Yasmina Khadra - What the day owes the nigth

‘Life is like a movie: there are actors who move the story forward and bit players who fade into the background. The bit players are part of the film, but no one cares about them. You’re a bit player, Jonas. I don’t hate you, I pity you.

My continued silence infuriated him. He roared:

‘How can you just look the other way when the whole world is right there in front of you?’

I looked up at him, then went back to my reading. He ripped the book from my hands and hurled it against the wall.

‘I’m talking to you!’

I went over, picked up the book and went back to the sofa. He tried to snatch it away again, but this time I grabbed him by the wrist and pushed him away. Surprised by my reaction, Jelloul looked at me, amazed, and muttered:

‘You’re nothing but a coward. Don’t you see that our villages are being napalmed, our heroes guillotined in the prisons, soldiers lying dead in the scrubland, rebels languishing in prison camps? Can’t you see what’s happening? What sort of madman are you, Jonas? Can’t you understand that a whole nation is fighting for your salvation?’

I didn’t say anything.

He slapped me across the face.

‘Don’t you touch me,’ I said.

‘You think I’m scared? . . . You’re a coward, nothing but a coward. I don’t know why I don’t just cut your throat.’

I set down my book, got to my feet and stood in front of him.

‘What do you know about cowardice, Jelloul? Who do you think is the coward, the man with a gun to his head or the one holding the gun?’

He looked at me in disgust.

‘I’m not a coward, Jelloul, I’m not deaf, I’m not blind and I’m not made of stone. If you really want to know, I don’t much care about anything in this world now. Not even the gun that allows people like you to treat people like me with contempt. Wasn’t it humiliation that first led you to pick up a gun? So why do you go around humiliating other people?’

He was trembling with rage, struggling to stop himself from grabbing me by the throat. He spat on the ground and went out, slamming the door behind him.

After that, he did not bother me. If we passed each other in the hall, he stepped out of my way with distaste.

All the time they stayed with us, Jelloul forbade me from going near the captain. If I needed something from my room, I would tell the nurse where it was and he would go and get it for me. Only once, as I came out of the bathroom, did I see the patient through the open door. He was sitting on the bed, a clean bandage around his chest, his back to me. I thought back to Jenane Jato, to the time when he was my protector, my friend, I remembered his bird coop filthy with droppings, our trips into the scrubland behind the souk to catch goldfinches. Then suddenly my heart contracted as I remembered the vacant look in his eyes as he watched Daho torment me with the snake. At that moment, the burning need I had felt since he arrived to tell him who I was suddenly vanished.

On the last day, the three maquisards bathed, shaved, put their clean clothes and boots into a bag, dressed in some of my clothes and gathered in the living room. My suit was too big for the nurse, who kept looking at himself in the mirror. All three of them tried to hide their nervousness. Jelloul was wearing the suit I had bought for Simon’s wedding, and the captain one Germaine had given me some months earlier. At noon, after they’d had lunch, Jelloul told me to hang white sheets over the balcony. When it got dark, he went into the room that overlooked the vineyards and turned the light on and off three times. When he saw a light flash in the distance beyond the sea of vines, he ordered me to take the nurse into the back office and give him all the drugs and supplies he would need. We packed three boxes full and put them in the boot of the car, then went back upstairs, where the captain, still pale, was pacing up and down the hallway.

‘What time is it?’ Jelloul asked.

‘A quarter to ten,’ I said.

‘It’s time. You can drive, I’ll tell you where to go.’

Germaine, who was standing off to one side, clasped her hands in silent prayer. She was shaking. The nurse went over to her. ‘Everything will be all right, madame.’ He patted her shoulder. ‘Don’t worry.’ Germaine hid her face in her hands.

The captain and the nurse took the back seat of the car, their guns at their feet. Jelloul climbed into the passenger seat, tugging at his tie. I opened the garage door and Germaine closed it after we left. I drove with the headlights off until we reached Kraus’s wine cellar, opposite André’s diner. There were people in the bar and out on the terrace; we could hear shouting and laughter. Suddenly I was afraid that Jelloul had come to settle old scores with his former employer. But he simply gave a bitter smile and jerked his chin towards the road that lead out of Río Salado. I turned on the headlights and drove into the darkness.

We took the road towards Lourmel, turning off before we reached the village and taking the dirt road towards Terga. A motorcycle was waiting for us at a railway crossing. I recognised the rider as the boy with the gun who had showed up at the pharmacy that first day. He turned the motorcycle around and rode on ahead of us.

‘Drive slowly,’ Jelloul ordered. ‘Don’t try to catch up with him. If you see him coming back, switch off your headlights and turn the car round.’

The motorcycle did not come back.

After about twenty kilometres, I saw him waiting by the side of the road. Jelloul told me to pull up next to him and turn off the engine. Shadows appeared from the bushes carrying rifles, with knapsacks on their backs. One of them was leading a donkey that was just skin and bone. The three men got out of my car and went over to greet them. The nurse came back to me, told me to stay in the car, and opened the boot. The boxes of drugs and supplies were loaded on to the mule. After that, Jelloul waved for me to go. I didn’t move. Surely they weren’t just going to let me leave? I could easily turn them in as soon as I got to the first roadblock. I tried to look into Jelloul’s eyes, but he had already turned away and was walking off with his captain, whom I had not heard speak a word since that first night when he had tried to strangle me. The mule stumbled up the steep path, staggered around a rocky outcrop and disappeared. The shadows of the others moved through the scrubland, helping each other up the hill, then disappeared into the darkness. Soon, all I could hear was the breeze rustling the leaves.

My hand refused to turn the key in the ignition. I was convinced that Jelloul was hiding somewhere nearby, rifle aimed at me, waiting for the sound of the engine to drown out the shot.

It took me an hour before I really believed that they had gone.

Months later, I found a letter with no stamp and no address among the post. Inside was a scrap of paper torn from an exercise book and on it a scribbled list of medications. There were no instructions. I bought the medicines on the list and packed them into a cardboard box. A week later, Laoufi came and picked them up. It was three o’clock in the morning when I heard the pebble hit the shutters. Germaine heard it too; I found her in the hall, wrapped in a dressing gown. She didn’t say anything, she simply watched as I went downstairs to the back office. I gave the box to Laoufi, locked the door and went back up to my room. I was waiting for Germaine to come in and ask me questions, but she simply went back to her room and locked herself in.

Laoufi came to pick up supplies five more times. It was always the same: an envelope would be slipped through the letter box with a list of medicines. Sometimes it listed other supplies: syringes, bandages, scissors, a stethoscope, some tourniquets. Then a pebble would be thrown up at the window. The nurse would be waiting outside. Germaine would be standing in the doorway to her bedroom.