Two Testaments (62 page)

Thanks for reading!

Turn the page for …

• A Historical Note

• The Opening Scenes from
Two Destinies
, the Conclusion to the Secrets of the Cross Trilogy, Coming September 2012

• About the Author

A Historical Note

In France, the integration of pied-noirs into French society has been slow and painful, and many to this day do not feel welcome, harboring bitter memories of all they left in Algeria in 1962. Most of these families have never returned to Algeria, even for a visit. Among those who have, some have found in their homes, now inhabited by Algerians, the exact same furniture and other household goods that they had left in their flight to France.

Many years after the war, when the truth came out about the mass murders of the harkis who were abandoned in Algeria, France felt great sorrow and great shame. The harkis, with their children and grandchildren, remain an enigma and embarrassment for the country. Many of those living in France still feel like outcasts, comfortable neither with the millions of Algerians in France nor with the French, although their children and grandchildren are French citizens.

With the end of the Algerian War for Independence in July 1962, different factions within Algeria struggled to gain control of the new republic. Finally it was Ben Bella who triumphed and began a revolutionary socialist government. Three years later Houari Boumediène took over as chief of state through a
coup d’état
. For fifteen years Algeria prospered under his leadership, as profits from its natural resource of oil allowed Boumediène to move the country forward in agriculture and industrialization, becoming an example for the whole Third World. However, Boumediène enforced a single-party, military-backed socialist government with which many were dissatisfied. This ended in 1988 when a new constitution was voted in by referendum, separating the socialist party from the state and allowing a multiparty system to emerge.

It was in this context that a political movement of fundamentalist Islam swept across the nation. In 1984 a law was passed that severely restricted women’s rights. Mosques in every village and hamlet became the forum from which the ideology of fanatical Islam was spread to an unwary populace. The government was trapped within the religious and cultural aspects of Algeria, undermining its economic progress.

In 1992 civil war broke out. An extremist militant Muslim faction, the Islamic Salvation Front (FIS), was on the brink of winning national elections when the vote was canceled and the military installed a president. In the ensuing years more than fifty thousand people lost their lives in Algeria, many of them civilians murdered by the FIS, who wished to make Algeria an Islamic state. Missionaries and Algerian believers were forced into hiding, worshipping in secret, often traveling long distances to find other believers.

The story of these events as they affected the lives of the Duchemins, the Hoffmanns, the Cebrians, and a host of other colorful characters will be told in the third and final book in the Secrets of the Cross Trilogy,
Two Destinies
, coming in September 2012.

Opening Scenes from
Two Destinies

Montpellier, France

November 1994

Rislène Namani stepped off the bus in front of the parc de Peyrou at the highest point of Montpellier’s
centre ville
. She glanced to her left, where dozens of people mingled leisurely in the wide square that was flanked on either side by two rows of naked plane trees with their dappled bark. The air was brisk but the sun high on this bright Sunday afternoon in late November. She took in a deep breath and let a smile erase the frown she’d been wearing.

She glanced around her, then crossed the wide avenue, walking away from the park and through the thick Roman arches that had earned this monument the name of le petit Arc de Triomphe. She thought it as beautiful as the one in Paris.

She turned down a side street that meandered around and opened into a small square. It too was crowded with students sitting on benches and children playing in the dirt around an ancient fountain that sprayed out water from little mermaids’ mouths. Again Rislène looked behind her, heart thumping in her chest.

She was practically jogging now, pushing her thick black hair off her neck, feeling a pulsing in her head, a tingling in every part of her body. Almost there!

She glanced once more over her shoulder as she stepped into the little Café de la Paix, around the corner from the bustling little place.

“Bonjour, mademoiselle,” the barkeeper crooned.

Rislène kept her head down, her multicolored scarf twirled carelessly around her neck, and hurried to the back of the little café.

He was there!

“Eric,” she whispered and let the tall boy with the coarsely cropped red hair draw her into an embrace.

