Letters From My Windmill (16 page)

I agree and thank him. I go outside. In the Jewish quarter, there is
turmoil. The matter has already attracted a lot of attention. Nobody is
minding the store. Embroiderers, tailors, and saddlers—all Israel is
out on the street…. The men in their velvet caps, and blue woollen
stockings fidgeting noisily in groups…. The women, pale, bloated, and
unattractive in their thin dresses and gold fronts, have their faces
wrapped in black bandages, and are going from group to group,
caterwauling…. As I arrive, something starts to move in the crowd.
There's an urgency and a crush…. Relying on their witness, my
Jew—hero of the hour—passes between two rows of caps, under a hail of
exhortations:

—Revenge yourself, brother, revenge us, revenge the Jewish people.
Fear nothing; you have the law on your side.

A hideous dwarf, smelling of pitch and old leather, comes to me
pitifully, sighing deeply:

—You see! he said to me. We're hard done by, we Jews. How they treat
us! He's an old man. Look! They've practically killed him.

It's true, my poor Jew looks more dead than alive. He goes past me—his
eyes lifeless, his face haggard—not so much walking as dragging
himself along…. Only a huge compensation looks likely to make him
feel any better; after all, he is going to the consultant, not to the
doctor.

* * * * *

There are almost as many consultants in Algeria as there are
grasshoppers. It's a good living, I'd say. In any case, it has the
great advantage that you can just walk into it, without passing
examinations, or leaving a bond, or being trained. In Paris you become
a lawyer; in Algeria a consultant. It's enough to have a bit of French,
Spanish, and Arabian, and to have a code of conduct in your saddle bag;
but above all else, you need the right temperament for the job.

The agent's functions are very varied: he can be in turn a barrister,
solicitor, broker, expert, interpreter, money dealer, commissioner, and
public scribe; he is the Jack of all trades of the colony. Only
Harpagon has a single Jack of all trades; the rest of the colony has a
surfeit, and nowhere more than Milianah, where they can be counted in
dozens. Usually, to avoid office expenses, these gentlemen meet their
clients in the café in the main square and give their
consultations—did I say give?—between the appetiser and the after
dinner wine.

The dignified Jew is making his way towards the café in the main
square, with the two witnesses at his side. I will leave them to it.

* * * * *

As I leave the Jewish quarter, I go past the Arab Bureau. From outside,
with its slate grey roof and French flag flying above, it could be
taken for the village town hall. I know the interpreter, so I go in and
have a cigarette with him. In between fags, this sunless Sunday has
turned out quite well.

The yard in front of the Bureau is packed with shabbily dressed Arabs.
Fifteen of them, in their burnouses, are squatting there along the
wall, turning it into a sort of lobby. This Bedouin area—despite being
in the open air—gives off a very strong smell of human flesh. Moving
quickly past…. I find the interpreter occupied with two large,
loud-mouthed Arabs, quite naked under their filthy blankets, madly
miming some story or other about a stolen chain. I sit down on a mat in
a corner and look on…. The Milianah's interpreter's uniform is very
fetching, and how well he carries it! They are made for each other. The
uniform is sky blue with black frogging and shiny gold buttons. With
fair tightly curled hair and a light-skin, he cuts a fine figure, this
hussar in blue, and is full of fun and strange tales. He is naturally
talkative—he speaks many languages, and is a bit of a religious
sceptic; he knew Renan at the Oriental School!—a great amateur
sportsman, he is equally at ease in an Arab tent or at the
Sub-prefect's soirées. He dances the mazurka as well as anyone, and
makes couscous better than anyone. To sum up, he's a Parisian, and he's
my sort of man. No wonder the women are mad about him…. He is a sharp
dresser, and only the Arab Bureau's sergeant is in the same league, the
sergeant—who, with his uniform of fine material and mother of pearl
buttoned leggings, causes envy, and despair, in the garrison. Our man
is on attachment to the Bureau, and he is excused fatigues and is often
seen in the streets, white gloved, his hair freshly curled, and large
files under his arm. He is admired and he is feared. He is
authoritative.

To be sure, this story of the stolen chain threatens to become an epic.
Bye-bye! I shan't wait for the end.

