The Influence Peddlers Read online

  Rania didn’t know why she was telling those stories, but she liked the laughs she brought out of Kathryn, and Kathryn was happy to have become Rania’s friend, as if that friendship gave her permission to keep her cousin as an escort in a world that was proving basically to be more welcoming than she had been told. “The women especially are horrible,” Marfaing had asserted, “They are prevented from having contact with the outside world, so they would like the same, or almost the same, for the men. Hchouma, shame—they are constantly assaulted with that word, so they seize it and throw it in the faces of their lords and masters. You saw So-and-So at a reception of the contrôle civil? Hchouma. So-and-So is going to France on business? Hchouma. So-and-So had a European-style suit made for himself? Hchouma. They don’t dare say anything about the presence of men in the cafés of the medina, but if it’s a café in the European city, hchouma. They have become the guards of the guards of their prison. Marfaing didn’t allow for any exceptions, but Rania was indeed one. She wasn’t ashamed to be seen with two “Christians” right in the central market.

  At one point the three women saw an older European woman who was walking with her back to them, a very large, overweight woman wearing a voluminous, billowing flowered dress, which was sticking to her sweaty skin, a half dozen boys behind her, who burst out laughing and shoved each other while pointing her out to the entire market. The woman was carrying her two baskets by herself:

  “You see what happens when you refuse their help. They cause a ruckus,” said Rania. Then she pointed at Kathryn’s basket, “You’re going to put all of that in your hotel room?” Kathryn trying to find a pretext for going back to the Grand Hôtel with her provisions, and suddenly a cry of triumph:

  “I’m going to host a dinner!” Gabrielle asking:

  “Where?”

  “At your place! I’ll take care of everything, okay? Neil will agree, I’ll make an American dinner, there will be a dozen or so of us, right?” She hesitated for a moment when she realized Rania couldn’t come . . . “No, fewer people, we’ll invite only women, a dinner of women! Like in New York! Rania, you’ll come!”

  Rania didn’t say anything. Gabrielle was a bit taken aback, but Kathryn reassured her, Tess, her maid, would be there to help:

  “Tess knows how to do everything and when she doesn’t she learns very quickly, that’s how she has survived.”

  Kathryn pounced on everything, vegetables, fruits, flowers, spices, then she led her friends to the fowl vendor, Abdelhaq, who was suddenly obsequious, of course, the most beautiful of my turkeys, signaling to one of his helpers, who came back holding in his arms a beautiful live turkey that was throwing its head in every direction, Abdelhaq himself sharpening a knife that sent out reflections that the turkey was trying to catch, fifteen minutes and it would be ready, Kathryn paying, immediately setting off to a stall selling potbellied onions. Behind her it wasn’t just one but now three small porters who were following her.

  “May I ask you a very indiscreet question,” Rania asked Kathryn. Kathryn on alert, Gabrielle plunging into an examination of a bunch of leeks. She would have given anything to have avoided this.

  “Anything you want,” Kathryn had said in a flat tone, caught off-guard, an aisle in the market . . . The question would seem nonchalant . . . Gabrielle would necessarily hear . . . And Rania, quite emotional at daring to ask such a thing:

  “Would you tell me the story of Warrior of the Sands?”

  Kathryn, relieved, quickly launched into a synopsis of the screenplay right in the market. The hero was called Jamil, yes, that’s the role Francis plays: he’s a soldier in the Turkish forces during the war between Syria and Turkey. He is a member of an Arab tribe. He deserts, and in a remote village he discovers a clinic for orphans run by American missionaries, Doctor Field, and his daughter, whom I play, Kathryn suddenly wondering if Rania had ever seen a movie in her life, not knowing if she should give more details, Rania understanding her hesitation and saying:

  “We have a projector in my father’s house. I’ve even seen Broken Blossoms.”

  They stopped talking when they saw the older woman with the baskets passing in front of them. The woman shot a venomous look at Kathryn.

  “What did I do to her?” Kathryn asked.

  “Don’t play the innocent,” Gabrielle responded, “To other women you’re public enemy number one.”

