The Praetorians (24 page)

Down below the crowd was still yelling, seething with currents and cross-currents. This sea of people was as stormy as the Mediterranean behind it was calm, shimmering in the setting sun. One of the insurgents begged Massu:

“Say something to them, sir.”

Massu burst out in a fury:

“They make me sick, the whole lot of them. I've nothing to say to them. Today was meant to be a patriotic day for our comrades who were shot, not a day of plunder. . . .”

People were shouting and arguing. Everyone was talking at the same time, but it was Massu's rough, uncouth voice that rose above the din.

Esclavier and Boisfeuras slipped into the room.

“Hello, there's Massu,” said Boisfeuras. “I didn't expect to see him here.”

The Tojun, who had reached the Government General through the secret passage connecting it to the Region Ten buildings, arrived in his turn, sleeves rolled up, five-star cap on his head, his breast covered all the way down to his stomach with decorations.

“The fruit has fallen, he's come to pick it up,” Boisfeuras observed with a certain admiration.

The Commander-in-Chief made an appearance on the balcony outside the office.

In the Forum the crowd that had acclaimed Massu hooted him. Two hundred thousand voices threw in his face the defeat of Indo-China, for which he was not responsible.

The Tojun came in again. His features were still completely composed, but his forehead was bathed in sweat.

“His little trick didn't come off as well as he expected,” Esclavier remarked. “He hadn't foreseen everything; the crowd wants no truck with him.”

“Or with de Gaulle. Look at Puysanges creeping out with that hang-dog look. He was the one who persuaded the Tojun that he was popular.”

Massu had advanced into the midst of the demonstrators who were gathered in a corner of the office and asked them what they wanted.

“A Public Safety Committee, pending a Public Safety government in Paris,” Lagaillarde and a few others replied.

“Who can we put in this committee of yours?”

“Civilians and the military.”

“Make me out a list.”

Adruguez shook Fortanelle:

“You there, what's your name?”

Xavier remembered his illegal position and blurted out the first name that came into his head:

“Albert Duchemin.”

It was the name of one of his cousins who was a commercial agent in groceries “for the lay and religious communities.” It said so on his visiting cards.

“Put Albert Duchemin down on the list.”

A few minutes later General Massu asked Xavier:

“You there, my lad, what the devil are you doing here?”

Fortanelle was scared out of his wits. He wondered whether he had not better own up completely. But the general frightened him. Besides, he was longing to get out of this big, cold, solemn office and find Paulette, to escape from this nightmare populated with generals, students and paratroopers.

The crowd gave another great cry.

“Well,” Massu went on, “what are you representing here?”

“The crowd,” said Fortanelle.

Massu shrugged his shoulders in irritation.

Françoise Baguèras took out her notebook.

“What are you up to?” Pasfeuro asked her.

“I'm jotting down the first historical statement of this revolution. Where has Malistair got to?”

“He's trying to cable New York.”

A little later Fortanelle was pushed forward behind General Massu, who informed the crowd of the creation of a Public Safety Committee presided over by himself and composed of seven members including one Duchemin.

Meanwhile the real Duchemin, in an inn near Tulle, was whispering sweet nothings to a buxom servant girl who smelt of skimmed milk.

“This is wonderful,” said Esclavier. “Massu, the only man who wasn't in any of the plots, has become president of the Public Safety Committee and finds himself at the head of the revolution!

“The Tojun's in the trap. Bonvillain and the Gaullists are in the trap, the veterans are in the trap, and soon, all together in Uncle Ubu's trap, there'll also be de Gaulle himself, and Lagaillarde, and a certain number of officers from the
10
th Regiment.”

The confusion was complete, but General Massu, who still did not understand what was going on, obeyed some old military
reflex and issued orders which presently brought about a certain discipline.

He had the guard in front of the Government General reinforced, and enrolled in the Public Safety Committee a certain number of officers from his own staff or from the parachute division with whom he had already worked: Ducasse, Trinquier and also Boisfeuras because he happened to be there.

