vote Yes’, ‘FLN’ and ‘Long Live French Algeria’, suddenly the three letters that signalled the apocalypse began to appear: OAS. The Organisation Armée Secrète, born of the anguish of the colonists, of their refusal to face facts, was determined to go on digging its own grave until it reached the pit of hell.

Émilie had disappeared, but I was prepared to bring her back from the underworld itself. I sensed that she was close by, almost within reach; I truly believed that I had only to pull back a screen, open a door, push past a bystander and I would find her. It was as if I were mad. I didn’t notice the pools of blood on the pavements, the pockmarks left by bullets on the walls. I was indifferent to the suspicion of others: their hostility, their contempt, their insults went over my head and never for a moment slowed my search. I could think only of her; had eyes only for her; Émilie was the destiny I had chosen and I cared nothing about anything else.

Fabrice Scamaroni came upon me stumbling around this city that reeked of hate and death. He stopped his car, shouted for me to get in, then drove off at top speed. ‘Are you insane?’ he said. ‘You could get your throat cut round here.’ ‘I’m looking for Émilie.’ ‘And how exactly do you plan to find her when you don’t even know what sort of shithole you’re in – I swear this area is worse than a minefield.’

Fabrice had no idea where Émilie was. She had never come to see him at the newspaper. He had run into her once in Choupot, but that had been months ago. He promised he would see what he could find out.

In Choupot I was directed to a building on the Boulevard Laurent-Guerrero. The concierge informed me that the lady in question had indeed been staying in an apartment on the second floor, but had moved out after an attack in the neighbourhood.

‘Did she leave a forwarding address?’

‘No . . . But if I remember rightly, I think she told the movers to take her to Saint-Hubert.’

I knocked on every door in Saint-Hubert without success. The city was in chaos. The ceasefire declared on 19 March 1962 had sparked off the last pockets of resistance. Knives were pitted against machine guns, grenades against bombs, bystanders were killed by stray bullets. And as I advanced through the horror and the stench of death, Émilie seemed to move farther away. Had she been killed in a bomb blast, by a stray bullet; had she been stabbed and left to bleed to death in a deserted stairwell? Oran spared no one: not the young or the old, not women or the simple-minded who stumbled through these horrors. I was in Tahtaha when two car bombs went off leaving a hundred dead and dozens of the Muslim population of Medina J’dida injured; I was at Petit Lac when the bodies of a dozen Europeans were fished from the polluted waters; I was at the city prison when an OAS unit stormed the building, dragged FLN prisoners into the street and executed them as crowds of people watched; I was on the seafront when saboteurs blew up the fuel depots on the port, cloaking the area in clouds of thick, oily smoke for days. Émilie heard the same explosions I did, I told myself, witnessed the same havoc, suffered the same terrors. I could not understand why our paths had not crossed, why chance, why fate, why providence did not bring us together in this seething mass of evil. I was furious as the days slipped away and brought me no closer to finding her; furious as I stumbled through firing squads, no-go areas, scenes of slaughter and carnage, finding no trace nor even the illusion of a trace that might lead me to her; furious to think she was still in this world as panic gripped every European in the country. A parcel in their letter box could send a family into paroxysms of fear. This was the season of ‘the suitcase or the coffin’. The first waves of emigration were anarchy. Cars laden with suitcases and sobbing people besieged the ports and the airports, while others headed for Morocco. Latecomers sold everything they possessed – shops, houses, cars, factories, concessions – for next to nothing; some did not wait to find buyers. They barely had time to pack their cases.

In Río Salado, houses stood empty, shutters banging, windows dark, and great piles of clothes and chattels lay piled up in the street. Most of the villagers had left; those who stayed behind did not know which way to turn. An old man, crippled by arthritis, keeled over on the porch of his house. A young man helped him to his feet and tried to get him to walk, while the rest of his family waited impatiently by a van filled to bursting. ‘They could have waited until I died,’ the old man whimpered. ‘Where am I going to die now?’ On the main street, trucks, cars, carts stood lined up waiting to take people into exile. At the train station, a bewildered crowd waited for a late train, agonising as the minutes passed. People ran about, confused, their eyes glazed, forsaken by their saints, their guardian angels. Madness, fear, grief, ruin, tragedy had but one face: it was theirs.

Germaine was sitting on the steps of the pharmacy, her head in her hands. Our neighbours had all left; in the gardens abandoned dogs paced and whined.

‘What should I do?’ she asked me.

‘You should stay here,’ I said. ‘No one will raise a hand to you.’

