The Snow Kimono (32 page)

He thought he’d had a son. At first. But after a while, when he had returned for
the sixth or seventh time, he saw that he was wrong. It was Madeleine who’d had a
son. Not him. After that, she had begun to drift away. Taking him, his son, with
her.

This was how he came to see it. When he lay on his bed, in the almost darkness of
the requisitioned house, a house that was not his own, listening to that night’s
operation unfolding. The windows lit up sporadically, the house trembling, the windows
chattering, wondering how many interrogations he would have to do the next day, how
far he would have to go. Sometimes they died, so badly injured were they, before
they gave up anything. Had he had enough of this?

He returned every ten days, three weeks, to see her, and her child. To the house
they occupied. Only to find that she had drifted still further from him. So far now
that he could not reach her.

And it was not just her. The baby, his son, momentarily in his arms. But the look
of panic, of fear, on his child’s face, almost instant, not recognising him. How
strong, how alarming his need to escape. The alien, swaddling body twisting, elongating
in his hands, stretching out for its mother. Even though he might fall. He saw the
fear in his own son’s eyes: Where is she? The panic pulling at the corners of his
mouth. No choice but to surrender him. Now rescued, the tumult subsides, his primal
howl forestalled. There was no room for him.

He thought of his parents. The silent photographs. The empty, hollow clock-ticking
evenings of his childhood. His summer afternoons alone.

Jovert had not got back until three weeks after his son’s birth.

The morning after Dumas’ note, talking to Colonel Lemoine: I’m sorry, Auguste, we
need you here. We’ve put too much into this. Madeleine is being taken care of.

Afterwards, when she had recovered, Madeleine went back to teaching—I’m fine, Auguste,
I’m better now, I need to do this.

Perhaps, he thought at first, it was the cause, what they had come to do, that she
had begun to doubt. A place for her, her forebears. For him. Their children. Instead,
she had grown close to her teaching friends. To Mathilde, Khalid. These people she
was supposed to be watching over.

Some evenings, they would be there when he came home. As if they were waiting for
him. Already quietened by his footsteps echoing in the corridor. Their fidgeting
scrutiny always awkward. Their leave-taking brief.

Auguste.

Tilde. Khalid.

Was Madeleine still reporting? He wondered if she knew, if they knew, about his other
self.

He still went to her. In the beginning. Embraced her. But then—the first, almost imperceptible rebuff, a tiny
seismic shock.
A momentary freezing. So minute, so barely there, he needed to verify it.

It was over then.

Yet he wore an indentation in her bed. From where he came to sit. To uncomfort her.

Please, Auguste. Don’t. I will be all right. Just leave me be.

Then: No don’t, Auguste.

The turning away almost complete. Now the slow undoing of all the ties. Unspoken.

The time that passed.

Chapter 34

IN those four months: the village census complete. The families’ names on each house.
In white paint. The number of occupants. Here, what’s this? Your identity papers.
Keep them on you. Then the random late-night checks. Come with me. No, not you—you.
Take the youngest son. Next day, show the father what’s in the lattice-covered ditch.
Trussed, bent over. Returned to him the
following
evening. The curfew unbreakable.
The cost too great. A sheep. Two. From someone else. It helped them think.

The schoolhouse built. Attendance compulsory. Ages six to twelve. Including girls.
The notices distributed. For each class, a morning roll.
No
exemptions. Every school
day. Otherwise they risked a soldier’s heavy rap. A lesser fine. But still too much.
Where’s Fatima? She’s sick. Let me see.

A village council elected. You, you and you. Publicly paid, in the village square.
Every Wednesday. And well. They either stayed or left. Most stayed. They had family
here. They were
compromised. They pay you! Where else could they go?

In six months: the village now contained. The checkpoints manned. The soldiers armed.
No one in. No one out. Not without a pass. They had seen the consequences. An accident.
A lost leg. One would usually suffice.

A dispensary. See Mr Valedire. A doctor—twice a week. The soldier’s own. For them.
For free. But
his
heart unhealed.

