The Influence Peddlers Page 9

  “If you were really clever, you would marry the widow Tijani.”

  To speak in front of Raouf about his cousin, even if she was distant, was a provocation, if not a crime. Karim had done it on purpose. He had just been discussing politics with Raouf, who had criticized his bourgeois nationalism, his contradictory tastes for alcohol and theology, and his willingness to force women to wear the veil until better times. Raouf chose not to acknowledge Karim’s provocation and to take advantage of it to tease Belkhodja:

  “Si Mabrouk’s daughter? He’s too afraid!”

  “Afraid of what?” Karim had asked, “She’s a true believer.”

  “He’s afraid she’ll give him theology lessons! She knows ten times more than he does.”

  “She wears glasses,” Belkhodja said, “She knows too much, too much learning is the learning of unbelievers!”

  And to change the subject, he grabbed Raouf’s French newspaper and made fun of the photos of women in bathing suits:

  “Even the French are starting to raise skinny cows!”

  They all laughed. It was a jab without apparent ill-will, but what Belkhodja had said about Kathryn Bishop and the cow of Satan had already made the rounds in the city. For Raouf, to allow this latest jab to pass was to bow before Belkhodja. The merchant hadn’t spoken at random. He knew that the caïd’s son wasn’t comfortable when he talked about the Americans. He had the awkwardness of a lover. The time had come to jab him harder, to push him, to find out who was strongest. But Raouf was quick to reply: A beautiful woman, according to their dear mentor, has large thighs, large breasts, a large behind, and can carry three gallons on her head; otherwise she is a . . . concession to colonialism! . . . Everyone laughed . . . Raouf continued:

  “A beautiful woman can even have a mustache, as long as it doesn’t look like his . . .” More laughter.

  Belkhodja was caught off-guard. He planned to continue with cows, but first he wanted to defend himself against liking large behinds and mustaches. He knew what the others had understood, it was infamy, but if he defended himself Raouf would ask him why he was blushing at an innocent joke . . . They would laugh even harder . . . It would be best to continue with the cow of Satan, but he had to refresh it. Belkhodja tried to come up with a new phrase, maybe another animal. He was hesitating as they watched him. Around the table everyone thought he had already spent too much time thinking. Café conversation is pitiless. They once again turned toward Raouf. It was his turn to speak because the merchant was too slow. It was his turn to continue, and they knew how he would.

  Belkhodja told himself that he had made a mistake in provoking the caïd’s son, because what he was now going to use against the merchant was not popular ideas, the fashion of skinny women or perverted innovations, it was something else: it was the Arabic language. Everyone knew it. They were silent. That was the problem with Raouf. He walked around with foreign women, but he could speak the language within the language, the one that they revered all the more since they were in the process of losing it while saying toumoubile, camioune, birou, tilifoune, ventilatour, or putting verbs after their subjects like the infidels; and, in contrast, Raouf for years had been going back in time. That ink-licker wasn’t content to learn the Koran by heart. He knew what they had given up knowing through centuries of stagnation: the most beautiful texts, those of the earliest times–Ibn al-Muqaffa‘, Abu Nuwas, al-Jahiz, Badi‘ al-Zaman, Abul ‘Ala al-Ma‘arri–the elegance before the reign of the devout, and Belkhodja could not respond. One didn’t interrupt in a vulgar language someone who is resurrecting the language par excellence. Raouf was going to recite. They preferred to listen to him rather than run the risk of a serious incident by allowing Belkhodja to return to his jabs. They were waiting for some immortal verses on feminine beauty and desire, and the tragedy of desiring beauty.

  Belkhodja stood up: “Fat or skinny, when they want a rug, I have to be there.” He added half a proverb: “Work, and you will become strong . . .” No need to tell them the rest. They knew it: Stay seated and you’ll stink. He really liked reminding them that he was the only one to earn his living without depending on anyone. The others had deigned to laugh, and said good-bye to him. He had stepped away from the joust. They were grateful that he had anticipated his defeat and, above all, Karim had said, that he had spared his friends another display of Raouf’s pedantry.

