That Devil's Madness (23 page)

‘Come,' Nicolette said, spotting a stall that sold drinks, ‘let's get a drink. And maybe a hot chocolate for this young man?' Jamilah nodded and Nicolette felt relieved.

Over glasses of sweet mint tea the tension eased a little. They talked of the present. Jamilah was married to a good man. She had four children, and worked at the reception desk of a real estate company three days a week.

‘I'm glad things worked out for you,' Nicolette said.

Jamilah looked at Nicolette in a way that made her feel like an ignorant child.

‘Worked out? It depends what you mean by “worked out”. If you mean are we happy, do we have enough food on the table, some sort of security, then no, things haven't “worked out”.'

‘I'm sorry. I just thought—'

‘What did you think? That when Algeria got her independence and you all left, we'd just take over and have the same lives you had?' Jamilah's little girl whimpered and Jamilah pulled a baby's bottle filled with water from her bag. She gave it to the child and rocked the stroller. The girl settled.

‘I don't know. I thought, under Boumedienne…'

‘There was Ben Bella,
then
Boumedienne. You really have no idea what's been going on here since independence, have you?'

‘I—'

‘You don't, do you? No one does, that's half the problem. The world doesn't want to know about Algeria, not even the UN. It's all too hard.' She took a deep breath then lowered her voice. ‘You think I'm been unfair – I can see it in your eyes.'

‘We had to leave, Jamilah. I was just a child; I didn't have a choice.'

‘I suppose that's true… Tell me, do you remember any of it?'

‘I remember us. You and Rafiq were my closest friends. I remember some things, and Grandpa Louis used to tell me a lot.'

‘He was a good man, your grandfather, an honourable man. But that was then.
You're
here now, Nicolette. Open your eyes. What do you see around you? Does it look like everything is as it should be?'

‘I don't know. I—'

‘You always were half blind, you know. Always the dreamer. I remember that about you – how you only saw what you wanted to see. Tell me something. In this country you went to, this Australia – what do you do when you go to the butcher shop?'

‘What do you mean?'

‘Just what I said. What do you do?'

‘Well, I ask for what I want.'

‘And you get it?'

‘Yes.'

‘When we went to the butcher just now, what did I ask for?'

‘I didn't take any notice.'

‘No, you didn't. I asked for half a kilo of meat. Not lamb, not chops, not sausages. Meat. Because here, you never know what's going to be available, and to ask for something specific doubles its price. So it's easier just to ask for meat. And you get whatever's available, whatever he has the most of. If you're lucky and you're early, if it's a good day, you might get real meat – a piece of goat, a pigeon – but more often than not you're given the stomach or the lungs or if you're lucky the tail with some meat still attached, of whatever beast he has that day. And you don't ask what animal it is. This country runs on gluts and shortages. Mostly, it's shortages.'

‘I didn't realise.'

Jamilah's little boy finished his drink and climbed on his mother's lap. She smiled at him, kissed the top of his head and brushed his hair out of his eyes.

‘There's a lot you don't realise. Every night I fill the bathtub with water because I never know if tomorrow is the day they'll cut water to my suburb. And if they do, I don't know for how long. Sometimes we have electricity, sometimes we don't. When the French left, there was no one qualified to operate the utilities, the machinery. It took a long time before there was some sort of order, if you can call it that. People had no work. And those that did had to give all the profits to the government. We believed it would create new jobs, but it never did. And even though we were all starving, when Ben Bella asked for our money, our jewellery, “anything that shone”, as he put it, still we gave it willingly, even though we didn't know how that money would be spent.'

‘But things are better now, aren't they? You're working…'

‘Yes, today I can work. Tomorrow working might mean my life.'

‘Why?'

‘Because there are those who say it is wrong for women to work. Especially in what they consider male occupations. My neighbour died because her husband would not let her be examined by a male doctor, and at the same time refused her a female doctor because he said women working in such positions went against religious laws.'

‘I'm sorry. So many women are unveiled. I thought—'

‘You thought we were liberated? Oh, don't look so surprised. They may censor what we read, but we still manage to keep up with what's happening in the world. And yes, I'm liberated, but not in the way you probably mean. I might look like just a Muslim housewife to you, but I'm an intelligent woman, Nicolette. And I'm a Tuareg, not an Arab. I can own property, inherit even, have my own money. Not all Muslims are the same, you know.' She buried her nose in her son's hair and inhaled, taking comfort from the smell of him.

