The Mysteries of Algiers (12 page)

I lie here looking at the high window, calculating what I would see if I could make my way to it. I remember al-Hadi’s house as being in the southern part, the native quarter of Laghouat. If the bedroom faces in the direction I think it does, then if I were at the window, I would look north towards the military hospital and the public gardens on three sides and the tennis courts. Laghouat is on the edge of the Sahara, an oasis town being eaten up by military installations. In my mind I drift down its white streets and the hours pass. Flies buzz over what I guess to be a turd in the child’s potty. From time to time the alsatian pads from end to end of the room. Zora has been gone a long time.

But I do not think that she has gone to the hammam. I imagine that I hear her pacing on the roof above me, her anklets clinking. I think that she is pacing round and round. I think that she is plotting something. I turn on the bed, thinking how I might seduce this woman or be seduced by her, but it is an abstract desire for seduction, for the drug makes me impotent. It is only in the head. There is such a thing as the physiognomy of the oppressed. I have only to compare Zora’s skinny pock-marked body with my memories of Chantal. Zora inhabits a world of secret shames. Women scuttle out of the women’s quarters and mutter their mysteries to one another holding the edge of their gondourahs over their mouths, conferring anxiously over their laundry at the public fountain.

But in fact I know this woman Zora very well. When I was interrogating al-Hadi and there were others in the interrogation chamber, then the electrodes had to be switched on. But I did not wish al-Hadi to give more away of fellagha operations than was strictly necessary. On the other hand at the same time I had to keep my fellow torturer, Lieutenant Schwab, amused. So the trick of it was to probe into al-Hadi’s sex life. Al-Hadi didn’t like it but I think that he understood what I was doing. It was really rather eerie listening to the man describe his greatest sexual joys, screaming and sobbing as he spoke. So it was that we discovered every detail of this woman Zora’s performance in bed. We investigated everything from the first bloody penetration of the frightened child bride and the cries of joy which greeted the display of bloody sheets, on through the years of systematic abuse of that skinny work-worn body. I explained to the lieutenant that it was the ultimate betrayal. Once an Arab’s honour has been broken, like an egg it can never be put together again.

Where are my clothes? Perhaps they do not matter. There is something very comforting in lying here, though there are odd aches and pains, blisters and scabs, quite apart from the bullet in the leg and what I guess to be a fractured fibula. There is something very comforting in being invalided out of the struggle. The wound is my ticket out of it. But hours pass and my impatience grows waiting for the return of Zora and the morphine. At times I could swear I hear Zora’s voice in the next room.

She comes in smiling as though someone has just told her a joke.

‘When will Tughril come?’

‘Ah it may be several days yet … It is not yet safe for him to come. Tell me again how my husband died … or … or you may not get your shot, bad man.’ She smiles to show she does not mean it, but I think she does.

‘I admired your husband very much. His death was a tragic loss to the cause, but there is no nobler way to die than as a martyr for revolutionary socialism.’

‘What went wrong?’

‘He took too many risks.’

‘Bad man, you could have secured his release, now don’t say no.’

‘Zora, it wasn’t as simple as that.’

‘Or protected him?’

‘He wasn’t my responsibility.’

She comes to lie on the bed beside me the needle poised over my shoulder like a talon. The thoughtful melancholy eyes are concentrated on my face.

‘Don’t be so vague. You can tell me. How did he die? Was it a bullet or did they strangle him?’

‘I can’t say. I wasn’t there when they killed him.’

‘But you should have been there. He was your man. You should have protected him.’ Now at last she gives me my shot. Then she moves away towards the clutter on the chest of drawers and she cleans her teeth. This she does by rubbing them with soot. Then, pulling up her skirt, she sits cross-legged on a tartan rug spread out on the floor beside the bed and combs her hair. Then she curls up fully dressed and goes to sleep.

The following morning I raise a niggling suspicion that has been at the back of my mind for some time.

‘There is someone beyond the door. There may be someone in the next room spying on us.’

‘There is no one in the next room. Perhaps it is the children. You mean my little babies.’

I would like to investigate. Indeed I would like to get up and see if it is possible to stand on my good leg, but she presses herself against me, forcing me back against the pillow. Then she disengages herself.

