The Praetorians (18 page)

“I refused and I was preparing in despair to go back to the Gers. My labourers came to see me and they begged me to stay. I therefore raised their wages and no one touched my vines. But I knew perfectly well that anything extra I gave them went at once into the pocket of the fund collectors—and not always
into the F.L.N.'s. The war in Algeria has been first and foremost an enormous racket of which the victims were the poorest of the poor.

“So I'm betraying my country a little, but if I had left I should have betrayed her more. The settlers all round me now practise the same system, except Puydebois. He's mad, but courageous. And do you know that this fanatic who regards himself as a
Chouan
and calls us ‘the Blues' behaves like the best of men towards the three or four Moslem families who live on his farm? One of his labourers whose name had been found on an F.L.N. list was arrested: he was only just prevented from setting out with his rifle to release him. In his eyes all the Arabs are rebels except his own; actually they are neither more nor less so than the others.”

“What's going to happen now?” asked Pasfeuro.

Andériou shrugged his shoulders:

“I'm afraid our days are numbered on the continent of Africa. Our settlers might have been the best in the world or, on the other hand, the most oppressive, it would have come to the same in the end.”

As usual, whenever she felt embarrassed, Françoise Baguèras had risen to her feet and was striding round the table, swinging her bag.

“Heavens above, Pierre, tell them why you really stayed on. Don't be frightened of appearing ridiculous. We've been living too long in the midst of tragedy and excess for us to go on noticing what's ridiculous and what isn't.

“You won't tell them? All right, I will! It's because you and your wife were bursting with the need to love others, to love anyone who was the victim of misfortune. In France there was no one left to love. The French are fat, peaceful, selfish and satisfied. So you came out here.

“An American friend of mine used to quote these verses of an old Persian poet: ‘If pain, like fire, produced smoke, the whole world would be darkened by it.'

“There's so much smoke in Algeria that you can't see clearly any longer or else you suffocate.

“They have stopped calling your place the Frenchman's
farm, it's now known as the Saint's, the farm of Hadj Andériou, the man who came to perform his pilgrimage of love in the land of Islam.

“Go back to your little presbytery garden, Pierre. We Algerians are soaked in blood, violence and sunshine. We're on the side of injustice and strength and that's the very reason we feel almost at ease in this civil war of ours. Haven't you realized you're dealing with pagans? Just look how we honour youth, strength, riches, which are the signs of the protection of the gods! But we turn aside from the old, the poor; and at the same time we're as old and resigned as the rest of them.

“You're too good for us, Pierre. We don't want you to be made a martyr, in the full sense of that word, that's to say the Christian sense, while we've been incapable of producing a single real one for the cause of French Algeria.

“Because a soldier is never a martyr, any more than a settler who merely protects his land, like Puydebois, or a journalist who happens to get bumped off while doing his job.”

“Dear Françoise, as usual you're exaggerating,” Pierre Andériou gently replied. “I don't feel the slightest urge to die and I'm not in the least a saint. If I'm attacked, I shall defend my land——”

“What with?” Françoise bluntly retorted. “Just tell us what you've got in the way of arms to defend yourself: a shot-gun!”

“There's a military post less than two miles away. . . .”

 * * * * 

As they drove back along the coastal road in the smell of sea-salt and tar, Françoise who was sitting in front turned round to Esclavier:

“Tell me, Captain, you don't seem to like the French of Algeria. . . .”

“What makes you think that?”

“You're tense and on edge whenever you're with them. But then you're not the only one. Many of the military behave like that. The army in Algeria has made its love match with the Moslems, not the French. What about Algiers? Do you like Algiers?”

“It's a lovely town.”

“You don't like it . . . maybe because you don't know its secret.
Camus, with whom I used to wander about the Kasbah and whom I sometimes accompanied to Djemilla, to Tipasa, anywhere there were any ruins or where artemisia grew, declares, I think in
Été
: ‘The towns that Europe has to offer are too full of rumours of the past . . . the desert itself has taken a similar course, it has been overloaded with poetry. To escape from poetry and recover the peace of stone, there must be other deserts, other places without a soul and without redress. . . .'

