The Mysteries of Algiers (25 page)

Everything is ready for the demonstrators in Government Square. A triple line of steel-helmeted and gauntleted gendarmes is drawn up in front of the floral clock. They have their truncheons out and look tough, but they must know that they will have to withdraw in the face of a demonstration of this size. Behind the floral clock, the French and foreign camera crews have got their cameras up on platforms. Nounourse and I lie pressed very low on the roof of one of the administrative buildings on the side of the square.

The crowd floods across the square. A man in the striped uniform of a former Belsen inmate, flanked by two veterans of the First World War, leads its advance under a banner which bears the motto ‘
ALGERIA
IS
OUR
MOTHER.
ONE
DOES
NOT
ABANDON
ONE
’
S
MOTHER
’.

They carry wreaths for the French Algerians who died for France in two world wars. Prominent behind them is Lagaillarde, the ex-para whom they are calling ‘the D’Artagnan of the barricades’. The leaders are all trying to smile for the cameramen. In twenty years’ time, or sooner I estimate, those anxious smiles will come to resemble deathmasks. The crowd’s shouts come up to us on the roof like the sound of the sea drawing back on gravel. We look down on a thousand snaking lines of tricolours, placards,
képis,
headscarves, berets and steel helmets and on the clenched fists which dance up and down above the heads. What a tremendous sight! Just the sort of mass demonstration of spurious comradeship and high-minded emotion to give Chantal one of her shivers up the spine.

The crowd advances to within a few feet of the first line of gendarmes and stops. It shuffles and looks at itself and its front line ripples uncertainly. There is a lot of taunting, as each man dares his neighbour to go a little further than he has done and to risk coming within range of a truncheon. Of course people further back in the crowd are impatient and trying to push ahead, but still the mood on both sides is fairly good-humoured, taunting rather than genuinely threatening. There are a few flurries and flailing blows. Rather than really lash out and provoke serious trouble, the police keep taking steps backwards. I am reminded of a comic newsreel being run in reverse. Even now as the police keep withdrawing in good order, both sides take care not to trample over the floral clock – the famous floral clock in Government Square which has marked the hour for so many demonstrations. But the hands on this clock show that we are indeed at the last quarter-hour.

It is time for the Bad Fairy Carabosse to put an end to the mob’s honeymoon. The distance is formidable. Nounourse and I have only our pistols, but the lines of gendarmes are closely packed, and we do not even have to hit them. We only have to make them realize that they are being fired upon. We take aim and fire. One of the gendarmes does indeed fall. A couple of police officers fire over the heads of the crowd. The militia men at the front kneel to return their fire, but the militia fire into the ranks of the police. Nounourse and I fire again. More gendarmes fall. This was not expected and it seems that, apart from the officers, the police were not issued with ammunition.

The crowd in movement has its choreography. It splits apart like an exploding star. It shoots flares of humanity up the streets that lead out of the square. I note with interest that though almost everyone is running, no one is running very fast. I come to the conclusion that there are two reasons for this. Firstly, the crowd in flight runs with its head hunched low in expectation of a bullet in the back and it is difficult to run fast in that position. Second, the crowd cannot run fast for fear of trampling over itself. The mob in flight travels at a half-trot.

Within a few minutes the square that was packed is almost empty. There are militia men firing from the stairs and from behind the camera platforms. The police have got tear-gas grenades out and are lobbing them into the centre of the square. Already I can see a dozen of their number lying motionless, pressed to the ground as if they were seeking warmth from its flagstones. The square is littered with abandoned placards, picnic food for the outing and high-heeled shoes. A pair of deserted children look on bewildered with their thumbs in their mouths. Ever since the firing started, there have been cries from both sides of ‘Cease firing!’, ‘Cease your fire!’, but sporadic firing continues. There is not a soldier in sight.