  Everyone assumed it was only a lull in the storm, but in the days that followed Belkhodja had practically stopped talking about women, marriage, or cows. And if he no longer talked about them, it was because one doesn’t catch a hare by beating a drum: he had finally found the right path, thanks to a friend of his aunt’s. No, he hadn’t consulted his mother—there are things a son doesn’t talk about with his mother, especially when she doesn’t miss an occasion to make him feel the degree to which he still needs her—so a friend of his aunt’s who was also a distant relation of Raouf’s dead mother and whom Raouf avoided because she wanted him to marry a girl of quality. She was reputed to be an excellent matchmaker. For Belkhodja, it would have been ironic to succeed in his undertaking thanks to a relative of that young jackal who spent his time laughing at him. He had spoken with her discreetly. He had been telling her personal things since he was an adolescent, since she had told him not to go with perverted women, or at least to talk about it with Doctor Berthommier, a useful Christian, who had given Belkhodja good advice. When they had met during the winter Belkhodja had told the woman: “I want her to smile, I don’t want a wife who yells, I want her honest and really smiling. I don’t want one of those women who rest on their virtue and the children they give you to make your life miserable. There is worse than a perverted wife, it’s the wife who gets it into her head that virtue implies rights!” Belkhodja was proud of that phrase and to see that it elicited respect in his interlocutrice.

  The search had taken a long time. Money never passed between the merchant and the matchmaker. The first time he had brought her a superb tribal mat, and she had thanked him: “You are so kind, Si Hassan, but I don’t have any more room for rugs. Once is good, you’re generous, but be careful, a marriage costs a lot, really a lot!” He had understood. She only liked raw silk, at each visit a large bolt of the finest quality. All of that was more expensive than gold coins, but he didn’t have anyone else he could talk to about this. For hours she described what she had been doing, the time she was spending, her poor legs, her poor nerves. She above all described for him the charms of his future life as a married man, the births, the first steps, the circumcisions, and the day when he would accompany his eldest son to school for the first time, and all the other children, at least three sons and a daughter, the youngest, his favorite, a true joy, but the sons would be his pride, which is more important than joy. She knew how to flavor each of their meetings, without forgetting to mention the difficulty of her task: “You understand, Si Hassan, you can find beauty, you can find virtue, you can find virtuous beauty, but someone who really smiles . . . You’re asking too much, that is only found in paradise, there is something excessive in your request, that’s what people tell me, you know, or they lie to me. You’re going to have to be patient . . . We’ll find someone, Si Hassan, with the help of God!” Then came the best part, the tale of the life that awaited Belkhodja, buying a little donkey to amuse the children, meals under the large willow tree, his wife’s smiling face.

  Belkhodja felt the weight of time passing more and more heavily, and sometimes doubted the matchmaker’s abilities. But at the end of the month of June she finally found him a very promising match, a nice young girl, not too tall or too short, not skinny but not too fat, just what he needed, not a chatterbox, and no mustache, “pretty, appetizing, modest and calm, and smiling, as you asked” . . . Her family? Not too demanding but well regarded, a chance that shouldn’t be missed. Yes, from the country, thirty miles from Nahbès, but not uneducated. The road has gone by them for ten years. “The girl’s skin is very white; she blushes even when she moves.
There are days when I would like to be a man . . .”

  Belkhodja then became a man in a hurry. His young friends, including Raouf, found out what was happening and warned him: beware of sleeping water. Send other women to see her, to see her mother. The girl will become the mother. You’re the one who told us of the faceless risk. Take your time. Raouf had said, “Women often change” . . . Belkhodja’s upper lip was pulled up. He said, “Another word of wisdom from the Christian” . . . Raouf acted as if he hadn’t heard. He had recited ankartu ma qad kuntu a‘rifuhu minha . . . and I no longer recognize anything of what I knew of her. He fell silent after those words to give Belkhodja time to complete the phrase, but Belkhodja knew no more about the verses of Bashar than he did about French authors, and the ending Raouf recited in a sad voice didn’t please him: siwa almaw‘udi wa lghadri . . . apart from promises and betrayal . . . There wasn’t any sarcasm in Raouf’s voice, but in veiled terms Belkhodja said that he had found the opposite, the exact opposite of a cow of Satan, adding that he didn’t need poetry, that he had the clarity and insight of religion! A flat response, he knew. He lacked the panache of a reader, but at least commerce had taught him not to hesitate when a true opportunity presented itself. There would always be risk, but if his interest in the girl became too well known, there could be competition, vultures. People knew of his experience. Someone else would jump on the opportunity to take advantage of Belkhodja’s expertise. Belkhodja quickly concluded the marriage, to shut the vultures’—and Raouf’s—mouths, since he suspected Raouf of preparing some sort of revenge.