I took her in my arms. She seemed so small it felt as though I could have held her in the hollow of my hand. She was distraught and confused, baffled and exhausted, beaten and uncertain. Her eyes were red from crying. I kissed the cheeks streaked with tears, the forehead lined with wrinkles; my hands cradled her head, troubled with all the worries of the world. I led her upstairs to her room, then went outside again. ‘Where can I go?’ Madame Lambert stood ranting in the street, hands raised to heaven. ‘Where am I supposed to go? I have no children, no family anywhere.’ I told her to go home. She did not hear me; she went on raving. At the far end of the street, the Ravirez family were racing around carrying suitcases. On the square outside the town hall, families stood surrounded by their luggage, begging for cars so they could leave. The mayor tried in vain to calm them. Pépé Rucillio told them to go back to their houses and wait for things to settle down. ‘This is our home,’ he said. ‘We’re not going anywhere.’ No one was listening.

André Sosa was alone in the diner amid the broken tables, the ruined bar, the shattered mirrors. The floor glittered with broken glass and crockery. The lamps still dangled forlornly over the devastation, their bulbs shattered. André was playing pool. He did not seen to notice me; he didn’t seem to notice anything. He chalked his cue, leaned over the table and took aim. There were no balls on the table; the baize had been ripped away. André didn’t care. He aimed at a ball that he alone could see, took his shot and watched and waited. Then he raised a triumphant fist, and moved to the other side of the table to line up his next shot. From time to time he went over to the bar, took a drag of his cigarette, then went back to his game.

‘Dédé,’ I said. ‘You can’t stay here.’

‘This is my home,’ he grumbled, lining up another shot.

‘I saw farms burning when I was coming back from Oran just now.’

‘I’m not leaving. I’m waiting for them.’

‘That’s madness and you know it.’

‘I told you, I’m not going anywhere.’

He went on playing, ignoring me. He stubbed out his cigarette, lit another and another and another, until finally he crumpled the empty pack. The sun was setting, and darkness began to steal into the diner. André played another game, and another, before finally setting down the cue and going to sit at the bar. He drew his knees up, buried his face between them, clasped his hands behind his neck and sat like that for a long time, until finally there was a wail. André cried until he could cry no more. Then he wiped his face with his shirt tail and got to his feet. He went out into the courtyard and found a couple of jerry cans of petrol, doused the bar, the tables, the walls, the floor, then struck a match and watched as flames engulfed the room. I grabbed his elbow and dragged him outside. He stood on the terrace, watching spellbound as the diner burned.

When the flames began to lick at the roof, André went back to his car. Without a word, without even looking at me, he turned the ignition, released the handbrake and drove slowly back towards the village.

On 4 July 1962, a Peugeot 203 stopped in front of the pharmacy. Two men in suits and dark glasses ordered me to come with them. ‘It’s just a formality,’ one of them said in Arabic, with a strong Kabylia accent. Germaine was ill and in bed. ‘It won’t take long,’ the driver promised me. I climbed into the back seat, the car made a U-turn and I let my head fall back against the seat. I had spent the whole night at Germaine’s bedside, and I was exhausted.

Río Salado looked like the end of an era, drained of its essence, delivered up to some new destiny. The French tricolour that had flown outside the town hall had been taken down. On the village square, a crowd of people in turbans stood listening to a speaker perched on the coping of the fountain. He was addressing them in Arabic and they were hanging on his every word. A few Europeans moved through the shadows, those who had been unable to leave behind their lands, their cemeteries, their houses, the cafés where their friendships had been forged, their projects; in sum, the small piece of their homeland that was their reason for living.

It was a beautiful day, the sun as big as the sadness of those leaving, as vast as the joy of those returning. The vines seemed to ripple in the sun and the heat haze in the distance looked like the ocean. Here and there, farms were burning. The silence that weighed heavy on the street seemed to be brooding. The men in front of me did not say a word. I could see nothing but the backs of their necks, the driver’s hands on the steering wheel and the watch glittering on the wrist of the man next to him. We drove through Lourmel as though through some strange dream. Here, too, crowds were gathered about inspired orators. Green and white flags with a red crescent and a star bore witness to the birth of the new republic, to an Algeria that had been returned to its own.

As we approached Oran, abandoned cars lined the sides of the road, some burned out, others looted, the doors ripped off and the boot open. Bags and trunks and suitcases were strewn everywhere, torn open; clothes hung in the bushes, belongings lay on the road. There were signs of violence too: blood in the dust, windscreens shattered by iron bars. Many fleeing families were captured and butchered; others escaped through the orange groves and tried to reach the city on foot.

Oran was in turmoil. Thousands of children ran through the patches of waste ground, hurling stones at passing cars, shouting and singing. The streets were teeming with joyful crowds. The buildings shook to the screams of women wearing their veils like banners, rang with the sound of bendirs, drums, darboukas, the blare of car horns and patriotic songs.

