Visions of Isabelle (41 page)

Though there are several streets named after her in Algeria, very few young people in France have ever heard of Isabelle Eberhardt, and she is virtually unknown in the English-speaking world. But there was a time when she was something of a legend, a sort of French T. E. Lawrence with a feminist dimension. Now I hope interest in her will be revived, both because of this novel, and also the publication of some of her stories, excellently translated by Paul Bowles.

I
n the autumn of 1974 I traveled to Algeria to retrace her footsteps. The country has changed enormously, of course, but one gets a sense of the desert as it must have been at the turn of the century simply by turning down any one of a thousand ragged
pistes
. Then one must stand in awe of her bravery and her love of the road.

I had no trouble getting to Beni-Ounif, Figuig (in Morocco), Kenadsa, El-Hammel or any of the rest of those hidden places in North Africa where she spent her time. One sees young people wearing granny glasses and Che Guevara T-shirts in El Oued today, but there is still sand in the streets, and the palms are still grown in deep basins called
cuvettes
.

I met there with the local writer-historian whose grandfather had been caid in Isabelle's time. "She was strong and svelte, built like a gazelle," he said, and then showed me the ruins of her house, the hospital, the Arab Bureau (now the prefecture) and the house in Behima where she was stabbed.

Ténès, like so many of the coastal towns in Algeria, has the shuttered decayed look of a place hastily deserted by the French. There is a small private beach around the mountain to the east where I imagined Isabelle and Slimen trying to fulfill their suicide pact.

As for Aïn Sefra, I was there seventy years to the day after the famous flood. The river was bone dry and the Algerian army now occupies the old barracks and hospital on the heights (not so high as I had thought). Aïn Sefra is set in a stunning country of red earth and sand, and at sunset the light coats the mountains with an indescribable glow.

After a long chain of complications I found her tomb. It is a simple raised monument set apart from the other graves. "Si Mahmoud," it says in Arabic, and then in French: "Isabelle Eberhardt, wife of Slimen Ehnni, dead at 27 in the catastrophe at Aïn Sefra, October 21, 1904." Nothing else, but the tomb faces Mecca like the rest, and is extremely eloquent in this weed-choked cemetery facing the dunes.

A
fter she died Lyautey wrote: "She was that which attracted me more than anything else. A rebel." She rejected Western culture–the virtues of logic, lucidity, science, proofs. She was attracted to mysticism, poetic leaps of the soul, disguise, erotic love, mad rides across the sand. She was the quintessential wanderer, a troubled, moody vagabond who tried to live in total freedom, re-creating herself according to her dreams. She was fearless in pursuit of what she was, afraid of nothing except that she might harm someone else. Once I learned of her I found it impossible to put her out of my mind, and thus this fantasy, in which I have tried, like other historical novelists, to use fiction as a mans of approaching truth.
 
WB (Tangier, 1973-1975)

"VISIONS OF ISABELLE"
Q & A WITH WILLIAM BAYER

Q
. You're known as a crime fiction writer, but
Visions Of Isabelle
is clearly an historical novel base on the life of a real person. How did you happen to write it?

A
. It's an early work written back in the 1970s before I turned to crime fiction. One day my then girlfriend (now wife), Paula Wolfert, started telling me about this amazing person, Isabelle Eberhardt–an adventuress, Saharan explorer, writer and proto-feminist who dressed as a man and took an Arab male name. Intrigued, I tried to learn more about her, but there was very little information available. Finally, I went to the New York Public Library and read her published journals in French. Then one night, several weeks later, I dreamt of her. After a succession of dreams, I decided to write about her.

Q
. Do you always dream about your characters?

A
. Rarely. This was the first time. I felt haunted by her. There was a particular photo in one of the books taken just a few days before she died. She's sitting up in bed in a hospital, and there's something very weird about the expression on her face, as if the photographer crept up on her and surprised her. Also a sense I got that she knew something momentous and fearful was soon going to occur in her life. I remember a few years later, after Paula and I moved to Tangier (our plan was to move there for a year; I would write my Isabelle novel while Paula completed her Moroccan cookbook), I showed a copy of this photo to the writer Paul Bowles. He studied it, then shook his head and turned away. "I can't bear to look at it," he said. That was when I knew that there really was something strange there.

Q
. Yet your book is not a biography?

