Cara Black - Murder in Belleville

“Forget it,” Yves said. “In Islam, as a woman, you won’t even be allowed a catch-up role. But Hamid’s unique, a man who works to bridge the gap between strict Islamists and the beurs, tiptoeing over the French colonial legacy.”

Again that word beur, Sylvie’s bank password. She wanted to know more, but Yves strode ahead.

Back in a recessed side altar, several robed men sat on prayer carpets. Yves nodded toward Hamid, who wore a skullcap. Fatigue laced Hamid’s deep black eyes. His long black beard, flecked with gray, rose and fell with his labored breath.

“I partake of no food along with my African brethren,” he said before either of them could speak. “I wet my tongue for sustenance. Dead, I will serve no purpose.”

Hamid’s breath, a sharp acid odor, emanated unpleasantly. A characteristic of severe hunger, she knew, which indicated the body’s slip into a negative balance. She shuddered. This came from the body literally consuming itself.

“We appreciate you granting this interview,” Yves said, and sat down.

Aimée did the same, keeping the veil tight as she lowered her head. Hamid didn’t look old, but it was hard to tell.

“Your motto—” Yves began.

“The AFL’s motto,” Hamid interrupted, “remains the same, forged by oppressed people who demand their rights.”

“Can you speak to the situation?” Yves asked. “Comment on the fundamentalist factions rumored to be attempting to gain control of the AFL?”

“At times one must bend like the willow branch to Allah’s will or stand firm like a rod of iron.”

Aimée studied Hamid as he spoke. Whether it was his manner, the brief facial tick scoring his lips, or her sixth sense, she doubted he wanted this infighting or this publicity. Hamid didn’t make a very good liar.

“Does the fact that your followers refer to you as a maghour, an ‘outsider,’ disturb you?” Aimde asked.

“We are all Allah’s children, some his disciples,” Hamid said simply.

“Forgive me,” Aimée said, catching Hamid’s gaze but keeping her head lowered. “How can you assure these sans’papiers that they will stay?”

“We await the minister’s action, secure in our belief.” Hamid’s dark eyes filled with pain, his breathing faltered. “The AFL’s aim remains the same. Mutual cooperation will solve this conflict.”

“Did you know Eugénie Grandet?”

“Forgive me, fatigue claims my efforts,” Hamid said.

Frustrated, she studied him. Hamid’s hollowed cheekbones creased his face. His lids were half closed, and the stark white below his pupils glowed eerily. Aimée watched Hamid’s eyelids flutter. Had he gone into a trance, or was he about to pass out from hunger?

She wanted to know more about his dealings with Eugénie.

“Hamid must reserve his strength for prayer. Please end your audience,” an aide said to them.

“I respect Hamid’s duties, but he agreed to this interview,” Yves said.

“Later. Now he must rest,” the aide shouldered his way toward them.

Reluctantly Yves stood, and Aimée followed suit.

“The Koran teaches the spirit how to live among men,” Hamid said to Yves, his voice fading. “A code of life, harming no brethren. You must tell people this.”

The aide waved Aimée and Yves back toward the vestibule. He stood guard, watching them leave.

“Not even five minutes for an interview,” Yves said, distressed. “He looked ill.”

“He’s weak,” Aimée said, pulling Yves aside. “But he’s covering something up.”

“You mean lying?” Yves said. “Imams have immunity, like priests do. They can be creative with the truth, and followers buy it. Reporters, like me, have problems with that.”

On their way out she saw a Berber woman with hennaed hands and callused bare feet, asleep against the water font. The woman’s mouth hung open, her tongue flicking, as if tasting the air as a snake does to find its way. Maybe I should do the same, Aimée thought, and discover who attacked me in the cirque and planted Sylvie’s bomb.

Suddenly the woman’s eyes batted open and she sat bolt upright, her frayed black caftan trailing on the floor. She glared at Aimée, then wagged her finger, a silver bangle outlined against her dark-skinned tattooed wrist.

“Hittistes,” she said, drawing out the first s into a hiss.

“Comment, Madame?” Aimée asked.

The woman muttered to herself. Yves tugged at her sleeve.

“Let’s go,” he said.

As Aimée walked past her, the woman emitted a piercing series of wails, bloodcurdling “you’you’you” ululations. From what she knew, Arab women in anguish or mourning did that.

Aimée knelt down on the cold stone and put her hand on the woman’s knee. Scars lined the woman’s weather-beaten arms.

“Tell me what you mean, please,” she said.

The woman spoke rapid and guttural Arabic. All Aimée caught were the words hittiste and nahgar, which the woman repeated over and over. She covered Aimée’s hand with her tattooed one, beat her heart with the other, then let go.

Outside, past the crowds, she turned to Yves. They stood across from the parked buses in Place Chevalier. Yves leaned his backpack on a stone stanchion, tucking his tape recorder and notebooks inside.

“Got a clue to what the woman meant?” Aimée asked.

“Hittistes are the young, unemployed men hanging out on the streets,” he said. “Holding up the walls in every bidonville as well as in Oran, Constantine, and Algiers.”

Aimée wondered if the hittistes composed the dissident faction who’d joined the church. Like Zdanine.

“And nahgar?

His mouth pursed in thought.

Aimée remembered his slim hips, the way he’d made her feel. Stop it, she told herself, pushing those thoughts from her mind.

“My grasp of Arabic is rudimentary,” Yves said. “But it’s something to do with humiliating people, abusing power.”

Had the Berber woman tried to tell her the hittistes were undermining the immigrants’ cause? “I thought the Algerian government promoted an official Islam compatible with socialist ideals. Or tried to.”

Yves shrugged.

“There’s a lot more going on here than a protest, isn’t there?” she asked.

“In Algeria,” Yves said, “the fundamentalist opponents charge Hamid’s group with running guns-for-drugs operations in Europe. They accuse him of being supported by the most repressive Islamic regimes in the Arab world.”

“But he’s not like that at all,” Aimée said. “The AFL sponsors adult education and food programs.”

Aimée felt in her jacket pocket for cigarettes. None. She paused by Yves at the corner of rue du Liban and found Nicorette gum in her pocket. Yves’s words made some kind of sense, but she wasn’t sure how. She popped a piece in her mouth and chewed furiously.

Yves continued. “Many think the fundamentalists’ broader goal is building umma islamiyya, an Islamic empire, countering the depraved West, which they see as doomed to hell even though they use it for asylum and access to media.”

“Should I take my pick, or do you have a preference for one theory?” she asked, pulling her jacket tighter against the cooling air. He certainly knew his subject, she thought, but he was a top journalist.

“Algeria’s in civil war,” Yves said. He pulled out a small pad and jotted some notes. “A quiet underreported war rarely highlighted on CNN. It’s a fight for power between the hard-line military and the strict Islamic forces to govern the country.”

Aimée nodded. That made sense.

“Les barbes, among others, fuel this war. But les barbes, the religious scholars, and preachers in storefront mosques adopt the white robe, skullcap and beard of the traditional mullah. The difference is in their fanaticism. The West brands it Islamic fundamentalism.”