  And at the beginning of July 1922 there was a wonderful celebration. Belkhodja was overjoyed to hear a very friendly Raouf call him a “lucid guide of youth” in the speech he gave in front of all their friends a few days before the wedding, at a party where fig alcohol and whiskey had ultimately played an excessive role, in Belkhodja’s opinion. Only Ganthier, whom he had invited along with some other big European clients, maintained a reserve which made him Belkhodja’s favorite interlocutor. Belkhodja told him everything that he had laid out for months in front of the little band, refusing a girl from too good a family—the powerful are dangerous for a good man—innocent chastity, and a smile, especially a smile . . . a choice that won unanimous support. He pointed to Raouf: “Even he, what he said, for once, wasn’t salt in my jam!”

  On his way home, Ganthier was accompanied by Raouf, walking under the stars. Ganthier was amused at Belkhodja’s choice:

  “That man likes the money of today, but he has chosen a girl from the past. He would never have chosen a girl from the city, for fear of finding a rebel.” Ganthier stopped, faced Raouf:

  “Do you know why here you are so afraid of women who have a bit of strength?”

  “I’m not afraid!” Raouf said.

  “Alright, but that lovely blend of women and fear, doesn’t that remind you of anything? Your childhood . . . servants . . . You wanted to stay in the garden when it was getting dark, so they threatened to call the creature from the outside, the ghoul, the female with the hands of an octopus, the head of a hyena, and teeth as long as fingers, furry like a spider. Did you disobey? She was going to eat your privates! That has an effect, doesn’t it?” Raouf didn’t answer. His father had forbidden the servants to tell his son stories of ghouls. It was paganism, said the caïd, and not long ago, for less than that, they burned people. There is divinity only in God! It happened, however, that Raouf regretted not having known such fears, and never having had dealings except with real enemies. He answered Ganthier, a few words, the ghoul . . . the universal ghoul . . . Then he was quiet, as if observing the scruples of friendship, and Ganthier understood. He, himself, wasn’t doing so well right now with a free woman. He, too, had his “man-eater,” who in fact didn’t want to eat, and Raouf was expressing even more irony than if he had openly mentioned Gabrielle. His silence caused Ganthier real anguish . . . to each his ghoul.

  The first month of marriage was a great month for Belkhodja, with a wife who was always joyful, maybe not such a good housekeeper, but Belkhodja had agreed that she could bring a female servant who picked up the slack, and the young wife got along well with her mother-in-law: Your wife is very good, she said, at least she doesn’t talk too much! Belkhodja let the “at least” go by. The family relations were in order, and order, as a German client once told him, is half of life. The young wife answered “yes” to all of her husband’s requests—na‘am a sidi, a model of smiling modesty—she rubbed his back when he was in the bath. She didn’t object to things during love, but didn’t take any of those initiatives that could have led him to believe that she might be leading another life, either active or imaginary.

  There was one thing that annoyed the merchant: his wife was very upset, almost ill, at the idea of joining him in the bathtub after bathing her husband. She obeyed, but derived no pleasure from it, which deprived Belkhodja of his. She would smile with a forced air, her gaze became increasingly vague. He didn’t like that absent air. He asked her to exchange it for a happier face, which she couldn’t manage to do. She was on the verge of tears while still looking like she was smiling. He liked that bathtub, but decided to no longer inflict on his wife something she didn’t like. As for his water games, he kept them for his stays in a hotel in the capital, with other women. As for his wife, she went four times a week to the hammam. At La Porte du Sud, no one dared tell Belkhodja that four times was a lot.

