Letters From My Windmill (15 page)

—What can I do for you? She asked me, drying her eyes.

—Just a sit down and a drink….

She looked at me, utterly astonished, and didn't move as if she hadn't
understood.

—This is an inn, isn't it?

The woman sighed:

—Yes … it's an inn, in a manner of speaking…. But why aren't you
over the road like everybody else? It's a much livelier place….

—It's a bit too lively for my liking…. I'd rather stay here.

And without waiting for her reply, I sat down at a table. Once she had
satisfied herself that I was genuine, she began to flit to and fro
busily, opening drawers, moving bottles, wiping glasses, and flicking
the flies away…. You could see that a customer was quite an event for
her. Now and then the unfortunate woman would hold her head as if she
was despairing of getting to the end of it.

Then she disappeared into a back room; I heard her take up some keys,
fiddle with the locks, rummage in the bread bin, huff and puff, do some
dusting, wash some plates. And from time to time … a muffled sob….
After a quarter of an hour of this performance, a plate of dried
raisins, an old Beaucaire loaf as hard as the dish it came on, and a
bottle of cheap wine, were placed before me.

—There you are, said the strange creature, and rushed back to her
place at the window.

* * * * *

I tried to engage her in conversation as I was drinking up.

—You don't often get people here do you, madam?

— Oh, no, monsieur, never, no one…. It was very different at the
time when we were the only the coaching inn around here. We did the
lunches for the hunt during the soter bird season, as well as coaches
all the year round…. But since the other place has opened up, we've
lost everything…. The world and his wife prefer to go across the way.
They find it just too miserable here…. The simple fact is that this
place doesn't interest them. I'm not beautiful, I have prickly heat,
and my two little girls are dead…. Over there it's very different,
there is laughter all the time. A woman from Arles, a beautiful woman
with lots of lace and three gold chains round her neck, keeps the
place. The driver, her lover, brings in customers for her in the coach.
She also has a number of attractive girls for chamber maids…. This
also brings lots of business in! She gets all the young people from
Bezouces, from Redessan and from Jonquières. The coachmen go out of
their way to call in at her place…. As for me, I'm stuck in here all
day, all alone, eating my heart out.

She said all that with a distracted, vacant way, forehead still pressed
against the window pane. Obviously, there was something in the inn
opposite that really interested her…. Suddenly, over the road, a lot
started to happen. The coach edged forward in the dust. The sounds of
cracking whips and a horn was heard. The young girls squeezed together
in the doorway and shouted:

—Goodbye!… Goodbye!… And above all that, the wonderful voice,
singing, as before, most beautifully,

Took her little silver can,
To the river made her way,
She didn't notice by the water,
Three young cavaliers, quite near.

The woman's whole body shook on hearing that voice; and she turned
towards me and whispered:

—Do you hear that? That's my husband…. Don't you think he has a
beautiful voice?

I looked at her, stupefied.

—What? Your husband?… So even he goes over there?

Then, with an apologetic air, but movingly, she said:

—What can you do, monsieur? Men are like that, they don't like tears,
and I'm always breaking down, since our little girls died…. Then,
this dump of a place, where nobody comes, is so miserable…. Well
then, when he gets really fed up, my poor dear José goes over the road
for a drink, and, the woman from Arles gets him to sing with that
gorgeous voice of his. Hush!… There he goes again. And, trembling,
and with huge tears that made her look even more ugly, she stood there
in front of the window, hands held out in ecstasy, listening to her
José singing to the woman from Arles:

The first was bold and whispered to her,
You're so beautiful my dear!

Notes from the Voyage.

This time, I am going to take you away to spend a day a very long way
from the windmill in a pretty little Algerian town…. It will be a
nice change from the tambourines and cicadas….

… There's rain in the air; the sky is grey; the crests of Mount
Zaccar are enveloped in fog; it's a miserable Sunday…. I'm in my
small hotel room, lighting one cigarette after another, just trying to
take my mind off things…. The hotel library has been put at my
disposal. I find an odd volume of Montaigne between a detailed history
of hotel registrations and a few Paul de Kock novels. Opening it at
random, I re-read the admirable essay on the death of La Boétie…. So,
now I'm more dreamy and gloomy than ever…. A few drops of rain are
starting to fall, each one leaving a large star in the dust accumulated
on the windowsill since last year's rain…. The book slips out of my
hands, as I stare hypnotically at the melancholy star for some time….