A
. Being a fiction writer, I didn't want to go that route, but it occurred to me that she'd make a great subject for a novel, and that if I fictionalized I'd be free to fill in many things not known about her. I think of
Visions Of Isabelle
as a kind of fictionalized psycho-biography, in that I try to probe into her psyche and erotic life.

Q
. Did you do a lot of research?

A. I read everything she wrote and everything I could find that was written about her. It was only after I finished my research that Paula and I decided to go live in North Africa for a year. We rented a house in Tangier, enrolled Paula's kids in the American School there, and set to work on our respective projects.

Q.
Didn't Isabelle Eberhardt spent most of her Saharan career in Algeria?

A
. True. But it was easy for me to travel there from Tangier. I'd get in my car and drive to Algiers, then down to the various oases where she'd spent her time, and, finally, to the Saharan village, Aïn Sefra, where she died in a flood at age 27.

Q
. A flood in the Sahara?!

A.
Amazing, isn't it? Reminds me in a reverse way of that famous exchange in the movie
Casablanca
between Rick Blaine (Humphrey Bogart) and Captain Louis Renault (Claude Rains):

Renault: "What in heaven's name brought you to Casablanca?"

Rick: "My health. I came to Casablanca for the waters."

Renault: "The waters? What waters? We're in the desert."

Rick: "I was misinformed."

In fact, flash floods, though very rare, do occasionally occur in the Sahara. In this case there was a huge rain storm in the mountains, the water was funneled down through the gullies carved into the surrounding hills, and then suddenly and unexpectedly cascaded through the town like a tsunami. The Aïn Sefra flood was a genuine catastrophe in that the entire town was wiped out. People who live there still speak of it even though none of them were alive when it happened. As mentioned in the
  
Afterward
above, a few days later Isabelle's body was recovered, and she was buried nearby. Here's a picture of me beside her grave when I located it in 1974:

Q
. Was Isabelle transgendered?

A
. She'd always been boyish, and very much disliked having to play a passive feminine role. But the male Arab name and disguise was a way to travel alone in tribal areas. Most of the people she encountered along the way knew she was female, but so long as she called herself 'Si Mahmoud,' they accepted her as she presented herself.

Q.
How much of your novel is pure fiction?

A
. Impossible to say since I wove what I could verify with what I made up and now can't separate the strands. For those seeking historical truth, there are several excellent biographies mentioned in the
Afterward
. In English I recommend the one by Annette Kobak (not available when I wrote the novel), and in French, the exhaustive two volume study by the great writer and resistance heroine, Edmonde Charles-Roux. Also, Isabelle's
Journals
and most of her other writings are now available in English.

Q
. Do you see her as an important historical figure?

A
. Yes, though not on the scale of someone like T. E. Lawrence. She didn't change the world in a major way. But I think she's very important for reasons that go beyond her considerable accomplishments. She was one of a very select group of human beings–a person who tried to live in total freedom at a time when that was barely possible for a woman.

Q
. Sounds like she'd make a great subject for a movie.

A
. She would…and has. There's an okay film bearing her name released in 1991, a French-Australian co-production. Mathilda May plays Isabelle, and Peter O'Toole plays Lyautey. One odd fact: after directing this film, the Australian, Ian Pringle, served a sentence for stealing a Picasso and other stuff in New York. Far as I know, Mr. Pringle has not directed any movies since. Another odd fact: there's an anarchist-oriented publishing house in Portland, Eberhardt Press, named for Isabelle. Among their publications: a nice pamphlet about her life.

Q
. Your title…?

A
. I played with several titles, but I kept coming back to "Visions" because it seemed to suit the kaleidoscopic effect I was after. I also remember being influenced by the title of that great Bob Dylan song, "
Visions Of Johanna
." Paula, I and the kids loved his
White On White
album, and played it a lot when we lived in Tangier.

Q
. Looking back, is there anything you'd change in the book written more than thirty-five years ago?

A
. I don't think so. It was a joy to reread it while preparing it for e-book publication. It's the only book I've written that can be categorized as historical fiction. I feel I found a great subject and did well by her. And I'm sure that if I hadn't taken on this project, I would never have had the experience of living in North Africa…which led to my writing
Tangier
, my first detective novel, which I started as soon as I finished
Visions Of Isabelle
.