Journal, 1955-1962 : Reflections on the French-Algerian War

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Chapter One

19 55

I November 1, 2955,6:30 P.M.

    "It is raining on the city." The streetlights have been on for two hours, lighting up the closed shutters and doors of silent facades. The city is still and secluded, cunning, hostile, and frightened ...

    This was a calm day, a sad autumn day. Until 4:00, it had not rained; let us say that it was nice. A sun pale with autumn, a sky smutty with melancholic days. The stubborn peal of the All Saints' Day bells cannot wake the village. Although the bells ring for the dead, neither they nor the living can hear them. Hushed and hurried like conspirators, the faithful slip into the church through a half-opened door. Other conspirators who pass by and hastily exchange a weary and meaningless greeting do not see them. The Muslims, like the Christians, have nothing to say to one another. The "Kabyles," like the "French," are not thinking about anything. This morning, it seems that everyone has lost the desire to speak, joke, laugh, drink, come or go. It is as if each person feels trapped and sealed in an airtight bell jar. Vision is still possible, but any attempt at communication, even on the most ordinary and superficial level, is futile. No, really, they have nothing to say to each other today, the 1st of November. This is a sad day--the dead are indifferent, the living anxious, the French are not willing to understand, and the Kabyles refuse to explain.

    It is a day off for the civil servant who will spend the morning in bed. At 8:00 he sleeps peacefully. Today there are no humming motors, prattling children, shouting dealers, passersby discussing just beneath his window. Silence! The street above is just as deserted as the street below. The main street, the village's one and only street, is also empty. Yet, there are shadows moving about, slow or rapid, shadows that move aside at each turn so as not to disturb the deep sense of peace. Day of the dead, day of mourning, day of the living who--like the dead--are silent, their faces beyond reach, like impenetrable graves.

    November 3

    A trip to Algiers, yesterday. They received me with kindness.

    --It is really serious over there? Look, be careful, extremely careful.

    --Why, what happened at home?

    --Don't you read the papers or listen to the radio?

    Of course, there are times when I do not read the papers or listen to the radio. They are saying that on the night of the 31st, Fort-National was attacked twice. They discovered weapons and a body in the field. His soul is with God. This corpse must have vaporized since no one saw it. What did I see when I left at 11:00? People on edge and hesitant about talking to one another. Stores, boutiques, and cafés, all closed. Everything shut down, barricaded, locked up. Mr. L. opened one side of his front door: three or four clients look at each other while young clerks go from one end of the store to the other, pretending to be busy and at the call of a numerous clientele.

    --That is why, he explained to me, I wanted to close. At first, I did close. But from my post, the counter, I saw the clients coming, and I had them reopen the store. You must understand, I was keeping an eye out.

    I understood that he feared an attack. He had sent for two laid-back policemen with the delusional plan that they would protect him. He showed me some official telegrams, which refer to putting the ringleaders of the general strike under house arrest. But, my God, where are the agitators? Everybody follows the lead and is capable of going wherever one chooses to lead them.

    I went back to my place, tired and bored. There was nothing for me to do; nothing held my interest. When I took a nap that afternoon I was reconnected in my dreams to that sense of community that we experienced last Tuesday night.

    Yesterday, just as I started out for Algiers, Fort-National was swarming with life. Like a hive, it took in the Kabyles of the region, selling them fabrics, vegetables, spices, and kabob meat. After reading the newspaper, the citizens were able to think of themselves in slightly heroic terms: the Kabyles because they had threatened and scared off the French, the French for having driven back the shadow of the enemy, and the soldiers who carried out the noble mission entrusted to them. The only exception is the humble sentry who spread the alarm and refuses to be decorated for the resounding errors in the headlines. This is how the press honors us.

    November 6

    However, there is one matter: the atmosphere is no longer what it was. You can feel and see this change, which is brutal only in appearance. This is how that appearance translates: a year ago, when the revolt erupted, we did not want to gauge its importance. Indeed, it really was not important. We were settled into a truly orderly and peaceful existence, a tolerable life structured by small necessities, needs, and daily tasks. We took care of illnesses, surmounted difficulties, and held reasonable expectations. We experienced bad manners without scandals, disputes without aftermath, and friendships without roots. We deserved this peaceful time. It was necessary--that each of us feel useful both to ourselves and to others and worthy of living. It was inconceivable that this quiet life might be threatened from one day to the next. We thought it unjust that this respect for life be questioned.

