Jan tried to explain why he had not come before, what his life had been since the war, but it was clear that the Caid didn’t really understand. He was not ignorant of the world beyond Foum-Skhira, but to him it was a French world. The complications of other European powers were largely outside his knowledge. ‘I think,’ he said, ‘that you have come because the tall, fair man from America with the big machines is arrived to work at Kasbah Foum.’
‘No,’ Jan said. ‘I came because I had to. I did not know about the American.’ He produced the battered envelope and another smaller envelope containing the letter from Duprez. The Caid waved it aside. ‘I have been told,’ he said, ‘that you are not the man to whom Capitaine Duprez handed the papers. It has been suggested that you killed the man to whom he gave them. First, before I see the letter Capitaine Duprez wrote, you must give proof that you are in reality the man who was with my friend when he died.’
‘How can I do that?’ Jan asked. ‘What can I tell you that will prove it to you?’
The old man thought for a moment. ‘Tell me exactly how he looked and what he told you of his talks with me.’
For several minutes Jan talked, telling him about Marcel Duprez quoting long speeches that Duprez had made to him, about the Caid, about Foum-Skhira, about the Berbers and the country of the south. Only occasionally the Caid interrupted him to clarify a word or to ask a question. Jan was still talking when there was a disturbance at the foot of the stairs below the room where we were seated. Several men were talking, quickly, angrily, in Berber, and then there was the light patter of sandals on the earthen stairway.
The Caid turned his head towards the entrance, his forehead contracted in a frown.
The footsteps ceased. The figure of a man stood in the doorway. His brown djellaba merged into the black rectangle of the entrance so that he was no more than a vague shape in the darkness. His face was hidden in the hood of his djellaba, but his eyes caught the light of the carbide flames and glinted, as did the curved silver knife at his waist; the eyes and the knife were all that was visible of him. ‘Skun ya? Who is that?’ the Caid demanded.
‘Ali.’ And the man stepped forward into the light, his head and body only slightly bowed in respect for his father.
‘Why do you disturb me? Can you not see that I have guests?’ The Caid’s voice quavered slightly.
‘It is because you have guests that I have come,’ Ali d’Es-Skhira answered. He had moved to his father’s side, towering over the old man who seemed suddenly shrunken and much older.
‘Where have you been? What trouble have you been stirring up among the people?’ The old man’s voice sounded frail and peevish. And when Ali did not answer, he said to him, ‘Go. I will talk with you later.’
But Ali did not move. Tangier and his own rebellious nature seemed to have destroyed all the respect and obedience due from a Berber son to his father. He pointed to us and said, ‘These men come like thieves in the night, O Sidi, to steal from us the wealth of Kasbah Foum.’ He was still speaking in the Arab dialect and his voice throbbed with violence. ‘They are evil men and your people have need of their share of the wealth the foreigner may find in the gorge. Do not be deceived by them. They are thieves.’
‘We are not thieves,’ I answered him in his own tongue, and his eyes blazed at me in the flickering light as he realised that I had understood.
‘You thought that my friend was the man you had employed to purchase the deeds of Kasbah Foum,’ I continued, still speaking the Arab dialect. ‘But this afternoon, when you came to the gorge, you realised that he was not that man, but the true friend of Capitaine Duprez. That is why you have come here now in haste — because you are afraid that your father will discover the truth and will know that this man is the man Duprez chose to prevent you from using Kasbah Foum for your own selfish purposes and not for the benefit of the people of Foum-Skhira, It is you, Si Ali, who are the liar and the thief.’
He took a step forward, his sudden in-drawn breath sounding loud in the stillness of the room. ‘It is the talk of a man who is not sure of himself, sidi,’ he said to his father and gave a quick laugh.
Caid Hassan’s eyes were closed, his body relaxed as though trying to gather energy together inside himself. At length he turned to Jan and opened his eyes. ‘You have told me much that has convinced me,’ he said, speaking in French again. ‘Alors, monsieur, one final thing Did my friend tell you how it happened that I gave him Kasbah Foum?’
‘Oui’,’ Jan said.
‘Then tell me the whole story, and I shall be convinced.’
‘You took tea with him in the middle of the battle,’ Jan said. ‘It was then that you first learned of his interest in Kasbah Foum and the ruined city.’ The old man nodded and Jan continued.
It had been in the spring of 1934, at the very end of the pacification. The tribes of the district of Foum-Skhira were particularly warlike. Their resistance under Caid Hassan had been stubborn and the fighting had dragged on. Marcel Duprez, then a lieutenant, was among the French forces. He had been an officer of the AI in Algeria and four years before he had come in alone from the desert to prepare the way for the pacification and persuade the tribes that resistance would be pointless. He knew them all. One afternoon, when both sides had withdrawn after a day of particularly savage fighting, he had calmly walked out into the no man’s land between the two forces, accompanied by two Legionnaires. They were unarmed and all they carried was the paraphernalia for making tea.
He had set his brazier down midway between the two forces and, after quietly performing the ceremony of the making of the tea, had called upon Hassan and his chiefs to come and drink it with him. And they had come, knowing the officer and admiring his bravery. And over the tea table he had persuaded the Caid and his chiefs that the French must win in the end and that there was no point in continuing the fight. He had then talked about their history and, in particular, the history of the ruined city. As the sun was setting, terms were agreed, but for the sake of his young warriors’ pride Caid Hassan had insisted on continuing the battle for one more day, though it was decided that the fighting should not be pressed by either side. Duprez had then gone back to the Legion’s lines and all next day the two forces fired on each other with a great deal of noise, but little loss of life. And in the evening Hassan had come to capitulate.
‘You were taken to the tent of the general commanding the Legionnaires,’ Jan added. ‘But you refused to surrender to him. You said you would only surrender to the officer who had come out and served tea to you. They told you that Marcel Duprez had been wounded in the day’s fighting. When you heard this, you insisted on being taken to the hospital tent where he lay, and there, with the general looking on, you surrendered to Lieutenant Duprez.’ Jan stopped there and stared at the Caid. ‘That is how Marcel told it to me. It was because of his interest in the place and his plans that you gave him Kasbah Foum. Also, he loved your people.’
The Caid glanced up at his son. ‘Well, Ali, is that correct?’ he asked.
Ail said nothing. His face was impassive, but his eyes glinted angrily in the flickering light.
‘Say whether it is correct or not,’ the Caid said, and there was an edge to his voice.
‘It proves nothing,’ Ali answered. ‘Legard or the Commandant at Agdz could have told the story to him.’
‘And all the other things he has told me?’ The Caid stared up at his son and I was conscious again of the tension between them. Then he held out his hand to Jan. ‘Give me the letter Capitaine Duprez wrote.’
Jan handed him the letter. Lights were brought and placed at the Caid’s feet and, whilst he bent forward to read the letter, our glasses were refilled for the third time. The Caid held the letter in such a way that his son. leaning down over his shoulder, could not read it, and when he had finished it, he folded it up and slipped it inside his djellaba. ‘This is not a simple matter,’ he said, speaking slowly in French. ‘There is an old belief that silver was once mined at Kasbah Foum and that belief has been revived because of this American. I had hoped that it would be Capitaine Duprez who developed that place. He would have used it for the benefit of the people here. He had plans for hospitals and schools. I had hoped that perhaps I was giving him the means to make those plans come to life. But now he is dead and you are here in his place. How do I know I can trust you?’