Gradually night fell, the gentle night of Algiers with its milky light. General Massu had gone out on to the balcony and read a telegram addressed to the President of the Republic:

“We notify you of the creation of a civil and military Public Safety Committee in Algiers, presided over by General Massu, on account of the gravity of the situation and the absolute necessity to maintain law and order and in order to avoid bloodshed. This committee expectantly awaits the creation of a Public Safety government, which alone is able to preserve Algeria as an integral part of Metropolitan France.”

The crowd began to disperse in spite of the appeals of Lagaillarde, Martel, Puydebois and Adruguez, who did not wish to be left alone with the military.

“They'll gobble us up,” said Puydebois. “There they go, the captains, majors and colonels, all signing on with our Public Safety Committee, as though they were queueing up for their rations.”

Glatigny arrived at last. He jammed Boisfeuras up against a door.

“Well?”

“We've been had. Massu, without any ambition and ‘to avoid a balls-up'—that's his expression—has assumed the leadership of the movement, and on his orders I find myself a member of the Public Safety Committee, with three or four colonels from the division who happened to be strolling down the corridor outside.”

“And Esclavier?”

“Down below with his chaps. Bonvillain?”

“Here he comes right now.”

Bonvillain came in, very cool and collected, very much the master of himself in the midst of this confusion; he introduced himself.

“I'm the envoy of Jacques Soustelle.”

“And all the time I thought he was Chaban's man,” murmured Boisfeuras. “I'm sure he has never even met Soustelle! I'm going down to find Esclavier.”

Xavier Fortanelle, who was trying to find some excuse for leaving, fell into step with him.

In the courtyard a smell of damp burnt paper assailed their nostrils and they slipped on a carpet of damp sheets: what remained of the Government General files after being drenched by the firemen.

Inside some cars with broken windscreens a number of paratroopers were enjoying themselves with various girls.

All of a sudden a burst of giggling made the little corporal jump. He thought he had recognized Paulette's laughter. Xavier looked to the left, to the right, pricked up his ears. The laughter burst out again, but more stridently. He rushed forward. It was Paulette all right, lying in the back seat of a Versailles with its windows broken and doors torn off. Her skirts were drawn up, a big sergeant was on top of her, and, with her hair dishevelled, a blank expression in her eyes, she gave a long shriek of pleasure each time the paratrooper drove into her.

When Sergeant Molintard looked up he saw Xavier's distraught face a few inches from his own. He tried to apologize:

“What a job! She's the third I've had in the last hour or two. Revolution certainly turns them into hot-pants!”

Xavier Fortanelle slowly turned away from Paulette, who hid her flushed face in her arms, and from the paratroop sergeant who was buttoning up his trousers, dazedly saying:

“She's your fiancée! I must say, that's tough luck on you.”

Xavier sat down on a low wall, beneath a bougainvillaea, and burst into tears. The two captains in red berets came up to him.

“Well,” Boisfeuras asked him, “what's wrong with you? You've seized the Government General, you're a member of the Public Safety Committee—you're even the youngest member! A great career lies ahead of you, and you're blubbing!”

“Corporal Fortanelle, sir. I'm on unauthorized leave, I don't give a damn about having seized the Government General, because I come from Clermont-Ferrand and I'm a cuckold.”

“But we all are!” Esclavier exclaimed. “Go back to your unit, forget your girl, forget the Forum and the Public Safety Committee. If some day, on the Place de Jaude, they ask you what you did in Algeria on May
13
th, you'll reply: ‘I was on the beach.'”

Captain Esclavier, who was relieved towards the end of the night, asked to be driven to the villa in Birmandreis, where he thought he might find Glatigny, Marindelle or Mahmoudi.

“There's no one here,” said an orderly, “except a lady who's waiting for you in your room.”

Isabelle Pélissier was lying asleep on his bed, fully dressed. She got up with a start and flung herself into the captain's arms.

“Philippe, nothing can keep us apart now. I know all you've done for me and for French Algeria.”