“Rislène! You made it!” Then his freckled face wrinkled at the brow. “No problems? No one following you?”

“No. Nazira went out with her friends for the afternoon. She glared at me the whole morning as if she knew a big secret, but she didn’t try to follow me.”

Now they were sitting at a little round table, holding hands, staring into each other’s eyes. Eric’s were a bright green. How she loved his eyes! How she loved him! She was out of breath with the thought.

They ordered two cups of coffee, and when the waiter set them on the table, the couple held each other’s gaze with the steam from the coffee rising between them.

“Don’t worry, Eric. We’re safe. No one knows.”

A faint smile spread across his thin face, and he breathed a sigh of relief. “So many months of hiding our love … But soon, Rislène. Someday soon, I’ll tell my sister. Ophélie will surely understand—why, she writes plays that are filled with impossible love stories. She’ll be thrilled, and she’ll help us.”

“Yes, I hope she will. I know she likes me—as a student in her class, that is. I don’t think she looks at me and thinks,
She’d make a good girlfriend for my little brother!
” Rislène’s smile vanished, and her voice dropped to a whisper. “I’m scared about Father. He grows more fanatical each day. And Nazira is even worse. It’s not the peaceful Islam I grew up with.” She fumbled with a paper napkin, turning it over in her hands.

“Shhh. Please. Let’s just enjoy this time together.” Eric grabbed both of her hands tightly.

She looked at his pale, thin fingers entwined with her dark-olive-skinned ones. She loved this young man with a head filled with dreams and a heart of courage and conviction. But how complicated he made her life. Why, she wondered for the thousandth time, had she allowed herself to fall in love with a Christian, the son of two American-born French citizens?

She hadn’t meant to. It had happened gradually, over the course of the past year … when she had become a Christian too.

Eric Hoffmann watched as Rislène left the café, then followed her out, putting a distance between them. How hard to hide his love for her from the rest of the world!

The Algerian beauty had stolen his heart the first night they’d met, over a year ago now. He thought of the young people gathered on the beach, the end of the summer’s heat warm on their shoulders as the sun set and the lazy Mediterranean lapped at their feet.

“Meet my friend Rislène,” Oumel had said, smiling broadly. “She wanted to tag along tonight and see what in the world I’ve been talking about.”

He had hardly taken his eyes off her the whole evening, while he strummed his guitar and the young people munched on
chipolata
and Merguez sausages cooked over a makeshift grill. He’d felt his face turn red each time she glanced his way. She was so delicate, her
café au lait
skin so smooth, her eyes dark ovals that flashed pleasure and maybe even mischief, her black hair, soft and thick and full, tumbling past her shoulders …

“Rislène!”

Eric watched her board the bus near the Arc de Triomphe. She turned and looked his way, eyes full of love. The doors closed behind her, and as the bus pulled away from the curb, he let out a sigh of relief.

Rislène felt the tension the moment she stepped back into her family’s apartment. Her mother regarded her suspiciously as Rislène hurried back to the bedroom she shared with her sister. Nazira was standing there, a wicked gleam in her eyes, holding up a small leather book.

“You’re a traitor, Rislène.”

Rislène’s legs buckled under her, and she collapsed on her bed. “Nazira, let me explain.”

“Explain!” her sister shrilled. “Yes, explain it to me, Rislène! Why are you hiding a Bible under your mattress? Explain that!”

This wasn’t the way Rislène had imagined sharing her newfound faith with her sister, but it seemed the moment had been decided for her. Nazira didn’t want to listen, though, and her face grew red with rage.

“We’ll see what Father has to say about such beliefs!”

“Please, Nazira, don’t tell him!”

Nazira gave a cold laugh. “I would never keep news like this from Father!”

With a groan, Rislène watched Nazira leave their bedroom, calling out, “Father! Father! Come quick!”

When he stepped into the room, Rislène shrank from her father’s harsh gaze. Usually his deep brown eyes held a fierce pride in them for his oldest daughter. But not today.