    November 9

    So we were at ease, poking a little fun at the fellagha. "Woman, make some bread," as Rostram would say. It seems that right at the start, the administrator of the school called his assistants together one night, to tell them in his hollow voice: "Gentlemen, France is in danger: The Arabs have rebelled!" He did not believe what he was saying.

    While showering his older students with kindness, the school inspector would sometimes tell me things on the sly: --And to think that the one who might slit my throat is among them!

    This kind of prospect always left me speechless.

    Quite often, I have been obliged to discuss "incidents" with French people who were worried about the future of Algeria and, in particular, about their own future. But neither the other party nor I have experienced these incidents firsthand. We were quite far from Aurès. From time to time, the telephone poles were cut, but nothing else happened. We used to call it sabotage--simple kids' pranks that miffed the postmaster.

    --These people are the first to suffer the consequences, Mr. F., he told me. This morning someone came by to telephone a boy who lost his mother. The kid is in Algiers. They buried his mother before he could see her. It is stupid, sir, isn't it? There are certain things that bother the poor lads, things that people should not do.

    How could I not agree?

    All those who choose to discuss such incidents recognize that there is a lot to be done in this country, that mistakes have been made, and that, after all, the guerrillas are right to want to teach a lesson to the profiteers, to the people who are happy and in good situations. For they are happy because the masses are miserable--so miserable, I swear, that it is shockingly evident that they have suffered enough. The only problem is that I exchange my ideas with people who never, for one second, think that they could possibly be these profiteers, these fortunate, affluent people. It is probably because each one in his own little world persists in thinking that he is disadvantaged. He believes that by rights, society still owes him for everything that he does not have and that if he is not rebelling, he is, in fact a revolutionary in spirit and heart.

    November 10

    As the days and weeks went by one after the other, everything appeared to be normal. Life at school continued at a slow pace. The older, cours complémentaire students seemed to act more freely: they had grown up and become daring. They had to work hard for the exam. They did reasonably well, but just the same, I realized that they were more interested in what was happening outside school. I felt that they would no longer accept my habitual noninvolvement; they wanted to see me take a position, show some kind of commitment to an ideal that had to be mine. I will be careful not to disappoint them too much. That is all. That is it.

    Outside of school, life in the city is nothing special: the usual raveling and unraveling of local intrigues, spreading of anecdotes, whispers of minor scandals and small deals wrapped up. There are the customary, and rather more than customary, official visits to Fort-National--the minister of the interior accompanied by the governor, then the new governor, and, finally, the new minister of the interior.

    November 12

    The newspapers and radio put out periodic accounts of isolated attacks: the killings of some village policemen considered to be spies, a forest ranger, a Moorish café owner. This usually occurred in neighboring regions so it did not really disturb us. All the same, people would say:

    --Well, the fellagha follow through with their ideas. These people know what they want.

    The end of the school year was in sight--first the primary certificate and the other exams afterward. Everything was normal. But on the last day, we should have taken certain precautions before leaving Taourit-Moussa. We had a frank discussion about the danger we were risking in returning separately. But in the end, everything went well.

    For the past few days there had been talk of an armored division that was to leave France and occupy Kabylia: ten thousand men. On my way to Algiers on June 16th, I encountered hundreds of vehicles carrying soldiers all along the 75-mile route from Oued Aïssi to Hussein Dey. This impressive parade of green soldiers and equipment brought to mind the 1942 disembarkation, an event that left me quite indifferent. But that day on the road, I had to admit that we were in for new times.

    In Algiers, the strikes against tobacco and alcohol had begun. I not only had to hide to smoke but also had to steer clear of the cafes. The indigenous Algerians are very disciplined. During a chat, a journalist mentioned that some young men were assaulting smokers. He wanted to know my opinion. But even after our discussion, he will still be in the dark about my thoughts. What do I think of all this? Nothing. Our French colleagues are all worried about a situation that promises to become extremely complicated. I am at the point of wondering: "Is this good or bad?" What concerns me is the end result. Will we gain anything from all of this? If so, then yes it is, at whatever cost. Too bad for individual cases like my own.

    November 13

    At Fort-National the French have been disgruntled since June 20th. This is because the Kabyles have quit frequenting cafés and getting drunk in public. The age-old order of things is in immediate danger of collapse. With Wednesday's profits about to disappear, those employers who had built their futures on the unsteady shoulders of disloyal Kablyes beheld the approaching specter of bankruptcy. Mayor Frapolli was summoned to intervene at the same time as the Kabyle advisers. The former is putting forth explanations to console the wine merchants. Although jubilant inside, he makes sure to be seen in the cafés with one or another of his advisers from the technical school. Every time that I go to have a drink, people greet me with a sign of relief and shake both my hands. A certain French school principal from France has started inviting us over out of pure patriotism. We do take advantage of this unexpected stroke of luck. The townspeople only smoke and drink in the evening after the visitors have left. In short, we are living in a climate of suspicion without knowing for sure if the future will drive us apart or, on the contrary, dispel this thin cloud.