“Those places without a soul and without redress were Oran and also Algiers. But he suffered as I did from the fact that Algeria has no past and that's why he was so attracted to ruins.”

 * * * * 

On his return to Algiers, Esclavier learnt that Colonel Puysanges had asked him to report to H.Q. Region Ten. Feeling apprehensive, he notified his comrades—an old reaction dating back to the Resistance—and reported to the colonel's office, a bare and austere room simply adorned with the portrait of the Commander-in-Chief.

As usual, Colonel Puysanges was amiable, affable and worldly, concealing threats beneath his flattery and setting a trap behind every word.

Nothing was more forthright than the colonel's gaze, nothing more firm than his hand-shake or more sincere than the tone of his voice.

“My dear Esclavier, I've been wanting to see you for some time . . . but circumstances . . . Luckily, here you are in Algiers. By the way, you're often seen in the company of journalists. . . . I must remind you there's a special branch at G.H.Q. to deal with them. It would be regrettable if, at such serious times as we're going through at the moment, while important things are no doubt afoot, an indiscreet remark exploited by someone like Pasfeuro or Françoise Baguèras were to jeopardize certain plans. If you want to meet Arcinade let me know. I'll invite you both to lunch. Then we could go and have coffee with the C.-in-C.—your name's not unknown to him, you know.

“Well, now, how's everything at the
10
th Regiment? Raspéguy the same as ever? A good soldier, to be sure, outstanding
even, so long as he keeps strictly to the running of his regiment. But he lacks political maturity—which is not the case, it seems, with your dear friend Glatigny! He's very active these days and in a direction which we're bound to find astonishing. He wasn't in the F.F.L. as far as I know. Anyway, the C.-in-C. has a high regard for him as well.”

Esclavier was amused to see what a high regard the Commander-in-Chief could have for officers who made him frightened or whom he needed.

“You know the C.-in-C.'s position,” Puysanges went on. “He notified Monsieur Pleven, who had just been earmarked as Prime Minister, that in no circumstances would the army tolerate a withdrawal from Algeria which the opening of negotiations with the F.L.N. would imply.

“He has been saddled with a wild reputation for Machiavellianism, whereas there couldn't be a simpler man in the world. Some of you, I know, call him the Tojun, the Chinese General. That's a lot of rot.

“It has also reached my ears, in connection with the Mohadi affair—between ourselves, it was the only solution and Boisfeuras was quite right—that a rather strange meeting took place at the Aletti the other night. . . . You ought to trust me a little more. For my friends I can arrange quite a number of things.

“Come and take pot luck with me at dinner one of these days, and bring Glatigny and Boisfeuras along—I think, at a pinch, he can leave hospital for one evening—and also Marindelle.

“Since you've just come back from Z, how are the Moslems reacting?”

“They're rather worried, sir, trapped like a grain of wheat between two millstones, us and the F.L.N. Before committing themselves too much to our side they want to know if we plan to stay on.”

“Quite natural, my dear fellow. Our levies are likewise somewhat disturbed, even the N.C.O.s. We must find some means of reassuring them. We're liable to need all the help we can get.”

“May I put forward a suggestion?”

“But of course, my dear chap.”

“Captain Mahmoudi is still being held in Fort l'Empereur. What have they got against him? His signature on a letter to the President of the Republic. Mahmoudi is very popular among the regiments of levies. He belongs to a great family from the Saharan Atlas. He ought to be released.”

“So that he can rush off to Cairo or Tunis!”

“There are a number of us in Algiers who were his fellow-prisoners in Camp One. We could go bail for him.”

“It seems a little difficult to me, but I'll speak to the C.-in-C. about it. A psychological shock is always a good thing . . . besides, with a firm hand to guide him, Mahmoudi could become a trump card.