The town clock strikes two on an old
marabout
whose slender, high,
white walls I can see from here…. Poor old marabout. Thirty years
ago, who would have thought that one day it would have a big municipal
dial stuck in its solar plexus, and on Sundays, on the stroke of two,
it would give a lead to the churches of Milianah, to sound their bells
for Vespers?… There they go now, ringing away…. And not for a brief
spell, either…

Without doubt this room is a miserable place. The huge, dawn spinners,
known as philosopher's thought spiders, have spun their webs
everywhere…. I'm going out.

* * * * *

I'm on the main square, now. Just the place for the military band of
the Third Division, not put off by a bit of rain, which has just
arranged itself around the conductor. The Brigade General appears at
one of the Division windows, surrounded by his fancy women. The
sub-prefect is on the square and walks to and fro on the arm of the
Justice of the Peace. Half a dozen young Arabs, stripped to the waist,
are playing marbles in a corner to the sound of their own ferocious
shouting. Elsewhere, an old Jew in rags comes to look for a ray of
sunshine he left here yesterday and looks astonished not to find it….
"One, two, three…!" the band launched into an old Talexian mazurka,
which Barbary organs used to play, irritatingly, under my window last
year. But it moved me to tears today.

Oh, how happy are these musicians of the third! Their eyes fixed on the
dotted crochets, drunk on rhythm and noise, only conscious of counting
beats. Their whole being was in that hand-sized bit of paper vibrating
in brass prongs at the end of their instruments. "One, two, three…!"
They have everything they need these fine men, except they never play
the national anthem; it makes them home sick…. Alas, I haven't much
of a musical ear and this piece irritates me, so I'm off….

* * * * *

Now, where on earth would I be able to have a nice time, on a grey
Sunday like this? I know! Sid'Omar's shop is open. I'm going there.

He may have a shop, Sid'Omar, but he is no shopkeeper. He is a prince
of the blood line, the son of a former Dey of Algeria, who was
strangled to death by Turkish soldiers…. When his father was killed,
he sought refuge in Milianah with his adored mother. He lived there for
several years like a fine gentleman philosopher with his greyhounds,
falcons, horses, and wives in this attractive and refreshing palace,
amongst the orange trees and fountains. Then the French came; we came.
Sid'Omar was our enemy at first and allied himself with Abd-el-Kader,
but then he fell out with the Emir and surrendered to us. While
Sid'Omar was away from Milianah, the Emir took revenge by pillaging his
palace. He flattened his orange trees, made off with his horses and
wives; and killed his mother, cruelly crushing her throat under the lid
of a large chest…. Sid'Omar's anger knew no bounds: within the hour
he had enrolled himself in the French army, and we had no better,
fiercer soldier, for as long as our war with the Emir lasted. Sid'Omar
returned to Milianah; but even today at the merest mention of
Abd-el-Kader, he grows pale and his eyes light up.

Sid'Omar is sixty now, and despite his age and the smallpox, his face
has stayed rather handsome. He has long eyelashes, with an appealing
look and a charming smile; very prince-like. The war ruined him, and
all he has left of his former opulence is a farm in the plain of Chélif
and a house in Milianah, where he lives a bourgeois life with his three
sons, who are being brought up under his aegis. The local bigwigs hold
him in some veneration. If a dispute breaks out they are only too happy
to let him arbitrate; and his judgement usually carries the weight of
law. He seldom goes out; you can usually find him every afternoon next
door in a shop which opens onto the road. It is not opulently
furnished; the walls are whitewashed, and there are a circular wooden
bench, cushions, long pipes, and two braziers…. This is where
Sid'Omar gives his audiences and dispenses justice. Hey! Solomon in a
shop.

* * * * *

Today is Sunday and there is a good turn out. A dozen leaders, each in
their burnous, are squatting all around the room, a large pipe and
small fine filigreed eggcup full of coffee to hand. I go in; nobody
moves…. From where he is, Sid'Omar gives me his most charming smile
by way of a greeting and beckons me to sit next to him on a large
yellow silk cushion. He puts a finger to his mouth to indicate that I
should listen.

