There could be no question of going back to Río Salado. Madame Scamaroni headed back alone, leaving us in a room over one of her shops on the Boulevard des Chasseurs and making us promise not to do anything foolish in her absence. Hardly had her car turned the corner than we began our invasion of the city. Oran was ours: the Place des Armes, with its rococo theatre; the town hall, flanked by its colossal bronze lions; the Promenade de l’Étang, the Place de la Bastille, the Passage Clauzel, where lovers met; the ice-cream stands that served the finest lemonade on earth, the lavish cinemas and Darmon’s department stores . . . In its charm and its daring, Oran lacked nothing, every spark became a firework, every joke an uproar, every drink a celebration. Ever generous and impulsive, the city was determined to share every pleasure and despised anything it did not find entertaining. A sullen face could ruin its equanimity, a killjoy sour its mood; it could not bear to see the cloud darken its silver lining. Every street corner was a party, every square a carnival, and everywhere its voice proclaimed a hymn to life itself. In Oran, pleasure was not simply a state of mind; it was a cardinal rule: without it, the whole world was a mess. Beautiful, alluring and well aware of the spell she cast over strangers, Oran was bourgeois in an understated fashion. She needed no fanfare and was convinced that no storm – not even the war – could curb her flight. Oran was a city of airs and graces, people referred to her as la ville américaine, and every fantasy in the world was becoming real. Perched on a clifftop, she gazed out to sea, pretending to languish, a captive maiden watching from a tower for Prince Charming to arrive. She was pleasure itself, and everything suited her.
We were caught up in her spell.
‘Hey, rednecks!’ André Sosa yelled to us.
He was sitting on the terrace of an ice-cream parlour with an American soldier. From the way he waved, it was obvious he was trying to impress. He looked dashing: his hair was scraped back and plastered down with brilliantine, his shoes freshly polished, and his sunglasses hid half his face.
‘Hey, come join us,’ he called, getting up to fetch more chairs. ‘They do the best double-chocolate malt here, and the best snails piquant.’
The soldier shifted over to make room, and watched confidently as we surrounded him.
‘This is my friend Joe,’ said André, delighted to be able to introduce the Yank he had been boasting about. ‘Our American cousin. He comes from a godforsaken hole just like ours. He’s from Salt Lake City and we’re from Río Salado, which means Salt River.’
He threw his head back and gave a forced laugh, delighted by this notion.
‘Does he speak French?’ Jean-Christophe asked.
‘Kind of. Joe says his great-grandmother was French, from Haut-Savoie, but he never really learned the language, he picked it up while he was stationed here in North Africa. Joe’s a corporal. He fought on all the fronts.’
Joe punctuated André’s comments by nodding vigorously, clearly amused to see us all raise our eyebrows in admiration. He shook hands with the four of us and André introduced us as his best friends and the finest stallions in Salt River. Although he was thirty and had been in the wars, Joe still had a boyish face, thin-lipped, with high cheekbones that seemed too delicate for a guy of his build. His keen eye lacked any real acuity and made him look a little simple when he grinned from ear to ear; and he grinned whenever anyone so much as looked at him.
‘Joe’s got a problem,’ André told us.
‘Is he a deserter?’ asked Fabrice.
‘No, Joe’s no coward – he lives for fighting. The problem is, he hasn’t had it off for six months and his balls are so full of spunk he can’t put one foot in front of the other.’
‘Why?’ asked Simon. ‘Don’t they issue hand towels with the rations?’
‘It’s not that.’ André patted the corporal’s hand gently. ‘Joe wants a real bed with red lampshades on the nightstands and a real flesh-and-blood woman who can whisper dirty things to him.’
We all burst out laughing and Joe joined us, nodding his head, his smile splitting his face.
‘Anyway, I’ve decided to take him to a whorehouse,’ André announced, throwing his arms wide to indicate the extent of his generosity.
‘They won’t let you in,’ said Jean-Christophe.
‘They wouldn’t dare refuse André Jiménez Sosa . . . They’re more likely to roll out the red carpet for me. The madame at Camélia is a friend – I’ve put so much money her way, she melts like butter as soon as she sees me. So, anyway, I’m going to take my friend Joe over there and we’re going to fuck their brains out, aren’t we, Joe?’
‘Oh, yeah.’ Joe twisted his hat nervously in his hands.
‘I wouldn’t mind going with you,’ Jean-Christophe ventured. ‘I’ve never done anything serious with a woman. You think you could arrange it?’
‘Are you crazy?’ said Simon. ‘You’re not seriously thinking of going into a dive like that with all the diseases the whores have got?’
‘I’m with Simon,’ said Fabrice. ‘I don’t think we should go. Besides, we told my mother we’d behave ourselves.’
Jean-Christophe shrugged, leaned over to André and whispered something in his ear. André gave him a superior look and said, ‘I can get you into Hell itself if you want.’
Relieved and excited, Jean-Christophe turned to me.
‘What about you, Jonas, are you coming?’
‘Absolutely . . .’
I was more shocked than anyone to hear myself say this.
The red-light district In Oran was behind the theatre on the Rue de l’Aqueduc, a squalid alleyway with stairs at either end that reeked of piss and teemed with drunks. Hardly had we set foot in the alley than I felt horribly uncomfortable, and it took every ounce of energy not to turn tail and run. Joe and André raced ahead, eager to get inside. Jean-Christophe followed close behind. He was clearly intimidated and his attempt at seeming offhand was unconvincing. He turned round from time to time and winked at me, to which I responded with a nervous smile, but the moment we passed anyone shifty we swerved out of the way and made as if to leave. The brothels were all lined up on the same part of the alley, their front doors painted in garish colours. The Rue de l’Aqueduc was heaving; there were soldiers, sailors, furtive Arab men terrified of being spotted by a neighbour, barefoot boys running errands, Senegalese pimps with flick knives tucked into their belts watching over their livestock, ‘native’ soldiers wearing tall red fezzes – a feverish yet somehow muted tumult.
The madame at the Camélia was a giant of a woman with a voice that could make the earth quake. She ruled her demesne with a rod of iron and was bawling out an ill-mannered customer on the steps as we arrived.
‘You fucked up again, Gégé, and that’s not good. You want to come back here and see my girls? Well, it’s down to you. If you keep acting like a thug, you’ll never set foot in my house again. You know me, Gégé, when I put that little red cross next to someone’s name, I might just as well be digging his grave. You understand what I’m saying, or do I need to draw you a picture?’
‘Don’t act like you’re doing me some big favour,’ Gégé protested. ‘I come here with my cash, all I’m asking is that your whore does what she’s told.’
‘You can stick your money up your arse, Gégé. This is a brothel, not a torture chamber. If you don’t like the service, you can take your custom elsewhere. Because if you try something like that again, I’ll rip your heart out with my bare hands.’
Gégé, who was almost a dwarf, rose up on the tips of his shoes and glared at the madame, purple with rage. Then he rocked back on to his heels and, livid at having been publicly ticked off by a woman, elbowed his way past us and disappeared into the crowd.