Visions of Isabelle (38 page)

Beside the women seated on the ground are pieces of orange rind, squashed dates, potatoes bearing the stamp of heels. Before one of these women, selling goats' milk, there suddenly appears a pair of scarlet boots.

The woman looks up, sees Isabelle in a white burnoose, searching the horizon with her eyes.

"Some milk?"

Isabelle does not reply.

From a distance her boots are two red flames in a sea of brown.

A
t the correspondents' tent at Aïn Sefra, Isabelle has spent the day drinking anisette and by late afternoon has fallen to sleep. Jules Bresson of
Le Matin
sits talking with an artist who's been sent to paint a portrait of Lyautey for a corridor in the Ministry of War.

"This is a puny little war," says Bresson. "Give me Indochina anytime. At least there are women, and you can bear the heat."

"I'd like to make love to a Tuareg," says the artist. "I like the idea of blue skin."

Their eyes fall upon Isabelle. She's waking, slowly–peering around. Suddenly her eyes glaze and she begins to shriek.

"Bring them on! Bring on the soldiers! I want them all!" The painter is embarrassed, tries to hush her up.

"Calm down, Si Mahmoud. You've had a bad dream."

Later, when she's fallen back to sleep, he turns to Bresson. "Is she always like that?"

"Sometimes she is, and sometimes she's not."

N
ight, near the stables at Aïn Sefra. Isabelle is wrapped against the cold in a black burnoose. Her head is wrapped in a black turban which she's drawn around her face to cover her mouth. She sits on the ground. Her horse, head down, stands a few feet away.

After a few moments she stands and strokes his neck. Tears form in her eyes.

"I'm sorry, Karim," she says. "I'm sorry I can't afford to buy you better food."

A
t the canteen in Duveyrier, Isabelle has spent the night trying to make an advantageous deal. She has approached a group of legionnaires with a proposition: she will find them an Ouled-Naïl prostitute whom they can share through the night, and in return they will pay her ten francs. She thinks she can get the girl for three and pocket the difference for herself. Her problem is that the legionnaires are drunk and will not commit themselves. In the meantime the girl may make another arrangement.

She leaves the canteen and walks back through the alleys of the village to assure herself that the girl is still there. When she returns, one of the legionnaires has dropped out of the group, and a new one, who has taken his place, asks the same questions she's answered many times.

Finally she is disgusted and issues an ultimatum. They must bring her the money in fifteen minutes or the deal is off. She steps outside for a cigarette. A German legionnaire she's met several times is leaning against the wall.

"You're the talk of the camp tonight," he tells her. "The boys can speak of nothing else."

She is silent.

"They're making fun of you, Si Mahmoud. Surely you know better than to get yourself involved in something that will bring you shame later on."

"What can I do?" she asks. "I haven't got a cent."

"There must be something," he says. "Meantime let me give you this."

He hands her a few small bills, walks away.

Later that night she loses the money at cards.

S
he is sitting in the officers' mess at Aïn Sefra when a young lieutenant comes bursting in. He grabs a plate of food, brings it over to her table.

"I've just been with the chief," he says. "I'm excited as hell! His plan is fantastic. We'll soon have Bou-Amama on the run. What I can't get over is the precision of his mind. Lyautey's a genius–no question about it. In twenty years he'll be a marshal of France!"

F
or three nights she's been wracked by a terrible fever, the same sort that has recurred since 1899. The garrison doctor says it's malaria, and she can look forward to attacks for years to come.

After she leaves him she visits the garrison dentist. He tells her that her teeth are in terrible shape. He extracts three of them and tries to patch up the rest.

"In a year or two you'll lose them all."

"What should I do?" she asks. "How will I be able to eat?"

The dentist shrugs.

"Perhaps in Algiers someone can make you a false set."

That night she notices that her hair is coming out. She can pull it out in clumps. In the morning she goes to the garrison barber and asks him to shave her head.

"Yes," he says, as he lathers her up. "It's better this way. Takes care of the problem of fleas and lice."

S
ometimes at night she toys with a loaded revolver. It is huge and black. With her finger on the trigger she raises it to her head and holds her breath. Then she puts it down and smiles.

S
he adopts a dog she calls "Loupiot," a shaggy creature who reminds her of Dédale. Loupiot has a habit of running around her as she rides or walks, making larger and more distant circles until he is out of sight. Then, suddenly, he reappears at her heels.

S
he is happiest when she writes. She loves to transpose her notes. Her handwriting is precise and she enjoys embellishing the backs of the pages with beautiful Arabic script.

When she writes descriptions of the little settlements around Aïn Sefra–the oasis of Figuig, the ksars, the souks–she becomes totally enraptured by the words and reads them over to herself, marveling at the music. As much as she loves the sound of Arabic, she is equally enamored of French.

When she reads over her pieces, before posting them to Barrucand, it seems to her, sometimes, that they were written by someone else.

O
utside Lyautey's headquarters she encounters Captain De Susbielle.

"You are a big hero now," she says.

"You are famous, too."

"Once you tried to destroy me. Why?"

"It's a soldier's life," he says. "Destroy or be destroyed."

