The Mysteries of Algiers (20 page)

‘Ah no, these are not my opinions.’ (For Nounourse has risen wrathfully to his feet and I instinctively put my hands up before my face.) ‘I am just telling you what this woman Chantal goes about saying. According to her, the English invented the concentration camp during the Boer War. According to her, they also invented terrorism. Before the Second World War, terrorism was only a matter of deranged individuals, like the anarchists with their infernal machines. But the English taught the world how to organize terrorism. They sent their secret-service men to murder Heydrich in Czechoslovakia. She believes it was they who murdered Darlan, Pétain’s governor here in Algiers, and it was certainly they who paid the communists in the French Resistance to murder Germans and commit random outrages in the streets of France. And Malaya, Cyprus, Kenya, Egypt – there is hardly one of their colonies where they have not practised torture, not because they needed to, but really to satisfy their perverted lusts.’

Nounourse sighs heavily.

‘This woman should surely die,’ he says.

But the atmosphere remains uneasy. It is as if he still suspects me of sharing Chantal’s opinions. But Nounourse is very naïve and it is boring talking to a man with whom I have so little in common. It is boring just sitting here, chatting away, just killing time. I long to be up and out of this pokey little flat and involved in some action.

At last, some time after the desultory conversation has declined to dismal silence, Jalloud comes in. He is in a high good humour and immediately Nounourse and he start horsing about around the room. Jalloud puts up the ludicrous pretence that he too is a boxing champ, and they move about parrying, lunging and whooping. Saphia hardly bothers to open her eyes and I am also bored by this childishness. I no longer have a sense of humour. It is something that I have put behind me. Who can laugh in this land of death and torture? Eventually Jalloud comes staggering up to me, gasping for breath and makes an attempt to slap me on the back which goes rather wide of its mark.

‘Hey! Hey! So this morning, you murdered a fellow officer! Bravo! You should chalk your murder score up on a wall somewhere.’

‘That was not murder,’ I tell him. ‘That was the necessary elimination of an enemy of the people.’

‘Oh, tra–la! What nonsense! The man was lying peacefully in his bed and you killed him. The nurses are running about screaming and the whole hospital is in a total rumpus. That has to be a murder.’

‘Murder is not the word for it. You are a bright student, Jalloud. You should be able to understand what I am about to tell you. Listen to me, will you? For us the difficulty is to find a language whose vocabulary and indeed whose very grammatical structure has not been appropriated by the oppressive power. We need a language in which the words are not inevitably channelled towards the conclusions of the imperialists and the liberals. For this reason, we have given new meanings to such words as “Democracy”, “Peace”, “Violence” and “A Necessary Execution of the People’s Will”. These words do not belong to the
pieds noirs,
or de Gaulle, or the United States or the Zionists. They belong to the people. Today in the hospital I have executed the will of the people. I murdered no one.’

‘Doubtless you have given new meanings to “Lies” and “Stupidity” as well.’

But Jalloud giggles nervously. He really does not want to quarrel with me. Jalloud is a bright young man – perhaps an intellectual even – but, as with Raoul, I am not impressed. I am not an intellectual, but I am a Marxist and Marxism is a powerful engine for the production of thought. On a very wide range of issues it does my thinking for me, so that I can talk with a Jalloud or a Raoul on more or less the same level, confident that my ideology has the answers.

‘Killing that officer was a test that I am who I say I am?’ I venture.

‘Of course, but we really needed the blood, and they are not going to give it to us. We have to take it.’ Then Jalloud continues, ‘Well, now it is time for us to decide what we are going to do about you and this young lady of yours.’

I pace around the room taking nervous drags through my preposterous cigarette holder. I have been kneeling at prayer, seeking guidance from the God of the Franks, but no guidance has come. I am filled with excitement and apprehension. Something terrible is brewing. If only I could lay my hands on Philippe, many of my fears would be laid to rest. I know, having beaten it out of Zora, that Philippe must have made contact with Tughril now. Unfortunately it is not possible to guess from Philippe’s skilfully botched intelligence records who Tughril is. When I catch up with Philippe, I will make him pay for the dance he has led us across Algeria. I shall make him kneel before me and beg for mercy. When I think how I deceived him in bed, I laugh ruthlessly.

