Visions of Isabelle (33 page)

They look at one another and shrug.

"We are conscripts. The French pay us. And our orders are to hold this place."

They sleep during the day bundled together in a heap. She watches as they absentmindedly hug one another, make random love.

On the second night, sometime after twelve, there is a huge eruption of barking from a pack of wild dogs scavenging below the cliffs. The boys all start to fire at once, pivoting about, spraying the moonlit scenery with bullets until she finally shouts at them to stop.

"You'll use up all your ammunition."

"Yes," says Ahkmed with a laugh. "Then we can go home."

In the morning she goes down to the village for food. When she returns she finds all four of them eyeing her in a peculiar way.

"What's the matter?" she asks.

"We know who you are, Si Mahmoud."

"Who am I?"

"You're a Moslem, but you're not a man."

"Oh," she says, "how did you find that out?"

"I watched you this morning," says Mustapha. "I saw you pee."

"Listen," says Ahkmed, who seems to be the leader of the pack, "we've been talking things over. Now we have a proposition which we sincerely hope you'll accept."

"What's that?"

"We've been counting up all our money, and between the four of us we have nine francs."

"So?"

"So–we're offering all of that to you–everything we've got."

"And what am I supposed to do in return?"

"We'd like you to teach us how to fuck."

She laughs.

"It's a good bargain," he says. "The whores in Aïn Sefra don't get as much."

"So why offer all of it to me?"

"We are very impressed with you."

"Why?"

"We've seen that you can write"

Their eight eyes are all centered on her face, gleaming, eager, moist.

What prestige, she thinks, to be offered more than a whore–surely some sort of summit achievement for having led the literary life.

"Listen," she says, "has any of you ever slept with a girl?"

They all shake their heads.

She is amused, then strangely touched.

"All right. But I won't take your money. You can take what I offer you as a gift."

They all four jump up, stomp their feet and cheer. She opens up her flask, takes a deep swig of anisette, wipes her sleeve across her lips.

"You must all wash," she tells them, "wash yourselves very well. And then you may draw straws to see who comes in first."

Ahkmed is the winner (he has cheated, she is sure), and when he comes upon her the others group around to watch.

"It's the same as with each other," he counsels them when he's done. "But juicier, and not so tight."

Mohammed discharges on his second stroke, Ahmed is the roughest, Mustapha is gentle and slow. When they're done, they dress quickly and resume their positions with their guns. They say nothing to her, but turn their backs.

Arabs are wonderful
, she thinks.
Love to them is nothing but a body function.

Lying back on the clay floor of the blockhouse, her legs still spread, her burnoose still hoisted above her waist, she thinks back and scoffs at the dream she forged on her first visit to El Oued. There she cast herself as a romantic who would be as mysterious and as undulant as the dunes. Now on this desert of boulders, raging with war, she finds herself grown hard, but without regret. Her old dream, struck down at Behima, finally met its death with Slimen in Ténès. Now looking at the frightened backs of her quartet of lovers, she finds her heart as impenetrable as a stone.

B
ack at the étoile Du Sud canteen in Aïn Sefra she meets up again with the correspondent, Jules Bresson.

"I'm just back from a week in the field," he tells her, ordering them each a drink. "You can't believe what's going on. At least a platoon of legionnaires is being killed every day. They deny it here, of course, but every time they send out a patrol, there's an ambush and the men are massacred like rats."

"Doesn't surprise me a bit," she says. "I've been making the rounds of the posts. The Arab irregulars are incompetent–they're even afraid of dogs."

"Listen," he says, lowering his voice, "this whole town's riddled with spies. Bou-Amama knows about every column that goes out, and he knows about it in advance."

"But don't the French realize...?"

"If they do, they're not willing to talk. Tomorrow I'm having dinner at the garrison at Duveyrier. Come with me. We'll throw them some tough questions. Maybe we can make them squirm."

