Yasmina Khadra - The Angels Die

A jack of all trades gets to go everywhere. With all my deliveries and errands, I broadened my field of activities and before long made a number of new acquaintances. The first was Ramdane, a puny kid who was always in two places at once, having to provide for his large family because his father had lost both his legs. He had been thinking like a grown-up since he was barely out of his mother’s womb. I admired him, and even though I didn’t always share his opinions, I knew there was sense in them, and that quality — still there underneath it all, despite centuries of failure — which the old-timers called ‘dignity’. The boy had panache. Even though he was two years younger than me, I would have given anything to be his son. It was reassuring to know that he existed and that he brought a touch of loyalty to our collective defeat, which had reduced universal values to selfish needs and ancestral wisdom to an undignified survival strategy. Ramdane taught me how much more worthwhile it was to be useful than to be rich.

Next, I met Gomri, an apprentice blacksmith as squat and solid as a bollard, a touch ridiculous in his apron, which was far too big for him. With his curly red hair, pockmarked face, clear eyes and skin as white as an albino’s, he made me uncomfortable at first because of an old tribal belief that redheads have evil intentions, which seep out of their hair. I was wrong. Gomri didn’t have an evil thought in his head and never tried to trick anybody. In between shoeing horses, he would show up and offer Zane hammers, hoes and other implements he had made himself. As the smithy was not far from the shop, Zane ordered me to go there and check there wasn’t anything fishy going on, because, in his opinion, Gomri was too young to produce such skilled work. I would watch Gomri take a piece of scrap iron, plunge it into the fire until it was red-hot, then place it on the anvil and beat it, and I would see the common metal gradually transformed, as if by magic, into an almost perfect tool.

Ramdane introduced me to Sid Roho, a fifteen-year-old black boy nicknamed the Billy Goat ever since he had been caught behind a thicket with his trousers on the ground, abusing a hairless old nanny goat. According to malicious gossip, when the nanny goat had given birth, a delegation of jokers had gone to see him and asked him what name he planned to give his offspring. But Sid Roho never lost his temper over digs and jibes. He was funny and helpful and wouldn’t have hesitated to give the shirt off his back to someone in need, which didn’t stop him living off the proceeds of sin. He was an out-and-out thief. No matter how closely the merchants kept their eye on him, he always managed to filch what he wanted in a flash. He was a real magician. On several occasions, I saw him steal things from stalls, slip them into the hood of a passer-by and recover them on the way out of the market. I doubt there was ever anyone more light-fingered than him in the whole world.

Ramdane, Gomri, Sid Roho and I became friends without even realising it. We had no obvious affinities, but we got along well. After a day’s work, we would meet up in the evening near an abandoned orchard to swap jokes and laugh at our disappointments until night caught up with us.

At home, things seemed to be going well. My uncle had discovered that he had a gift for business and was managing quite nicely. He had made a cart from what was left of a wheelbarrow, stuck a cast-iron cooking pot on it and, from morning to evening, he would sell soup on the main square of Graba. My mother, my aunt and Nora all redoubled their efforts, supplying him as well as delivering fresh bread to cheap cafés. I didn’t feel inferior because of how hard they worked; as a result of my own job, I too was entitled to some respect and, before going to bed, to a prayer and a blessing. I felt grown up, almost as much of a man as my friend Ramdane, and could also afford to say, like the others and with some reason, that soon we would have colour in our cheeks and enough money to move to a real house with a door that locked and shutters on the windows, somewhere where the shops would be better stocked and there would be hammams on every street corner.

I was tidying the shelves when a shadowy figure slipped in behind me and headed for the back room. I only had time to glimpse a white veil disappearing through the curtain. A smile of satisfaction glimmered on Zane’s face. He first checked the contents of his drawer, then, smoothing his moustache, indicated the front door out of the corner of his eye, meaning that he wanted me to keep watch.

Zane had no more scruples than a hyena, but he dreaded the idea of his female conquests being followed by jealous husbands or family members with a keen sense of honour.

‘Don’t let anyone in, all right?’ he said. ‘Any beggars, just send them away. As for customers, ask them to come back later.’

I nodded.

Zane cleared his throat and joined his prey behind the curtain. I couldn’t see them, but I could hear them.

‘Well, well,’ he said in his overbearing voice. ‘You finally saw reason …’

‘My son and I have nothing left to eat,’ the woman said, stifling a sob.

‘Whose fault is that? I made you an offer and you rejected it.’

‘I’m a mother. I … I don’t sell myself to men.’

I was sure I knew that voice.

‘So what are you doing in my shop? I thought you’d changed your mind, that you’d realised we’re sometimes forced to make concessions to get what we can’t afford …’

Silence.

The woman was sobbing softly.

‘In this life, it’s tit for tat,’ Zane said. ‘Don’t think you can make me feel sorry for you, pretending butter wouldn’t melt in your mouth. Either you pull up your dress or you go back where you came from.’

Silence.

‘So, do you want my four soldi or not?’

‘My God, what will become of me afterwards?’

‘That’s your problem. Are you going to show me your pretty backside or not?’

Weeping.

‘That’s better. Now turn round, sweetheart.’

I heard Zane pin the woman up against the table. A terrible cry rang out, followed by loud, rapid creaking noises, covering the woman’s moans, until Zane’s triumphant groan put an end to the din.

‘You see?’ he said. ‘It wasn’t so difficult … Come back whenever you like. Now get out!’

‘You promised me four soldi.’

‘Yes, two today, the rest next time.’

‘But —’

‘Clear off, I said.’

The curtain was raised and Zane threw the woman out. She collapsed on the ground on all fours. Looking up, she saw me standing there and her red face turned as white as a shroud. Choking with embarrassment, she quickly gathered up her veil and ran out as if she had seen the devil himself.

It was our neighbour, the widow.

That evening, as I was on my way home, she intercepted me at the corner of the street. She had aged twenty years in a few hours. Hair dishevelled, wild-eyed, foaming at the mouth, she looked like a witch who had just emerged from a trance. She grabbed hold of my shoulders.

‘I beg you,’ she said, her toneless voice sounding like a dying breath, ‘don’t tell anyone what you saw.’

I felt embarrassed and sorry for her at the same time. Her fingers were crushing me. I had to remove them one by one to get her off me.

‘I didn’t see anything,’ I said.

‘Yes, earlier, in the shop.’

‘I don’t know what shop you’re talking about. Are you going to let me get home?’

‘I could kill myself, my child. You don’t know how much I regret giving in to hunger. I’m not a loose woman. I didn’t think it would ever happen to me. But it happened. Nobody’s safe. That’s not an excuse, it’s the facts. Nobody is to know, you understand? I would die on the spot.’