Visions of Isabelle (34 page)

"Then what is my solution?"

"That depends on what you want to solve. Pacification is one thing–Morocco something else."

Lyautey's eyes narrow with fascination.

"Let's speak of pacification..."

"Fine. For that you must not think in terms of holding land. One or two oases–so you have water and resting places and depots for your supplies. But the rest is desert and has no value. It's not the land you must fight for, but the affections of the people. If they like you, then Bou-Amama cannot survive. And if they don't, you'll have more nightmares like Taghit and El-Mounghar. His men can always mass to attack your weakest point. You must move as much as he, change your headquarters every day, be everywhere at the same time, come out of nowhere in the night. But don't set up all these little forts and expect them to hold the line. I've slept in them, Colonel, and I can assure you that the men inside are scared. What can you expect, when they know Bou-Amama can appear at any moment and smash them to dust?"

"You're right. Legrand–she sounds like me. But she doesn't go quite so far."

Isabelle smiles. "I'm not a soldier, Colonel. I'm a writer, for an obscure Algerian rag."

"You're Moslem?"

She nods.

"And you speak the languages?"

"Of course."

"So you know the people?"

"Better than I know the French."

"Tell me–what do they think of us?"

"Nothing–nothing at all. They think of God, fervently and all the time. They cannot grow food or eat it or sleep or fight or make love without evoking his name. They–and I include myself–are obsessed with submission to His will."

"And the leaders–the caids..."

She shakes her head. "The caids keep civil order–nothing more. The real leaders are the Marabouts–the religious men, the sheiks with
barraka
, the descendants of the saints who rest in the domed tombs. They interpret the will of God, and by the power of their interpretations they lead."

"Bou-Amama is a Marabout."

"Yes, and there are many others who could influence even him."

Lyautey smiles, satisfied.

"We do think the same, from slightly different angles, of course. My interest is to make this region safe, and then expand to the west. The sultan of Morocco is a mental defective, a child sitting in a decaying court. What little power he has left is felt only in the cities, hundreds of miles away. But this land–of 'gunpowder' as you call it, this land of Marabouts and tribes–it must be played cleverly, without great frontal attacks and valiant last stands at the gates of forts. I must win the people over through the Maraboutic sheiks. Yes, we see things the same way, though I suspect you've come to your conclusions through an interest in exotic tribes, while I've come to mine out of my duty to serve France."

She nods, locked to him by his probing eyes.

"You say you're a writer. Is that really your profession?"

"Yes. And I'm a drunkard, too."

They laugh.

"I can see it in your face," he says. "You're the sort who feels compelled to chase the sun, to bury yourself in some strange and empty part of the earth where you can forget who you are and blend with nature–perhaps with God."

She puts down her pipe, astounded at how deeply he has seen into her soul. In only a few minutes of acquaintance he has put his finger on the force that has driven her to this desert of heat and pain.

"Perhaps," she says, "you're happier serving France. Perhaps it's better to be pushed by something one can understand than by some mysterious force that drives one to extremes."

"We shall not know, Si Mahmoud, if we are happy until the moment when we die. But I can envy you riding about on your magnificent horse, feeling free because you have no home and can wander where you like. For me happiness lies in changing the world, not my inner self. I enjoy leading men and rather dislike being led. If you knew what problems I have doing these things, you would understand why sometimes I'd rather be free like you."

Legrand, embarrassed by these revelations, clears his throat.

"Perhaps," he says, "Si Mahmoud's activities are not incompatible with our own."

"Yes," says Lyautey, "I've thought of that. But we shall speak of it some other time. Are my singers ready?"

"Yes, Colonel–they are."

"Good. Bring them in. Stay, Si Mahmoud, and listen to the best voices in my command. These German legionnaires love to sing, and their fine sad lieder give me pleasure at night."

Six young men, all tall and deeply tanned with gleaming blond hair, appear in the shadows outside the entrance to the tent. Lyautey greets them, they light candles, and then they begin to sing.

The colonel and Isabelle refill their pipes, smoke and sip liqueur from huge fragile goblets. The serenade wafts to them across the silk-lined tent, dying in the deep-piled carpets at their feet. It is sorrowful, soft, a song of Nordic love, requited but then destroyed by an untimely death. Though it seems to contain the tragic mystery of a castle built upon a frozen peak, here, in this gently billowing tent, set upon the ground of a Saharan oasis, it blends and lulls and becomes sublime. Isabelle looks over at Lyautey, watches him resting with closed eyes, swaying to the melancholy lilt.

Much later, after many songs, and many more goblets of liqueur, she feels a soothing bliss. She is not intoxicated, feels no miseries within. It is like the early days in Bône when she first experimented with kif and found a still and subtle joy. And here, with an intelligent, powerful man, she feels something she has not felt in years: admiration, the sense that at last she has met someone great.

O
ver the next few days their friendship blooms. Legrand comes to find her often, to take her to the great tent for feasts on silver plate. Once Lyautey asks her to brief his officers on the confraternities. He sits like a gently smiling Buddha as she tells the startled men of the power of the sects. Another time he spends an hour with her carefully tracing his plans upon his maps. And still another time he calls her to help him question a prisoner.

Until his talks with her, he had been giving lavish feasts for the caids. Now he begins to entertain the Marabouts. He sits quietly at these banquets, listening gravely as she interprets, asking an occasional question, always showing respect for their beliefs. She notices that he does not degrade the conversation with threats against the enemy or promises of the benefits that will flow from France. He wants to convey an impression that he is a great sheik, too–that he has riches beyond count, can entertain in lavish style and possesses such awesome power that he has no need to boast.