    It was a joyful July 14th. The dance on the town square lasted until 2:00 A.M. Under the mindful eyes of their mothers, young girls went from soldier to soldier. Yet there were soldiers walking in front of the square and tanks parked by the school and the officers' mess hall. Some sacks blocked the vision of a crowd of Kabyle onlookers who came to gawk. This gray cloth suggested a sad and sinister barrier between two worlds all too ready to hate each other.

    The following week I went to Tizi-Hibel to spend my vacation. I stayed fifteen days. I had not been there for two years. Everything seemed exactly two years older. My eyes can now perceive quite precisely the passage of years. And in a sense, these eyes are content to claim that everything happens according to an immutable order of things, an order that simply follows its path and could not stop to please anyone ... But this is not my purpose. All along the route, I was looking at stunted chestnuts and frail fig trees, eroded shale and sand. The landscape that welcomed me screamed its nakedness, poverty, and near hostility. It said to me: "What are you doing here? You managed to escape." I understood it, agreed with it, and despised it with all of my heart.

    At Béni-Douala on the slope where the market is held behind tangles of twisted barbed wire, soldiers, in shorts blackened by dust and sun, busy themselves around jeeps, trucks, and tanks. It seems that the cannons and machine guns pointed at the sky are there to convince you that you are not lost, that you are with fine people who know how to live and proclaim the benefits of a motorized and armored civilization. They are trying to reassure you and will undoubtedly succeed unless, on the road immediately below, there happens to be some Kabyles, shaken and afraid, who slip by quickly like ghosts. As for myself, my interests lie with my compatriots. I have wanted to read their faces, guess their impressions, and know what they think. Their response to my greeting is solemn, as if to imply that we have nothing to say to each other. In fact, there is nothing to say. Why would I want to make them talk when, if I myself were forced, I would not have a clue as to how to do it. It is so much easier to keep quiet. But come on! Enough of this hypocrisy. I am too much like these people to need them as confidants. What do I think? I am not thinking anything at all. Let us say that I would have to dig quite deep down into myself. Then I would not be able to stop or control the endless surge of ideas, opinions, and conclusions that have always been a part of me and that would surely surface. If indeed these ideas found a way to escape, all of them would emerge like very dense vapors that, as legends have it, wait patiently for a hand to come and loosen the cover of the copper pot in which they have been imprisoned by a powerful genie for centuries. Just like these vapors, the contents of my insides would compress and, once outside of prison, would appear like a crippled, ridiculous devil to the puzzled eyes of those people who think that they know me. An astute and nasty devil whose accusing sneers would know nothing about pity or gratitude, a dreadful character who, immovable and insensible, would demand atonement. What one could hear from the mouth of such a demon will be exactly what I and my compatriots think. Just like legendary devils, he would limp, having lost some of his vapors: the most understanding and generous parts, the only part capable of friendship and forgiveness. With these parts scattered to the winds, there would be nothing left but hatred.

    However, I was able to have a discussion with a fellow passenger in a taxi. The chauffeur said to him with a knowing look:

    --So you found him? He is in Blida? You see.

    The old man's face was drawn, his eyes bewildered, his demeanor dull and insipid just like his entire appearance and his clothes. Completely common. These are the type of men from this area who act like imbeciles in order to hide their real motives. Just the same, there was something more. He began to speak with the chauffeur.

    --Ah yes, I saw him! I like people who keep their word. You promised me a place in this car. And here I am. That is what I like. I would never say to you: Save me a place and then look for another one and take off. No, I picked your taxi, and here I am. We have to be men. Look here--if you had left, I would not have spent the night in Tizi-Ouzou. Not for anything in the world. I would have taken another taxi to go see the old woman and tell her that I saw him. Just saw him. It is enough for her that he is alive. Her son looked at me and spoke to me just like I am looking and talking to you. I have been on the outside for eight days. You are right to believe that his lawyer is a pro.

    --His lawyer is a pro?

    --Yes. You do not have to say it, I know it. That is how the lawyer found him. He went to see the prosecutor and said: "I want to defend him." And without any debate, the prosecutor gave him the address: the Blida Prison!

    --Who is his lawyer?