The Bureau area is in uproar as I leave. The crowd is crushing round a
tall, pale, proud, local man dressed in a black burnous. A week ago,
this man fought a panther in the Zaccar. The panther is dead; but the
man has lost half his left arm. In the morning and at night he comes to
have his wounds dressed at the Bureau, and every time, he is stopped in
the yard and has to re-tell his story. He speaks slowly, with
beautifully guttural voice. From time to time he pulls his burnous to
one side and shows his left arm, strapped to his chest and wrapped in
bloody blankets.

* * * * *

The moment I come into the street a violent storm breaks. Rain,
thunder, lightning, sirocco…. Quickly, I take shelter in the first
available doorway, and fall amongst a bunch of bohemians, crowded into
the archways of a Moorish courtyard. It adjoins the Milianah mosque,
and is a regular refuge for the Muslim destitute. They call it the
Courtyard of the Poor
.

Large, emaciated, lousy, and threatening, greyhounds range around me.
Backed up against the gallery pillars, I try to keep control of myself
and don't talk to anyone, as I try to look unconcernedly at the rain
bouncing off the flagstones. The bohemians are lying about carelessly.
Close by me is a young woman, almost beautiful, with her breasts and
legs uncovered, and thick iron bracelets on her wrists and ankles. She
is singing a strange tune consisting of three melancholic, nasal notes,
while she is breast feeding a naked, reddish-bronze child, and fills a
mortar with barley with her free arm. The wind-blown rain sometimes
soaks the arms of the nursing woman and the body of the child. The
bohemian girl completely ignores this and keeps singing during the
gusts, while still piling up the barley and giving suck.

The storm abates and gives me a chance to leave the courtyard of
Miracles and make my way towards dinner at Sid'Omar's, now imminent….
As I cross the main square, I run into my Jew of recent memory again.
He is leaning on his consultant; his witnesses are following happily
behind him, and a bunch of naughty, little Jewish boys skip around
him…. They are all beaming. The consultant is taking charge of the
affair; he will ask for two thousand francs compensation from the
tribunal.

* * * * *

Dinner at Sid'Omar's is sumptuous. The dining room opens onto a Moorish
courtyard, where two or three fountains are playing…. It's an
excellent Turkish meal, whose highlights are
poulet aux amandes,
couscous à la vanille
, and
tortue à la viande
—a bit heavy, but a
gourmet meal nevertheless—and biscuits made with honey called
bouchées du kadi
…. For wine—nothing but champagne. Sid'Omar
managed to drink some despite Muslim law—while the servers were
looking away…. After dinner we go into our host's room where we are
served with sweetmeats, pipes, and coffee…. The furnishings of this
room are sparse: a divan, several mats, and a large high bed at the
back scattered with gold embroidered red cushions…. A Turkish
painting of the exploits of a certain Hamadi hangs upon the wall.
Turkish painters only seem to use one colour per canvas. This canvas is
decidedly green. The sea, the sky, the ships, even the admiral himself,
everything is green, and deep green at that!… Arabs usually retire
early, so, once I have finished my coffee and smoked my pipe, I bid
goodnight to my host and leave him to his wives.

* * * * *

Now, where to round off my evening? Well, it's too early for bed, the
spahi soldiers haven't sounded the retreat on their bugles, yet.
Moreover, Sid'Omar's gold cushions were dancing fabulous farandoles
round me and making sleep impossible…. I'm outside the theatre, let's
go in for a moment.

The Milianah theatre is an old fur store, refurbished as far as
possible to make a stage and auditorium. The lighting is made up of
large oil lamps which are refilled during the interval. The audience
stands; only the orchestra sits, but on benches. The galleries are
quite swish with cane chairs…. All around the room there is a long,
dark corridor with no wooden flooring…. You might as well be in the
street, it has absolutely nothing in it. The play has already started
when I arrive. The actors aren't at all bad, the men at least; they get
their training from life…. They are mainly amateurs, soldiers of the
third division, and the regiment is proud of them and supports them
every night.

As for the women, well!… It always is and always will be the same in
small provincial theatres, the women are always pretentious,
artificial, and overact outrageously…. And yet, among the women there
are two very young Jewesses, beginners at the drama, who catch my
eye…. Their parents are in the audience and seem enchanted. They are
convinced that their daughters are going to earn a fortune on the
stage. The legendary Rachel, Israeli millionaire, and actress, has an
orient-wide reputation with the Jews.

