Yasmina Khadra - The Angels Die

‘I don’t know where my people are … I’ve met lots of caravan drivers, nomads, gypsies, nobody has seen my people. They may have gone to Morocco. The Mama was born there. She was determined to be buried in the place where she’d come into the world … Thanks for the soup,’ he said, getting up abruptly. ‘I really needed that. I feel better now. And I’m sorry if I embarrassed you in front of your friends. I have to go …’

‘Where are you going?’

‘I have to see someone. It’s important.’

‘Don’t forget, Rue Wagram tomorrow. I’m counting on you.’

‘Yes, yes …’ He stepped back to prevent me hugging him. ‘I’m crawling with insects. They jump on anyone who comes close to me, and then you can’t get rid of them.’

He nodded by way of goodbye, gave me a last smile and descended the steps leading to Old Oran. I waited for him to turn round so that I could wave goodbye to him, but he didn’t. Something told me this was the last time I would see him. My intuition was correct. Pedro didn’t come to the gym, either the next day or ever, and I never found out what happened to him.

Aïda planted her elbow on the pillow and rested her cheek in the palm of her hand to watch me getting dressed. The satin-soft sheet emphasised the harmonious curve of her hip. She was magnificent, posing there like a nymph exhausted from lovemaking and getting ready for sleep. Her long black hair flowed over her shoulders, and her breasts, which still bore the marks of my embraces, were like two sacred fruits. How old was she? She looked so young, so fragile. Her body was like porcelain, and whenever I took her in my arms, I was careful to be gentle with her. For two months now, I had been coming here to recharge my batteries in her perfumed room, and whenever I saw her, my heart beat a little faster. I think I was in love with her. Born to a great Bedouin line from the Hamada, she had been married off at the age of thirteen to the son of a provincial governor somewhere in the High Plains. Rejected after a year because she had not given birth, Aïda was disowned by her family, who considered her dismissal an insult. Now that she was known to be infertile, none of her cousins deigned to take her as a wife. One morning, she set off across the plains, walking straight ahead without turning round. Nomads dropped her at the entrance to a colonial village where she was found by a Christian family. Late at night, her employers’ sons came in turn and abused her in the cellar where she had been given lodging, surrounded by spiders’ webs and old junk. When the abuse turned to torture, Aïda had no choice but to run away. After weeks of wandering about, she was forced into prostitution. Passed from one pimp to another like contraband goods, she at last found herself at Madame Camélia’s.

In telling me of her misfortunes, Aïda showed neither anger nor resentment. It was as if she were recounting the tribulations of a stranger. She took her misfortune with a disarming stoicism. When she realised that her misadventures made me uncomfortable, she would take my face in her hands and look deep into my eyes, a sad smile on her lips. ‘You see? Don’t force me to rake up what might spoil our evening. I’d hate it if I made you sad. That’s not what I’m here for.’ I confessed to her that it was hard for me to remain insensitive to her sorrows. She would give a little laugh and scold me. I asked her how she managed to bear these trials which clung to her like ghosts. She replied in a clear voice, ‘You learn to cope. Time sees to it that things are bearable. So you forget and convince yourself that the worst is behind you. Of course, when you’re alone the abyss catches up with you and you fall into it. Curiously, as you fall, you feel a kind of inner peace. You tell yourself that’s the way things are, and that’s all there is to it. You think about people who suffer and you compare your suffering with theirs. It’s easier to bear your own after that. You have to lie to yourself. You vow to pull yourself together, not to fall back in the chasm. And if, for once, you manage to pull yourself back from the edge of the precipice, you find the strength to turn away. You look elsewhere, at something other than yourself. And life reasserts itself, with its ups and downs. After all what is life? A big dream, nothing more. We may buy, we may sell ourselves, but we’re only passing through life. We don’t possess much in the end. And since nothing lasts, why get upset about it? When you reach that conclusion, however stupid it is, everything becomes bearable. And so you let yourself go, and everything works.’ It was the only time she really confided in me. Usually, one sentence was enough to start her talking, and then I wished she would never stop. Her voice was so soft, her words so full of sense. She gave the impression that she was strong and resolute, and that calmed me a little. I wanted so many things for her; I wanted her to be Aïda again, to draw a line under her past and start again on the right footing, hardened but triumphant. I forbade myself to think for a second that her life could end in this dead-end place, on a violated bed, at the mercy of cannibals with contaminated kisses. Aïda was beautiful, too beautiful to be nothing but an erotic object. She was young and pure, so pure that the stains of her profession disappeared on their own as soon as she was alone in her room after her clients had gone. I liked her company a lot. Sometimes, I didn’t feel the need to take her; I was content just being near her, sitting face to face, she on the edge of the bed and me in the armchair. When the silence became oppressive, I would regale her with stories about my life. I told her about Sid Roho, Ramdane and Gomri, and she would laugh at their quirks as if she knew them really well. I was proud when I amused her and I loved setting off her crystalline laugh, which always started from below, like little bells, before reaching the heights, so high that it touched the sky … But our time was limited. I had to leave at a certain time. I had to wake from my dream. Aïda had other lovers waiting in the parlour. Much as I tried to ignore them, the maid with the impassive face keeping guard on the landing was there to rebuke me. She would knock at the door and Aïda would open her arms wide as a sign of apology.

What I felt for Aïda belonged only to the two of us. I parted from her with the feeling I was leaving my own body.

How I wished we could walk together through the thicket and forget ourselves in the shade of a tree, far from the whole world! I had suggested that she go with me to the city, but she couldn’t. The rules of the house only allowed its residents to go to Oran once a month. Not to walk about, but to buy clothes. A car would take Aïda, with other prostitutes, to the same shops, closely guarded by a servant. Once they had made their purchases, they were taken directly back to the house. No prostitute was allowed to wander in the parks or even sit down on a café terrace, let alone greet a client in the street.

It was like being in prison.

The maid knocked at the door. Insistently this time. Aïda got out of bed.

‘He’s just getting dressed,’ I heard her whisper in the corridor.

‘It’s not that,’ the maid said in a low voice. ‘Madame sent me. She wants to see the young man before he leaves.’

‘All right. He’ll be down in a minute.’

I tucked my shirt into my trousers. Aïda came up behind me, planted a kiss on the back of my neck and put her arms round me.

‘Come back soon, my champion. I’m going to miss you.’

‘I’d like to introduce you to my mother.’

‘I’m not the kind of girl you introduce to your parents.’

‘I’ll tell her you’re my girlfriend.’