Letters from my Windmill Part 18

--h.e.l.lo, landlady!

She turned round slowly and revealed a pitiful peasant's face, wrinkled, cracked, earth coloured, and framed in long strands of brownish lace, like old women wear hereabouts. And yet, she wasn't an old woman, perhaps the tears had wilted her.

--What can I do for you? She asked me, drying her eyes.

--Just a sit down and a drink....

She looked at me, utterly astonished, and didn't move as if she hadn't understood.

--This is an inn, isn't it?

The woman sighed:

--Yes ... it's an inn, in a manner of speaking.... But why aren't you over the road like everybody else? It's a much livelier place....

--It's a bit too lively for my liking.... I'd rather stay here.

And without waiting for her reply, I sat down at a table. Once she had satisfied herself that I was genuine, she began to flit to and fro busily, opening drawers, moving bottles, wiping gla.s.ses, and flicking the flies away.... You could see that a customer was quite an event for her. Now and then the unfortunate woman would hold her head as if she was despairing of getting to the end of it.

Then she disappeared into a back room; I heard her take up some keys, fiddle with the locks, rummage in the bread bin, huff and puff, do some dusting, wash some plates. And from time to time ... a m.u.f.fled sob....

After a quarter of an hour of this performance, a plate of dried raisins, an old Beaucaire loaf as hard as the dish it came on, and a bottle of cheap wine, were placed before me.

--There you are, said the strange creature, and rushed back to her place at the window.

I tried to engage her in conversation as I was drinking up.

--You don't often get people here do you, madam?

-- Oh, no, monsieur, never, no one.... It was very different at the time when we were the only the coaching inn around here. We did the lunches for the hunt during the soter bird season, as well as coaches all the year round.... But since the other place has opened up, we've lost everything.... The world and his wife prefer to go across the way.

They find it just too miserable here.... The simple fact is that this place doesn't interest them. I'm not beautiful, I have p.r.i.c.kly heat, and my two little girls are dead.... Over there it's very different, there is laughter all the time. A woman from Arles, a beautiful woman with lots of lace and three gold chains round her neck, keeps the place. The driver, her lover, brings in customers for her in the coach.

She also has a number of attractive girls for chamber maids.... This also brings lots of business in! She gets all the young people from Bezouces, from Redessan and from Jonquieres. The coachmen go out of their way to call in at her place.... As for me, I'm stuck in here all day, all alone, eating my heart out.

She said all that with a distracted, vacant way, forehead still pressed against the window pane. Obviously, there was something in the inn opposite that really interested her.... Suddenly, over the road, a lot started to happen. The coach edged forward in the dust. The sounds of cracking whips and a horn was heard. The young girls squeezed together in the doorway and shouted:

--Goodbye!... Goodbye!... And above all that, the wonderful voice, singing, as before, most beautifully,

Took her little silver can, To the river made her way, She didn't notice by the water, Three young cavaliers, quite near.

The woman's whole body shook on hearing that voice; and she turned towards me and whispered:

--Do you hear that? That's my husband.... Don't you think he has a beautiful voice?

I looked at her, stupefied.

--What? Your husband?... So even he goes over there?

Then, with an apologetic air, but movingly, she said:

--What can you do, monsieur? Men are like that, they don't like tears, and I'm always breaking down, since our little girls died.... Then, this dump of a place, where n.o.body comes, is so miserable.... Well then, when he gets really fed up, my poor dear Jose goes over the road for a drink, and, the woman from Arles gets him to sing with that gorgeous voice of his. Hus.h.!.+... There he goes again. And, trembling, and with huge tears that made her look even more ugly, she stood there in front of the window, hands held out in ecstasy, listening to her Jose singing to the woman from Arles:

The first was bold and whispered to her, You're so beautiful my dear!

AT MILIANAH

_Notes from the Voyage._

This time, I am going to take you away to spend a day a very long way from the windmill in a pretty little Algerian town.... It will be a nice change from the tambourines and cicadas....

... There's rain in the air; the sky is grey; the crests of Mount Zaccar are enveloped in fog; it's a miserable Sunday.... I'm in my small hotel room, lighting one cigarette after another, just trying to take my mind off things.... The hotel library has been put at my disposal. I find an odd volume of Montaigne between a detailed history of hotel registrations and a few Paul de k.o.c.k novels. Opening it at random, I re-read the admirable essay on the death of La Boetie.... So, now I'm more dreamy and gloomy than ever.... A few drops of rain are starting to fall, each one leaving a large star in the dust acc.u.mulated on the windowsill since last year's rain.... The book slips out of my hands, as I stare hypnotically at the melancholy star for some time....

The town clock strikes two on an old _marabout_ whose slender, high, white walls I can see from here.... Poor old marabout. Thirty years ago, who would have thought that one day it would have a big munic.i.p.al dial stuck in its solar plexus, and on Sundays, on the stroke of two, it would give a lead to the churches of Milianah, to sound their bells for Vespers?... There they go now, ringing away.... And not for a brief spell, either...

