That Devil's Madness (20 page)

‘Okay.
If
this Jamilah is still alive, and
if
she's still in Constantine, and
if
she even remembers you, what makes you think she'll know anything? Or more to the point, that she'd want to tell you anything?'

‘Because. It goes right back to our grandfathers – they were like brothers. Her grandfather played an important part in the Algerian war – at least around Constantine – and even when things went bad, we were safe. Because of him. That's how it was with our families. She'd help, I know she would.'

Steven nodded. He may not know exactly what the story was between Nicolette's grandfather and this Jamilah's, but he knew enough about Muslims to know that if they considered you a brother, they'd risk their lives for you, if need be.

‘So tell me. This Jamilah – does she have a last name?'

‘al-Zain.'

‘And she has a brother?'

‘More than one. But it was Rafiq who was always with us.'

‘Rafiq al-Zain. Tuareg?'

‘You know him?'

‘No – just a guess. No big deal.'

Steven paced the room, thinking. Nicolette waited.

‘Okay,' he said at last, ‘We'll go. But we'll drive; I want to be able to get around. I'll ask DJ to ring us if anything happens with Boumedienne. If we need to, we can fly back and Amoud can bring the car back on his own. I can do some asking around—'

‘So can I.'

‘Oh no you don't. You can look for your friend.'

‘But—'

‘No! I'm serious, Nicolette. You've no experience in this type of thing – you'll end up getting us both killed. If we're going to do this, we do it my way.'

Nicolette wanted to argue, but she realised agreeing with Steven was the only way she'd get him to Constantine, and she needed his help – in spite of her bravado, she really had no idea how to go about all this. She nodded.

‘You're not going to do something stupid once we're there?'

‘Of course not. But you'll fill me in, right? Keep me up to date? And when we've got something, I want to be there.'

‘I'll fill you in, but don't expect anything soon. These things take time. And I want you to promise me that if you find this Jamilah, you're not going to blab to her what we're doing there. Just make this a looking-up-old-friends visit. At least until I find out what's really going on, okay?'

‘Mm, yeah, okay. When do we leave?'

‘How about tomorrow? I'll tell Amoud. We can stay a few days; it'll give me time to ask around.'

‘Okay. But you'd better keep me up to date. One other thing – one of my film's missing. You did put in what I gave you, didn't you?'

‘Of course I did.'

‘Well, they say they never got it.'

‘I gave them what you gave me. And you should be thanking me – you wouldn't have gotten your pic of that woman with the oranges on the front page if I hadn't gotten them there as soon as I did. Anyway, which one's missing?'

‘The Blida film. Lots of monkeys.'

‘It'll turn up.'

‘Maybe. But I don't want to lose it – reckon I might be able to sell some of those shots to National Geographic.'

‘Probably some idiot desk-jockey stuffing up again – you can chase it up later. Not like it was anything important…'

‘I shouldn't have to chase it up later – that's not the point. And don't you
dare
tell me which of my films are important. Oh what the hell, you just don't get it!' She snatched the newspaper off the bed and headed for the door.

‘Nicky—'

‘Forget it. I'm going for a shower. I'll see you later.'

Steven winced as the door slammed.

#

Their approach to Constantine via the Sidi M'Cid Bridge took Nicolette's breath away – she'd forgotten how spectacular it looked. Situated on a plateau six-hundred-and-forty meters above sea level, this ancient city once known as Carta was framed on three sides by a deep ravine. At the bottom of the gorge some two hundred metres below them, the Rhumel River cascaded over its narrow bed. To the left, clinging to a rockcliff, were the ruins of a Roman temple. Like so many places in North Africa, the city and the fortress were one.

As they entered the city Amoud sounded the car horn and turned to Nicolette, smiling broadly.

‘I think he's glad to be here,' Steven said.

Nicolette nodded and stretched. ‘He's not the only one. I'm so stiff.' They'd travelled some four hundred kilometres, stopping only briefly at the seaside town of Djidjelli for a coffee and snack.

‘Hotel? Or do you want to look around a bit first?'