    --Maîre T.

    --So, he is a pro.

    --You are quite right. But you have to pay. And that is how it is.

    When I asked for an explanation, he looked at me, his eyes more dense than ever, and merely shook his head while sliding over closer to the chauffeur in order to give me a little more room. This indicated that I would get nothing more from him. I took advantage of it by stretching out my legs, which up until then I had crossed--a position that was ruining my new pants.

    --Oh, he is from your area, the chauffeur said. You can talk, he is a teacher.

    This time, I saw clearly the glint of malice in his eyes that is so typical of the fellagha in our region. For them, the teacher is both educated and naive, a man with good advice who can inform you about laws and regulations and yet believes everything that you tell him.

    The time was right, so the fellow started talking to me.

    --Ah, yes! Listen, my friend, he did not do anything. They flat out arrested him, just like that.

    --So whom did they arrest?

    --My nephew and myself. But I am another case. I said to the NCO [noncommissioned officer], "Don't hit me." I was also an NCO during the war in Italy and Germany. If I had stayed in the army since 1945, I would now be a sergeant major. That is certain. Do not hit your sergeant. So he did not beat me. He just threatened to douse my face with a quart of fresh water, but that was before I told him. When it was clear that the police were going to let me go, he even offered me a cigarette. I did not take it, of course. I was glad to know that they take into account certain circumstances. You have to put yourself in these people's place. If they are told to arrest someone, they do it. To hit some one, they do it. The army is about taking orders. So when I saw them beating my nephew, my blood started to boil and I yelled at him:

    --Take it, you son of a gun, take it. Show that you are a man.

    But how do you stick it out, brother? He was bent over and they were whipping him on the buttocks. Seeing his genitals made me wish that the earth would just swallow me up. We were both disgraced--uncle and nephew. And I ask you, could you take that, being horsewhipped on the testicles--excuse my being so blunt. No, the boy did not hear me. It was a blessing for both of us when he passed out.

    At that point the administrator came by, saw us, and stopped. He undoubtedly knew me.

    --What are you two doing here? he asked me.

    --They arrested us.

    He was shocked, even a bit outraged.

    --You were beaten? he said.

    --Yes, see what condition my nephew is in ...

    --That is what you get for causing trouble.

    --But we did not do anything.

    --Okay, I am going to take care of you.

    I never saw him again. But I really believe that he is the one who rescued me from the soldiers. He could not do anything for the boy. As for myself, I had fought in the war. Surely, he must have recognized me.

    Later, I [Feraoun] was to find out bit by bit about the dreadful experience that this fellow [the old man] had just lived through. Dreadful but routine because, at last, we instinctively knew that our peaceful times were over. Once again, everyone is a suspect; you have to take the beating. (When someone beats you, you have to bend your head down.)

    When I saw the administrator again, he told me himself that the culprits who had murdered the village policeman had confessed and given up all of their accomplices. A whole bunch of scoundrels.

    --But sir, what about the coercion, the beatings ...

    --Do you see me beating someone to make them talk? Come on, Mr. F., we know each other ... Sure the soldiers, the police, they will do whatever. But me, I made them talk. You see they confessed, and besides, I released one because he hadn't done anything.

    --I understand, but he does have a nephew.

    --That is not the same, Mr. F. That is simply not the same.

    --They were picked up together in a field. Besides, he was sure that you had nothing to do with it, that you were completely in the dark about it. You were there to save him ...

    --Well, Mr. F., I had them arrested because I am sure that they are guilty. Crimes of this sort have to be punished ...

    As in dozens of cases, this crime will not go unpunished but since we cannot get the assassin himself, we punish people at random.

    --Everything's going well except that I cut my neighbor's fig trees.

    --Yes, you do that well, but do you also cut down telephone poles?

    --I do when I am broke.

    --Who pays you?

    --This same neighbor who ... that ...

    --Who?

    --Who does not want to pay me any more. Besides, he is a fellagha, a rebel, a bandit.

    --He is the one who killed the village policeman.

    --Correct.

    --He was not alone?

    --No, he was not.

    The police fingered the least likely person in the village. An irresponsible drunk, a near idiot who, when faced with the Socratic method, supplied the police with every detail they wanted. Once they got the information, they spread terror throughout the village. A terror like this turns people into idiots, and I could read it in the face of my fellow passenger, a face full of rancor and hatred.

(Continues...)

Excerpted from JOURNAL 1955-1962 by MOULOUD FERAOUN. Copyright © 2000 by University of Nebraska Press. Excerpted by permission. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.