Chapter 6
Ahmed ben Lulla lay on his own bed in his own hotel room which now seemed so much less of a prison. He chuckled to himself happily. He was in love with a prostitute whose name, he'd discovered, was Francoise Lou-vier and she was in love with him. He'd paid his contribution to the NLF and he had no more serious money troubles. Every day he ate a good meal and he'd paid off his hotel arrears. That was on the credit side. On the debit side, and the chuckle muted in his throat as he thought of it, was the fact that she was still taking her stance outside her "office" and being solidly fucked by several men every night, the fact that he still couldn't find a job, the fact that they were both tied to their present situation by their need of money.
For the first day or two after the night they'd spent together at her hotel, he'd sat in the same bar watching her, cringing, losing his stomach every time a man stopped and spoke to her, aching in his soul when he saw her turn and lead a man into the hotel. He'd see a light go on overlooking the street three storeys up and it would remain on sometimes for as long as 25 minutes, sometimes just for ten. Then there would be darkness and the man would come out of the hotel, look round as if to prove that he wasn't embarrassed and then walk briskly away, his lust satiated. A minute or two later she would come out, just as if nothing had happened, and glance over at the cafe where he sat. After a little of the watching he'd felt too sick to do it any more and had removed himself to another cafe or spent the hours in his hotel room waiting for the early morning when he'd see her.
She had decided, although he hadn't really understood the necessity, that he should keep his own room and not move in with her completely. There might be trouble with the protection, she'd said. It was better if she didn't appear to have any attachments.
Reluctantly he'd agreed. They had talked for a long time about what they could do. She said it meant nothing to her to continue her "profession." It was the most certain way that they could go on making money. Besides, she'd agreed to stay in the protection ring for a year at least and she was afraid they might get nasty if she tried to withdraw. They'd slashed some negress who'd tried to get out to marry a paratrooper. And in any case they had no other way to live.
Now she was on the job, being fucked at this very moment probably. Even as he lay here on his bed gazing up at the cracked ceiling, she was groaning under the weight of some gasping stranger, her legs all awry while he thrust up into her belly to rid himself of the weight of desire in his loins. He caught his breath. This couldn't go on.
He glanced at the newspaper beside him on the bed with its headlines about the assassination of the police superintendent. There was no escape once you'd been marked by the nationalists. If a police chief was unsafe, what chance did a lone Algerian have against the secret forces of Algeria for the Algerians.
It was an astonishing business. There was a lot of talk in the newspaper of special police measures, of the city being unsafe for the general public, even suggestion of the deportation wholesale of the Algerians in the metropolis. But there was always so much talk and never any conclusive action. Ahmed knew that Algeria for the Algerians would eventually become a reality. The sweep of nationalism from Syria to Morocco was undeniable. But he didn't see how much in Algeria would change because of it. Algeria would still be no place to make a fortune in-but it might become a place where the bidonvilles were replaced with the decent sort of apartments that even the poorer French population occupied.
In the meantime-a police chief! The reign of terror in Paris, designed to push the government to making concessions to the nationalists elsewhere, was taking a dangerous shape.
And its effect on the Algerian population of Paris would be considerable. There would be no defaulters in the payment of contribution for the funds to create a new nation.
His thoughts wandered off politics and a brave new North Africa to his comparative happiness of the last few days. She loved him. It was the first time she, too, had considered a man as a person in whom she would find sympathy and a desire which was not purely to tear down her panties and fuck. But in bed she was warm and sweet and a relieving shelter from all their uncertainty. Every time he threaded gently into her warm, receptive body he felt at peace and could forget all events and anxieties beyond the moment in which they joined to share a fleeting movement together which convulsed them in a vacuum of pleasure which involved only themselves.
But when he made love to her at the end of the night or in the early morning or sometimes later, even, during the day, he suffered from the knowledge of those who had so recently made love to her before him, even though she claimed that it meant nothing to her, that the girl in bed with them was a different person without feeling, thinking only of the time when she would see him again and of the money she was accumulating which would be of use to them.
