In telling me of her misfortunes, Aïda showed neither anger nor resentment. It was as if she were recounting the tribulations of a stranger. She took her misfortune with a disarming stoicism. When she realised that her misadventures made me uncomfortable, she would take my face in her hands and look deep into my eyes, a sad smile on her lips. ‘You see? Don’t force me to rake up what might spoil our evening. I’d hate it if I made you sad. That’s not what I’m here for.’ I confessed to her that it was hard for me to remain insensitive to her sorrows. She would give a little laugh and scold me. I asked her how she managed to bear these trials which clung to her like ghosts. She replied in a clear voice, ‘You learn to cope. Time sees to it that things are bearable. So you forget and convince yourself that the worst is behind you. Of course, when you’re alone the abyss catches up with you and you fall into it. Curiously, as you fall, you feel a kind of inner peace. You tell yourself that’s the way things are, and that’s all there is to it. You think about people who suffer and you compare your suffering with theirs. It’s easier to bear your own after that. You have to lie to yourself. You vow to pull yourself together, not to fall back in the chasm. And if, for once, you manage to pull yourself back from the edge of the precipice, you find the strength to turn away. You look elsewhere, at something other than yourself. And life reasserts itself, with its ups and downs. After all what is life? A big dream, nothing more. We may buy, we may sell ourselves, but we’re only passing through life. We don’t possess much in the end. And since nothing lasts, why get upset about it? When you reach that conclusion, however stupid it is, everything becomes bearable. And so you let yourself go, and everything works.’ It was the only time she really confided in me. Usually, one sentence was enough to start her talking, and then I wished she would never stop. Her voice was so soft, her words so full of sense. She gave the impression that she was strong and resolute, and that calmed me a little. I wanted so many things for her; I wanted her to be Aïda again, to draw a line under her past and start again on the right footing, hardened but triumphant. I forbade myself to think for a second that her life could end in this dead-end place, on a violated bed, at the mercy of cannibals with contaminated kisses. Aïda was beautiful, too beautiful to be nothing but an erotic object. She was young and pure, so pure that the stains of her profession disappeared on their own as soon as she was alone in her room after her clients had gone. I liked her company a lot. Sometimes, I didn’t feel the need to take her; I was content just being near her, sitting face to face, she on the edge of the bed and me in the armchair. When the silence became oppressive, I would regale her with stories about my life. I told her about Sid Roho, Ramdane and Gomri, and she would laugh at their quirks as if she knew them really well. I was proud when I amused her and I loved setting off her crystalline laugh, which always started from below, like little bells, before reaching the heights, so high that it touched the sky … But our time was limited. I had to leave at a certain time. I had to wake from my dream. Aïda had other lovers waiting in the parlour. Much as I tried to ignore them, the maid with the impassive face keeping guard on the landing was there to rebuke me. She would knock at the door and Aïda would open her arms wide as a sign of apology.
What I felt for Aïda belonged only to the two of us. I parted from her with the feeling I was leaving my own body.
How I wished we could walk together through the thicket and forget ourselves in the shade of a tree, far from the whole world! I had suggested that she go with me to the city, but she couldn’t. The rules of the house only allowed its residents to go to Oran once a month. Not to walk about, but to buy clothes. A car would take Aïda, with other prostitutes, to the same shops, closely guarded by a servant. Once they had made their purchases, they were taken directly back to the house. No prostitute was allowed to wander in the parks or even sit down on a café terrace, let alone greet a client in the street.
It was like being in prison.
The maid knocked at the door. Insistently this time. Aïda got out of bed.
‘He’s just getting dressed,’ I heard her whisper in the corridor.
‘It’s not that,’ the maid said in a low voice. ‘Madame sent me. She wants to see the young man before he leaves.’
‘All right. He’ll be down in a minute.’
I tucked my shirt into my trousers. Aïda came up behind me, planted a kiss on the back of my neck and put her arms round me.
‘Come back soon, my champion. I’m going to miss you.’
‘I’d like to introduce you to my mother.’
‘I’m not the kind of girl you introduce to your parents.’
‘I’ll tell her you’re my girlfriend.’
‘That kind of word is not part of our traditions, champion. And besides, can you imagine me turning up at your mother’s house dressed and made up like the wanton woman I am?’
‘You’re not a wanton woman, Aïda. You’re a good person.’
‘That’s not enough. Your mother mustn’t suspect that her beloved son goes with whores. She wouldn’t be able to bear it. For our people, vice is worse than sin … Hurry up, Madame hates being kept waiting.’
The maid was lying in wait for me at the end of the corridor. She gestured to me to hurry up. At the foot of the stairs, Larbi the servant was chuckling at my tardiness. In the main room, the girls in their flimsy camisoles and lace knickers were busy bewitching their clients. At the counter, their victims were ruining themselves to impress their harem. Mouss, the tall black man, was in an alcove, with two languid beauties on his knees. Automatically, perhaps to thank him for coming to my last fight, I waved at him. He bared his gold teeth in a grin and grunted, ‘Don’t proclaim victory too soon, kid. Sigli’s just a nobody who thinks he’s the cat’s whiskers. He’s nothing but a lot of hot air.’
‘It doesn’t matter,’ I retorted angrily. ‘He didn’t hold out for a minute.’
‘I wasn’t surprised. He was already scared to death before he got in the ring.’
Larbi pulled aside a curtain and pointed to a padded door at the end of a corridor. Madame Camélia sat enthroned behind a small desk, with her severe bun and her inscrutable face, a twill shawl over her shoulders. There was no window in the room, which was dimly lit by two candles on a chest of drawers. The mistress of the house seemed averse to electricity. She must have felt more comfortable in the semi-darkness, which gave her a certain mystical air.
Her eel-like smile was intended as a barrier between us.
With her hand in its white elbow-length glove, she pointed to a velvet-upholstered chair, waited for me to sit down, then pushed a piece of paper in my direction.
‘What’s this?’
‘The address of an excellent little brothel in Oran,’ she said in a falsely cheerful tone. ‘Not far from the centre of town. The girls are pretty and very nice. That way, you won’t have to get Monsieur Bollocq’s chauffeur to bring you all the way here. You can just hop on a tram or even walk there; it’ll only take you a few minutes.’
‘I like it here.’
‘Young man, all these girls are alike. Isn’t it better to have them close at hand?’