Ah, it is no good. It has turned into unintentional parody. My attempts to enter the mind of Chantal strike me as pitiful, childlike fantasy, and, as Lenin says, ‘You must dream, but only on condition that it is permitted to you to believe in your dreams.’ ‘Know the mind of the enemy’ has always been my watchword, but I have no idea at all what goes on in the mind of Chantal, and, as is plain from the Security Panel incident, I never have had. Part of my trouble is that I have never been up against a woman before. From Saint-Cyr to Indochina to Algeria, I have lived in a world of men. It is not just Chantal, but all women. I have no idea how their minds work. It would be hard enough for me to enter the mind of any woman, but there are additional problems. Chantal is not of my class. The de Serkissians are
haute bourgeoisie,
plutocrats even I suppose. It is never really possible to transcend the bound of class consciousness. Saint-Cyr graduate I may be, but this does not furnish a simple
laissez-passer
to the upper-class mentality. Not only is she not of my sex or class (and she is younger than me too), but she is a fascist. How does a fascist think?

I pace round the room watched by the placid Saphia. Try again.

I am Chantal. I am back in Algiers now. I am pretty sure that Philippe is in Algiers too. As I step in circles round the room, I wonder if I have any clues as to where Philippe will be and what he will do next, and I try to guess what my reactions will be to what he does next – or do I mean his to mine? It is a fair bet that Philippe has been successful in getting information about the planned co-operation between rightwing
pied-noir
groups and the paras into the hands of the
FLN
by now. That particular trick has been lost by us. My guess is that he will feel peculiarly bitter towards me for having unmasked him at the Security Panel. He will certainly have more respect for my abilities, and my elimination will be one of his priorities. I should take care to vary the times and the itineraries of my trips from the villa to the office, and I should always travel armed. Security at the villa should be stepped up. I will get Daddy to put more men on the wall. I will have a description of Philippe circulated to our men throughout the city. But I am aware that by now he will not look much like old photographs of him.

Ah, it really is no good. Yet it is vital that I should be prepared for Chantal’s next move. I have seen so many military strategies and intelligence plots come to grief on the assumption that, while one’s own men are on the move, the enemy is standing stock-still just waiting to be hit.

Plod. Plod. Of course she is looking for me and guarding herself. That is ploddingly obvious, but I want to know how she thinks as well as what she thinks – I want to enter the fascist romantic style of thought. Maurice is an old-fashioned ultra and Vichy collaborator and of course there was Uncle Melikian, but Chantal’s own brand of wolves-at-the-door fascism began, I should guess, as dinner-party chit-chat kind of thing – opinions produced at table and frivolously defended in the interests of
épater
one’s elders, but, in time, such opinions harden and in defending them one becomes strongly attached to them. Slowly the shocking romantic frivolity hardens into a total delusional system. In the system, her daddy, her villa and Western Civilization, as she imagines it, are all under threat from the fanatical devotees of a German Jew who lived in London in the nineteenth century.
Das Kapital
is the cabbala of a thieves’ kitchen of psychopathic terrorists, venereal free-lovers, death-camp commissars and well-poisoners. The real danger to her gilded existence is boredom and futility, but she fears what she wants to fear in life. It is the same with her enthusiasms – they are her own delusional projections.

This passion for D’Artagnan for example. It is plain to me that she has read the book with her eyes shut. Armed with the analysis provided by correct ideology, I recognize D’Artagnan for what he is – an
arriviste
of near plebeian origins, at best a lukewarm defender of the King and quite indifferent to the Church, rather sympathetic to Cromwell’s republicanism in fact. Does D’Artagnan not tell the King of France, ‘The voice of the people is the voice of God’? The man was a social-climbing snob. Why else sleep with Milady de Winter? A glorified grocer with interests in the wine trade and in property. But with the book on her lap and her eyes shut, Chantal sits in the torrid over-scented garden and dreams and sighs over a D’Artagnan who is as much an hallucination as the appearance of a four-foot-high purple spider in her garden would be. D’Artagnan is her hero and Captain Philippe Roussel, late of the Foreign Legion, her master villain, but this does not prevent a love –

The return of Jalloud brings a welcome end to my fruitless pacing. He and Nounourse went out over an hour ago for a walk around the block. Jalloud is very cheerful. He tells Saphia to leave us alone. He has to chivvy her into the bedroom, for she is reluctant to leave her chair, but off she goes sighing, bulging and swaying to collapse on to her bed. Jalloud produces an envelope from his pocket.

‘I had forgotten. We found these photographs in your bag and I had them developed by one of the comrades.’

Yes, there she is, Yvonne sprawled like a discarded rag doll with the black stuffing coming out of her head. It is a good photo. I do not trouble to conceal my satisfaction, but Jalloud says, ‘She could have been your mother.’