Her admiration grows at each meeting until finally she's so dazzled she forgets her rejection of Europe and all it represents. Lyautey is a superior being, but there is something more that attracts her, a sensitivity to people and to life. When she compares him to the other men in her life–Vava, the mad Russian; Archivir, the passionate Turk; Sidi Lachmi, the scheming sheik; Slimen with his primitive Berber traits–she believes he comes closest to Eugène, but with a forcefulness and a self-possession that her dear friend does not possess. He's about to become a general–there's talk in the officers' mess of that–and she hears much of him there, sees him through the eyes of his adoring men who speak with awe of the grasp of his mind, his cleverness, his grandeur, the expert way he draws the best out of each of them.

"We grow when we are with him," says Legrand. "We love him for that."

He is warm and gallant with her, makes it clear that he respects her and is intrigued by the way she lives. But there is always something guarded–some delicate wall she cannot breach. He shows her neither temperament, weakness, impatience nor the slightest hint of dishonesty or guile. But though she senses he has many sides, she always leaves him feeling he's not allowed her to explore his depths. Beside him Sidi Lachmi seems a mere pretender to strength. Lyautey is unique, a sort, she thinks, one is lucky to encounter in a lifetime. She treasures their friendship, begins to live for his summons to the tent.

"What does he think of me?" she asks Legrand one day.

"That you're one of the smartest people around."

"And my personality?"

He pauses a moment, as if judging how much to tell.

"I must be discreet," he says, "but I'll tell you one thing."

"Yes?"

"Though he adores your rebellious spirit, he believes you use it to bring misery upon yourself."

"Oh," she says after a long silence. "I never thought of that."

O
ne evening after too much to drink, she enters the area around Lyautey's tent, learns from the sentries that he's alone and asks his batman if she may pay him a call. A few moments later he steps outside.

"How nice to see you, Si Mahmoud. How good of you to stop by."

He does not invite her in.

"I had to come," she tells him. "I was sitting alone, confused, and when I began to long for clarity I thought of you."

Lyautey smiles.

"I think of you often," she says. "At night, especially, I think of you a lot."

"I could be your father, Si Mahmoud."

"In age, perhaps, but not in your heart."

"Thank you."

She purses her lips, maddened by his innocuous phrase.
Doesn't be realize,
she asks herself,
that I've just made him a declaration?
She's about to blurt out something, words she's not yet framed but already knows she'll regret, when he takes her arm.

"Do you drink because you suffer, Si Mahmoud?"

She nods. Suddenly tears form in her eyes.

"Your life has been extraordinary and strange," he says. "I think the desert is your studio–a place where you suffer, are alone and work to form your soul. And you emerge from it strong, stronger than you know. There's great power in you–the aristocratic force of life. You're so much better than those fools in Paris who run about like ants."

She looks up at him, his gentle fatherly eyes. She wants to fall at his feet, thank him for this compliment which is the best she's ever received. She feels that something is happening between them, something that will bring her to his arms.

"I was just going down the hill to make a round of the canteens," he says. "They belong to the men, of course, but I don't think they mind if I step in for a minute or two. Come–let me walk you back."

Expertly he guides her out of the officers' section of the camp. She stumbles, still drunk, blushes when he helps her to her feet.

She looks at him again, sees something distant in his face. He is thinking, she is sure, of whether to turn and take her back. Suddenly she goes soft, holds her breath, feels some intention coming from his arm. But then there's a tightening up, a signal he's decided to resist.

"Yes, come," he says. "We'll look in at the dance hall. I enjoy watching the girls there myself."

As they move among the tents, down a narrow walk, past campfires and sentries who raise their rifles in salute, she knows their moment has passed, that for some reason he has steeled himself against taking her as a lover in his tent.

Another minute and this sad silent thought is broken by a faint hint of music that hauntingly pierces the Saharan night. They move closer to the dark mud building, transformed into a dance hall for the troops, and hear laughter, the thump of stamping feet.

They move to the windows, smudged panes, and peer inside. Hundreds of soldiers are cavorting with two dozen girls who look worn out. Isabelle recognizes faces from the convoy that brought her to Beni-Ounif. In wigs and frills they twirl among the men, splashes of color in a monotonous sea of tan, lit by carbide lamps that hang from ceiling wires and fill the top half of the room with yellowish smoke. Standing outside in the bitter desert air, Isabelle feels apart and turns to the tall presence at her side.

"I used to go to places like this," he says, "when I was a young officer in Saigon. But we didn't have many French girls there–the Annamese were so splendid, so petite."

He seems almost wistful to her, and she holds her breath, hoping he'll let down his shield, give her a glimpse of the man within.

"It's hard to imagine you dancing like that."

"Why? Because now I live like a feudal lord surrounded by an adoring court? I was gay when I was a lieutenant–now I must be grave. That's the cost one pays for high command. Now I must be a stern father to the men, mete out discipline and rewards. Still I miss the days when I led patrols, and then, happy to be back at camp unscathed, could dance away the night."

A pair of legionnaires passes by. They don't see the colonel or his friend standing in the shadows by the wall. They are speaking in German, laying plans for one of the girls inside. When they're gone Lyautey laughs.

"I don't know how many times I've overheard talk like that. Yet for all the brilliant seductive traps well laid, only one in a thousand ever catches the prey. It's the same in war. Still I must keep sending out patrols, even though I always lose some men. I never know, you see–by some majestic stroke of luck one of those boys in there might manage to shoot Bou-Amama through his heart."