Yasmina Khadra - What the day owes the nigth

She glided past as I sat with Simon Benyamin on the terrace of a café on the square. She did not even see me. My only consolation was the cloud of perfume that trailed in her wake.

‘Easy does it,’ whispered Simon.

‘What?’

‘Take a look in the mirror! You’re red as a beetroot! Don’t tell me you’re in love with a respectable housewife and mother?’

‘What are you saying?’

‘I’m saying you look like you’re about to have a heart attack.’

Simon was joking. What I felt for Madame Cazenave wasn’t love but a profound admiration. My feelings towards her were entirely honourable.

At the end of the week, she came into the pharmacy. I was behind the counter helping Germaine fill a pile of prescriptions that had come in as the result of an epidemic of gastritis. When I looked up and saw her, I almost fainted.

I expected her to take off her sunglasses, but she kept them perched on her pretty nose, and I could not tell if she was staring at me or ignoring me.

She handed Germaine a prescription, proffering her hand as though to be kissed.

‘It might take a little while . . .’ Germaine said, struggling to decipher the doctor’s scrawl. ‘I’m a little busy at the moment.’ She nodded to the packages on the counter.

‘When do you think it might be ready?’

‘This afternoon, hopefully, but it won’t be before three.’

‘That’s all right . . . but I won’t be able to come back to pick it up. I’ve been out of town for a while and my house needs some serious spring cleaning. Would you mind having a messenger bring it round? I’ll happily pay.’

‘It’s not a question of money, Madame . . . ?’

‘Cazenave, Madame Cazenave.’

‘Pleased to meet you. Do you live far?’

‘Just behind the Jewish cemetery. The house is set back from the marabout road.’

‘Oh, I know where you mean . . . It’s no problem, Madame Cazenave, I’ll have the prescription delivered to you this afternoon sometime between three and four.’

‘Perfect!’

As she left, she gave me an almost imperceptible nod.

I could barely sit still as I watched Germaine struggle to fill the orders in the back office. The hands of the clock hardly seemed to move; it felt as though night would come before the delivery was ready. At last came my hour of deliverance, like a great lungful of air after too long underwater. At exactly three p.m., Germaine emerged from the back office with a vial wrapped in brown paper. I did not even wait for her to give me directions, but tore it from her hands and leapt on my bicycle.

Gripping the handlebars, my shirt billowing in the wind, I was not pedalling, I was flying. I cycled around the Jewish cemetery, took a short cut through the fields and, weaving between the potholes, raced along the marabout road.

The Cazenaves lived in an imposing mansion perched on a hill some distance outside the village. It was a large whitewashed house that faced southward, overlooking the plains. There were stables, now derelict, but the house was still magnificent. A steep, narrow driveway lined with dwarf palms led up from the road. Wrought-iron gates leading to a courtyard hung from a low wall of finely chiselled stone on which a climbing vine vainly tried to get purchase. The pediment, supported by two marble columns, had the letter ‘C’ carved into the stone, and underneath, as though supporting the initial, was the date 1912, the year in which the house had been built.

I ditched my bicycle by the gates, which creaked loudly as I pushed them open, and stepped into the small courtyard with its fountain; there was no one there. The gardens had fallen into decline.

‘Madame Cazenave?’ I called out.

The shutters on the windows were closed; the wooden door leading inside was locked. I stood by the fountain in the shade of a stucco statue of Diana the Huntress, clutching the bottle of medicine. There was not a living soul in sight. I could hear the breeze rustle through the vine.

After having waited for a while, I decided to knock on the door. My knocking echoed through the house; it was clear there was no one home, but I refused to accept that fact.

I went back and sat on the edge of the fountain, listening for the rasp of footsteps on the gravel, eager to see her appear. Just as I was about to give up, I was startled to hear her cry, ‘Bonjour!’

She was standing behind me wearing a white dress, her broad-brimmed hat with the red ribbon pushed back over the delicate nape of her neck.

‘I was down in the orange grove. I like to walk there; it’s so quiet, so peaceful . . . Have you been waiting long?’

‘No,’ I lied. ‘I just got here.’

‘I didn’t see you as I was coming up the drive.’

‘I’ve brought your medication, madame,’ I said, handing her the package.

She hesitated before taking it, as though she had forgotten her visit to the pharmacy, then, gracefully, she slipped the bottle out of its wrapping paper, unscrewed the lid and delicately inhaled what appeared to be some cosmetic preparation.

‘It smells wonderful, the salve. I just hope it eases my stiff joints. The house was in such a state when I got here that I’ve been spending all day every day trying to get it back to how it used to be.’

‘If there’s anything you need carried or repaired, I’d be happy to do it for you.’

‘You’re very sweet, Monsieur Jonas.’

She nodded to the wicker chair by the table on the veranda, waited for me to sit down, then took the seat facing me.

‘I expect you’re thirsty, with all this heat,’ she said, proffering a jug of lemonade. She poured a large glass and pushed it across the table towards me. The movement clearly hurt her, and she winced and bit her lower lip with exquisite grace.

‘Are you in pain, madame?’

‘I must have pulled a muscle lifting something.’

She took off her sunglasses, and I felt my insides turn to jelly.

‘How old are you, Monsieur Jonas?’ she asked, gazing deep into my very soul.

‘I’m seventeen, madame.’

‘I expect you’re already engaged.’

‘No, madame.’

‘What do you mean, “No, madame”? With a pretty face like yours, and those eyes, I refuse to believe you don’t have a whole harem of girls pining after you.’

Her perfume intoxicated me.

Once again she bit her lip, bringing a hand up to her neck.

‘Is it very painful, madame?’

‘It is painful.’

She took my hand in hers.

‘You have beautiful hands.’

I was embarrassed that she might see the effect she was having on me.

‘What do you plan to be when you grow up, Monsieur Jonas?’

‘A chemist.’

She considered this for a moment, then nodded.

‘It is a noble profession.’

A third twinge in her neck almost bent her double with pain.

‘I think I need to try the balm right away.’ With great dignity, she got to her feet.

‘If you like madame, I can . . . I can massage your shoulder for you . . .’

‘I’m counting on it, Monsieur Jonas.’

I don’t know why, but for an instant, something broke the solemnity of this place. It lasted only a fraction of a second, for when she looked at me again, everything returned to how it had been.

My heart was beating so hard that I wondered whether she could hear it. She took off her hat and her hair tumbled on to her shoulders, and I was all but rooted to the spot.

‘Follow me, young man.’

She pushed open the door and gestured for me to follow her inside. The hall was lit by a faint glow, and I had a sudden sense of déjà vu. I felt certain I had seen the corridor ahead somewhere before, or was I imagining things? Madame Cazenave walked on ahead of me. For one searing instant, I mistook her for my destiny.