Overwhelmed, Esclavier hugged her tightly. This was really cuckolds' day. Adruguez had seized the Government General for Isabelle yet he, Philippe, was the one whom she had come to thank.

Urbain Donadieu beckoned for the bottle of brandy which was out of his reach.

He filled his glass, drank half the contents and smacked his lips.

“I'm enchanted by all this! History is nothing but a series of blunders, confused situations, indecision among the strong, audacity among the weak, until historians come along and put it all in order.”

Irène, who was irritated by her father's sententious tone and digressions, turned on Esclavier:

“You sneered at our parade in the Place de la République and called it a masquerade. Well, what was the
13
th of May in Algiers, I should like to know! A comic opera!”

“That comic opera at least had the merit of being joyful and truculent. And then we had that little shiver up our spine that foretold victory, we felt that anything would be possible.

“The parade in the Place de la République, on the other hand, was nothing but a display of puppets who would afterwards be put back in their cupboards, and who knew it.

“On May
18
th, in Paris, Captain Marindelle met some figures from the political world or the
demi-monde.
They came to offer him their services . . . because, you see, I had sent him to my brother-in-law, Michel Weihl, one of the great defenders of the Republic. While the whole police force were looking for Marindelle—without much conviction, admittedly—he was
living at
128
Rue de I'Université, receiving and making telephone calls.

“Michel and his friends knew the captain had come from Algeria, that he had been parachuted into the south-west and that his mission was clearly defined: if the liquidation of the régime began to drag he was to prepare an armed drive on the capital.

“All of them, it seems, were extremely useful to him.”

“There's not much hope of my article being published,” Irène thought to herself. “The May
13
th conspiracy hatched in one of the progressivist salons of Paris which is frequented by everyone on the paper! Who knows if the boss himself did not go and call on Captain Marindelle? And my Philippe, who feels so noble and pure, delighted to be able to despise the whole lot of them. . . . How irritating he can be, with his scorn and self-sufficiency!”

“So, as I see it,” Urbain Donadieu broke in, “on the evening of May
13
th your little group was knocked out of the game.”

“Next morning we all joined in. Bonvillain and his friends, by playing on Soustelle's name and popularity, had been able during the night to get several of their supporters enrolled on the Public Safety Committee—war veterans, members of the U.S.R.A.F. or the Vigilance Committee. If they were lacking in drive those chaps were well seasoned in the political game; by virtue of their past records or present positions they also wielded more weight than the members of the Committee chosen at the outset from among those who happened to be on the spot.

“In his pocket the Tojun had a telegram. Before expiring, the Baillard government had granted him full civil and military powers. Through his hooded eyes he scrutinized Massu, wondering what to do with this general who was acclaimed by the crowd somewhat to readily: haul him before the High Court or come in on his side?

“I was woken very early in the morning by the arrival of Glatigny, triumphant and unshaven.

“‘Massu,' he told me, ‘took the plunge last night. Urged on by Bonvillain, he sent de Gaulle an appeal in the name of the Public Safety Committee, “to take in hand the destiny of the country.”
He read it out to the crowd, who cheered him. The Tojun couldn't do anything about it. In Paris the panic-stricken deputies have invested Pflimlin. Telephonic and telegraphic communications have been cut, aircraft departures forbidden, shipping disrupted. The great adventure has begun.'”

 * * * * 

Glatigny then noticed a woman's body under the sheets. He stammered in embarrassment:

“Oh! I thought you were alone! I'm so sorry, Madame . . . or Mademoiselle?”

Glatigny had always been curious about his friends' amorous adventures. He was careful not to pronounce any judgement on their girl-friends, but he liked to be kept informed.

Esclavier was silent for a moment.

“You're going to be disappointed, Jacques, there's nothing new: it's Isabelle.”

“And with me, Aicha. Everything's starting all over again, no longer amid the explosion of bombs, terror and conflict, but in joyfulness and reconciliation. Come out on the terrace and see Algiers decked out in flags, with a military band playing on every street corner.”

A formidable voice made the walls shake.

“Where do you hide your drink in this place?”