Later Zora brings one of her children in, the four-year-old.

‘Good child, this is a great friend of your father’s.’

‘When will Daddy be back?’

It seemed to me almost as though the child’s pathetic question had been rehearsed.

‘It is hard managing without him. You must look after your poor mother.’ Then Zora sends him toddling out. She smiles. It is that secretive smile that irritates me.

‘Keep those bloody children out. I want some more morphine. I need it.’

She is grinning madly as she swishes out the syringe and fills it with morphine solution. With my eyes I follow the needle circling over me, then it jabs down. Zora’s ministrations are not kind and both my arms are now covered with scratches and bruises.

‘Shshsh now. Go to sleep. You are safe here. You will wake the children.’

I drift off thinking about Zora’s children. There should be medals for mothers of the revolution. The determinants of the mode of production apply as much to human beings as to factory commodities. The Arab prick is a powerful revolutionary tool. Four million Arabs at the beginning of the century. Almost 10 million now, and, from now on, the population will double every twenty years. The white man in Africa is being fucked out of existence …

In the morning when I wake up anxious for the needle, I find her as usual lying on the floor beside me. Looking round the room and at its French furniture and tapestry, I cannot approve. Some of my fellow officers would sneer at its bad taste for snobbish reasons. It’s not that, but what I see in this ill-conceived clutter is clear evidence of al-Hadi’s and Zora’s determination to belong to the bourgeoisie. After all that this woman has gone through and all that the revolution should have taught her, all she wants to be is a big bourgeoise and hoard expensive furniture and clothes.

‘Zora! Zora! Wake up, please! I need another shot.’

She is slow to stir and lies on the floor looking lazily up at me. There is a faint sleepy smile.

‘Zora! The needle, I need the needle. I am beginning to hurt again.’

The four-year-old has come stumbling into the room, rubbing his eyes sleepily, woken by continued shouts. ‘Zora! The morphine! Zora, it is time!’ The alsatian in the corner is up and growling, but Zora just lies there smiling to herself.

Now I find that when the shots wear off, everything aches. My whole body is a cold grey ache. But yet it can be easily solved with the needle. Still she is not moving. Christ! I can get it myself though. Surely I can get across to the chest of drawers over there? I have been in bed long enough. I roll myself over to the edge of the mattress and painfully get my legs to hang over the edge. Now at last, when she sees what I am trying to do, she does stir herself. She is up on her feet and pushing me back on to the mattress. She is desperate to keep me in the bed. She is a skinny, slender little creature, but I am very weak and our struggle is prolonged.

As she presses herself against me, it comes into her mind to try to hold me back with something else. All the while pushing against me, with considerable difficulty she manages to get herself out of that hideous blue dress.

‘Stay in bed, you bad man.’

She comes down upon me and her long tongue like a lizard’s explores my mouth.

‘Come on now, you darling. Why won’t you tell me how my husband died?’

The child and the dog look on as we attempt love. Morphine is strange stuff. It brings on lust, but it all turns out to be in the head. And when the drug has worn off as now, I find I have the shakes. She lies on top of me and I catch a pleased, almost admiring expression in her eyes, but I sense that what she is admiring is not me but the shakes and the cold sweat that I have. After a while we cease to struggle and with a sigh she gives up.

‘All right I get you the needle. Have another needle now, darling bad man.’

As the needle goes in the relief is tremendous. I can lie back and think coherently once more. I wish I knew why I am here, what part Zora has for me in her world of mysteries, but with the good stuff coursing through my veins once more, I can relax about it a bit. Faintly smiling, Zora comes back to lie on the bed beside me. She whistles the dog over to her and lies back contentedly allowing the dog to tongue-wash her toes.

The next time, a few hours later, it is not so easy.

‘Bad man, you must beg for your shot.’

I can’t allow myself to remain at the mercy of this woman much longer. That is clear.

‘When is Tughril coming?’

She shrugged.

‘Who is Tughril? I know no Tughril. He is not coming.’ She slips away from the the bed, before I can grab her by the throat.

‘What is your game, Zora?’

‘I know of no games. I am not having any games.’