W
hen Captain Lascaux, in command at Duveyrier, receives word he's to be visited by a lady journalist, he and his officers become greatly excited and arrange a candlelight dinner in her honor at the fort. Lascaux, himself, prepares to offer her his personal quarters for the night. But their excitement gives way to stupefaction when Isabelle swaggers in, unwraps her turban and reveals her short-cut hair.

"What an Amazon!" Lascaux whispers to Bresson.

The journalist smiles. "Give her a chance."

At dinner she gobbles up her food like an Arab, using her hand to transport it to her mouth. A number of officers, clearly repulsed, excuse themselves and wander out. But a hard core of fascinated Frenchmen remain–Lascaux, another captain named De Jonghe and a Lieutenant Legrand who, Bresson tells her, is Colonel Lyautey's aide-de-camp.

"Well," she says after dinner, setting down her coffee to which she's ostentatiously added a tumbler of anisette, "you're strung out here for a hundred fifty kilometers in a line of little forts." She winks at Bresson. "From what we've seen, your railway is attacked every night, and every one of your patrols is torn to bits. Now isn't that a fair summary of the facts?"

De Jonghe clears his throat. "You exaggerate the situation, Mademoiselle, and you forget that we control the wells."

"Bou-Amama doesn't seem very thirsty to me. He attacks you all the time, but, then, perhaps he has wells of his own, or his men don't need so much to drink."

Under pressure from her sarcasm the conversation soon becomes intense. Isabelle begins to chain-smoke cigarettes, and, alternately to gulp down glasses of liqueur. She is fierce in her criticisms and forces the officers to put up a spirited defense.

"Bou-Amama has a phantom army," says Lascaux. "It's hidden somewhere in these rocky hills. He strikes out of the night and retreats God knows where. Impossible for us to search out and destroy. We must wait for his attacks, hope to win in the defense."

"The Colonel," says Legrand, "believes that Bou-Amama cannot survive without the support of the local tribes. But how can we French convince these nomads they'll be better off with us? That's the crux of the question, and we don't have an answer for it yet."

"Someday I'd like to have a word with your colonel," she says, grabbing up another bottle, then placing it on the floor within easy reach. "If he'd deign to see me, of course."

"I've asked for an interview a half dozen times," says Bresson. "Apparently Colonel Lyautey doesn't like the press."

"Nonsense," says Legrand. "He's up in Oran bargaining for more troops. When he returns I'm sure something can be arranged."

"More troops–more shit!"

They all turn to her amazed, then watch as she yawns and pours herself another drink. "Even with fifty thousand men you'll still be prisoners in your forts."

As the evening progresses she becomes increasingly obscene, drinks herself to a stupor until she finally collapses in a pile beside the intelligence officer's dog. When she breaks into a husky snore, the three officers and Jules Bresson look down at her in dismay.

"What do you make of that?" asks De Jonghe.

"A rather tough young lady," says Legrand. "A little unbalanced, of course. But she does have interesting views."

"Listen, Bresson," says Lascaux, "we're delighted to entertain lady journalists, and we'd be pleased if you'd bring us more. But next time, dear fellow, could you kindly find us someone a little less
extreme
."

J
ules Bresson returns to Paris at the end of September, leaving her alone in Aïn Sefra to cover the autumn campaign. From her sources in the ranks she learns of vast troop movements to the border opposite Figuig. A small but ancient settlement, Beni-Ounif, has become the focal point for this latest show of force. One day she watches as a train, covered with armed men, machine gunners on the roof, sweeps by without stopping toward the south. On it, she is told, is the commander of the Sud-Oranais, Colonel Louis Hubert Gonsalve Lyautey, come personally to orchestrate "incidents" that will make it possible to pursue Bou-Amama across the frontier.

She has heard too much of this Lyautey in the canteens where the men speak of his grandeur and marvel at his magnificent style. Anxious to meet him she departs for Beni-Ounif, riding with a mixed crew of camels, replacement legionnaires and a gang of dance-hall girls imported from Sidi-bel-Abbès.