The case is between the leader of the Beni-Zougzougs and a Jew from
Milianah, who are having a dispute about a plot of land. The two
parties had agreed to put their differences to Sid'Omar and to abide by
his judgement. The meeting is set for this very day, and the witnesses
are assembled. Surprisingly, it is my Jew, and he is having second
thoughts and has come alone, without witnesses, declaring that he would
prefer to rely on the judgement of a French Justice of the Peace than
on Sid'Omar's…. That was where things stood when I arrived.

The Jew—old, greying beard, brown jacket, blue stockings, and velvet
cap—raises his eyes to the sky and rolls them, kisses Sid'Omar's silk
slippers, bows his head, kneels down, and clasps his hands together,
pleadingly…. I have no Arabic, but from the Jew's miming and from the
words
Joustees of the peace, Joustees of the peace
, which he keeps
repeating, I get the gist of what he is saying.

—I have no doubts about Sid'Omar, Sid'Omar is wise, Sid'Omar is
just…. But, the Joustees of the Peace would be more suitable for our
business.

The audience is indignant, and yet remains impassive as Arabs do….
Stretched out on his cushion, his eyes blurred, the amber book to his
lips, Sid'Omar—that master of irony—smiles as he listens. Suddenly,
at the height of his pleas, the Jew is interrupted by an energetic
caramba!
which stops him. Dead. The voice belongs to a Spanish
colonial, who has come as a witness for the leader, and who then leaves
his place and approaches the Judas Jew, and pours a bucketful of
imprecations in all tongues and shades of blue over his head—mixed
with other French expressions too gross to repeat…. Sid'Omar's son,
who understands French, reddened on hearing such words in front of his
father and leaves—keeping up an Arabic tradition. The audience is
still impassive, Sid'Omar still smiling on. The Jew stands up and backs
towards the door, trembling and scared, and babbles on about his
everlasting,
Joustees of the Peas, Joustees of the Peas
…. He
leaves. The Spaniard, furious, is at his heels and meets up with him in
the road before hitting him; twice; full in the face…. the Jew falls
to his knees, with his arms covering his face. The Spaniard, a little
ashamed of himself, comes back into the shop…. As soon as he is
safely inside, the Jew gets up with a shifty look at the motley crowd
surrounding him. There were people of many races and colours
there—Maltese, Minorcans, Negroes, and Arabs, all united—for once—in
hating the Jew and loving to see him so maltreated…. The Jew
hesitates a while, then grabs an Arab by his burnous:

—You saw him … Achmed, you saw him … you were there!… The
Christian hit me … you shall be a witness … yes … yes … you
shall be a witness.

The Arab frees his burnous and pushes the Jew away…. He knows
nothing; he's seen nothing; he was looking the other way….

—How about you, Kaddour, you saw him…. You saw the Christian strike
me … shouts my unfortunate Jew to a big Negro who is impassively
peeling a Barbary fig….

The Negro spits his contempt and moves away, he hasn't seen a thing.
Neither has the little Maltese, whose coal-black eyes glisten viciously
under his biretta; nor the rust-coloured girl from Mahon who, placing a
basket of pomegranates on her head, laughs it all, and him, off….

No matter how much the Jew shouts, pleads, demeans himself … no
witnesses! Nobody saw anything…. By chance, just then a couple of
fellow Zionists pass by. They are humiliated, and cower by a wall. The
Jew spots them:

—Quick, quick, brothers. Quick, to the consultant! Quick to the
Joustees of the Peas
!… The rest of you, you saw him…. you saw him
beat the old man up!

As if they'd seen him!… I don't think so.

… Things are getting lively in old Sid'Omar's shop…. The proprietor
refills their cups, and relights their pipes. They chat on, and they
laugh fit to burst. It's such a pleasure to see a Jew beaten up!… In
the middle of the hubbub and smoke, I slip out quietly; I want to
wander in the Jewish quarter, to see how my Jew's coreligionists, are
taking their brother's outrage….

—Come to dinner tonight, m'sier, the good old Sid'Omar shouted….