  11

  THE STORY OF THE ICE

  Raouf thought that the Americans were pushing it a bit at the bar of the Grand Hôtel with their story of the trial, but for Ganthier that’s what they were all about, an oversized character, an oversized story, an enormous scandal, a crazy amount of money. What they love, said Ganthier, is to dream, and they fashion their dreams from blows of an ax, punches in the face, sledgehammers or hydraulic drills, with dollars. They have to have the biggest dream, and if there are several of them to fight for who has the biggest, it’s even better. They love battles with the sound of bones cracking, like in their football. They have to knock heads, and in the end there aren’t any winners, there are just survivors . . . When they arrived at the front in 1917, they had no experience, but they really wanted to knock heads. They kept saying, “Hit fast, hit hard.” I ran into one of their colonels who was commanding a tank brigade. As soon as there was an opening, he set off. They had to hold him back. He dreamed of being the first to cross the Rhine. He wanted a redo of the Battle of Ulm. His name was Catton, or Vatton. He told me about the Battle of Ulm over an entire night, with whiskey. He knew it to the last detail, better than Napoleon! When I asked him how he remembered so many details, he hesitated, and then confided in me, “I was there” . . . He wasn’t joking. He believed in reincarnation. He was crazy, and that’s why he won.

  And for Fatty Arbuckle, the catastrophe, Cavarro had said, was the ice. They had already talked about the ice, about when Delmont and the others had testified that they had placed large pieces on Virginia’s stomach after putting her in the bathtub, but this was something else:

  “What did Mr. Arbuckle say to you the next day, Tuesday, in Los Angeles, regarding the ice?” the district attorney asked Semnacher. Semnacher refused to respond directly. He wrote on a piece of paper, and the district attorney read out loud. Tuesday, in his house in Los Angeles, Fatty had said to Semnacher: “You know, I even put a piece of ice in her vagina!” The newspapers talked about unpublishable proof. In fact, it wasn’t proof, no one who was at the bathtub and ice scene, even Maude Delmont, had claimed that Fatty had put anything anywhere—it was the joke of the next day, said Samuel Katz, Fatty and his disgusting jokes. The district attorney knew, what was important was that it got around.

  “I’m almost sure that Cavarro and Daintree were at Fatty’s party,” Ganthier said to Gabrielle. He was facing the death penalty, but the grand jury charged Arbuckle only with involuntary manslaughter.

  “And there was a lot more talk about the power of the rich,”
Kathryn had added. Gabrielle didn’t tell Rania the story of the piece of ice.

  At the end of September Fatty was released on bail, Neil Daintree saying that that was when there was some real drama, from the Vigilantes, who were watching the crowds. One of them had brandished an enormous hat pin saying she was going to kill that assassin. The others had applauded, but when Arbuckle appeared, he’s the one everyone applauded, with “Way to go, Fatty!” and so on. Cavarro pointing out that everyone then talked about female fickleness: they love angels but they applaud the beast, because they need him, like in the time of the Indians, or maybe they were playing two roles at the same time, defending a dead girl and supporting a living man!

  At the farm, Rania had repeated: “Two roles at the same time . . .” She found that interesting, if they hadn’t been vigilantes, would their husbands have allowed them to watch the trial? When you want to fight you do it in the clothes you are given . . . and you have to wait, she thought, For pleasure you also have to fight, and wait for darkness . . . He turns off the lamp, the stars slip through the window . . . He with me, my heart is breaking . . . He will break me out of prison . . . or he will forget me . . . I can’t stand the idea that he might forget me . . . I tear off his clothes . . . He is every pleasure . . . and pain . . . I want him to watch me, and I’m afraid of the moment he will, I must wait . . . aniyatu l’hawadith—in the basket of hours events remain hidden.

  The judge wanted the trial to be over before the end of 1921. The jury was quickly selected. Fatty had a new lawyer, McNab, quite a presence, said Samuel Katz, a serious face, a man who fears God, and who makes him fearsome. He looked down on everyone from a height of over six feet. He was the one who looked like a district attorney, and Brady, across from him, with his assistants, looked like neighborhood ruffians. McNab was also the only one who looked the Vigilantes in the first row in the eye so they would think about their own sins. He didn’t say that women were the root of all evil, Samuel chuckled, but it was clear that he was persuaded of that. Ganthier realized that Samuel Katz was the only one who had attended the entire trial, the only one who tried to see things clearly, but the problem was all the contradictions. Some witnesses had spoken to the police and signed their statements, then retracted them. Others had refused to sign, and said the opposite on the stand, then they had confirmed, or not, the first statement they had signed, or not. The district attorney made accusations of corruption by “the defense of a millionaire.” The defense asserted that the district attorney was threatening and sequestering the witnesses . . . A true American story, Samuel continued, of sex, alcohol, principles, money, and emotion: the public came, morality was exalted, death hovered, the press made money . . .