I asked my uncle’s partner the Mozabite for advice. Of course, I dreaded his verdict. In order not to arouse his suspicions, I told him that a friend of mine was in love with a girl of easy virtue and was planning to marry her. The Mozabite, whose wisdom I appreciated, didn’t know what to reply. He wasn’t keen. He told me that my friend might regret it one day. Then I asked him what the attitude of our religion was to that kind of thing. He told me Islam wasn’t against it, and that it was even honourable for a believer to rescue a lost soul from prostitution. He advised me to send my ‘friend’ to see the imam of the Great Mosque, the only person qualified to pronounce on the subject. The imam received me with consideration. He asked me questions about my ‘friend’, if he was a Muslim, if he was married, if he had children. I told him he was a bachelor, healthy in body and mind. The imam wanted to be sure that the prostitute could be trusted, that she hadn’t bewitched her lover and wasn’t interested only in his money. I told him that she didn’t even know of my ‘friend’s’ intentions. The imam opened his arms wide and said, ‘Restoring her honour to a poor woman robbed of her soul is equal to a thousand prayers.’
I was relieved.
A week later, after thinking about it until my brain was exhausted, I bought a ring and asked Filippi to drive me immediately to Canastel.
Aïda wasn’t free. I had to wait downstairs for an eternity, unceremoniously repelling the other girls’ diligent advances. It was after eight; night brooded at the windows. An excited client was torturing an upright piano by the bay window. His erratic playing interspersed with bum notes got on my nerves. I was hoping that someone would say something to him or that a girl would entice him to the counter, but nobody seemed interested in him. I concentrated on the first-floor landing, where the maid was keeping her eye open. Every time a client appeared at the top of the stairs, she would look down at me and shake her head. Every passing moment was wearing down my patience. My hands were damp from so much fidgeting. At last, a fat, bald, red-faced, shifty-looking man appeared. This was the one. I ran up the stairs, deaf to the protests of another client, who was waiting on a sofa. The maid tried to run after me; the glare I gave her stopped her in her tracks.
Aïda was finishing powdering herself at the mirror. Her hair was still loose and the sheets on the bed were rumpled. I stood there in front of her, trembling from head to foot. I found her more beautiful than ever, with her big doe-like eyes smiling at me.
‘I wasn’t expecting you,’ she said, mechanically unfastening her corset.
‘That’s not what I came for.’
‘Have you found someone better elsewhere?’
‘No woman could distract me from you.’
She gave me a sidelong glance, eyebrows slightly raised, then reknotted the braid round her neck and turned to face me. ‘What’s the matter? You seem agitated.’
I took her hands firmly enough to break them and placed them on my chest. My heart was pounding. ‘I have great news for you,’ I said.
‘Great news? Great in what way?’
‘I want to marry you.’
‘What?’ she cried, pulling her hands away abruptly.
I’d been expecting that reaction. A lady of the night doesn’t imagine she will hear such declarations. In her mind, she wouldn’t be worthy. I was so happy for her, so proud to be rehabilitating her, to be giving her back her dignity and her soul. I took her hand again. Her eyes went through me like shafts of light that a branch deflects in the wind. I understood her emotion. In her place, I would have leapt in the air.
‘The imam assured me that, for a believer, to save a woman from dishonour is equal to a thousand prayers.’
She took a step back, more and more incredulous. ‘What imam? What dishonour?’
‘I want to give you a roof, a family, some respect.’
‘I had all that before.’
Something was eluding me.
Aïda’s face had turned white and I couldn’t understand why. ‘Who says I want to get married?’ she said. ‘I’m fine where I am. I live in a beautiful house, I’m fed, protected, I want for nothing.’
‘Are you serious?’
‘Why wouldn’t I be?’
‘Do you realise what I’m offering you?’
‘What are you offering me?’
‘To make you my wife.’
‘I haven’t asked anything of you.’
My temples tensed.
Thrown off balance, I tried again. ‘I don’t think you understand. I want to make you my wife and take you away from this indecent life.’
‘But I have no desire to depend on a man,’ she exclaimed, with a brief, nervous laugh. ‘I have lots of men and they all treat me like a queen. Why do you want to shut me up in a slum, burden me with kids and make me work hard? And besides, where do you see the indecency here? I work. I have a job and I love it.’
‘You call that a job, selling your body?’
‘Don’t workers sell their hands, don’t miners risk their lives in deadly tunnels, don’t bearers sell their backs for next to nothing? I find the struggle of a poor devil killing himself with work from morning till night for pennies a lot less decent than the exhilaration of a whore who takes pleasure in making more money in a month than a track-layer in ten years. And what about you? Do you find it decent to have your face smashed in a boxing ring? Isn’t that also selling your body? The difference between your profession and mine is that here, in this palace, I don’t receive blows, I receive gifts. I sleep in a real bed and my room is more luxurious than anything I’d find in a home, even if my husband was a champion. Here, I’m a sultana, Turambo. I bathe in hot water and rose water, my toiletries are of silk and essential oils, my meals are banquets and my sleep is soft as a cloud. I have no complaints, I assure you. I was born under a lucky star, Turambo, and no honour could ever compare with my little joys here.’
My legs failing, I collapsed into the armchair and put my head in my hands; I refused to admit that Aïda could talk to me like that, so uncompromisingly, her words as final as a funeral. I found it hard to control the ideas swirling around in my mind. Sweat was spreading down my back in a tangle of shivers, freezing my body and my blood.
I didn’t recognise my voice as I said, ‘I thought I wasn’t like the others, I thought you loved me.’
‘I love all my clients, Turambo. All in the same way. It’s my job.’
I no longer knew right from wrong. I’d thought I was doing the right thing and now I realised there were other logics, other truths a million miles from those I had been taught.
Gino burst out laughing when I told him how I had been rejected by Aïda.
‘You have a problem with your emotions, Turambo. You’ve been very badly brought up. Aïda isn’t wrong. All things considered, you owe her a lot. Don’t fall in love with every woman who smiles at you. You don’t have the means to maintain a harem. Just try not to shoot yourself in the foot. You can’t get in the ring when you’re walking on crutches.’
He struck me on the shoulder.
‘We live and learn, don’t we? And yet it’s never enough to protect us from disappointments. Come,’ he said, throwing me a jacket, ‘there’s a wonderful group performing in Sid el-Hasni. There’s nothing better than a folk dance to get rid of evil spirits.’
III. Irène