Yasmina Khadra - What the day owes the nigth

I was shocked, frozen with disbelief.

Seeing her, I was suddenly transported back to a morning several years before. I was sitting in the courtyard outside our tiny room in Jenane Jato, listening to the laughter and the chatter of our neighbours, the squealing of their children. Hadda was not laughing. She was sad. I remembered watching her place her hand on the low table, palm upwards, and say: ‘Tell me what you see, Batoul, I need to know. I can’t go on like this,’ and Batoul saying, ‘I see you surrounded by many men, Hadda. But there is little happiness . . . It looks like a dream, yet it is not a dream.’

Batoul had been right. Hadda was surrounded by many men, but there was little joy. This place where she had washed up, with its sequins and spangles, its subdued lighting and extravagant decor, was dream-like, yet it was not a dream. I stood behind the counter, open-mouthed, unable to give voice to the terrible feeling that crept over me like a fog and made me feel as though I might go mad.

The burly soldier with the shaven head grabbed two men and smashed their heads against the wall. After that, things calmed down somewhat. He glared around him, nostrils flaring, and when he realised that no one else was prepared to take him on, let go of the two men and strode over to Hadda, grabbed her by the elbow and pulled her to her feet. In the silence as they walked down the corridor, you could cut the atmosphere with a knife.

I rushed out into the street, choking for breath.

André, Jean-Christophe and Joe found me sitting, dumbstruck, on a step, and assuming it was because the madame had refused to let me in, they asked no questions. Jean-Christophe was crimson with embarrassment. Things, apparently, had not gone well. André had eyes only for his Yank, and seemed prepared to grant his every wish. He suggested to Jean-Christophe and me that we go and find Simon and Fabrice and meet up later at the Majestic, one of the most fashionable brasseries in the new town.

The six of us spent the rest of the evening in a high-class restaurant at André’s expense. Joe could not hold his wine. After we had eaten, he started acting up. It started with him pestering a journalist who was quietly trying to put the finishing touches to a story. Joe wandered over to tell the man about his exploits – how he had fought at the front, how many times he had risked his life. The journalist, a patient, polite man, heard him out, clearly eager to get back to his work, irritated but too shy to say anything. He was visibly relieved when André went to collect his soldier friend. Joe came back and joined us, but he was restless and volatile. From time to time he turned back to the journalist and bellowed across the tables: ‘I want a big headline, John, I want to see my face on the front page. You need a photo, it’s no problem, okay, John? I’m counting on you.’ Realising he had no hope of finishing his story with this lunatic nearby, the journalist picked up his rough draft, dropped some money on the table and left.

‘You know who that is?’ Joe said, jerking his thumb over his shoulder. ‘That’s John Steinbeck. He’s a writer, a war correspondent with the Herald Tribune. He wrote a piece about my regiment.’

After the journalist had left, Joe looked for other prey. He went up to the bar and asked them to play some Glenn Miller. Then he climbed on to his chair, stood at attention, and sang ‘Home on the Range’. Later, egged on by a bunch of Americans having dinner on the terrace, he forced one of the waiters to repeat after him the lyrics to ‘You’d Be So Nice To Come Home To’. Gradually, the laughter faded to smiles and the smiles to frowns and people began to ask André to take his Yank elsewhere. Joe was no longer the biddable young man he had been during the day. He was drunk now. His eyes bloodshot, his lips flecked with spittle, he clambered up on the table and began to tap-dance, sending cutlery and crockery flying and glasses and bottles crashing to the floor. The manager came over and politely asked him to stop, but Joe, who did not take kindly to the request, punched the man in the face. Two waiters rushed to help their boss and were immediately sent flying. Women started crying. André grabbed his protégé, begging him to calm down, but Joe was no longer listening. He lashed out in all directions and the brawl spread to other customers, then the soldiers on the terrace waded in and chairs started flying. It was chaos.

It took a number of officers from the military police to overpower Joe, and the restaurant did not begin to relax until the MP’s jeep disappeared into the night with Joe inside.

Back in our room on the Boulevard des Chasseurs, I couldn’t get to sleep. All night I tossed and turned, unable to get the image of Hadda the prostitute out of my mind. Batoul’s voice echoed in my head, stirring up old fears, unearthing silences buried deep within me. It was as though I had seen a glimpse of some terrible catastrophe that would befall me. I buried my head under the pillow, trying to suffocate myself with it, but it was useless: the image of Hadda sitting half naked in that brothel turned and turned in my head like a dancer on a music box to the voice of Batoul the clairvoyant.

The following morning, I asked Fabrice to lend me some money, and I headed off on my own to Jenane Jato. This was the other side of Oran; no uniformed soldiers strutted about the streets here, and the air was filled with the stench of rotting prayers and hopes. I needed to see my mother and my sister, wanted to touch them with my own hands, hoping I might shake off the terrible sense of foreboding that had hounded me all night, that clung to me still . . .

But my terrible fears were proved right. Jenane Jato had changed since my last visit. The courtyard where we had lived stood empty; it looked as though a tornado had swept through and carried everyone off. There was barbed wire across the doorway, but someone had made a hole in it large enough for me to crawl through. The courtyard was filled with blackened rubble, rats’ dropping and cat shit. The metal cover of the well was warped and twisted. The doors and windows were all gone. Fire had gutted the left-hand side of the building; the walls had collapsed. A few charred beams still hung from the roof. Above them there was only the pitiless blue of the sky. Our tiny room lay in ruins, and here and there amid the rubble were broken kitchen implements and half-charred bundles of clothes.

‘There’s no one there.’ A voice rang out behind me.

It was Peg-Leg, propped against the doorway, wearing a gandurah that was too short for him. His face was gaunt, his toothless mouth gaped, a terrible maw his grey beard did little to hide. His arm was trembling and he was having trouble standing on his one good leg, which was pale now and covered with brownish pustules.

‘What happened here?’ I asked him.

‘Terrible things . . .’

He hobbled over to me, picking up a can as he passed. He turned it over to see if there might be anything inside worth salvaging, then threw it over his shoulder.

‘Look at this mess.’ He flung his arm wide. ‘It’s a terrible shame.’

Seeing me standing there, waiting, he went on:

‘I warned Bliss about it. This is a respectable house, I told him, you’ve no business putting that whore in with decent women; it’ll end in tears. But he wouldn’t listen to me. One night, a couple of drunks came round looking for her, but she already had a customer, so they tried their luck with Badra. You can imagine – they never knew what hit them. The widow’s two sons butchered them. After that, it was the whore’s turn. She defended herself better than her clients, but there were two of them. At some point, someone knocked over the oil lamp and the fire spread like lightning. It’s lucky it didn’t reach the other houses. The police arrested Badra and her sons and boarded up the house; it’s been like this for two years now. Some people say it’s haunted.’