‘I never said—'

‘You didn't have to.' She smoothed the boy's hair, kissed the top of his head once more. ‘I'm luckier than some,' she said, looking at her daughter asleep in the stroller. ‘My husband is proud of my intelligence. He encourages me to keep learning all I can. Brings home books we're not supposed to have. He's proud that I fought in the war of independence, as my mother and my sister did, right beside the men. But now there are some who want us to go back to the old Arab ways.'

‘But you're my age – you would have been what, then? Eight, ten years old?'

‘That's old enough to fight; many of us children were actively involved. Oh, I know you weren't aware of it – that's what I meant when I called you a dreamer – but to be fair, we made sure of it. We couldn't have been friends if you'd known. Don't underestimate children, Nicolette. Soon they'll be running this country.'

‘Why d'you say that?'

‘Look around you. Have you noticed how few older people there are in Algeria? How many babies and children there are?'

Nicolette nodded.

‘Hundreds of thousands killed during the war. And after independence, thousands more. The harkis, of course, because they'd fought for France. But also anyone who'd associated with the French. Not just the men, but entire families – even their children. Treated like traitors, burnt alive, castrated, their flesh cut in pieces and fed to dogs. Our grandfathers guessed this would happen – why else d'you think they kept their friendship a secret? Hundreds of thousands killed… I read some statistics recently,' Jamilah continued. ‘Apparently, at the rate Algerian women are having children, if I'm still alive in twenty years' time, seventy-five per cent of the population will be under thirty.'

Nicolette looked at Jamilah's son, then at the bits of mint leaves clinging to the sides of her glass. She didn't know what to say anymore. This wasn't what she imagined – what she remembered.

‘I thought, after the French left—'

‘After
you
left.'

‘What?'

‘
You
're French too, you know.'

Jamilah's statement shocked Nicolette. Of course, on an intellectual level, she knew she was French. But not
French
French. Not the French the Algerians – Jamilah? – fought against. Most of the time she thought of herself as Australian. And when she thought of her life in Algeria, she never thought of herself as of any particular nationality. Never in terms of
the colonizers
or
the settlers
or
the invaders
, and never as
the French
, the way Jamilah meant it. She thought of herself in terms of her family, her friends. Never had she even considered how Jamilah saw her. She shivered, cold, not from the gathering dusk but from the realisation that a lot of what she had believed was probably wrong.

‘What about our friendship? Was that just my imagination too?'

Jamilah seemed to lose herself in memories of long ago. She smiled then, and patted Nicolette's hand. ‘No, we were friends. Really. Remember the time we followed my grandmother to the grotto?'

‘The Grotto of the Ravens! I'd forgotten about that.'

‘You were so scared.'

‘Me?
You
were the one who was scared, when they sacrificed the roosters.'

Jamilah laughed, remembering the two little girls who had followed the old woman to the grotto where some still went, secretly, to exorcise themselves from
djennouns
. Nicolette's mother had been sent out of town for her work, and left Nicolette in the care of their housekeeper. But the woman was old and had fallen asleep after dinner, so that Nicolette had sneaked out. It was on a hot summer's night, and the grotto had been lit by dozens of candles, the air heavy with incense. Jamilah and Nicolette had hidden behind boulders and watched the frenetic dancing and singing with delight and giggles, but when the roosters had been brought forth, and their throats cut, and their blood had spurted in ever diminishing arcs onto the women, both girls had run in panic back to Jamilah's house. Jamilah had been haunted by the sight, sure that the
djennouns
had seen her and would possess her, so Nicolette had given her the gold crucifix hanging on the thin gold chain that she always wore, which had belonged to her great-grandmother.
It'll protect you,
she'd said, not recognising the paradox,
it'll keep the djennouns away.

‘Yes,' Jamilah said again. ‘We were friends, before it all went wrong.'

‘And Rafiq too.'

Jamilah nodded. ‘Rafiq too.'

‘What's happened to him?' Nicolette asked, afraid of the answer.

‘He's still fighting the war.'

‘The war's over, Jamilah. Since ‘62.'