‘That my fellow Frenchman should prefer their mothers and France to social justice, I can understand that. These things are not abstractions. France is family and people that one loves, houses we have built, fields that are cultivated. The pull is strong. Of course it is. But understanding is not the same as agreeing. Social justice comes first. And no half-measures. As Lenin says, “One should always try to be as radical as reality itself.” ’

‘Talking to you is like pressing the button on a tape recorder,’ says Jalloud and he gives me another of those disarming smiles.

I do not reply, but what I think is that I do not care if I am predictable, so long as I am right.

Jalloud puts the photos back in his pocket and continues, ‘Nounourse will be back soon. We have been talking – about you of course and your information. Comrade, I am happy to be able to tell you that our cell is prepared to take part in the sabotage of the Vercingetorix plot and the “elimination” –’(he pronounces this word with ironical relish) ‘– of Chantal. We would like very much for you to help us. And we will be asking neighbouring cells in Algiers for their help too.’

‘Thank you, Jalloud. I don’t want to seem ungracious, but shouldn’t all this be cleared with your commanding officer first? I don’t know what you call him or who he is, but he is at present the only
FLN
colonel in Algiers. The codename he used when I sent my reports to him was “Tughril”. If we act without clearance from above, I fear that we might all end up smiling the Kabyle smile.’

‘Oh, don’t worry about that,’ says Jalloud. ‘I am “Tughril”.’ And he giggles in nervous self-deprecation.

‘You can’t be “Tughril”. Nounourse runs the cell.’

‘Nounourse runs the cell and I run Nounourse, and all the other cells in Algiers too, for that matter. Fortunately, not all the cells are in the charge of men like Nounourse, or the job really would be too much for me.’

Jalloud is very young. I don’t know whether to believe him or not. However, I suppose I shall have to act as if he really is who he says he is. There can be no proof. But Jalloud claims to have read all my reports and found them very useful.

‘Nounourse really wanted you dead, you know,’ says Jalloud. ‘We have been walking and talking, and now I have sent him on a longer walk to cool off.’

I decide to risk it.

‘People like that, ex-petty criminals –’

‘Nounourse’s crimes are not so petty.’

‘– ex-criminals are not to be relied upon, at least not as the leaders of revolutionary cadres. Listen to what Engels says, “Every leader of the workers who uses these scoundrels as guards or relies on them for support proves himself by this action to be a traitor to the movement.” For your own good, I suggest that you get rid of him.’

Jalloud smiles gently.

‘Well, I can see that you two have not hit it off. But you listen, Engels is not in charge of the Algiers wilaya. I am and I say Muhammad before Engels or before Marx. Muslim does not murder Muslim. Social justice is not going to be achieved that way. I have told Nounourse all your good points and told him to like you. Now I am ordering you to do the same. Nounourse is a fine fellow.’

‘The man is a clown! A buffoon! At best a circus strong man!’

Jalloud laughs delightedly.

‘Well yes. He has a big mouth, no? I can tell you a story about that. This was two years back, when I was not yet colonel, but only a major. Nounourse was in the group of cells I had been put in charge of. My orders were to form them into a commando platoon and to use this platoon to give the French a very big fright. Our plan was to blow up the big gasworks down by the docks. That really would have been an explosion – had it come off. You must remember the incident? It was an obvious target and naturally the French were not fools about it. There was always a very heavy guard of armed gendarmes around the gasometer. My plan was to send a platoon in with a time-bomb on a short fuse. They were to fight their way up to the steel casing of the gasometer itself, plant the bomb, then scatter, but not scatter so far that they could not hold off the gendarmes and the fire-brigade with their sniper fire. Then, if possible, my men should make their separate ways back to headquarters. However, when I briefed the men, I made no attempt to conceal from them the probability that they were members of a suicide squad. They listened to me very carefully. Then, as soon as I had finished, Nounourse was up on his feet, demanding that he lead the section that actually carried the bomb. He said that he was going to stand over it with his sten gun, until the device actually went off and if it did not go off then he could make it go off with his teeth. He beat on his chest just like Tarzan. Yes he actually did! (It is Saphia who encourages him in this. She has a thing about Tarzan. She is always reading the comics.) So he was banging on his chest and telling us at the top of his voice that he was the greatest bandit in all Algiers, and how many gendarmes he was going to kill and lots more noise. Everyone was looking up to him. But I had my eye on another man in the group, not noisy like Nounourse. A dyer from the tanneries. This dyer said quietly that of course the mission made him afraid, but he was just going to do his duty. He hadn’t much experience, but he was going to do his duty.