“Dia has just arrived,” Esclavier explained, “Dia the benign. What about Raspéguy?”

“In the eyes of the public he's still the Minister of National Defence's man. The Tojun has forbidden him to leave Z and Bonvillain, who's now playing the Soustelle card, has been careful not to come to his defence.

“I rang him up this morning.”

“What did he have to say?”

“I think he's taking it extremely hard.”

“We're the ones who got him into this mess!” Esclavier exclaimed. “And you know as well as I do that he would never have let us down if anything had gone wrong. I'm going out to join him.”

“You've got to stay in Algiers. You're the one the paratroops all follow, not I. When officers overthrow the Republic it's
difficult to ask simple soldiers to maintain the same discipline. The soldiers choose their leaders from among those whom they admire.”

Isabelle sat up, hiding her naked breasts with the sheet. She still had the sleepy expression of a happy woman, the expression of the Isabelle of the old days, but her voice soon recovered its assurance. She now knew how to speak to men:

“Philippe, you rose in revolt to save French Algeria, you're not going to abandon everything out of friendship for your colonel!”

Philippe got out of bed, a towel knotted round his waist, and began pacing up and down the room.

“I no longer believe in anything else but friendship—the friendship of men. Out of our incoherent life, out of all our useless fighting in Indo-China and Algeria, all we have left is friendship.”

“What about love?”

“One picks it up as one goes along, like gypsies who stop under a tree laden with autumn fruit. They eat a few plums, a few apples, then set off again, tossing the pips and stones over their shoulders.”

Isabelle burst into tears:

“I hate you.”

“Give Raspéguy a ring first,” Glatigny advised his friend.

Esclavier went out. Anger made his cheeks go pale, pulled down the corners of his mouth and contracted his eyes.

“How I hate him!” Isabelle repeated.

The major ran his hand over his face, which was covered in a greyish stubble:

“I can understand him; he has chosen certain bonds and doesn't want any others! Philippe's a difficult, violent creature, but loyal. . . .”

“To his friends perhaps, but not to those pips and stones he tosses over his shoulder.”

Esclavier had a struggle to get through to the colonel. All the lines were engaged.

When he heard Raspéguy's rasping voice at last he felt a catch in his throat.

“Well, are you having a good time in Algiers? The great circus show, eh? Those schemes of yours were a bit too much for me. I don't come from a grand family, I'm a man of the mountains. If the name Raspéguy ever gets into the dictionary it will be because I've written it with my blood. I'm only a beast of war which they load with medals and then leave alone in its corner. Waltzing about in Ministers' drawing-rooms, that's for the likes of you. . . .”

“I'm coming back to Z, sir. I'm dropping everything.”

“I forbid you to. At least there'll be someone representing me in Algiers, and that's you. Out here the war is still on. Yesterday we had three men killed in an ambush and young Pinières got a bullet in the arm. Some are needed for waltzing, others for dying. Keep me in the picture anyway. When it turns sour—and Hellion assures me that day isn't so far off—you may still be in need of Raspéguy and his big line-shooting. That's all.”

“When does the Forum begin?” asked Dia, running his pink tongue over his thick lips. “You must take me to see it.”

“It's a continuous programme. The clowns make their appearance in the arena one after another without a break.”

 * * * * 

Isabelle and Aicha had run into each other in the bathroom. Aicha had the glinting eyes, litheness and grace of a young leopard about to bite, but also about to let itself be stroked. Isabelle's eyes were swollen with tears.

After a moment's hesitation she held out her hand to the Arab girl.

“My name's Isabelle Pélissier.”

Aicha likewise hesitated before taking her hand.

“I know. You're with Captain Esclavier and I love Major de Glatigny.”

“I also love Philippe Esclavier.”

“No, you can't love him; you're not the same breed, but I am.”

“What on earth do you mean by that?”

“Of course, I'm a Moor with a darker skin than yours, but that doesn't mean anything after today. When your ancestors were dying of hunger in a patch of frozen land in France, mine
in the south were reigning on horseback over huge flocks of sheep.”

