That Devil's Madness (10 page)

It ended at the T-junction of an unsealed road. This wasn't the way she'd come. She stood in the middle of the road, coughing, trying to catch her breath, trying to decide which way to go. She couldn't think. Still she knew she needed to calm down so she squatted to where the smoke was less dense and shut her eyes, trying to visualise a map of where she had gone.
Think! Which way? You're on a road and all roads lead somewhere. But which way?
But no matter how hard she tried, she couldn't visualise the terrain.

The sudden honk of a horn assaulted her, so that she fell back onto the road and sat staring at the headlights of the fire truck like a rabbit caught in a spotlight. The truck stopped, doors slammed and two men in khaki overalls and helmets walked towards her.

‘Not the best spot for a picnic, love,' but Nicolette could only stare. ‘Come on then. You can't stay here.'

Nicolette squeezed in between the two men in the cab, while two more stood on the back of the tanker, hanging on.

‘My car. I left it—'

‘Sorry love, no time. We've got to stop this bastard crossing the road before it gets out of control. We'll take you back when we're finished. You'll be right.'

Nicolette wasn't so sure that she'd ‘be right', but she didn't have any other choice, and the calm attitude of these men was reassuring; better that, than being on her own.

#

It had taken the men close to three hours of hard labour to contain the fire. They'd told Nicolette to stay in the truck, and she had, at first, and watched in horror as two of them each lit the end of what looked to her like a canister with a handle and a long, looped wand, then, walking in opposite directions a few feet in the bush, parallel to the road, set fire to the scrub. But as she watched this infant fire fingering its way up the ridge towards the main fire, she'd understood what they were doing and, reassured by the sight of the men with hoses or knapsacks at the ready, took her camera and jumped out of the cab. This was news. Her chance to get her photos in the paper. Her chance for a by-line.

She stood transfixed, staring into the flames as the backburn line expanded in size, strength and noise, snaking its way up the hill. Ash rained down. Glowing embers. Two rabbits zigzagged their way out of the burning scrub, too panicked to react to the humans in their path. Flames engulfed bushes and licked their way up tree trunks then leaped like demented monkeys from treetop to treetop. And all the while the fire-fighters patrolled the road, making sure it didn't turn back, occasionally dowsing a tree trunk or a bush.

She took photographs of the men silhouetted against the flames, the jet of water from the fire hose a white slash against the red of the flames and the black of the ground. She took photos of the sky, red-brown with the sun just a pale white dot and embers swirling overhead like deadly fireflies, and when the one they called Junior came back cradling a baby wallaby he'd found alone, she took a photo of that too. The smoke irritated her eyes, making them water continuously and she had trouble breathing, so that every so often she'd go back into the cab of the truck where the air seemed fresher, but she kept telling herself that if these men could take it, so could she.

Evening fell and the fire was out but still the men stayed, checking the perimeter, spraying a log that still smouldered, making sure there were no flare-ups. More volunteers had joined them, and women came too with sandwiched and biscuits, thermoses of tea and bottles of water. And when the women were leaving they offered to drive Nicolette back to her car, but she refused. She felt she needed to stay as long as these men.

#

Nicolette dropped her photographs on the local news editor's desk. She'd stayed up half the night developing her films and printing the best of her shots, then writing a report on the fire. In the morning, she'd returned to work earlier than usual, wanting to make sure her news story and photos were seen first thing.

‘What's this?'

‘
That
is news. While you lot were watching the Cup, the Dandenongs were going up in flames. And I was there. It's all there – the pictures
and
the story. Think it'll make the front page?'

‘Leave it here and I'll have a look at it.'

For the next few hours Nicolette had trouble concentrating on her work. She knew her photos were good – hoped they'd use the one of Junior with the baby wallaby, to show the human side of bushfires. But it didn't matter which one they used, at last she'd get her work in the papers. Then maybe she could convince them to give her the work she really wanted…

When she felt the building shudder at ten thirty, she could barely stay at her desk. But she forced herself to wait a while, then went down for a copy of that day's paper.

The front page was all about the Melbourne Cup – she'd expected that. She turned each page, looking for one of her photos. There were none. Surely they hadn't ignored the fires? Once more, more slowly this time, she scanned each page for a mention of the fire. Then she saw it – at the bottom of page eight, not even a quarter of a column long:

Melbourne, Wednesday

Two small fires were spotted in the Dandenongs yesterday by a Royal Australian Air Force plane, which co-operated with the Forest Commissioner and the CFA in reporting the bushfires. Local volunteers soon had the fires under control, and no damage to person or property was reported.

Was that it? No photo? No tag line? And she hadn't said anything about
two
fires, anything about a plane. She ran up the stairs two at the time and dropped the paper on the local news editor's desk.

‘That's not my story.'

‘No, it's not.'

‘Why not? Mine was better. More detailed. And my photos were good.'

‘Yeah, they weren't bad. But your story was crap. Sentimental. And anyway, Jim at the CFA phoned through his report. More accurate.'

‘You still could have used a photo.'

‘No I couldn't. The story's not big enough. Lucky it even got a mention. For Christ's sake, girly, it's nearly summer – bushfire season. People don't want to know about every little flare up. They're only interested in the big ones. They want to read more important news.'

‘Like a bloody horse race.'

‘Yes, a bloody horse race – the whole nation wants to know every detail.
That's
news. You want me to print your photos, bring me something big. Real big.'

‘Like what?'

‘If I knew, it would already be published. Use your brain, girl. Trust your gut. But make it big.'

#

28 November 1978. Algiers. Boumedienne sinks once more into coma. Possible recuperation no longer possible. Prof Waldenström confirms leader of State suffers chronic lymphatic leukaemia. Condition irreversible.