  Kathryn continued: “The chief of the village wants to appease the Turks and decides to hand over the children, who would be slaughtered, so the horsemen of Jamil’s tribe arrive on the scene.”

  “That,” said Gabrielle, “is like the cavalry in your Indian stories.”

  “Yes, and with some dramatic license, Jamil, the one who deserted from the Turks, is the son of the chief of the Bedouin tribe, and at that moment they learn of his father’s death . . .”

  Rania: “Isn’t that another example of theatrical license?”

  “In the theater they wouldn’t dare do that,” said Gabrielle.

  “You can in the movies,” said Kathryn, “if it makes a good scene.”

  “That’s called boulevard theater,” Gabrielle concluded. Kathryn said to Rania:

  “Gabrielle is the only friend I have who dares voice reservations about film . . . So Jamil becomes the chief, and he risks his life to save the children, he fights the Turks . . .” Rania says:

  “Do the missionaries convert the children?”

  “No,” said Kathryn, “It seems that would cause some problems.”

  “I can guess the ending: the chief of the tribe marries the doctor’s daughter.”

  “You don’t like that?”

  Kathryn had laughed at Rania’s awkward silence. Rania was keeping to herself a too harsh thought about marriage with foreigners, How can I say we are against it, but without bitterness? No, we’re not against it, open the borders, but in both directions, and it would be enough to decide that no one would ever be merchandise again . . . Kathryn had added:

  “Basically, I’m like Neil, I’m wary of conclusions that are too simple, but you have to make a living, right? The real movie will be Eugénie Grandet, but first we have to bring in money with Warrior of the Sands.”

  “I have confidence in Neil,” said Gabrielle.

  “Gabrielle is from Paris, Parisian women are very critical,” said Kathryn.

  “You mean they don’t like true feelings?” asked Rania.

  “We didn’t learn about life in David Copperfield! Look at that!” Gabrielle was pointing at the older woman whose back was again turned toward them, sweating in the aisle, the fabric of her flowered dress now stuck in the large crevice between her buttocks. The kids were shouting, making fun of her, imitating the woman’s walk.

  “You see what happens when you refuse the porters,” said Rania. The kids’ shouts transformed into a clumsy chorus, in French: “Madam, madam, your ass is eating your dress! Your ass is eating your dress!” The woman didn’t seem to understand. Maybe she was Italian or Maltese, or she was pretending not to understand.

  “She’s not French,” said Rania, “Otherwise the market police would have already intervened. She’s not French, but she understands.”

  “How do you know?” asked Gabrielle.

  “She’s not turning around.”

  “You’d make a good director,” said Kathryn.

  As they were leaving they ran into Raouf and Ganthier. Gabrielle was afraid Rania would be troubled, but on the contrary, she reacted first and gestured to the two men who acknowledged them. Through the veil that covered her face she had called them “the protectorate in two volumes,” then, turning to Gabrielle: “You know what is happening? They see each other so often that they are blending into each other, and one of these days each will see the other in the mirror!” Ganthier didn’t say anything, his face severe, as if hardened by the impeccable part that divided the hair on his head. He was holding his hat in both hands in front of him. Raouf was acting proud, and Rania knew that it was a sign th
at he wasn’t comfortable in his role, either.

  16

  A SMILING WIFE

  As the weeks went by Belkhodja started to notice that his wife sometimes stopped listening to him. She smiled but she didn’t hear. He had to repeat himself. Her face assumed a vague look, like someone who was off in a dream. He didn’t like that. He was worried. He tried not to think about it. Then, at La Porte du Sud, he surprised the members of the little group who were smiling, smiles of connivance. His worries returned, but he stopped thinking about them because his wife had apparently stopped dreaming. But another time, one of the young men called out to him just as he was arriving, as if to warn the others, who in turn began to call to him with a gaiety that he found false. He was sleeping badly, calmed himself down, tried the next day to catch the group unawares by coming through the back room. That day they were silent. Silence is much worse. It’s meant to hide something, because it’s serious. He dared to ask the reason for it. The silence had settled before he arrived because of the absence of Farouk, their favorite waiter: his father had died.

