Yasmina Khadra - What the day owes the nigth

In Río Salado, houses stood empty, shutters banging, windows dark, and great piles of clothes and chattels lay piled up in the street. Most of the villagers had left; those who stayed behind did not know which way to turn. An old man, crippled by arthritis, keeled over on the porch of his house. A young man helped him to his feet and tried to get him to walk, while the rest of his family waited impatiently by a van filled to bursting. ‘They could have waited until I died,’ the old man whimpered. ‘Where am I going to die now?’ On the main street, trucks, cars, carts stood lined up waiting to take people into exile. At the train station, a bewildered crowd waited for a late train, agonising as the minutes passed. People ran about, confused, their eyes glazed, forsaken by their saints, their guardian angels. Madness, fear, grief, ruin, tragedy had but one face: it was theirs.

Germaine was sitting on the steps of the pharmacy, her head in her hands. Our neighbours had all left; in the gardens abandoned dogs paced and whined.

‘What should I do?’ she asked me.

‘You should stay here,’ I said. ‘No one will raise a hand to you.’

I took her in my arms. She seemed so small it felt as though I could have held her in the hollow of my hand. She was distraught and confused, baffled and exhausted, beaten and uncertain. Her eyes were red from crying. I kissed the cheeks streaked with tears, the forehead lined with wrinkles; my hands cradled her head, troubled with all the worries of the world. I led her upstairs to her room, then went outside again. ‘Where can I go?’ Madame Lambert stood ranting in the street, hands raised to heaven. ‘Where am I supposed to go? I have no children, no family anywhere.’ I told her to go home. She did not hear me; she went on raving. At the far end of the street, the Ravirez family were racing around carrying suitcases. On the square outside the town hall, families stood surrounded by their luggage, begging for cars so they could leave. The mayor tried in vain to calm them. Pépé Rucillio told them to go back to their houses and wait for things to settle down. ‘This is our home,’ he said. ‘We’re not going anywhere.’ No one was listening.

André Sosa was alone in the diner amid the broken tables, the ruined bar, the shattered mirrors. The floor glittered with broken glass and crockery. The lamps still dangled forlornly over the devastation, their bulbs shattered. André was playing pool. He did not seen to notice me; he didn’t seem to notice anything. He chalked his cue, leaned over the table and took aim. There were no balls on the table; the baize had been ripped away. André didn’t care. He aimed at a ball that he alone could see, took his shot and watched and waited. Then he raised a triumphant fist, and moved to the other side of the table to line up his next shot. From time to time he went over to the bar, took a drag of his cigarette, then went back to his game.

‘Dédé,’ I said. ‘You can’t stay here.’

‘This is my home,’ he grumbled, lining up another shot.

‘I saw farms burning when I was coming back from Oran just now.’

‘I’m not leaving. I’m waiting for them.’

‘That’s madness and you know it.’

‘I told you, I’m not going anywhere.’

He went on playing, ignoring me. He stubbed out his cigarette, lit another and another and another, until finally he crumpled the empty pack. The sun was setting, and darkness began to steal into the diner. André played another game, and another, before finally setting down the cue and going to sit at the bar. He drew his knees up, buried his face between them, clasped his hands behind his neck and sat like that for a long time, until finally there was a wail. André cried until he could cry no more. Then he wiped his face with his shirt tail and got to his feet. He went out into the courtyard and found a couple of jerry cans of petrol, doused the bar, the tables, the walls, the floor, then struck a match and watched as flames engulfed the room. I grabbed his elbow and dragged him outside. He stood on the terrace, watching spellbound as the diner burned.

When the flames began to lick at the roof, André went back to his car. Without a word, without even looking at me, he turned the ignition, released the handbrake and drove slowly back towards the village.

On 4 July 1962, a Peugeot 203 stopped in front of the pharmacy. Two men in suits and dark glasses ordered me to come with them. ‘It’s just a formality,’ one of them said in Arabic, with a strong Kabylia accent. Germaine was ill and in bed. ‘It won’t take long,’ the driver promised me. I climbed into the back seat, the car made a U-turn and I let my head fall back against the seat. I had spent the whole night at Germaine’s bedside, and I was exhausted.

Río Salado looked like the end of an era, drained of its essence, delivered up to some new destiny. The French tricolour that had flown outside the town hall had been taken down. On the village square, a crowd of people in turbans stood listening to a speaker perched on the coping of the fountain. He was addressing them in Arabic and they were hanging on his every word. A few Europeans moved through the shadows, those who had been unable to leave behind their lands, their cemeteries, their houses, the cafés where their friendships had been forged, their projects; in sum, the small piece of their homeland that was their reason for living.

It was a beautiful day, the sun as big as the sadness of those leaving, as vast as the joy of those returning. The vines seemed to ripple in the sun and the heat haze in the distance looked like the ocean. Here and there, farms were burning. The silence that weighed heavy on the street seemed to be brooding. The men in front of me did not say a word. I could see nothing but the backs of their necks, the driver’s hands on the steering wheel and the watch glittering on the wrist of the man next to him. We drove through Lourmel as though through some strange dream. Here, too, crowds were gathered about inspired orators. Green and white flags with a red crescent and a star bore witness to the birth of the new republic, to an Algeria that had been returned to its own.

As we approached Oran, abandoned cars lined the sides of the road, some burned out, others looted, the doors ripped off and the boot open. Bags and trunks and suitcases were strewn everywhere, torn open; clothes hung in the bushes, belongings lay on the road. There were signs of violence too: blood in the dust, windscreens shattered by iron bars. Many fleeing families were captured and butchered; others escaped through the orange groves and tried to reach the city on foot.

Oran was in turmoil. Thousands of children ran through the patches of waste ground, hurling stones at passing cars, shouting and singing. The streets were teeming with joyful crowds. The buildings shook to the screams of women wearing their veils like banners, rang with the sound of bendirs, drums, darboukas, the blare of car horns and patriotic songs.

The Peugeot drove into the barracks at Magent, where the National Liberation Army, who had recently taken the city, had set up its headquarters. It parked in front of a building. The driver leaned out and asked the guard to tell the lieutenant that his ‘guest’ had arrived.

The parade ground was teeming with men in combat uniform, old men wearing djellabas, and civilians.

‘Jonas, my old friend Jonas, it’s so good to see you again.’

Standing at the top of the steps, Jelloul spread his arms wide. He was the lieutenant. He was wearing a paratrooper’s uniform, a safari hat, a pair of sunglasses but no stripes.

He hugged me hard enough to choke me, then held me at arm’s length and looked me up and down.

‘You’ve got thin,’ he said. ‘What have you been up to? I’ve been thinking about you a lot recently. You’re an educated man, you responded when your country called, and I wondered whether you might like to put your education and your diplomas at the service of the new republic. You don’t have to give me an answer right away. In fact, that’s not why I had you brought here. I owe you something, and I want to repay you today, because tomorrow is another day and I intend to begin my new life with all my debts washed away. How can I enjoy untrammelled freedom if I’ve got debtors on my heels?’