She immediately seeks out Legrand and asks for an interview with his chief. The next day he tells her it's arranged.

"The colonel wants to meet you," he says. "He invites you for coffee tonight. But leave your notebook behind. He's interested in you as a personality, not as a reporter for some rag in Algiers."

That evening Legrand meets her at the gates of the French camp, escorts her past the sentries toward a cluster of Berber tents. A dozen horses are tied nearby. Flags wave on their staves in the gentle evening breeze.

Legrand leads her to a large tent in the center. The flaps are open, and, as she comes around the side, her eyes meet an amazing sight. The whole vast octagonal space, built around a central pillar of polished wood, is lined with white silk, and on the ground are piles of fine carpets, laid one upon the other as in a Turkish mosque. Flowers are every-where, arranged in copper pots, while lanterns cast a soft even glow on a huge canopied bed, an ebony chest with brass fittings and a splendid Empire desk.

She thinks:
This colonel lives like a great sheik.
Then staring in at a group of men sitting at a conference table covered with maps, her mind flashes back to El Oued. She remembers Sidi Lachmi and is struck by a sense of
déj
à
vu
.

Legrand motions for her to wait, steps inside. He goes up to a man whose back is to the flaps and whispers in his ear. He, in turn, says something to a servant wearing a satin jacket monogrammed with a large "L." While this man brings up two more chairs, Legrand returns to escort her in.

"Colonel Lyautey; Mademoiselle Eberhardt."

Lyautey stands and turns, revealing himself for the first time. He is gray-haired, balding, with a kind open face and a magnificent and elegant moustache. His tunic is buttoned at the top, he wears a cummerbund of black silk, a row of medals, fitted riding pants and a pair of shining black boots.

She is taken at once by his proud, smooth, aristocratic face and the friendly curiosity of his eyes. There is an aura of openness about him, and, in his greeting, something curious and sensitive that provokes her desire to win his esteem.

He, in turn, seems taken with her, for she is dressed like a costumed cavalier, in clothes one might see on an actor in an opera, but with a sense of pleasure in herself, and the allure, the desirability of a thoroughbred horse.

Graciously he introduces his officers who click their heels as he says their names.

"Though this is the first time that Mademoiselle Eberhardt and I have met," he tells them, "I've heard wondrous tales of a lady journalist who rides the best horse in the Sud-Oranais."

"And you, Colonel–" she replies, "who has not heard tales of the man summoned all the way from Madagascar to deliver Morocco up to France?"

"Excuse us, gentlemen–please." The officers gather up their map cases, bow to her again and stroll out.

Legrand whispers to the servant who brings them coffee in octagonal cups. Then he lights a pair of silver candelabra beside a tray of cognacs and liqueurs.

"May I smoke?" asks Lyautey.

"Of course," she replies. "May I?"

He nods, amused, but she notices that his eyes widen slightly when she brings out her kif pipe and camel's udder box.

Filling their respective pipes, each waits for the other to speak. When Legrand can no longer bear the silence he interjects.

"Mademoiselle Eberhardt calls herself Si Mahmoud," he says. "She has some interesting ideas which correspond to things you've been saying to the staff."

"How good of you," Lyautey says with a smile. "I've been waiting a long while to meet someone who shares my eccentric views."

They laugh and then Isabelle begins, saying she does not think he will prevail with a rigid line of forts.

"Of course," he says, "I agree. But tell me why."

"I know nothing about war," she says, "but I understand these people and the problems of this land. Here Bou-Amama is not regarded as a bandit, but as a holy man embarked on a crusade. This region has always been a land of gunpowder. There's no clean line between Morocco and Algeria–the people have no notion of nations or frontiers. But there is Islam." She says the word with an intense intake of breath. "Islam–it is with them all the time. Now Bou-Amama represents the faith, and because of that he gains their help."