Dominique Manotti - Lorraine Connection

‘You’re a traitor, Ali. We held a weapon in our hands, and you disarmed us.’ Amrouche throws away the empty cup. He looks tired but placid.

‘We took the only sensible decision that’s been taken all day. If you would just calm down …’ Nourredine pretends not to hear him.

‘There’s one option left, since you stole our boss from us. There are the chemicals stored behind the factory. First we go and get them, then we can break the warehouse door down. We remove them and store them in the packaging section, under close guard, and if the bonuses aren’t paid, we pour them into the river tomorrow at midday. Maybe tomorrow evening, but no later.’

Amrouche gets to his feet and plants himself in front of Nourredine, at the front of the tight group surrounding him.

‘Nobody will do that in this factory. Over my dead body, do you hear? How many of us are there here, have you counted? Eighty at the most. How many should we be? Three hundred and sixty to three hundred and eighty. Where are the others? At home. Your strikers are already in a minority. We wanted Rolande to be given her job back, and now all the talk is of bonuses. We’re not capable of occupying the factory properly. The workers are wandering about all over the place and getting up to all sorts of stupid things. Anyone can just walk right in, there’s no proper security. When we heard that a fire had broken out, I decided to have the managers evacuated. Do you think you’re capable of preventing a nutter from setting fire to the place? You know damn well you’re not. Each time you run into difficulties, you become more violent and fewer and fewer people follow you. Your idea of pouring chemicals into the river is a terrorist tactic. Pour a barrel of acid into the river and we all go straight to jail, and for as long as they like. You also know as well as I do that no one — no one, do you hear? — in Pondange will lift a finger to defend us. Because we’re Arabs, because this factory is seen as a mere annex of the unemployment office. There’s no real work here, we’re being kept off the streets, and we’re paid out of taxes. You know very well what the people of Pondange say. What’s more, to them Arab and terrorist are one and the same thing.’ He turns to the audience in silence. ‘To be slung into jail like terrorists, is that what you want?’

Nourredine goes pale and gasps for breath. He stutters: ‘Terrorist, terrorist, I’m no terrorist.’ Hafed puts his arm around his shoulders and makes him come down from the table and sit down, then he speaks.

‘What’s done is done. We can’t undo it and we must stay united. As long as we’re in occupation, we hold on to the stock and that’s our bargaining tool. Tomorrow, we resume negotiations. Now, the most important thing is to get organised. Organised,’ he repeats. ‘All day, we’ve rushed around non-stop. Now it’s time to stop and get organised. We need a team in the porter’s lodge coordinating everything. A team in the offices, to restore some order, find out where the records are kept, sort out the documents we seized from the car. Tomorrow we’ll examine them to find out why they wanted to smuggle them out. And two teams to patrol the building all night, to completely empty the factory, gather all the people hanging around here, in the cafeteria, and take care of security. Those who are not on the first watch stay here and sleep, and take over at three a.m. Tomorrow at seven a.m., general meeting here to decide on the next step.’

Hafed and Amrouche are standing side by side: ‘Let’s vote. Those against?’ Only five hands are raised in opposition to Hafed’s proposal. Proposal accepted.

Nourredine, who is so choked he can no longer speak, leaps to his feet and punches Amrouche in the stomach. Hafed steps in, touches his arm and steers him outside to the car park. They walk in silence. As he gets his breath back, Nourredine slowly becomes aware of the moonless night, the pungent smell of damp earth, trees and mushrooms, the abnormal silence filled with furtive sounds, birds most likely, or animals, on the river banks. A light wind has risen, blowing down from the plateau. A night filled with stories of another life. He starts to breathe again, slowly, painfully, feels his broken nose.

‘I’m knackered, Hafed. I want to lie down and sleep here for a bit.’

‘No way. We’ve decided to get everyone together and you’re not going to set a bad example. If you’ve calmed down, we’re going back in, you’re going to have a wash, eat something and then sleep. I’ll take the first guard duty. You’ll take the second. Tomorrow, think about tomorrow. We’ll win.’

Nourredine is sleeping on a table in the canteen covered by tablecloths with a pile of napkins under his head while Amrouche goes to supervise the restoration of order to the offices. In the porter’s lodge Hafed is collecting reports from the various patrols and writing them up in the day book, when Étienne bursts in yelling:

‘Fire behind the warehouse … It’s spreading everywhere … Help …’

By car, bicycle, on foot, the entire valley has turned out to watch the factory blaze. The police and the fire brigade have erected a safety barrier and onlookers are gathering on the roundabout, having abandoned their cars wherever they happened to be. It is a spectacular sight. The warehouse, the entire left section of the factory, is on fire. Brilliant yellow flames light up the dark wooded slopes of the valley. The fire roars majestically, punctuated by explosions of varying degrees of intensity, sometimes a whole series of them, and plumes of black smoke drift on the wind towards the bottom of the valley. Suddenly part of the roof caves in giving off a huge shower of sparks which momentarily illuminates the shaft and gaping mouth of a disused iron mine halfway up the hillside, a ghostly silhouette which is again soon engulfed in blackness. The crowd lets out a sigh of wonder and fear.

Among the front rows of spectators are the striking Daewoo workers. They are in trauma. Aisha has found Rolande and is sobbing in her arms in uncontrolled, wordless despair. All sorts of things must have happened in the course of the day, thinks Rolande, who does not attempt to console her but just tries to envelop her in a little human warmth, without being able to take her eyes off the blaze. We are lost souls. Close by, Nourredine and Hafed face the fire, its flames are reflected on their distraught faces as they clutch each other’s hands, their knuckles white from the force of their grip. ‘Our strength is going up in smoke,’ murmurs Hafed, his voice crushed. ‘It’s us burning in there, we’ve been murdered.’

Étienne, ashen, goes from group to group repeating tirelessly: ‘I saw the guys who started the fire, I saw the guys who started the fire.’ People are mesmerised by the spectacle, and no one pays any attention to him. Amrouche, sitting on a mound some distance away, away from the crowd, his head in his hands, weeps silently.

Quignard has slipped an anorak and trousers over his pyjamas and borrowed his wife’s car. Sitting on the bonnet, a woollen hat pulled down over his eyes, he watches the blaze, seemingly unperturbed. How did a dustbin fire, the pretext for evacuating the premises rapidly, turn into this inferno? Tomaso comes and sits down beside him, a tall figure in a military parka. He gazes at the fire without a word, his long, bony face obscured by the shadow of the hood, impassive and mute. Quignard is grateful to him for being there. A gust of wind, the fire intensifies, roaring. It still makes less noise than a steelworks, he thinks with a half-smile.

Étienne walks past the two men, seeking a bit of attention.

‘I saw the guys who started the fire, you know.’

A crushing moment of silence, then Quignard, icily: ‘If that’s true, young man, I advise you to keep your mouth shut here and save your statement for the police.’