A conversation half-remembered. When was this? In the library he tries to fold time
back. Reorder it. But it’s futile. This memory has been cast adrift.

I can’t do this, Auguste. Not any longer. What if we’re wrong?

We’re
not
wrong.

But don’t you see? We’re being used. They don’t want to save this country. Look what
we’ve done. How could we have been so stupid? We’ll be outcasts if we go back.

No, Madeleine, that’s not right. Half of France wants this.

Now. What about later? People forget. Then someone remembers. Starts digging. Asks
questions. How careful have we been?

That’s not true. What we’re doing is right.

No, it isn’t. They lied to us. They’ve sold us out. Those traitors back home, those
cons
. Can’t you see that?

He looked at her across the table. Her ravaged face still
beautiful. That’s when
his own first doubts crept in. How careful had he been?

It’ll be okay for you. They’ll just shut you up. Give you a promotion. Two. Inspector
Jovert. Of the Special Interrogations Bureau.

Her laughter bitter now.

Inspector!

The cigarette in her shaking hand. Had she exhaled then? Brushed the smoke away?

But what about our son? What will happen to him? When they find out what we’ve done?
In ten years. Twenty. He’ll be the one who pays.

He went to her.

No, don’t. Her hand held up.
Don’t
touch me, Auguste. Not now.

And the final barriers went up.

There was still so much to do. He stayed away. In Ighouna. In Sétif, twenty kilometres
away. When he did come home, he came home to a house asleep. To his own room, his
own bed. To the two sleeping strangers who lived there now. To his son, who looked
at him as though he was an unknown thing. But the aching memory of him still imprinted
on his hands.

At night, he would hear him crying, endlessly. As if he already knew what misfortune
had befallen him. Madeleine
would sleep on. He could not go to him, his child. Could
not comfort him. For fear of stirring his tearful, infant raging once again.

The second knock, six months later: Colonel Lemoine himself standing in the doorway.
The urgent call to return. Surely he knew—he must have done. Thibaud waiting in the
car. The high-speed night drive home. The car’s bucking headlights quickly reeling
Algiers in.

He sees them hurtling through the labyrinthine darkness, his arm outstretched against
the dashboard. He can see figures running. Cars overturned. Buildings on fire. A
man reaches out to them as they speed past; his face is imprinted on Jovert’s brain.
Beseeching them to stop. His splayed hands burst up in front of them like two white
pigeons. Thibaud swerves to avoid him. All around them, there is artillery fire.

Thibaud is saying: What if she’s not there? What if she’s already left?

He strikes the steering wheel with the palm of his hand.

This is crazy, crazy.
Merde
.

This final syllable hangs in the air.

But Madeleine
is
there. She’s sitting at the kitchen table when he bursts in. Her
head in her hands, her pale, tear-stained face blank. She won’t look at him. A woman
he does not know sits across from her.

His child’s not there.

Where’s my son? he says.

He’s in his crib, thank God. Asleep. Unscathed. Still innocent.

His heart still beating.

Mathilde Benhamou was killed today, the woman says. With her brother-in-law, Ahmed,
and three of her students. A bomb explosion in town. At Les Trois Bleus, their favourite
café.

How many thousands of times had he replayed this sentence since: Mathilde was killed
today…Mathilde was killed today… Until he had to close it down, bury it. So deep
he could not hear it anymore. Tilde.

Is that why it had been Lemoine? He saw his face looking into his. Don’t ask what
you don’t need to know.

I was supposed to be there, Madeleine says. I was supposed to be there. With them.
With Mathilde.

He remembered one evening, an operation unexpectedly postponed, he had returned to
Algiers. Madeleine had been surprised to see him. Tilde had been there. Tilde, whose
husband had been killed in the riots of ’57.

Tilde.

Auguste.

How are you, the children?

They’re well, and how…

And Salima, how old is she now? She must be what, five, six?

Six. She’s at school already.

It never hurt to let them know.