Nicolette re-read the telex with growing excitement. Ever since being told to find ‘something big', she'd been coming to work even earlier in order to read the night's telexes. She was hoping to find the germ of a big story, something that appeared minor at the moment, but that had the possibility to grow into something bigger. And she wanted to find it before anyone else realised its potential. That Algeria's President Boumedienne was in a coma, and appeared to be dying, may not be big news in Australia, but she couldn't shake the feeling that there was another story there somewhere. She tried to remember what she knew about Algeria's current situation. Nothing. Was that because nothing newsworthy was happening, or was it simply that Australia wasn't interested in Algeria? She went to the morgue, as they called the library, and though she found a few overseas cables regarding Algeria, no corresponding write-up had appeared in
The Herald
. Once more she reread what little she'd found, trying to read between the lines, searching for a potential story. She knew Boumedienne had joined the rebel forces prior to Algeria's independence, becoming Chief of Staff of the National Liberation Front's – or FLN's – military wing. Then, when Algeria gained its independence, he'd effected a coup against the then President Ben Bella to install himself as president. There had been an attempted coup against him a couple of years later, but since then, it seemed things were reasonably quiet in Algeria.

Still Nicolette read – imposed state control on oil industry; risked war with Morocco when trying to gain access to the Atlantic via the Sahara; juggled independent relations with both Western countries and the Soviet Bloc. And on a domestic level, it seemed Boumedienne ruled by decree, with government censorship and police surveillance by the powerful
Sécurité militaire
, or Military Security, being the norm.

So what was likely to happen when Boumedienne died? Would not all those people, those groups who may have opposed Boumedienne's laws, now see this as their opportunity to be heard? Was that where the story lay? The more Nicolette thought about it, the more it seemed she was on to something. She was sure of it. Now all she had to do was convince the foreign-news editor.

10

Eighteen ninety-nine brought the beginning of the Boer War, and Captain Dreyfus, the young French artillery officer whose incarceration for charges of treason on Devil's Island these past five years had ripped French society apart, was finally pardoned, owing greatly to
J'accuse
, Émile Zola's vehement open letter published in
L'Aurore
the previous year. And somewhere in Paris, French President Faure suffered a heart attack during a tryst with the wife of the painter Steinheil. He died later that night, but the French of Aïn Azel barely took note – France now seemed such a long, long way away…

The end of the century also brought many changes to Marius' life. He had applied for a further land grant a year after arriving, buying an extra fifty hectares adjoining his property, and the one-roomed house had grown, first to three rooms then to nine.

The large original room was now a lounge room, with a proper dining room and a kitchen next to it. A long corridor lead to a courtyard at the back of the house. To the right of the corridor were Marius' office and bedroom, as well as a guest bedroom. To the left, over a large cellar that ran the length of the house, were the other bedrooms and a bathroom. Water was pumped to holding tanks by the house, and the property even had a name –
Asif mellul
, after the words Berbers used to describe the river when it ran white as it tumbled over rocks in winter. Close to the house were other buildings – a forge, stables for the horses that had replaced the mule, which had been given to Merzoug, and a number of cottages for Arab and Berber employees.

One of these employees was Imez. With each visit the young man had shown a keen interest in the way Marius worked the land, asking more and more questions each time, until Gwafa agreed to let his son work for Marius. But though he was officially employed as a farm hand, Imez quickly became more useful as a translator.

Jean – Marius' eldest son – and his wife Madeleine had joined them a few months previously. They had twin boys, Bernard and Jerôme, who were forever escaping their mother's care to toddle after Louis or, if he was not available, Merzoug.

Marius had hoped that in time Fernand and Bernadette would also come, accompanied by Gustave, but these young people showed no interest in leaving Sablières, and if he were honest with himself, Marius could see there was nothing here for Gustave. So he contented himself with sending postcards, and if he thought the postcards depicting Algeria were but a romanticised European version of what he saw, he also realised that it was unlikely Gustave would ever know the difference.

Marius had become highly respected in the area – his reputation had been established the day he had not reported the stolen mule to the authorities. No one realised that it had been more a matter of distance than fairness, but nevertheless this had the effect of earning him the reputation of a just man, and many locals now came to ask him to intervene on their behalf with the French authorities, or to borrow money. It had earned him the nickname of the
Kherznadji
, or cashier.

Merzoug now lived in the original gourbi, but this had been restored, and now had a proper floor and a fireplace. He still carried the parasol, bleached of any colour and now somewhat tattered. Merzoug, they had learnt the next time Imez and Gwafa passed through, was not a slave as they had thought, but a serf – his father had been a Tuareg, his mother a slave. And because he had Tuareg blood, he considered himself better than the others who worked for Marius, and so had elected himself supervisor of the field hands. Out of respect for his age all indulged him, and he spent his days riding the mule as he patrolled the perimeters of the paddocks with his parasol held high, often with the twins running close behind. He would inspect the wheat and barley fields, and yell out instructions that were always acknowledged but forgotten as soon as he'd passed – everyone answered to Marius always, and to Louis occasionally.

There had been many changes in the area as well. The presence of the military had encouraged many more colonists to settle, and Aїn Azel was now called Ampère, with a market every Friday to which everyone would go to trade and catch up on news.

#

Marius listened to the raised voices coming from the kitchen – one of the household staff must have offended Madeleine yet again. He sighed and wiped the dirt from his hands – it seemed to him that not a day went passed without some sort of drama involving Madeleine and the staff. He went to investigate.

Madeleine was leaning against the kitchen table, her face flushed, her belly heavy with child. On the floor at her feet Fatima, the little Arab girl who helped with the laundry, was crying. In the sink was an upturned soup pot, the contents still steaming, blocking the drain.

‘What's going on?'