Yasmina Khadra - What the day owes the nigth

One night, I got a phone call. Jelloul asked me to meet him at the spot where I had dropped them off. Seeing me take the car from the garage early the next morning, Germaine made the sign of the cross. It was then that I realised that we no longer spoke to each other. When I arrived at the place, Jelloul wasn’t there. He called me as soon as I got back to the pharmacy and told me to drive back to the spot again. This time there was a shepherd waiting for me with a briefcase full of banknotes. He told me to hide the money until someone came to fetch it. I kept the briefcase for two weeks, until Jelloul phoned one Sunday and told me to take the ‘package’ to Oran and wait in the car outside a small cabinetmaker’s shop behind the BAO Brasserie. I did as I was told. The shop was closed. A man walked past the car, then walked back again and stopped when he came to the car. Flashing the butt of the gun under his jacket, he told me to get out. ‘I’ll be back in fifteen minutes,’ he said as he drove off. The car was brought back to me a quarter of an hour later.

This other life went on all through the summer and into autumn.

The last time Laoufi came to the pharmacy, he was more nervous than usual. Glancing around suspiciously, he emptied the contents of the box I handed him into a backpack, threw it over his shoulder and gave me a look I had never seen before. He wanted to say something, but the words would not come. Standing on tiptoe, he kissed the top of my head – a mark of great respect. His body trembled as I hugged him. It was four a.m. and the sky was beginning to brighten. Was it the dawn that bothered him? He was clearly worried about something. He said goodbye and hurried into the vineyards. I saw him disappear into the darkness; listened for the dying rustle of the leaves as he moved away. The moon in the sky looked like a bitten fingernail. A faltering wind gave a brief gust and then died away.

Leaving the light in my bedroom off, I sat on the edge of the bed, alert, watchful. Suddenly gunfire ripped through the silent darkness and dogs began to bark.

At dawn there was a knock on my door. It was Krimo, Simon’s former chauffeur. He was standing on the pavement, feet apart, hands on his hips, his rifle tucked under his arm. The expression on his face was one of vicious triumph. Six armed men, auxiliaries, were standing in the street around a wheelbarrow in which lay a bloody corpse. It was Laoufi. I recognised the oversized boots and the torn backpack.

‘A fellaga,’ said Krimo. ‘A dirty stinking fellaga . . . It was the stink that led us to him.’

He took a step forward.

‘I was wondering what this fucking fellaga was doing in my village. Who did he come to see? Where did he come from?’

He pushed the wheelbarrow towards me. The nurse’s head lolled against the ground. Part of his skull had been blown off. Krimo picked up the backpack and threw it at my feet; the medications spilled out on to the pavement.

‘There’s only one pharmacy in Río Salado, Jonas, and that’s yours . . . And then I understood.’

He slammed the butt of his rifle into my jaw. I heard the bone crack and Germaine scream, then everything went dark.

I woke up in a filthy cell surrounded by rats and cockroaches. Krimo wanted to know who the fellaga was, how long I had been supplying him with drugs. I said I had never seen him before. He forced my head into a bucket of cheap wine and whipped me with a riding crop, but I kept telling him I had never seen the fellaga. Krimo swore, he spat at me, he kicked me as I lay on the ground. I didn’t tell him anything. He handed me over to an emaciated old man with a long grey face and piercing eyes. The old man began by telling me that he understood, that no one in the village believed I had anything to do with these ‘terrorists’, that they had forced me to help them. I continued to deny everything. I was passed from one interrogator to another; some tried to outwit me, others tried to beat the truth out of me. Krimo waited until nightfall to come back and torture me again. I held out.

In the morning, the door opened, and there stood Pépé Rucillio.

Next to him was an officer in combat uniform.

‘We haven’t finished with him, Monsieur Rucillio.’

‘You’re wasting your time, Lieutenant. This has been a terrible misunderstanding. The boy was simply in the wrong place at the wrong time. Your colonel agrees with me on this. You hardly think I’d try to protect a criminal?’

‘That’s not the problem . . .’

‘There is no problem, and there won’t be any problem,’ Pépé Rucillio assured him.

They gave me back my clothes.

Outside, in the gravel-strewn courtyard of what seemed to be a barracks, Krimo and his fellow officers watched, angry and outraged, as I slipped through their fingers. They knew that Río Salado’s most respected figure had pleaded my case to the highest authorities and had personally vouched for me.

Pépé Rucillio helped me into his car and got behind the wheel. He saluted the soldier at the gate, then drove off.

‘I hope I’m not making the biggest mistake of my life,’ he said.

I didn’t answer. My mouth was bleeding and my eyes were so swollen I could barely keep them open.

Pépé did not say another word. I sensed him wavering between his doubt and a moral dilemma, between the efforts he had made on my behalf and the inconsistencies in what he had told the colonel to clear me of suspicion and have me released. Pépé Rucillio was more than simply a respected local figure, he was a legend, a moral compass, a man as towering as his fortune, but like many prominent people who put honour before all other considerations, he was as fragile as a porcelain monument. He could get people to do whatever he wished, and his integrity was worth more than any official document. Influential people of his stature, the mention of whose name could settle the stormiest argument, could be magnanimous, even extravagant, and they were granted a certain impunity, but in matters of honour – when they gave their word – no laxity was tolerated. If they gave their word on something that proved to be unfounded, there was no way back. Having personally vouched for me, Pépé Rucillio was wondering whether he had made a serious mistake; it was a possibility that clearly worried him deeply.

He drove me back to the village and dropped me outside my house. He didn’t help me out of the car, leaving me to cope as best I could.

‘My reputation is at stake here, Jonas,’ he muttered. ‘If I ever find out that you’re a liar, I’ll personally see to it that they execute you.’

I don’t know where I found the strength to ask him:

‘Jean-Christophe?’

He shook his head. ‘No . . . Isabelle. I never could refuse her anything. But if she’s wrong about you, I’ll disown her on the spot.’

Germaine came out to help me inside. She was so relieved to have me back alive that she did not reproach me; she simply ran a bath for me and made me something to eat. Afterwards, she cleaned my wounds, bandaged the most serious ones and put me to bed.

‘Did you phone Isabelle?’

‘No . . . she phoned me.’

‘But she’s in Oran . . . how could she possibly know?’

‘Everyone in Río Salado knows.’

‘What did you say to her?’

‘I told her you were innocent, that you had nothing to do with this business.’

‘And she believed you?’

‘I didn’t ask.’

My questions hurt her, more especially the way I had asked them. The half-heartedness of my tone, the implicit criticism of what I was asking turned her joy at having me back safe and sound into a vague feeling of irritation and later mute anger. She looked at me and there was a bitterness in her eyes I had never seen before. I realised that the ties that had bound me to her had finally sundered. This woman, who had been everything to me – mother, fairy godmother, sister, confidante, friend – now saw me simply as a stranger.