‘Where’s Jelloul?’ he roared, his whole body shaking with rage. ‘Where’s that idiot Jelloul?’
Jelloul made his way through the crowd and stood before André. He was dazed; he didn’t know what to do with himself.
‘What the fuck were you doing while José was being stabbed?’
Jelloul stared down at his shoes. André lifted the servant’s head with the tip of his riding crop.
‘Where the hell were you, you bastard? I told you not to leave the diner.’
‘My father was sick.’
‘Your father’s always sick. Why didn’t you tell me you were going back to your shack? José wouldn’t have come to take over from you and he’d still be alive now. And how come this happens the one night you’re not here?’
Jelloul bowed his head, and André forced it up again with his riding crop.
‘Look at me when I’m talking to you . . . What cowardly bastard did this to José? You know who, don’t you? You were in it together, weren’t you? You went back to your shack so your accomplice could murder José; that way you’d have an alibi, you son of a bitch . . . Look at me, I said. Maybe it was you . . . You’ve been bitter and resentful for years, haven’t you, you fucker? What are you looking at the ground for? José is there!’ André screamed, pointing to the doorway. ‘I’m sure it was you. José would never have let himself be caught unawares by a stranger. It had to be someone he trusted. Show me your hands.’
André checked Jelloul’s hands, his clothes, looking for some trace of blood, and finding nothing, started to whip him with his crop.
‘I suppose you think you’re clever? You murder José, then go home and change and come back here. That’s what happened, I’d stake my life on it. I know you.’
Enraged by his own words, blinded by grief, he knocked Jelloul to the ground and began laying into him. No one in the crowd lifted a finger. André’s grief was too deep, it seemed, to be challenged. I went home, torn between anger and indignation, ashamed and degraded, pained by both José’s death and Jelloul’s suffering. That’s how it’s always been, I said to myself. When you can’t find a remedy for your pain, you look for someone to blame, and there was no better scapegoat at the scene of the crime than Jelloul.
Jelloul was arrested, handcuffed and taken to the police station. There were rumours that he had confessed, that the murder had little to do with the upheavals festering all over the country. Even so, death had struck the village and no one could be sure that there might not be something to these ideas. The farmers redoubled their patrols, and from time to time, gunfire punctuated the howls of the jackals in the night. The following morning there would be talk of fending off suspected intruders, of undesirables taken out like vermin, of arson attempts foiled. One morning, heading towards Lourmel, I saw a crowd of excited farmers with guns by the roadside. Lying at their feet was the bloody body of a young Muslim dressed in rags, displayed like a hunting trophy. Next to him was a battered old gun, the damning evidence against him.
A few weeks later, a puny, sickly boy came to see me at the pharmacy. He asked me to go with him. A weeping woman was sitting on the pavement on the opposite side of the street, surrounded by a brood of children.
‘That’s Jelloul’s mother,’ the little boy told me.
She threw herself at my feet. I couldn’t understand what she was trying to say; her words were drowned out by her sobbing, her frantic pleading panicked me. I led her into the back office of the pharmacy and tried to calm her down so that I could work out what she was saying. She was talking quickly, getting the sequence of events mixed up, every sentence trailing off into trancelike silence. Her cheeks were covered in scratches. She had clearly been clawing at her face in grief. Finally, exhausted, she accepted a glass of water and collapsed on to a bench. She told me of the problems her family had been having, her husband who had had both arms amputated, the prayers she had said at every marabout in the area, before throwing herself at my feet again and begging me to save Jelloul.
‘He’s innocent, everyone in the douar will tell you. Jelloul was with us the whole night the roumi was killed, I swear. I went to the mayor, to the police, to the kaids, but no one will listen. You’re our last hope. Monsieur André is your friend, he’ll listen to you. Jelloul is not a murderer. His father took a turn that night and I sent my nephew to fetch him. It’s not fair. They’re going to execute him for no reason at all.’ The little boy was the nephew she had mentioned. He confirmed what she had said, that Jelloul had never raised a hand to José, that he was very fond of him.
I did not see what I could do, but I promised to talk to André. After they left, I lost my nerve and decided to do nothing. I knew that the decision of the court would be final and that André would not listen to me. Since José’s death, he had been in a state of constant fury, beating the Arabs working in his fields for minor infractions. I spent a restless night, my sleep filled with nightmares so terrifying that more than once I had to turn on the lamp on my bedside table. The grief of this half-mad woman and her brood filled me with a petrifying unease. My head was filled with wailing and inchoate lamentations. The following morning, I did not have the energy to work in the pharmacy. I thought about what I should do and decided it was best to stay out of things. I couldn’t imagine pleading Jelloul’s case with André, who was almost unrecognisable he was so filled with hate and anger. He was quite capable of treating my intervention as a Muslim siding with a murderer from his own community. Hadn’t he brushed me off when I tried to offer my condolences at José’s funeral; hadn’t he said that all Arabs were ungrateful cowards? Why would he say such a thing in the Christian cemetery where I was the only Muslim if not to hurt me?
Two days later, I was surprised to find myself pulling up outside Jaime Jiménez Sosa’s farm. André was not at home. I asked to see his father. A servant told me to wait in my car while he went to find out whether the master was prepared to see me. He reappeared a moment later and led me to a hill overlooking the plains. Jaime Jiménez Sosa had just come back from a ride and was entrusting his horse to his groom. He stared at me for a moment, puzzled by my visit, and then, having slapped the horse’s rump, he walked towards me.
‘What can I do for you, Jonas?’ he said brusquely as he approached. ‘You don’t drink wine and it’s not grape-picking season.’
A servant rushed over to take his pith helmet and his riding crop; Jaime waved him away contemptuously, then walked straight past me without stopping to shake my hand.
I followed him.
‘What’s the problem, Jonas?’
‘It’s a bit complicated.’
‘Then get to the point.’
‘You’re not exactly making it easy, rushing off like that.’
He slowed a little, then, pushing his helmet off his face, he looked at me.
‘I’m listening . . .’
‘It’s about Jelloul.’
He flinched and clenched his jaw, and taking off his helmet, mopped his face with a handkerchief.
‘You disappoint me, young man,’ he said. ‘You’re not cut from the same cloth, and you’re better off where you are.’
‘There’s been some misunderstanding.’
‘Really? And what might that be?’
‘Jelloul might be innocent.’
‘Don’t be ridiculous. I’ve been employing Arabs for generations, I know what they’re like . . . Vipers, the lot of them. And that vermin confessed. He’s been found guilty and I’ll personally see to it that he goes to the guillotine.’
He came over to me, took me by the arm and suggested I walk with him a while.
‘This is serious, Jonas. This isn’t some hothead making speeches; this is war. The country is crumbling; this is no time to sit on the fence. We have to strike hard, we cannot tolerate any laxness. These crazy murderers need to know that we are not going to give in. Every bastard we get our hands on has to pay for the others.’