Jamilah shook her head. ‘The Arabs got their independence from the French in ‘62, Nicolette, but we – the Tuaregs, the Kabyles, all the Berbers –
we
didn't. We'd lived in a world of make believe, thinking we'd get our independence, but there was no united front. There still isn't; it's tribe fighting against tribe, ethnic group against ethnic group. We Berbers are still oppressed; our language is still not taught in schools, and we're still marginalized. The only difference is that now it's by the Arabs instead of the French. My people have been here since four hundred BC, but we're still a minority.'

‘And you say Rafiq's still fighting?'

‘Still fighting. Still dreaming of something better.'

‘I was hoping to see him too.'

Jamilah shook her head. ‘You'd never find him. He never comes into town; it's not safe for him.'

‘Can you tell him I was here?'

Before Jamilah could answer they heard screams and shouts from the far end of the market. Jamilah picked up her son and threw him into Nicolette's arms, then, pushing the stroller in front of her, ran in the opposite direction to the cries.

‘Quickly,' she said, ‘I know somewhere safe.'

Nicolette hesitated. The photographer in her yearned to take her camera out of her bag and head towards the commotion, but the struggling youngster in her arms dictated otherwise.

‘Come on,' Jamilah called over her shoulder, ‘hurry.'

Nicolette followed Jamilah between stalls of vegetables and spices and clothes. She could hear the shouting and the cries and screams getting closer. People were pushing, trying to get away, but the alleyways were too narrow. The camera bag banged against her hip. Someone was running right behind her, yelling. She turned. Saw an angry face, a raised arm, a baton. Instinctively she curled her body over the child. Felt the full brunt of the baton on her back. Someone was shouting at her but she couldn't understand his words. He pushed her and she fell to her knees and hit her head on the corner of a stall. The boy in her arms screamed. Someone pulled her by the arm and she stumbled through a doorway, looked up to see Jamilah. They were inside a shop that sold pots and pans. The boy wriggled out of her arms into his mother's.

‘What was that all about?'

‘Arab fundamentalists. They take it upon themselves to patrol the streets for what they consider indecently-dressed women. When they find one, they beat her.'

‘But I'm not dressed indecently. They're mad! A lot of women out there had children with them—'

‘You're not, but it doesn't matter. They don't care who they beat. Like I said earlier, they want us to go back to the old ways. Even the glimpse of an ankle is enough to get you a beating.'

Nicolette moved her shoulders, feeling her back – it was sore, but because of her winter clothes, the baton had caused no damage. She felt her temple where she'd hit the stall – a lump, but no bleeding. She checked her cameras. They seemed okay.

‘What now?'

‘We'll wait a bit to make sure they're gone, then I'll get you back to wherever you're staying. But we'll take the children home first.'

‘I can make my own way back.'

‘I know. But I'll take you anyway.'

#

Back at Jamilah's apartment, Nicolette waited in a small living room while Jamilah went into what Nicolette glimpsed was a bedroom. She heard murmured voices – Jamilah's, a man's. She went to the bookshelves and read the spines of the books – mostly paperbacks. She pulled one out to read the blurb. Behind it, lying on its spine against the wall was another book – Sartre's
Of human freedom.
She went along the shelves, pulling forward the cheap paperbacks. Translations of Plato and Chekhov. Solzhenitsyn, Camus. A tattered translation of John Stuart Mill's
On Liberty
.
My husband encourages me to keep learning all I can.
Is this what Jamilah had meant? Nicolette thought herself educated, but though she'd heard of these writers, all she'd ever read was Camus'
La Peste
. She would have never imagined Jamilah was reading these authors. She put the book back against the wall and replaced the paperback. She felt confused. If asked, she would have said she'd experienced a lot in life – the loss of Willow, her time with Michael, struggling with no money – but she'd always managed to have food on the table. Had never had to run from men wanting to beat her because they disapproved of the way she dressed. Nor did she ever have to hide any of the books she read. How could she ever think that her own life, in the peace of Australia, has been troubled when compared to what Jamilah had experienced? And for that matter, what Steven and Jean-Paul had gone through, from what little she'd gathered? No wonder Steven treated her like a kid. No wonder those seasoned female journalists had taken one look at her and dismissed her – one glance at her blond ponytail, her over-eager face, and they'd known straight away she was nothing but a rank amateur. And now this half-hidden library had exposed her intellectual deficiency as well.