Nothing could be more comical and pathetic than these two little
Jewesses on the boards…. They stand timidly in a corner of the scene,
powdered, made-up, and as stiff as a board in low cut dresses. They are
cold and they are embarrassed. Occasionally, they gabble a phrase
without understanding its meaning, and as they speak, gaze vacantly
into the auditorium.

* * * * *

I leave the theatre…. I hear shouting in the surrounding blackness
from somewhere in the square…. Some Maltese settling a point, no
doubt, at the point of a knife….I return slowly along the ramparts to
the hotel. A gorgeous scent of oranges and thujas wafts up from the
plain. The air is mild and the sky almost clear…. At the end of the
road, yonder, an old, walled phantom reaches upwards—the debris of
some old temple. This wall is sacred. Every day, Arab women come to
hang ex-voto gifts, bits of haiks and foutas, long tresses of red hair
tied with silver wire, and bits of burnous…. All this dances about in
the warm breeze, lit by a narrow ray of moonlight….

Just one more souvenir of Algeria and then—back to the windmill!…

I couldn't sleep the night I arrived at the farm of the Sahel. Maybe it
was the new country, the stress of the voyage, the barking jackals, on
top of the irritating, oppressive, and completely asphyxiating heat. It
felt as though the mosquito nets were keeping the air out with the
insects…. As I opened my window at first light, I saw a heavy summer
mist, slow-moving, fringed with black and pink, and floating in the air
like smoke over a battle field. Not a leaf moved in the lovely gardens
stretched out before me, where, the well-spaced vines, that gave such
sweet wine, were enjoying full sunshine on the slopes. There were also
European fruit trees sheltered in a shady spot, and small orange and
mandarin trees in long, closely packed lines. Everything had the same
gloomy look about it, with that certain limpness of leaf waiting for
the storm. Even the banana trees, those great, pale-green reeds,
usually on the move as some light breeze tangles their fine, light
foliage, stood straight and silent in their symmetrical plumage.

I stayed there for a while looking at this fabulous plantation, where
seemingly all types of the world's trees could be found, each one
giving exotic flowers and fruit, in its proper season. Between the
wheat fields and the massive cork-oaks, a stream shone, and
refreshed—the eye at least—on an airless morning. As I approved the
fineness and order of it all: the beautiful farm with its Moorish
arcades and terraces, brilliantly white in the dawn, and its
surrounding stables and barns, I recalled that it was twenty years
since these brave settlers set up home in the valley of the Sahel. At
first, they found only a workman's shack, and ground haphazardly
planted with dwarf palms and mastic trees. Everything was yet to be
done; everything to be built. At any time, there could be an attack
from Arabs. They had to leave the plough out for cover in case of a
shoot-out. Then there was the sickness, the ophthalmia, the fevers; and
the failed harvest, the groping inexperience, and the fight against a
narrow-minded administration—always putting off its prevarications.
What a world of work, and fatigue, and having to watch their backs all
the time!

Even now, despite the end of the bad times, and the hard-won good
fortune, both the settler and his wife were up before anyone else on
the farm. At an ungodly hour they could be heard coming and going,
overlooking the workers' coffee, in the huge kitchens on the ground
floor. Shortly afterwards, a bell was rung and the workmen set out for
the day's work. There were some Burgundy wine-growers, Kabyle workers
in rags and red tarbooshes, bare-legged Mahonian terrace workers,
Maltese, and people from Lucca; men from many places and therefore more
difficult to manage. Outside the door, the farmer curtly gave out the
day's work to everyone. When he was finished, this fine man looked up
and scrutinised the sky anxiously. Then, he noticed me at the window:

—Awful growing weather, he told me, here comes the sirocco.

In fact, as the sun rose waves of hot, suffocating air came in from the
south as though an oven door had briefly opened. We didn't know where
to put ourselves or what to do. The whole morning was like this. We
took coffee sitting on mats in the gallery, without finding the will
power to move or speak. The dogs, stretched out, hoping the flagstones
would keep them cool, looked utterly washed out. Lunch picked us up a
bit; it was a generous if singular meal, and included carp, trout, wild
boar, hedgehog, Staouëli butter, Crescian wines, guavas, and bananas.
All in all, an improbability of delicacies which nevertheless reflected
the complex variety of nature which surrounded us…. We were just
about to get up from the table, when shouts rang out from behind the
closed French window, shouts that guaranteed that we would soon
experience first-hand the furnace-like heat in the garden: