Visions of Isabelle (27 page)

It is possible that he meant to kill Sidi Lachmi, and not finding him, struck at me instead.

But she has learned from Sidi Lachmi that in the Sahara things are never as they seem.

Perhaps the French were behind it and paid this man to strike me down.

They have always suspected her as a spy.

Then, thinking back over the past six months, she remembers Morès. Everyone in the Souf knew she was sent to find his killers. Perhaps they've been tracking her all the while, mysterious, silent men, assassins, waiting for Slimen to go away, then sending Abdullah to finish her off.

The most terrible thing, she thinks, confused by so many possibilities, is that Abdullah will somehow be let off.

If he goes unpunished then I am condemned. It will be a signal to all the Tidjani, to every madman, every fanatic, every discontent in Algeria: "Si Mahmoud is fair game. Kill Si Mahmoud! Succeed or fail, you have nothing to lose!"

She dreams of a life of a thousand attacks, mad cloaked creatures rushing at her out of mosques; smiling strangers with daggers hidden in their sleeves; killers disguised as beggars; headhunters converging on horseback to cut her down. She dreams of storerooms of weapons all destined for her flesh: knives, rusty sabers, gleaming daggers, bayonets. She dreams of fights and close escapes, evasions and dangers, sees herself growing old, her body carved so many times that not a portion remains unscarred. And then, finally, resignation, submission to her fate–a long walk through a dark overgrown oasis, the sky bruised purple and gray, giant black cobras slinking among the palms, each step possibly her last. She walks on, waiting, and then, finally, release: her killers appear in silence from behind the thwarted trunks, surround her, raise arms, plunge knives, stab. Sinking, she looks up, sees the same countenance on them all–Abdullah Ben Mohammed, raving, angry, staring at her with fanatic's eyes.

O
n her twenty-fourth birthday, regaining her spirit and her strength, she emerges from her fevers with a new view of her predicament, which she considers with gloom. Slimen writes that his commander has refused permission for a visit. Sidi Lachmi sends word that he is still in Tunisia, and will be there for several weeks more. Newspapers from the north–Algiers, Constantine, Bône and Oran–carry extravagant accounts of the incident in Behima, which are so distorted she must devote a day to writing letters to set them straight. Eugène Letord telegraphs his concern, and the captain in charge of the Arab Bureau at El Oued visits her in her hospital room, tells her there will be a trial in Constantine and takes her deposition with a clerk.

She lies back. A sense of mystery envelops her. She feels a bond with Abdullah, some mysterious connection between their fates. Assailant and victim–both their lives have been changed by a few seconds of contact she cannot explain.

Behima, 3:00 P.M., January 29, 1901.

If only she could unravel the lines that intersect.

T
oward the middle of June 1901, people begin to gather for the trial of the year. The better hotels in Constantine are filled with officers and their wives, curiosity-seekers from all corners of the colony and journalists from as far as Marseilles. The cheaper rooming houses are host to an assemblage of stern bronze-faced men who flaunt brilliant robes and speak in the strange dialect of the south.

Isabelle and Slimen arrive on the evening of the fifteenth. Since leaving the hospital she's spent the months in Batna being interrogated by officers and trying, with infrequent success, to meet with Slimen. His request to live outside the garrison has been denied, so cohabitation must wait until his enlistment expires. In the meantime she's become convinced that certain officers in the Arab Bureau will use the Behima Affair as a pretext for forcing her out of the south.

As soon as they are off their train, relaxing with absinthes in the Ksouma Café, they become aware, for the first time, of the notoriety now attached to her name. A young French couple seated at another table–good-looking, exuberant girl, and stiff blond boy whom Isabelle takes for a junior officer and his visiting fiancée–are loudly discussing her case.

"But, my dear, she's disgusting." The boy looks like a young De Susbielle. "She lives like a tramp, and then, you see, it turns out she's one of those Russian millionaires."

"Everyone knows the Russians are eccentric."

"And we certainly don't need them here!"

"But I don't understand. Why is everyone against her?" The boy squints, shows small contemptuous eyes.

"She's damaged European prestige. Naturally we want to see this criminal put to death, but one can't help but think she got what she deserved."

"What's she like?"

"No bosoms at all, and at least fifty years old."

"Fascinating!"

"...sleeps with anything in a robe..."

"My dear!"

"...licentious as a strumpet–the most utter trash..."

"How absolutely marvelous!"

A beggar approaches the table. The boy waves him away. But when the beggar comes at him again, muttering in a droning Arabic, the boy flies into a rage.

"Get away you filthy pig!"

He throws some coins on the table, yanks the girl up by her arm.

"Beggars! Vermin! This is what you get when you sit in a native café."

S
idi Lachmi arrives the next day with a retinue of aides. Seeing him step off the train in his magnificent robes, Isabelle's heart is warmed by his crooked face, deep liquid eyes and subtle smile. She rushes to him, offers a firm embrace, but feels he is distant, somehow distracted, as if they were playing chess. There is trouble, then, at the Hotel Metropole–the management is not pleased by this invasion of a sheik's entourage. Sidi Lachmi and his men find rooms at the Ben Chimou, and Isabelle and Slimen, disgusted by the quarrel in the lobby, go off to dinner alone.

That evening they wander the medina, find a café, settle back to smoke a mixture of chira-enriched kif. Musicians wander the narrow streets of the quarter, playing for the patrons. Isabelle is thrilled by the high-pitched singing in the night, the delirious beat of tambourines.

They retire late but she does not sleep well. The months in Batna have worn her down. She is haunted by the past year–her double life, the strange way she has stirred up so much admiration and hate. She looks at Slimen, asleep beside her, finds him beautiful, lays her fingers upon his dark furry chest and wonders what will become of their lives. So many changes have come so fast. They have fallen from ecstatic heights to penury and despair. It will be eight months before his enlistment expires, before they will be free to live their dreams. But perhaps, she thinks, the trial will clear the air, open up something new and great.

Before dawn a messenger brings her a telegram from Oran: "All my love and hopes with you today. Eugène."

She will get through the trial, she knows, if only because of friends: Slimen, Sidi Lachmi, the men of the Kadrya and the warm encouragement of Letord.

O
n the morning of the eighteenth she dresses, for the first time in her life, in Arab women's clothes. She senses the trial will be a spectacle and chooses to play an unexpected role. At 6:00 A.M. she presents herself at the door of the Conseil de Guerre, is shown to the witnesses' room and served coffee from a steaming pot. Awhile later she hears noises in the hall, peers out and sees Abdullah, hands chained in front, marching between guards. People in the corridor see her and stare. She ignores them, returns to her seat, waits while the room fills slowly with faces from the past.

All the horrors of Behima come rushing back as the other witnesses appear: Abdullah's father, who glares at her with pain; the caid who claimed Abdullah was a sherif and because of that could not be touched; Brahim ben Larbi whose house has been sullied with her blood; the men who held Abdullah; the one who took the saber from his hand. Finally Sidi Lachmi arrives, guided in by the prosecutor, Captain Martin. He nods to her and sits apart. Then Martin crosses over to shake her hand.

"I promise, Mademoiselle, that you will see Justice served today." He speaks loudly, in a courtroom voice, but then stoops, whispers into her ear: "My wife and daughter are just outside."

She follows him to the hall, bows to a pinched-faced woman dressed for an Easter promenade, accepts the nervous curtsy of an awkward girl who wears pigtails and a sour frown.

"Thank you," says the captain. "Antoinette is absolutely thrilled."

She returns to the witnesses' room, smokes and waits. At precisely seven o'clock the bailiff appears to call them into court.

The room is huge, much larger than she'd supposed, signifying, she has no doubt, the power of colonial France. Already the air is close, for the benches below (she thinks of this place as "the pit") are choked with Arabs, and the balcony is packed with Europeans in fancy dress, women fanning themselves with the morning's
La Dépêche Algérienne
, officers in stunning uniforms and civilians in immaculate white suits waving to personages below.

Her entrance is greeted by craning heads. People whisper and point. She hears the words, "The Russian!" echo in the room. Looking around she is struck by a vision of colonial rot–the natives below, crowded, sweating, draped in their tattered robes, and, above them, the masters from France, cool, detached, suited in finery, thirsty for a bloodletting to avenge their suffering beneath this merciless North African sun.

She follows the bailiff proudly to a seat beside the sheik. She is moved by the costumes–Sidi Lachmi resplendent in his sherifian silks, green and white; the caid of Behima in a fez and red burnoose; the other southerners with their expressive heads, bronzed faces and robes.

The tribunal which faces them is equally decorous: five officers, chests festooned with medals and decorations, polished buttons, uniforms immaculate and sharply pressed. Their faces are rigid, impenetrable. She studies them and sees no compassion. The president, a colonel of artillery named Janin, seems made of stone.

Suddenly–a stir. All faces turn to the back. A man with thick gray hair and a magnificent moustache, epaulets on his shoulders, stars on his kepi, takes a roped-off seat in the first row. Janin gives him an ingratiating nod. It is General Laborie de Labattut, commander of the Sud-Constantine, known for his precise etiquette, legendary for his ruthless suppression of insurrections in the south.

The general, however, interests Isabelle far less than Abdullah and his coterie, the blank-faced guards who stand behind him, the stooped interpreter by his side and his counsel, a hawk-faced Frenchman with knitted brows who stares at her with devastating eyes. She turns to Abdullah, tries to meet his gaze, but he is focused on Sidi Lachmi, who stares straight ahead without expression. She feels tension, then, as if the four of them are working themselves up for a bout.

A presentation of arms: A herald announces the case; a clerk stands to read the accusation. He recounts the incident much as it took place–the facts are not in dispute, and Isabelle is satisfied. But then he reads on, and she can hardly believe her ears.

"Mademoiselle Eberhardt," he drones, "has been observed since her coming to the Sud-Constantine by officers of the Arab Bureau. They have found her behavior exceedingly eccentric, and likely to give offense to the indigenous population. She is known to be a rich Russian, though she claims she is a Moslem and poor. She obtained permission, in 1899, to travel in the military zone on the basis of a false statement that she was writing a book about Saharan customs. She stayed a short while, returned to Europe and then came back in August of last year, at which time she proceeded to live a lascivious life in a squalid fashion, cohabiting with a Spahi corporal in an Arab house, and then becoming involved with the Kadrya sect and its sheik–the witness Sidi Lachmi–a sherif, with whom she has often been observed in intimate consultation at late hours of the night.

"Shortly after her arrival a coded message was received by the bureau's annex in El Oued. It had been discovered through informants that Mademoiselle Eberhardt had been sent as a private investigator on behalf of the Marquise de Morès. Her mission was to identify the murderers of Antoine de Vallambrosa, killed by unknown persons in 1896.

"The annex kept a close watch on Mademoiselle Eberhardt and had her followed many times. A large dossier was compiled, containing reports of mysterious nocturnal rides, covert meetings with nomadic tribesmen, conversations with prostitutes in cafés, attendance at religious ceremonies, and numerous other activities whose purposes could not be explained.

"The annex did not disrupt these actions, hoping that by them she might attract the killers of Morès whom the Bureau had been seeking for some time.

"After a long investigation it has been determined that the accused, Abdullah ben Mohammed ben Lakhdar, was not one of these, but a member of a sect rivaling the one to which Mademoiselle Eberhardt became attached. She had become a cause of religious strife, and was attacked by the accused, according to his deposition, on purely religious grounds.

"Though her behavior is not an issue in this case, except insofar as it may have been the cause of the alleged crime, the investigators are recommending a separate process at which Mademoiselle Eberhardt, because of her disruption of stability in the region of El Oued, be brought to account."