  That death comforted Belkhodja. He slept better, but his worries returned, more frequently, heavier, at each dreamy smile from his wife. The matchmaker had gone north, no one knew where. He chided himself for not continuing to visit her with bolts of silk. There was no one to talk to now, to help him battle the return of what he called his hyenas. Up until then he had only known the terrors that came with his trade. Now others had come. He sometimes said to himself that the matchmaker had put into his arms the opposite of what she had promised. He chased away that thought, scolded himself, chased away the hyenas, but in the shop a client said something about a fool: “He’s being cuckolded and what’s more he helps with his hand,” and the hyenas returned. He could see his wife smiling at him. She was accompanied by a figure that he couldn’t place. He ran home to find his wife busy rolling out the couscous in the company only of their servants.

  He pulled himself together. He had always had anxieties . . . In his activities as a rug merchant it happened that he would wake up in a sweat at three in the morning after having the day before sent two rugs with an invoice to a compatriot living in Marseille, and he was suddenly sure that he would never receive the money, not even the deposit that should have been paid to him immediately. It was madness to work that way. He used to say that there were things worse than theft, such as showing that one is afraid of being stolen from, and that’s how you get stolen from, he would say to himself without being able to fall back asleep. It would soon be dawn. He neglected to do his first prayer. He scolded God for tolerating bad payers in his creation. He got ready to go out, too early, squeezed an imaginary throat with his two hands, caught himself, finally left his house, walking briskly, to go squeeze the payment from his client’s brother. And on his way he met an employee of that brother who was bringing him the deposit. And it was the same thing with his wife, it wasn’t her fault. Belkhodja calmed down. He was filled with tenderness. Then he thought of the moment when he would catch her in the act: he killed the man with a knife, attacked her, and woke from a waking dream that ruined his digestion after lunch. He thought he was stupid, reconciled with the world for two or three days, went crazy because at La Porte du Sud someone had said: “The best chicken is the one your neighbor has fed.” And then calmed down again.

  One morning, looking at his sleeping wife’s face, he cried tears of tenderness and remorse. He had chased away his suspicions. She had begun to move. He hadn’t wanted to wake her. He was leaving the room when he saw her move her legs, still sleeping, a smile on her lips. His wife had strange dreams. Women who dream are the worst. He knew what was behind that smile: he knew the dreams of other women, girls in the capital, those who lived in the Sphinx and the Miramar, who greeted him gaily while telling him that for weeks, even in the daylight, they dreamed of certain parts of his body; and those words that, in the capital, enchanted him, now came back to him like blows from a whip.

  He was suspicious of the servant she had brought with her, neither young nor old, an ordinary face, with smallpox scars. She could have been a madam. He ordered the little maid to watch the servant on the pretext that someone was stealing from him. The little maid quickly reported that the servant had conversations on the terrace with someone she didn’t know. The images returned, the warm ground of the terrace around three in the afternoon, a couple who hides behind sheets hanging out to dry, and people think it’s the wind that’s making them move. He no longer dared leave Nahbès. He no longer went to the capital—he who really liked making good deals, finding some pleasure, spending and dreaming of grandeur—now he was sacrificing his dreams for those of his wife, but he continued to wax his mustache and look elegant in front of his friends. There is someone more laughable than a cuckold, Raouf had said one day, it’s the man who thinks he is! Belkhodja said to himself that the caïd’s son was seeking revenge for the cow of Satan. He wanted to reply, but decided not to. He was careful not to be the last to laugh when they told a dirty story.

  Then the madness returned, but not to the point of blinding him, or preventing him from realizing that the little maid was telling the master who had promised her money each time she had something good to tell him what she thought he wanted to hear. Belkhodja sent her away. And two hours later he brought her back, because it was better to have a frightened child under his roof than to condemn to the street someone whom the punishment would have rid of any scruples. He asked one of his friends to watch the servant, citing the same motive: someone was stealing from him. The friend took the mission seriously, even sacrificing part of the time he spent at his hardware shop. He quickly summed up the situation and said: “No, no theft, nor anything else.” He liked romantic songs and thought Belkhodja was stupid for having married without love and then becoming insanely jealous.