‘Hotel, I think. I want to freshen up. Did you notice the smell when we crossed the bridge?'

Steven nodded. ‘It's the gorge. They use it as a rubbish dump.'

Nicolette frowned. ‘I'm glad Grandpa Louis isn't here to see that. He loved this city, these gorges.'

Steven spoke to Amoud, and Amoud nodded, smiling even more broadly.

‘I understood a bit of that,' Nicolette said, looking out of the car window. ‘You know, I used to be able to talk really fluently in a whole lot of different dialects. Jamilah and I, we use to speak French at school, and her Berber dialect out of school – same with a lot of other kids. But I've forgotten it now. Shame.'

‘Well, if you haven't spoken any since you left… I told Amoud he could have the rest of the afternoon off. He's got family around here, and we don't need the car for the rest of the day. You don't mind, do you?'

‘I don't mind.'

#

Nicolette stood on the balcony of her hotel room, towelling her freshly washed hair as she took in the scene below her window. Constantine seemed both recognizable and foreign. The crowds and the cars were still there, but there were very few Europeans now, and the traffic no longer seemed to respect traffic lights, nor the pedestrians crossing the road.

They'd had an apartment on the Avenue Fôche. Shutters closed against the hot afternoon sun, and the smell of bees-wax furniture polish and lemons. The lounge room had been decorated with African artefacts – a zebra skin on the floor, a leopard's on the wall. She smiled as she imagined what the reaction of the animal activists of today would be to her mother's style. But things were different then, and in any case, her mother wouldn't have cared what anyone thought – she always did what she wanted, no matter what.

On either side of the leopard skin were hung tribal masks and spears that had frightened Nicolette as a child. Two native tom-toms served as side tables, circles of glass protecting their tops, and on a shelf, next to the radio, little statuettes of African dancers all in a row. Except for these statuettes, Nicolette disliked this room, the masks and spears being too much for her imagination, and so she'd avoided being there as much as possible. Instead, she spent the time between the end of her school day and the time her mother came home from work roaming the streets of the Berber quarter with Jamilah.

Jamilah – somewhere in that city below her, the woman that had once been her closest friend might still live. Nicolette went back into her room, found her hairbrush and brought a chair back onto the balcony. She sat and begun untangling the knots in her hair. The aromas drifting up from the street teased her memory. Kebabs and the spicy smell of mergezes sizzling on braziers. Spices and coffee. And underneath it all, the smell of cats. Constantine was overrun by cats, semi-wild creatures belonging to no one but fed by all.

There had been a black and white cat that lived at her school. Why on earth would she remember that? All the children used to feed it. They'd named it Figaro, after the cat in Walt Disney's
Pinocchio
, and even when it had its kittens one night in the sewing room, on top of the gingham materials used to teach little girls to sew by making aprons, still no one wanted to change its name to a more feminine one.

School. Monsieur de Bonêt, who always wore the same brown tweed jacket, and delivered his lessons sitting behind his desk, chin in hand, mumbling in a monotonous voice on and on and on, so that Nicolette frequently fought sleep, because to sleep would guarantee five – never more and never less – five slaps of his ruler on her outstretched hand. Once, Jamilah had told Rafiq that de Bonêt had hit Nicolette, and Rafiq had let down all four tyres of de Bonêt's car.

Rafiq – how she'd idolised him. He was two years older than Jamilah but, unlike the other males of his family, always had time for his sister and her friend. Jamilah loved him most of all her brothers. What had become of him? Was he even alive? Of course he was. Rafiq was a survivor. Always had been. Fragments of a long forgotten memory nudged the corners of her mind, but instinctively Nicolette pushed it back. Still it persisted. The Berber woman. Rafiq running towards Nicolette. She brushed her hair harder, but the memory insisted. It had been after she'd been forbidden to play with Jamilah and Rafiq. That day when Jamilah had turned her back on her in the schoolyard.

