My uncle would not see his country take up arms. Destiny had judged him unworthy. How, otherwise, to explain the fact that he passed away five months before the long-awaited, oft-postponed firestorm erupted for independence? All Saints’ Day 1954 caught us unawares. The café owner stood behind the counter, cursing, reading his newspaper. The war of independence had begun, but ordinary mortals, after a brief outburst of indignation quickly forgotten, were not about to lose sleep over the burning of a handful of farms in Mitidja. There were a number of deaths in Mostaganem: policemen surprised by armed assailants. So what? they said. More people die in road accidents. What they did not know was that this time war had truly begun and there was no possible way back. A handful of revolutionaries had decided to take action, to shake up a population stupefied by a hundred years of colonisation, sorely tested by the various uprisings by isolated tribes that the colonial army, mythic and omnipotent, invariably quickly crushed after a few skirmishes, a few punitive raids, a war of attrition lasting several years. Even the famous Organisation Secrète, which become famous in the 1940s, had simply been a source of entertainment for a handful of bellicose Muslims. Surely the attacks that took place at midnight precisely on 1 November 1954 all over northern Algeria would turn out to be a flash in the pan, a fleeting spark of discontent by disorganised natives incapable of rallying to a cause?
Not this time. The ‘acts of vandalism’ spread across the country, at first sporadically, then with increasing violence, and with terrifying audacity. The newspapers spoke of ‘terrorists’, of ‘rebels’, of ‘outlaws’. There were skirmishes here and there, notably in the djebels, and sometimes soldiers killed in the fighting were relieved of their weapons and their ammunition. In Algiers, a police station was razed to the ground, policemen and civil servants were murdered on street corners, traitors had their throats cut. In Kabylia, there was talk of suspect groups, even groups in full battle-dress with old guns, laying ambushes for the police and then vanishing into the scrubland. In the Aurès mountains, there were rumours of colonels leading whole squadrons, of elusive guerrilla armies and no-go areas. Not far from Río Salado, in the Felaoucene district, men began to leave the villages in droves for the hills, where nightly they would set up underground units. Closer still, barely a few kilometres away, Aïn Témouchent posted news of rebel attacks in the town square. Everywhere graffiti appeared, always the same three letters: FLN – Front de Libération Nationale – a vast organisation. The FLN had its own laws, its own directives. It made calls for a general uprising, decreed curfews and embargoes. It had its own tribunals, an administrative wing, well-organised, labyrinthine networks, an army and a clandestine radio station that streamed into every house at night, when the shutters were closed . . .
In Río Salado, we were on another planet. News from elsewhere came to us tempered by an endless series of filters. True, there was a strange gleam now in the eyes of the Arabs working in the vineyards, but they still arrived at dawn and worked without let-up until sunset. In the cafés, people continued to gossip over a glass of anisette. Even Bruno, the policeman, did not think it necessary to take the safety catch off his gun; it was nothing, he said, a passing storm, everything would go back to the way it had been. It was several months before the ‘rebellion’ disturbed the tranquillity of Río Salado. Strangers burned an isolated farm; three times they burned vineyards and then blew up a wine cellar. This was too much. Jaime J. Sosa set up a private militia and set up a cordon around his vineyards. The police tried to reassure him, explaining that they were taking all necessary measures, but it was futile. By day, the farmers combed the area carrying their hunting rifles; by night, there were full military patrols complete with passwords and warning shots.
Apart from a few dead boars, shot by trigger-happy militiamen, not a single suspect was arrested.
In time, vigilance was relaxed and people once again began to walk the streets at night without fear.
The grape harvests were celebrated in traditional style. Three big orchestras were brought in to play at the ball, and Río Salado danced until it was exhausted. Pépé Rucillio made the most of the season to marry a singer from Nemours forty years his junior. At first his sons protested, but given that their father’s fortune was incalculable, they went to the wedding, ate like pigs and dreamed of other banquets. It was during the wedding ceremony that I came face to face with Émilie. She was getting out of a car with her husband, cradling her child; I was coming out of the ballroom with Germaine on my arm. For a split second Émilie turned pale, but then she quickly turned to Simon and smiled and the two of them went in to join the festivities. I walked home, leaving my car parked next to my friend’s.
Then tragedy struck.
No one was expecting it. The war was now in its second year, and with the exception of the early acts of sabotage, Río Salado remained untouched. People went about their business as though nothing had happened, until one morning in February 1956. There was an atmosphere of fear in the village, the people seemed petrified, literally overtaken by events: when I saw the mob around André’s diner, I realised why.
The body was lying on the ground, half inside and half outside the bar. One of the shoes was missing; lost as the man tried to fend off his attackers, or tried to run away. There was a gash that ran from the man’s heel to his calf . . . José had crawled some twenty metres before he died, as was obvious from the marks in the dust. His left hand was still clutching the door jamb. He had been stabbed over and over; his shirt had been ripped from top to bottom and there were a number of stab wounds visible on his bare back. He lay in a thick, dark pool of blood that dripped over the threshold of the diner. A shaft of sunlight lit up part of his face, and it was as though he had his ear pressed to the ground listening for something, the way, as kids, we’d pressed our ears to the railway track to see if a train was coming. His expression was like that of an opium addict; eyes wide but unseeing.
‘He used to say he was dung the Lord had stepped in,’ André said quietly. He was sitting slumped on the floor beside the bar, chin resting on his knees, hugging himself.
He was barely visible in the half-light.
He was crying.
‘I wanted him to live the good life, like the rest of my cousins, but he would never take anything from me. He was afraid I’d think he was taking advantage.’
Simon was there, propped on the bar, his head in his hands. Bruno, the policeman, was sitting on a chair at the far end of the room, trying to recover from the shock. Two other men stood next to the pool table, dumbstruck.
‘Why him?’ André was overcome with grief. ‘José would have given anyone the shirt off his back if they’d asked.’
‘It’s not fair,’ I heard someone behind me say.
The mayor arrived and, seeing José’s body, clapped his hand over his mouth to stifle a scream. Cars began to pull into the diner’s car park. I heard doors slam. ‘What happened?’ someone asked. No one answered. In a few scant minutes, the whole village was there. José’s body was covered with a blanket. Outside, a woman began to wail. It was José’s mother. Her family stopped her from coming near the body. There was a stir when André stepped out of the diner. He was livid, his eyes flashing with fury.