“We've made vines, wheat and barley grow where there was nothing but couch-grass before. We've built schools and universities where you came to study; you, Aicha ben Mahmoudi, because I likewise know you. And then you planted bombs to blow them all up.”

“I was wrong. Bombs make a noise . . . boom! . . . and nothing more: smoke and dead bodies. But you'll see what we're going to do tomorrow, with Glatigny, Esclavier, Boisfeuras, Marindelle, my brother, all the others like them, and also the
fellaghas
from the mountains who are going to come down to join us.”

“You're mad.”

“Do you think an Algerian revolution is simply people shouting outside the Government General and acclaiming Jacques or Paul, but never Mohammed? The women of my race will tear off their veils and they too will stream into the Forum, but to chase you out of it.”

“What did I ever do to you? Your father is much richer than mine.”

“Did you ever think, as you saw me pass by in the street, of coming up to me, taking me by the shoulder and saying: ‘Aicha, come home with me, my house is yours'? Your fine gentlemen-friends from the Balcon Saint-Raphael, did they ever once think of coming over to me and asking: ‘May I have the pleasure of this dance, Mademoiselle Aicha ben Mahmoudi'? I had to win the love of a man of my rank by letting off bombs.

“Do you know why my brothers clench their teeth and refuse to talk when they are tortured? In order to be respected by the men hailing blows down on them. You tell me you love Esclavier, but what have you done to deserve him, to be his equal, to give him more in your love than he grants you? I've betrayed my cause, I've given my brothers away. . . . But today I know that it wasn't a betrayal: I'm going to reunite them all. Pour some water on your eyes, they're red and it doesn't suit you. When I cry I go away and hide. You know, you're very beautiful; I'd like to look like you. Would you like to have this necklace of blue beads? It would suit you perfectly.”

“Thank you, Aicha. I don't want your necklace, but tell me how one should behave with men of this breed.”

“Take them as you find them. There's nothing else you can do. If you try and change them they explode in your face . . . boom! Just like a bomb.”

 * * * * 

The Commander-in-Chief had had the walls of the public buildings plastered with notices—which gave them an official character:

“General Salan, Supreme Commander of the Armed Forces, has assumed full civil and military powers to assure the maintenance of law and order, the protection of property and human life and the conduct of operations. The Public Safety Committee, created under pressure of events to assert the wish of the Franco-Moslem populations to remain French, will act as the connecting link between them and the High Command.”

As he came out of the Aletti, Boisfeuras went up to the notice and, while a
yaouled
seized one of his shoes and started polishing it, he read the text over and over again.

“The problem is quite clear this time,” he said to himself. “The Tojun is going to stake the unity of the army, tradition and the establishment against the revolution. He refuses to have the Public Safety Committees transformed into permanent organizations aimed at serving a population which badly needs being looked after.

“At the very start the Tojun denies what must be the fundamental principle of every revolutionary war—the army bound up with the civilian population.”

Boisfeuras forthwith asked to be driven to Divisional Headquarters, where he found Marindelle glued to his telephone.

“Well?” Boisfeuras enquired.

Marindelle glared at him feverishly:

“Soustelle, de Gaulle, Pflimlin, Salan . . . what does it matter? The important thing is the masses, Moslem no less than French. Everyone comes and cajoles them in the Forum, but no one thinks of getting hold of them and leading them according
to the methods we were taught by the Viets. If we were masters of the masses, masters of the Forum, we could do whatever we liked.”

“Have you seen the notice the Tojun has had posted up?”

“Yes, of course. We received it at seven o'clock this morning, with a written order from Puysanges to display it in all our premises.”

“Glatigny now finds himself confronted with this problem: to obey his commander—and it can't be denied that Salan, who wields full civil and military power, represents the establishment—or come in with us and invent a new establishment for himself. It's tradition he'll choose in the long run, and therefore Salan. So get going, Marindelle, my lad. You look after your propaganda teams, I'll deal with the paratroops. Jump to it!”