“What's the strength of your three companies stationed at Zeralda?”

“Four hundred, sir.”

“With their heavy armament?”

“No, only their light.”

“Keep a firm grip on your men. They're liable to have heavy demands made on them.”

 * * * * 

“Well,” enquired Boisfeuras who was waiting for Esclavier at the Aletti, “what did that dear colonel have to say?”

“Puysanges knows about quite a number of things. I don't really know how the idea crossed my mind, but I spoke to him about Mahmoudi. He's not opposed in principle to his release on parole, provided we go bail for him. All our plots are public property in Algiers and the eight million Moslems have been careful to keep out of them. Our only chance of success is to have at least some of them on our side.”

Boisfeuras agreed:

“Even if Mahmoudi buggers off to Tunis we must try and bring this off, and be prepared to face the consequences. I don't think he will leave, especially when he knows what we're trying to achieve: the independence of Algeria in a French context. For that we will have to have the support of men like him.

“I couldn't sleep last night. The bed's too soft. I had a tart sent up to my room, but there was nothing to her: lifeless flesh,
overscented and a mass of frills. And yet I like tarts. So I started thinking and disentangling my memories from my plans.

“Do you know what gives the Communists their strength, Philippe? They have no country or frontiers, no women, only female companions, no friends, only comrades-in-arms. A year ago I might have been able to adopt that way of life, but I began to be fond of some of my friends, rather more fond than I should have been if I had wanted to remain a real revolutionary. I'm fond of Françoise Baguèras, that woman journalist you were with today, and also Pellegrin, and you yourself, Philippe, however much that may shock you.”

“What's come over you? Here you are, having human feelings.”

“No. But I'm beginning to think that all that remains for people like us is friendship. The great fires that devoured men and carried them away have gone out for ever. All that's left are a few wretches who huddle against one another for warmth. And the Communists are no exception. For them there are just as many frontiers as for us. I often get news from China. The Russians are hated there and can't move an inch without being closely watched and spied on. And yet they are Communists like the Chinese. But it's a question of yellow skin versus white. And that's all that's left in the world: racialism accompanied by a primitive form of imperialism. The whole war of Algeria is based on this racial struggle. Spaniards, Maltese and Jews, all regarded as Europeans, refuse to be assimilated with fair-haired and blue-eyed Berbers who are known as Arabs.

“It's frighteningly stupid, and it affects me more than anyone else. You know I'm a half-caste, Philippe: a quarter Chinese blood, a quarter Russian, a little more of one, a little less of the other, I'm not quite sure, because I never knew my mother. The old man wanted a son. He chose a woman for her beauty without bothering about her background. He laid his egg in her, then took the child and sent the woman packing, after paying her, of course. But my father gave me his ugly mug, and the woman all the rest. A Chinese will always despise me because I'm a half-breed.

“So, you see, I want our adventure in Algeria to be first and
foremost anti-racial; and our slogan—that word which Si Mellial said we would have to put forward to counter
Istiqlal
or Independence—must take that fusion of races into consideration.”

“Soustelle, like a good ethnologist, that's to say a man who realizes how vain is the notion of race and how important that of civilization, has suggested Integration.”

“Try and impress integration on people who won't even accept mixed schools! But it's a word, and there's a certain magic about words. Sometimes they assume such a burden of hope or despair that they become stronger than any idea.

“In Paris de Gaulle is playing his hand cleverly. He has made contact with the labourers' trade unions through the intermediary of Blocq-Mascart. Back there he's doing his best to be as reassuring as possible, but we out here have the same effect as a bogeyman. The old traditional game: stroke with your left hand and strike with your right. We're heading for a lot of trouble.”

“Puysanges is trying to suck up to us.”

“The Tojun is feeling uneasy. He is born for underground stratagems, for subtle intrigues, but is scared of the rank and file of the army, because he knows he's incapable of making direct contact with them. The two bazooka shells they fired at him on January
10
th made him aware of quite a number of things.