He was interrupted from his reverie by a sharp tap on the door. He moved slowly off the bed. For some reason the tap had seemed to contain a menace. But he'd paid his contribution. What sort of menace could there possibly be?
He stepped across to the door and opened it without calling out to ask who was there. Three men sidled into the room, pushing him in front of them and closing the door Behind them. All three were Algerians. Two of them had collected his contribution to the funds only a day ago.
"What's this?" he said. A coldness seeped inside him, surrounding his heart like ice water.
None of the men replied. One placed himself in front of the door, another moved over between Ahmed and the window and the third pushed him back onto the bed and looked Jit him with a vicious smile. Ahmed had never seen a killer before, but looking at this man he knew that killing was his job and his chest began to flutter with horror.
The smile on the man's face broadened and managed to become more vicious. His teeth were startlingly white where one might have expected them to be dirty and decayed. He had a feline air of nervous energy, perfectly controlled. Ahmed's voice dried up; he felt drained of life itself.
After a long, intimidating silence, the man in front of him spoke.
"You are a good boy," he said, with a sneer in his voice. "You managed recently to pay your contribution to the movement in spite of difficult circumstances. These circumstances did not, of course, provide any more reason for you not to pay. It's of no interest whether you can pay or not-no personal interest to us, you understand. But the fact that you paid shows you are a good boy, which we recognize ... "
His voice droned on and, after a few seconds of astonishment that they seemed so aware of his circumstances, Ahmed hardly heard the words. He stared into the dark vicious eyes of his visitor, fascinated as by a cobra. Occasionally the words swam back into his consciousness and then he lost them again, becoming aware, this time, only of the man's cruel lips, moving slightly as he talked.
". . .Francoise Louvier is the property of the-of certain people who protect her," the voice came through, startling him with the mention of her name and pulling him together at the thought that she, too, might be involved with these men. "She can, thus, not be permitted to become too intimate with others who are nothing to do with the protection. She might get ideas."
He paused and in the next second Ahmed saw that there was a long, slim knife in his hand. It had appeared there as if he'd pulled it out of the air like a professional conjuror. He balanced it casually on the flat of his hand while he talked.
"We can, therefore, not allow such an insignificant part of humanity as you to interfere in her life and consequently in the life of the organization behind her. You will, therefore, not see her again and not contact her in any way."
The indication in the words that at least he was not at this moment to be killed out of hand, reacted so strongly, so reassuringly in Ahmed's mind that he voiced a small protest.
"But we are in love with each other," he said. "It would be impossible ... "
The man's hand slashed through the air and lashed him full across the face, not only numbing him with pain, but knocking him sideways down on the bed with its unexpected force.
The grin on his face became, if it were possible, even more vicious than, before.
"You have been warned," he said, pricking the point of the knife against Ahmed's throat. "You know what it is to disobey."
Ahmed said nothing. Here he sensed his life hung on a thread.
The.man withdrew the knife and slipped it away inside his dark jacket. He motioned to the man near the window, who crossed the room. He grinned at Ahmed and said softly: "Don't make us have to see you again."
And then the door opened and, one after the other with movements so swift that they seemed to move out like one person, they left.
Ahmed lay where he'd been knocked, for, several seconds without moving, and then he raised his fingers to his face, where he could now feel the stinging pain. His heart was beating like a train shunting. The whole interview had lasted only a few minutes. They had come and gone like phantoms walking out of a dream, not belonging to the material world one knew and recognized.
After several minutes more his thoughts began to clarify and rushed to Frangoise, who, even now, unaware of the danger he'd just-for the moment-survived, was submitting to a stranger's lovemaking in a hotel a few blocks away. The thought that he would obey, would not see her again, never occurred to him. His mind was simply flooded with thoughts on how to evade this embargo. He stood up and went to the airshaft, stared down into its gloomy depths which seemed an abyss as dark and endless as the future.