I find the whole business utterly fascinating and for a long time I lie there peering over the edge of the roof. It is the living and dying proof of what I have always known, that one can understand violent revolutionary change only by actually participating in it. The right man at the right time, I have put history in motion. Pointing to the bloody city below us, I quote Lenin to Nounourse, ‘And when, on an earth which has finally been subdued and purged of enemies, the final iniquity shall have been drowned in the blood of the just and the unjust, then the State which has reached the limit of all power, a monstrous idol covering the entire earth will be discreetly absorbed into the silent city of Justice.’ Eventually, when it is clear that the action has moved away from Government Square, I roll over and bask in this beautiful Algerian sun of ours. Nounourse and I chat idly. I find his company more tiresome than ever. This simple soul thinks that I support the Arabs. He is, of course, in error. What is going on in Algiers and throughout the world is not a football match, where everyone, playing or watching, is either for the French or for the Arabs and one cheers and waves the rattle without thinking. History is not a football match and it is history alone that I support. However, Nounourse and I agree that it has been a very good morning’s piece of work, and already I am thinking about how to deal with Chantal and the brood of Vercingetorix.

It is dusk before we come off the roof. It is ‘like Hungary in ’56’, but, like Hungary in ’56 it is moving into a darker phase. Barricades of tyres are being set alight, sending filthy black smoke up into the ink-blue sky. Grim-looking shopkeepers are assembling collections of bottles filled with petrol behind the barricades. There is still no sign of the army. On the one hand, too many French policemen have been killed for the paras to declare themselves to be on the side of the rioters. On the other hand, there are too many rioters about for the troops to attempt to regain control of the city yet. No one knows what will happen next. The Great Fear has come upon the people.

As we pick our way towards Belleville, I marvel once more at the capacity of revolution to generate mess. Shredded banners, pools of blood and petrol, corpses covered with newspapers – Arab victims of random lynchings. And there is all the normal refuse that has not been collected since the strike began, spilling out of bins and bags. Already the rats are out in the streets here – and in Constantine, Philippeville and Oran.

Götterdämmerung
has been postponed. A curfew has been imposed by the Governor of Algiers. De Gaulle has broadcast on radio and television telling the army and the people to stand firm. When Frenchman fires on Frenchman, then. ‘France has been stabbed in the back before all the world’, but ‘nothing is lost for a Frenchman when he rejoins his mother’, and in fact the army’s coup fails to materialize. The beautiful weather breaks and people drift away from the barricades. Thunder clouds roll over the city and the steep and badly guttered roads become dangerous sluices. The army makes its appearance at last to help the shopkeepers in demolishing the barricades. The curfew is lifted, but too late for the staging of the last episode of the
Ring
cycle. All the same, the de Serkissian party for the visiting cast is announced in the
Gazette d’Algérie.

On the morning of the party I wake from a curious dream. I dreamt that Chantal and I were twins entwined in each other’s arms in a cocoon which has been laid by a human-headed creature with wings and left to float on the tides of the Bay of Algiers. Then thick red curtains sweep down and nothing more can be seen. That was the dream. If, in fact, I were living inside a melodramatic opera, then, yes, when I go to the villa tonight I would discover that Chantal and I were twins. I was the one stolen at birth by a wandering bedouin. Inside the villa Chantal’s old nurse would identify me by my birthmark. She would tell the story to Maurice and the chorus of assembled guests and I would renounce my murderous ambitions, but it will be too late, for Chantal will have drunk the poison. Though the dream fills me with foreboding, I have no time for dreams and in fact I am heading for an end which is more squalid than that.

Nounourse and I are getting on one another’s nerves and, now the weather has turned, it is bitterly cold in the flat and there is no heating. We can find nothing do do but clean our guns. I am still hanging on to my faithful old Tokarev, but I only have three more shots left in the magazine. I am full of doubts. I am unable to imagine how it will be when I come face to face with Chantal once more and aim this gun at her. It is not just that either. I am beginning to distrust my motives in heading for the villa tonight. Not that I believe that I am a prey to murky subconscious forces. There is not evidence at all there is such a thing as a subconscious. It is the invention of nineteenth-century bourgeois thought. It makes the doctors rich and the bourgeois believe that there is more of interest in themselves than they could ever have guessed. No, no subconscious. But, looking at my problem with materialist objectivity, there is the matter of simple sexual desire. According to Arab folklore, there is such a thing as magnetic meat. There is a fish which swims in the sea which lures its victims to it by virtue of its magnetic flesh. It may be like that with Chantal and me. Never mind what goes on in the head: meat calls to meat. This is morbidity …