  Jealousy had become Belkhodja’s second profession. He was capable of dropping everything and running to the old city to try to catch a man who had just been brought up in conversation; a crazy pursuit, follow his nose to the suspect, decipher what he could from the face of that new suspect: fear? sarcasm? calculation? And once he was in front of the man Belkhodja was nothing but friendly, he was pleased to have met him, it was destiny: I’m having a gathering of friends, this evening, a few young people, too, who admire you, they want to talk to you, don’t insult me . . . You will be the guest of honor! The man put his hand on his heart, accepted, and Belkhodja returned quickly to his shop, sent his helpers to go invite some people for an impromptu party, and to let his wife know there would be a dinner with his friends that evening.

  The man came to the dinner, was friendly with everyone. Belkhodja calmed down, watched him, was mad at himself for suspecting him, hugged him while joking, offered him a kidney cooked to perfection, shining with a dark, dense sauce, and at that moment caught the look of another guest, a look directed at the door that opened onto the private rooms. Suddenly there was a huge hole in his chest. He had allowed the cat to guard the meat! That other guest was the friend he had asked to investigate and who was caressing with his eyes the most sacred place in his home.

  The next day, at dawn, he went to pay that friend a visit, then decided otherwise: if he were guilty, he would be expecting his visit . . . Be patient, then, surprise him when the tension has let up, and in the middle of the afternoon Belkhodja went to verify whether the friend was indeed in his hardware shop. He wasn’t there. Belkhodja, enraged, went to his own house, this time taking a closed carriage to escape the eyes of watchers, and burst out in front of his wife, who was surprised, smiling, beyond suspicion. He went back to his shop, calmer. Your friend has just left. He was looking for you. He came to thank you for the dinner. He went to La Porte du Sud. Belkhodja hurried to the café, afraid his friend would mention the surveillance missions he had undertaken, but no, the man remained discreet. Belkhodja promised himself, however, to keep him away from the gatherings of the little band, then reassured himself: they never talked ab
out his marriage there.

  Except that Raouf, one day when they were talking about the role of lookouts in the service of lovers, had seemed to give Belkhodja an ironic look, citing Ibn Hazm’s old code on the art of love concerning the endless wandering of the jealous man, and Belkhodja said to himself that the caïd’s son must know something, no doubt through his father. There must be a police report on certain movements around his house. Raouf knew. He was perhaps involved, out of vengeance? Belkhodja gnashed his teeth without arriving at any real conclusions.

  He went to see a sorceress in Nahbès, an Italian woman. He had his Tarot read. The prudent sorceress didn’t see anything, but he knew that he would again fall prey to his hyenas. His suspicions grew and shrank like the phases of the moon. He no longer talked about the Americans or the cow of Satan. He was afraid he had called the evil eye upon himself by invoking the devil. He thought he was living the worst of what an existence could endure, but when he began to no longer have the strength to run after shadows in the streets, he soon discovered that the worst was yet to come.

  As the days went by he kept to himself in the back room of his shop, leaving an employee to ruin deals that he would have concluded with no effort. He went only rarely to meet his young friends at the café, and he even lost the will to react, even when he started to imagine that Satan had given another man the duty of providing him with an heir. His nightmares increased his unhappiness. His sin was in having sought an impossible creature. He had, however, said to himself that too good a seamstress would end up sewing the eyes of her husband together, and his wife slept peacefully while he writhed in a pit of snakes.

  His friends became alarmed. They pretended to think he was ill. They pulled him from the pit, took him to the capital, to enjoy life again, and since he loved himself more than anything, he began to drink again, to eat, to play, to satisfy his desires, to do deals, and take long, solitary and dreamy walks, at night, when the city is empty and it can belong to only one man. The capital saved him.