‘I warn you, you are making a big mistake treating me like this. Give me my shot and stop playing all these silly games. Then I’ll tell you how to get in touch with the nearest fellagha command cell. Now the needle, please.’

‘Captain Roussel, you are not just a bad man, you are full of folly. They told me you killed my man. Now you tell me how you killed my man and you get your shot.’

‘Who has told you this?’

There is a secretive little smile, but no reply.

‘It is absurd!’

‘No, you killed him. I know this.’

I lie back thinking. Why should she or I be shielded from the truth?’

‘Yes. It was a necessary sacrifice for the revolution. He could not have escaped. He might have talked. I killed him as quickly as I could.’

‘Ah bad man, what if he had talked? What then? Tell me now, you made him give up his life to save yours. What makes your soul so much bigger than his? And you killed him for nothing anyway. They found you out. That clever woman found you out. And now you lie on our bed, where I and my man used to lie and you have been happy for me to be waiting on you and nursing you. I do not think you are a man at all. You are a djinn, a very evil djinn.

‘I am thinking that there is no more morphine for you any more. Imagine that. So now what are you going to tell me that is going to make me change my attitude? I cannot imagine. I am taking the morphine away from this room now. I think I shall go to my sister’s house for a while. When I come back I shall have you on your knees telling me about how my man died.’

Now I lie coldly sweating on to the already damp mattress. My whole body seems to crawl, as if thousands of tiny maggots were active under the skin. I suppose I will tell her whatever she wants to know. Nothing is worth this. If there is something, I can’t think too clearly about it. My head feels as though blunt pieces of wood are being slowly hammered up the nasal shafts into the porridgy brain. I throw myself on to the floor and … this is where Zora finds me screaming two hours later.

She looks perturbed to find me in such a state. She looks so distracted that I snatch at the opportunity. From the floor I lunge for the needle. The syringe drops to the ground and there is broken glass all around us. But I am on my feet and determined to make a break for it – or take control of the flat, or kill this Zora bitch. I don’t know what exactly. But the wounded leg can hardly bear any weight at all. And the alsatian comes out of its corner snarling and then barking furiously. I hold on to Zora and use her as a shield against the raging dog. Zora wriggles and in her struggles kicks over the child’s potty. The floor is slippery with shit and urine and brittle with broken glass and stained with blood from our bare feet. The dog keeps circling, trying to get at me behind Zora, barking all the time. Zora screams at me and the dog and it takes both my hands to keep her with me. So I wonder how I am going to get the door open and myself out of the bedroom without having the dog at my throat? I cannot stay upright much longer.

But now the door flies open and a black and brown shape hurls itself upon us. Zora and I crash to the ground and I find myself having to use the woman against two alsatians. And there is a second person in the room. It is one of the Ouled Nail dancers from downstairs, and Zora’s four-year-old follows in after her. It is the end. The two women get the alsatians off and me back into bed, but not before one of the dogs has got its teeth deep into my bad leg and the claws of the other have raked an arm that was already covered with needle scratches. I lie there trying to get them to find me another shot, but the two women cluck and squawk away at one another in harsh Arabic. They are arguing about whether it is time, whether ‘the gentleman’ should be fetched.

‘He is ready now.’

‘He is really desperate,’ the other woman agrees.

‘We will have to buy another needle.’

About an hour later I get the shot that I need and I can drift off. When I come round again, there is Raoul seated in a chair some distance from the bed and resting a pistol on his knee. There is a smell of disinfectant in the room, but no sign of Zora. Raoul seems faintly amused by the whole situation. I marvel at his elegance, the lightweight cotton three-piece suit in white and, beside the chair, the panama straw hat.

‘I expect you are wondering what you are doing here?’

‘Yes.’

‘Wonder away.’

Then, about ten minutes later, he ventures, ‘I don’t think that we have decided what to do with you yet. Chantal and Schwab aren’t here yet. Not everyone finds it as easy to leave Fort Tiberias as you did, but I expect they will be here tomorrow. Meanwhile, it seems that Madame al-Hadi can’t cope any longer. So here I am to baby-sit for the lady.’ Then he yells to the next room, ‘Madame! Madame, get me a lager if you please.’