Without doubt this room is a miserable place. The huge, dawn spinners, known as philosopher's thought spiders, have spun their webs everywhere.... I'm going out.

I'm on the main square, now. Just the place for the military band of the Third Division, not put off by a bit of rain, which has just arranged itself around the conductor. The Brigade General appears at one of the Division windows, surrounded by his fancy women. The sub-prefect is on the square and walks to and fro on the arm of the Justice of the Peace. Half a dozen young Arabs, stripped to the waist, are playing marbles in a corner to the sound of their own ferocious shouting. Elsewhere, an old Jew in rags comes to look for a ray of suns.h.i.+ne he left here yesterday and looks astonished not to find it....

"One, two, three...!" the band launched into an old Talexian mazurka, which Barbary organs used to play, irritatingly, under my window last year. But it moved me to tears today.

Oh, how happy are these musicians of the third! Their eyes fixed on the dotted crochets, drunk on rhythm and noise, only conscious of counting beats. Their whole being was in that hand-sized bit of paper vibrating in bra.s.s p.r.o.ngs at the end of their instruments. "One, two, three...!"

They have everything they need these fine men, except they never play the national anthem; it makes them home sick.... Alas, I haven't much of a musical ear and this piece irritates me, so I'm off....

Now, where on earth would I be able to have a nice time, on a grey Sunday like this? I know! Sid'Omar's shop is open. I'm going there.

He may have a shop, Sid'Omar, but he is no shopkeeper. He is a prince of the blood line, the son of a former Dey of Algeria, who was strangled to death by Turkish soldiers.... When his father was killed, he sought refuge in Milianah with his adored mother. He lived there for several years like a fine gentleman philosopher with his greyhounds, falcons, horses, and wives in this attractive and refres.h.i.+ng palace, amongst the orange trees and fountains. Then the French came; we came.

Sid'Omar was our enemy at first and allied himself with Abd-el-Kader, but then he fell out with the Emir and surrendered to us. While Sid'Omar was away from Milianah, the Emir took revenge by pillaging his palace. He flattened his orange trees, made off with his horses and wives; and killed his mother, cruelly crus.h.i.+ng her throat under the lid of a large chest.... Sid'Omar's anger knew no bounds: within the hour he had enrolled himself in the French army, and we had no better, fiercer soldier, for as long as our war with the Emir lasted. Sid'Omar returned to Milianah; but even today at the merest mention of Abd-el-Kader, he grows pale and his eyes light up.

Sid'Omar is sixty now, and despite his age and the smallpox, his face has stayed rather handsome. He has long eyelashes, with an appealing look and a charming smile; very prince-like. The war ruined him, and all he has left of his former opulence is a farm in the plain of Chelif and a house in Milianah, where he lives a bourgeois life with his three sons, who are being brought up under his aegis. The local bigwigs hold him in some veneration. If a dispute breaks out they are only too happy to let him arbitrate; and his judgement usually carries the weight of law. He seldom goes out; you can usually find him every afternoon next door in a shop which opens onto the road. It is not opulently furnished; the walls are whitewashed, and there are a circular wooden bench, cus.h.i.+ons, long pipes, and two braziers.... This is where Sid'Omar gives his audiences and dispenses justice. Hey! Solomon in a shop.

Today is Sunday and there is a good turn out. A dozen leaders, each in their burnous, are squatting all around the room, a large pipe and small fine filigreed eggcup full of coffee to hand. I go in; n.o.body moves.... From where he is, Sid'Omar gives me his most charming smile by way of a greeting and beckons me to sit next to him on a large yellow silk cus.h.i.+on. He puts a finger to his mouth to indicate that I should listen.

The case is between the leader of the Beni-Zougzougs and a Jew from Milianah, who are having a dispute about a plot of land. The two parties had agreed to put their differences to Sid'Omar and to abide by his judgement. The meeting is set for this very day, and the witnesses are a.s.sembled. Surprisingly, it is my Jew, and he is having second thoughts and has come alone, without witnesses, declaring that he would prefer to rely on the judgement of a French Justice of the Peace than on Sid'Omar's.... That was where things stood when I arrived.

The Jew--old, greying beard, brown jacket, blue stockings, and velvet cap--raises his eyes to the sky and rolls them, kisses Sid'Omar's silk slippers, bows his head, kneels down, and clasps his hands together, pleadingly.... I have no Arabic, but from the Jew's miming and from the words _Joustees of the peace, Joustees of the peace_, which he keeps repeating, I get the gist of what he is saying.

--I have no doubts about Sid'Omar, Sid'Omar is wise, Sid'Omar is just.... But, the Joustees of the Peace would be more suitable for our business.

The audience is indignant, and yet remains impa.s.sive as Arabs do....