At last it is time, if we agree to walk to the villa slowly, for us to get ready. We still have our opera gear, though both suits are very crumpled and, in Nounourse’s case, slightly soiled. Nounourse has stolen an umbrella and, pressed together under it, we make our way up the hill of the corniche and past the casino and on towards the Villa Serkissian. There is a police van parked outside the gate, but the gendarmes are not going to challenge people in dinner-jackets, no matter how sodden and crumpled they may look. The drive is lined by sullen Corsicans with guns. I wave Raoul’s invitation in the face of the guard at the door and jerk my thumb at Nounourse behind me.

‘My bodyguard.’

The man at the door does not bother to examine the card carefully and we are through. Paoli, Maurice’s major-domo, is just inside the door waiting to shake the hands of new arrivals and guide them to the drinks.

‘Monsieur Rouge,’ I say and stroke my beard complacently. Paoli looks puzzled. Perhaps I am familiar to him, but he cannot quite place me. Finally, doubtfully, ‘Of course. How good of you to come.’

‘I shouldn’t shake hands with my bodyguard if I were you. He has a rather strong grip.’

Paoli eyes Nounourse admiringly. I’m sure Nounourse could get a job with Maurice’s establishment. Nounourse grins savagely down on him.

‘Well, no then, but let me find you both a drink.’

‘I’ll have gin and he’ll have fruit juice.’

We are guided to the bar behind which a black waiter is at work mixing fancy cocktails. We get our drinks and Paoli is called back to the door. I am both excited and apprehensive. I pat my hip to reassure myself that my gun is still there and in doing so, I notice that I have an erection. I turn to face the guests. This is not supposed to be a fancy-dress party, but I see plenty of clowns here. Distinctly elderly members of the
jeunesse dorée,
alcoholic landowners, public servants who retired after Vichy, officers who have resigned from the army to find new careers as mercenaries and the mafia of
grandes dames
who run the big charities in this part of the world. A few of them sport Vercingetorix tie-pins or brooches. Generally, decorations and bosoms are much in evidence. I can’t actually see anyone sporting the iron cross, but there is a man with a monocle and duelling scars. I can’t see Chantal.

When the major-domo comes back to the bar with two new arrivals, I call out to him.

‘Hey, Paoli! Where is the lovely daughter of the house, Chantal? Was that her name? I so much enjoyed meeting her last time.’

‘Chantal has a headache and is lying down upstairs, but she has promised to come down later.’ Paoli looks rather pained himself. I am certain that he is lying, I don’t know why.

‘And where is our host, Maurice?’

‘He is attending to Chantal.’

He continues, ‘But let me introduce you to some of the other guests.’

‘No need. Isn’t that Christa Mannerling over there? I’ll go and introduce myself.’

Nounourse positions himself against one of the walls and I move off towards Christa Mannerling. Christa (Freia in
Rheingold
and Brünnhilde in
Die Walküre)
has breasts like great sweating cheeses. Only a rich society could have produced all the fine quality meat that has been pumped into this lady’s corset. I insert myself into the group of attentive listeners who have clustered round her. I have nothing to say to her. I just want to be quiet and inconspicuous in a group while I work out what my next move should be. I knew that getting in would be easy. Getting out will be difficult and has not been planned for. One shot fired inside the villa and the grounds will be alive with police and Maurice’s gunmen. It may be a heaven-sent opportunity that Chantal lies on her bed upstairs where I may kill her silently.

In a moment then, when I see that Maurice is back downstairs, I should slip away from this group of bores and make my way quietly up the stairs and then I should … and then … and then I will ease the door handle round and step silently into the room. Chantal will be lying on the bed in a long evening gown. On the bedside table will be the familiar crucifix and much-thumbed copy of
Le Hobbit.
Her eyes will widen when she sees me. I will show her the gun and tell her to strip. As soon as she has stepped out of her panties, she covers her breasts with her arms. An appealing gesture. Meat calls to meat. The gun falls disregarded from my hand on to the bedside table, but as I move forward to embrace her, she snatches up the pistol and points it triumphantly at me. I tell her to fire away. ‘It’s not loaded.’