A one-armed beggar approached our table. He was wearing a tattered cape over his naked, grimy torso, a rag that must once have resembled a pair of trousers, and torn canvas shoes.
‘Clear off!’ Salvo cried. ‘You’re going to attract every fly in the place.’
The beggar took no notice of him. He was examining me with a smile, his chin between his thumb and index finger. He was young but skeletal, his face withered and furrowed. His arm had been severed at the elbow, displaying a horrible bare stump.
‘Aren’t you the boxer in the posters?’ he asked me.
‘I might be.’
His face seemed familiar, but I couldn’t place him.
‘I knew a Turambo once, years ago,’ the beggar went on, still smiling. ‘In Graba, near Sidi Bel Abbès.’
A succession of faces flashed through my mind — the Daho brothers, the kids in the souk, the neighbours’ children — but I couldn’t place this man. And yet I was certain he was familiar to me.
‘Sit down,’ I said.
‘Out of the question!’ thundered a waiter standing in the doorway of the brasserie. ‘How will I disinfect the chair afterwards?’
The beggar was already beating a retreat. He crossed the road and hastened towards the Derb, limping slightly. He quickened his pace when he heard me running after him.
‘Stop, I just want to talk to you!’
He hurried on straight ahead. I caught up with him behind the theatre.
‘I’m from Graba,’ I said. ‘Do we know each other?’
‘I didn’t want to upset you. It wasn’t right, what I did. You were with your friends and I turned up like that and made you feel ashamed. I apologise, really, I apologise —’
‘Never mind that. Who are you? I’m sure we know each other.’
‘We weren’t together for long,’ the beggar said, impatient to go on his way. ‘And besides, it’s all in the past. You’ve become someone; I have no right to bother you. When I saw your picture on the poster with your name above it, I recognised you immediately. And then I saw you at that table and I just had to approach you. I couldn’t help myself. Now I know I was wrong. I realised it when your friends were embarrassed by me.’
‘Not me, I assure you. But tell me who you are, damn it!’
He looked at his stump, weighed up the pros and cons then looked up at me and said in a thin voice, ‘I’m Pedro the gypsy. We used to hunt for jerboas. And you often came with me to the camp.’
‘My God! Pedro. Of course, Pedro … What happened to your arm?’
‘You remember I always dreamt of joining a circus.’
‘Oh, yes! You could juggle, throw knives, wrap your legs round your neck …’
‘Well, I did join a circus in the end. I wanted to be a trapeze artist. The owner had seen my work but didn’t want to take any risks. I was too young. To keep me on, he hired me as a stable boy. I’d feed the animals. One morning, I got careless outside one of the cages, and a lion took my hand in his mouth. It’s a miracle he didn’t pull me in through the bars … The owner kept me on until my arm healed, then started to find excuses, and finally threw me out.’
‘My God!’
‘I’m hungry,’ he admitted, turning towards a soup vendor.
I bought him a bowl. He crouched on the pavement and started eating very quickly. I bought him a second bowl, which he knocked back in a flash.
‘Do you want another one?’
‘Yes,’ he said, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. ‘I haven’t eaten a thing for days.’
I waited until he’d finished his fourth helping. He stuffed the food into his mouth without taking the trouble to chew. His chin was dripping with sauce and his fingers left black marks on the rim of the bowl. It was as if he was trying to fill himself up to prepare for fasts to come. Pedro was nothing but a walking scarecrow. He had lost his teeth and some of his hair; his eyes wore a veil as faded as his face. From his wheezing, I guessed that he was sick, and from his sallow complexion that he might be dying.
‘Would you buy me some shoes?’ he said suddenly. ‘I don’t have any skin left on the soles of my feet.’
‘Anything you like. I don’t have enough money on me now, but I’ll wait for you tomorrow in Rue Wagram and we’ll go shopping. Do you know where Rue Wagram is?’
‘No. I don’t know anyone here.’
‘You see that alleyway crossing the Derb? At the end of it, there’s a little square. On your right, there’s a workshop. The gym where I train is opposite. Just ask the doorman and I’ll be there for you. I’ll buy you shoes and clothes and take you to have a bath. I’m going to take care of you, I promise.’
‘I wouldn’t like to take advantage.’
‘Will you come?’
‘Yes …’
‘Do you give me your word?’
‘Yes, my word as a gypsy … Do you remember when my father used to play the violin? It was good, wasn’t it? We’d sit around the fire and listen. We didn’t notice the time passing … What was your friend’s name?’
‘No idea.’
‘Is he still with you?’
‘No.’
‘He was weird, that boy …’
‘And how’s your father?’
Pedro passed his good hand over his face. His gestures were jerky, his voice shaky. When he spoke, his eyes darted in all directions as if trying to escape his thoughts.
‘I don’t know where my people are … I’ve met lots of caravan drivers, nomads, gypsies, nobody has seen my people. They may have gone to Morocco. The Mama was born there. She was determined to be buried in the place where she’d come into the world … Thanks for the soup,’ he said, getting up abruptly. ‘I really needed that. I feel better now. And I’m sorry if I embarrassed you in front of your friends. I have to go …’
‘Where are you going?’
‘I have to see someone. It’s important.’
‘Don’t forget, Rue Wagram tomorrow. I’m counting on you.’
‘Yes, yes …’ He stepped back to prevent me hugging him. ‘I’m crawling with insects. They jump on anyone who comes close to me, and then you can’t get rid of them.’
He nodded by way of goodbye, gave me a last smile and descended the steps leading to Old Oran. I waited for him to turn round so that I could wave goodbye to him, but he didn’t. Something told me this was the last time I would see him. My intuition was correct. Pedro didn’t come to the gym, either the next day or ever, and I never found out what happened to him.
8
Aïda planted her elbow on the pillow and rested her cheek in the palm of her hand to watch me getting dressed. The satin-soft sheet emphasised the harmonious curve of her hip. She was magnificent, posing there like a nymph exhausted from lovemaking and getting ready for sleep. Her long black hair flowed over her shoulders, and her breasts, which still bore the marks of my embraces, were like two sacred fruits. How old was she? She looked so young, so fragile. Her body was like porcelain, and whenever I took her in my arms, I was careful to be gentle with her. For two months now, I had been coming here to recharge my batteries in her perfumed room, and whenever I saw her, my heart beat a little faster. I think I was in love with her. Born to a great Bedouin line from the Hamada, she had been married off at the age of thirteen to the son of a provincial governor somewhere in the High Plains. Rejected after a year because she had not given birth, Aïda was disowned by her family, who considered her dismissal an insult. Now that she was known to be infertile, none of her cousins deigned to take her as a wife. One morning, she set off across the plains, walking straight ahead without turning round. Nomads dropped her at the entrance to a colonial village where she was found by a Christian family. Late at night, her employers’ sons came in turn and abused her in the cellar where she had been given lodging, surrounded by spiders’ webs and old junk. When the abuse turned to torture, Aïda had no choice but to run away. After weeks of wandering about, she was forced into prostitution. Passed from one pimp to another like contraband goods, she at last found herself at Madame Camélia’s.