She looks at him closely. He looks better now in his field uniform, much better than he ever did behind a desk. At the Arab Bureau he looked like a big baby. Now he looks like a hero with a row of medals on his chest.

"I hope we can be friends," he says.

"Of course," she answers. "See you in Rabat."

I
n Figuig–a place that thrills her–she is invited one night to watch an esoteric dance. She is the only European in the whitewashed vaulted room whose walls run into the floor and remind her of melted ice cream. Candles are set about in niches. The room is packed with men. Despite the chill outside, Isabelle feels hot.

Two women, supple and black, are sitting facing one another on the sandy floor. Using their legs as scissors, they grip each other's waists. A pillow is placed where their bodies meet. By thrusting their bodies in unison to a booming drum they make the pillow bounce.

It jumps, faster, faster, while their black skins become slick with sweat. When the drumming turns to a continuous throb, the pillow is levitated in space.

O
ften, when she goes to talk with Lyautey, he surprises her with an extravagant gift: a bottle of fine champagne cognac, or a carton of good English cigarettes. She can't understand why he doesn't give her decent pay, but under no circumstances will she allow herself to ask.

It would ruin everything, she thinks. The moment he becomes my patron, then our friendship will be lost.

E
arly one morning Legrand comes to her shack. He wakes her up.

"What is it?" she asks.

"Bad news."

"You've come to tell me I'm under arrest."

"Desforges is dead."

She stares at him, sees it's true.

"An ambush. He was on the route to Bechar, chasing snipers who drew him off. He led his entire column into a trap."

"There's more," she says. "Tell me."

Legrand shakes his head.

"His body–they cut it up?"

Legrand nods.

"Yes," she says, after a while, "they like to do things like that. It proves something–their manhood, I suppose."

W
inter comes to Aïn Sefra. The mountains around are whitened by snow. The desert is cold long before dark and the light is crisp and pale. Lyautey moves his headquarters to Beni-Ounif. Isabelle decides to return to Algiers for the winter.

On the morning of her last day she makes a tour of the town. It is nearly deserted now–most of the soldiers and camp followers have left, and the crenellated forts are like empty shells.

At noon she saddles her horse and rides to the rocky plains in the north. Here, finally out of sight of any habitation, she dismounts, spreads her black burnoose on the ground and lies upon it, her knees drawn slightly toward her waist.

The sun is hot, its face blank, without pity. She thinks of all the hours she's spent like this, curled to a crescent upon rocks or sand, staring out at nothing, immense emptinesses, immensities of sadness.

T
he route to Géryville is harsh. She must ride through mountain passes, sometimes dismount and lead her horse up frosty rocky trails. Each afternoon she must find a camp, someone who will let her share a tent. Sometimes she finds nomads who have lit up an entire field of esparto for warmth.

She spends the evenings sitting in tents, warming herself with tea, listening to tales, jotting down poems and songs.

In the mornings she rides into landscapes that remind her of the Alps. She thinks of herself as an eternal vagabond and savors the mystery of the unmarked roads.

W
hite on white: Isabelle as she crosses the Djebel-Amour toward Aflou. There is snow on the ground, Karim is white, and she wears a white scarf and a white burnoose.

I
n Algiers she writes a letter to Maître de Laffont, her old antagonist in Constantine. She asks for news of Abdullah ben Mohammed ben Lakhdar, and also whether it is possible for her to adopt him.

When there is no reply, she wonders whether her letter is lost or whether she may have forgotten to take it to the post.

E
ugène Letord has been looking forward to their meeting for a year. She chooses a café overlooking the port, near the terraced arcades. They speak with great admiration of Lyautey, the frontier war, the digestion of Morocco. Then they lapse into silence.

The next night she takes him to dinner at Villa Bellevue. Several prominent colonialists are there. She drinks too much and monopolizes the conversation.

"The Foreign Legion!" she says. "I know the Foreign Legion! I've slept with them all!"

Later, apropos of nothing, she says, "I'm a Russian at heart–I love the knout."

The party breaks up early. Isabelle goes to bed. Letord and Barrucand remain on the terrace to talk.

"What do you think?" Barrucand asks.

"It's a pity to see her like this," Eugène replies. "She evidently feels she must shock people–that this is what they expect."

Silence as they listen to the sea.

"Strange," he adds, "the way she's aged. She's only twenty-seven, yet she seems–burned out."

W
alking the quais of Algiers in the rain, her shoulders hunched, a cheap cigarette clenched between her teeth.

Two of Barrucand's maids discuss the neatness of her room:

"He always arranges his boots–the heels are always together."

"His pens, too–they are always lined up on the desk."

"If I move the prayer rug a little, he moves it back."

"He keeps his kif in a camel udder box!"

S
he is sitting on a stone bench in the garden at Bellevue, staring at the sea. Victor Barrucand, twenty feet away, studies her unobserved. From the back she appears bent over, her elbows resting on her knees, her fists supporting her head.

What is she thinking?

He moves closer, inadvertently breaks a twig. She turns around, gives him a look of anguish, then quickly composes her face.

Barrucand will never forget the few times he has caught her off her guard.

I
n early May she receives a summons from Lyautey: