CHAPTER 4
It was going to be a hot day. The streets already shimmered with a white glare and the sun burned into the bay with diamond brilliance. Outside the barricades a restive unnatural holiday atmosphere was spreading through the city. The squares and boulevards were filling with great crowds. The pavement cafés were packed with almond-eyed girls and dark young men in beach hats and sunglasses, breakfasting under striped awnings, watched by the Gardes Mobiles who stood at the door of every shop and bank and bar, eyes like stone, guns at the ready. And along the Front de Mer sports cars, bright with scarves and sunburned arms, were setting out for the beaches, dodging between the jeeps and half-tracks.
The Peugeot turned down towards the Hotel Miramar. Anne-Marie smiled at Neil: ‘It’s a good day for swimming!’
‘And for fishing,’ said the driver morosely, glaring out at the helmeted troops. He braked suddenly. In front of them a large crowd had collected on the corner. Cars stood bumper to bumper, hooting in angry chorus. A group of ragged European children came running down the pavement, laughing and waving their arms.
Neil glanced at Anne-Marie: ‘What’s happened?’
She shrugged, looking indifferently out of the window: ‘A ratonnade, I think — some Moslem. Or perhaps a barbouze.’
A Garde Mobile came down the street, blowing a whistle and signalling the cars forward. He reached the Peugeot and the driver leant out and said, ‘What’s up?’
‘Attentat,’ said the man, ‘don’t stay around to watch. Get moving!’ He had a huge face, of the same metal-grey as his helmet. The Peugeot crept forward to the corner where a cordon of CRS troops had linked arms and were trying to push the crowds back against the edge of the café.
The first Moslem lay on his face in the middle of the street. He wore a pair of dirty plimsols and faded blue trousers. The blood flowed from his head over the camber of the street and forked into two dark serpents, their blunt noses moving swiftly down the gutter collecting a film of dust. Neil remembered afterwards wondering how so much blood could come from the head of one human being.
The second man sat on the pavement, his face in his hands. He was also a Moslem. A bicycle lay overturned beside him, its front wheel still turning. A bucket had rolled into the gutter. Blood was running out of his trouser legs and trickling towards the café tables. Neil saw a party of bronzed men with several pretty girls shift their chairs to avoid dirtying their espadrilles. One of the girls looked at the wounded man and laughed.
He was trying to stand up. His head was still in his hands; he pulled in his legs and strained forward till he toppled into the gutter, his buttocks in the air. The Peugeot stopped, caught in another jam. The man was directly outside the window now. They sat and watched him perform his slow and terrible ritual, struggling to his feet with a bullet in his neck. Neil cried out, in English, ‘For God’s sake, we must do something!’
‘You do something, you get killed,’ said Van Loon.
Neil turned to Anne-Marie: her head was resting on the back of the seat. She did not look at the Moslem. ‘We must do something!’ he said in French. ‘The man’s dying!’
‘Shut up,’ she said without moving. He noticed that her eyelids were lightly freckled like eggshell.
The Moslem outside had begun to plod wearily up the street. His hands were still clutched across his face and the back of his head was dark and glistening. The crowds pressed round and watched. He made no sound. The street was full of the blare of hooters. The CRS were busy waving the traffic on again.
‘Why don’t those damned troops do something?’ said Neil, in English.
‘Don’t talk,’ said Van Loon.
The Peugeot moved forward, past the Moslem as he dragged himself upwards, leaving a sprinkled trail of blood. A man came running down the street towards them. He passed the car and yelled, ‘Two Europeans just killed!’ He waved back up the street and went on, shouting at the crowd round the café.
What happened next was very confused. The crowd closed in in a rush. People began to run; there was shouting, screaming, a glimpse of raised batons, uniforms struggling, children leaping past the windows of the car; the shriek of whistles, the dismal panting of sirens.
The Moslem had disappeared. The crowds rolled back, and Neil saw two people lying in the café among the wreckage of overturned tables and smashed glass. The CRS were frog-marching two men up the street. The Moslem was lying several yards away, his arms flopped behind his back. He did not move. There was a broad smear along the pavement where he had been dragged face downwards.
The traffic cleared and the Peugeot drove on, into a quiet street shaded by high white buildings. Neil looked dumbly at Anne-Marie; he was not even shocked or sickened, just puzzled. ‘Why?’ he said