The Peugeot drove into the barracks at Magent, where the National Liberation Army, who had recently taken the city, had set up its headquarters. It parked in front of a building. The driver leaned out and asked the guard to tell the lieutenant that his ‘guest’ had arrived.

The parade ground was teeming with men in combat uniform, old men wearing djellabas, and civilians.

‘Jonas, my old friend Jonas, it’s so good to see you again.’

Standing at the top of the steps, Jelloul spread his arms wide. He was the lieutenant. He was wearing a paratrooper’s uniform, a safari hat, a pair of sunglasses but no stripes.

He hugged me hard enough to choke me, then held me at arm’s length and looked me up and down.

‘You’ve got thin,’ he said. ‘What have you been up to? I’ve been thinking about you a lot recently. You’re an educated man, you responded when your country called, and I wondered whether you might like to put your education and your diplomas at the service of the new republic. You don’t have to give me an answer right away. In fact, that’s not why I had you brought here. I owe you something, and I want to repay you today, because tomorrow is another day and I intend to begin my new life with all my debts washed away. How can I enjoy untrammelled freedom if I’ve got debtors on my heels?’

‘You don’t owe me anything, Jelloul.’

‘That’s kind of you, but I want to be in your debt. I’ve never forgotten the day you gave me money and took me back to my village on your bicycle. For you, I suppose, it meant nothing; for me it was a revelation: I discovered that the Arab, the good Arab, the noble, generous Arab was not a mythical figure, nor was he what the colonist had made him . . . I’m not educated, I don’t have the words to explain what I felt, but it changed my life.’

He caught me by the arm.

‘Come with me.’

He led me to a building lined with metal doors, which I realised were jail cells. He slipped a key into one of the doors, shot back the lock and said:

‘He was a ferocious militant in the OAS and implicated in dozens of terrorist attacks. I had to move heaven and earth to stop him being executed. I leave him to you. This way I will have paid my debt . . . Go on, open the door and tell him he’s a free man, that he can go anywhere he likes, anywhere but my country, he’s not welcome here.’

He saluted me, turned on his heel and went back to his office.

I didn’t know what he was referring to. I reached out my hand, turned the handle and slowly opened the door. The hinges creaked. Daylight streamed into the windowless cell and a wave of heat flooded out. There was a shadow huddled in a corner; dazzled at first, he brought his hand up to shield his eyes.

‘Get out of here,’ roared a guard I had not noticed standing next to me.

The prisoner moved with difficulty, leaning against the wall to get to his feet. He had trouble standing. As he walked towards the door, my heart leapt in my chest. It was Chris – Jean-Christophe Lamy, or what was left of him. He was a broken man, scrawny and shivering, wearing a filthy torn shirt, a tattered pair of trousers with the fly undone and shoes with no laces. His face was pale, gaunt and unshaven, he smelled of sweat and urine, his lips were hidden by a crust of dried spittle. He gave me a black look, surprised to see me here to witness the state to which he had been reduced. He tried to lift his head but was too exhausted. The guard grabbed him by the scruff of the neck and dragged him from the cell.

‘Leave him alone,’ I told him.

Jean-Christophe looked me up and down.

‘I didn’t ask you for anything,’ he said.

As he limped away towards the exit of the barracks, I couldn’t help but remember all the things we had shared, the memories of our youthful innocence, and a sudden wave of sadness came over me. I watched him shamble away, stooped and stumbling, and as he went, a whole life went with him. I realised that the reason the stories my mother had told me long ago had seemed unsatisfying was because they ended with the era Jean-Christophe had chosen to ally himself to – an era that now shuffled away with him towards some uncertain destiny.

I walked through the teeming streets, through the singing and the shouting, beneath the fluttering green and white flags as the trams clanged and clattered past. The next day, 5 July, Algeria would have an identity card, a symbol, a national anthem and a thousand other things still to devise. On the balconies, women whooped and wept tears of joy. Children danced in the squares, climbing over monuments and fountains, up lamp posts and on to car roofs. Their cries drowned out the fanfares and the tumult, the sirens and the chatter; they were already tomorrow.

I went down to the port to watch the exodus. The quays were crowded with passengers, luggage and waving handkerchiefs. Steamers waiting to lift anchor groaned beneath the weight of the sorrow of those leaving. Families searched for each other in the crowds, children wept, old men slept on their suitcases, praying in their sleep that they might never wake. Leaning on a railing overlooking the port, I thought of Émilie, who might well be here in this crowd of helpless souls jostling before the door to the unknown. She might already have left; she might be dead; she might still be packing her cases in one of the buildings I could see around me. I stayed at the port until the dawn broke, leaning over the railing, unable to reconcile myself to the idea that something that had never really begun was truly over.