Nicolette took the chair back into her hotel room. She didn't want to remember the rest. Remember doors and shutters slowly opening, Rafiq screaming at her
Go home, Nicolette! You don't belong here.
She went to the en-suite to look for a rubber band, found it and tied her hair into a ponytail. She had been shattered by Rafiq's rejection, back then. Now, with the mind of an adult, she could understand. She knew things would be different now. The three of them had a lot of history together – a lot of happy memories – and so many years had passed…

17

On a late spring afternoon in 1925, Imez pulled a flowing ghandouras elaborately embroidered with thin silver cord over a white caftan, and wound his best indigo turban around his head and across his mouth and nose. He added an ornate dagger and intricately carved scabbard to rest on his left hip, then went to wait for Louis and his family. Today was the first day of his second – now eldest – son's wedding. The maribout had been here earlier to sanction the wedding, and now it was time for the ceremony.

He knew there were those in the camp who didn't believe Louis and Therèse should have been invited, but they didn't say so to his face – they dared not, for Imez was now an
amenokal
, a chieftain. And there were those in the camp who also disapproved of his friendship with Louis, but they had grown used to it, as they had grown used to Gwafa's and Marius' friendship. Imez smiled as he remembered how some had approached Bahac early in their marriage, to convince her that the friendship should not exist. But Bahac was no fool, and she had told everyone she approved of Imez's friends, and in this matrilineal society, her approval had silenced them.

Imez heard the engine of Louis' Clément Bayard, and went out to greet his friends. He smiled in approval when he saw them.

Marius and Louis were both in morning coats, white silk shirts and ties, and Louis carried an ebony walking stick whose handle and ferrule were of silver, the handle depicting the head of a duck. Top hats and black patent shoes completed their attire.

Therèse wore an ankle length, pearl-grey dinner dress of silk chiffon heavily embroidered with beads, and a large silk shawl rested on her shoulders. Her hair was bobbed in the latest style, topped with a silk and velvet cloche hat.

‘Welcome, Therèse,' Imez said as he opened her car door.

‘Aren't you going to say we look magnificent? Papa did,' Odette interrupted, coming around the side of the car and holding out the hem of her blue lace dress.

‘Odette, you're being rude.'

Odette ignored her mother and turned to Louis. ‘You thought we looked magnificent, didn't you, Papa? You said so.' She turned to Imez. ‘You should say so too.'

Imez thought – not for the first time – that this eight-year-old child promised nothing but trouble. ‘It's not fitting for a man to comment on the beauty of another man's wife,' he told the child. ‘But come. Come and meet the bride's parents.'

‘What about the bride? Aren't we going to meet her too?'

‘The bride and the groom, Odette, have been sitting in tents at opposite ends of the camp, hidden from each other, as is proper.'

‘That's silly.'

‘It is how it should be. Come, this way.'

#

It was nearly midnight. The first ceremonial camel ride had taken place just before sunset, and since dark the women of the tribe had played music and sung songs to accompany the dancing of the slaves and vassals before them. The night was filled with the magic of firelight, the beat of drums and the sound of laughter. Colour was everywhere – in the costumes of the women, in the jewellery they wore, in the carpets they sat on. Even the men wore embroidered clothing for this occasion. The air smelled of wood smoke, sandalwood and musk, and occasionally, when a light breeze teased its way through the camp, a hint of patchouli and vanilla. Louis looked across at Therèse, sitting on a carpet next to Bahac, clapping her hands in time to the music, with Odette next to her, asleep with her head on mother's lap. Therèse sensed his gaze, looked up and smiled at him.

‘So tell me,' Louis asked Imez, ‘this soon-to-be daughter-in-law, what sort of person is she?'

‘The best kind for my son. She is his mother's brother's daughter. He cannot ask for better.'

‘Hmm. That doesn't guarantee they'll get on.'

‘You still sometimes doubt our ways, my friend. Even after all the years we've known each other. But let me tell you a story told amongst our people, which will explain…

‘Once the parents of a young man arranged for him to marry his cousin, but the young man didn't love this woman – he loved another instead, one who had no blood-bond to him. So to make their son happy, the parents allowed him to marry both women.

‘Time passed, and it so happened that a heavy fine was imposed by the sultan on the young man.'