Milianah

By Alphonse Daudet

Translated by James F. Gaines

Translator’s Foreword: Among all the admirable gifts Alphonse Daudet possessed as a writer lurked at least one horrible flaw: he was anti-semitic. It is unclear if he acquired this prejudice from his childhood environment, from some slights he felt he suffered in his early days in journalism, or from the atmosphere of the lofty government ministries of the Second Empire where he became a favorite – perhaps all three. Even more unfortunately, it imprinted itself on his family, for his son Léon became a vicious hater of Jews who involved himself in the Dreyfus Affair on the wrong side, slandered the Jewish French prime minister Léon Blum, and sided with the pro-Nazi Vichy government during the Occupation. I have chosen not to bowdlerize or mitigate Daudet’s anti-Jewish attitude in the following piece for two reasons. Firstly, it is my impression from the Jewish intellectuals around me that they do not prefer to cover up the injustices done them under a doily of false delicacy, but rather to probe deeply into the reasons and motives for such wrongs in order to assure that they will not happen again. Secondly, I feel that Daudet’s thinking was not entirely an individual phenomenon, but part of a larger colonialist discourse that remains to be fully examined, as it may affect the course of history in our own times. Further, I feel this story is of special interest because, though it has been largely neglected by nineteenth-century and colonial period scholars, it offers observations – however stilted – on the phenomenon of clashes that occur when an occidental, constitutional system of law is superimposed on an indigenous system operating on religious and ethnic models, with the result that both systems tend to degrade each other and to provide disservice to the public.

***

     On this occasion, I invite you to come spend a day in a pretty Algerian town hundreds of miles from my mill in Provence. It will give us a change of scenery from the tambourines and the cicadas of that place.

Rain is on the way, the sky is overcast and the peak of Mount Zaccar is wrapped in mist. A dreary Sunday. In my cozy hotel room overlooking the old Arab fortifications, I try to distract myself by chain-smoking. I’ve gone over the entire library at my disposal in the hotel: a huge, detailed registry book and a few comic romances by Paul de Kock. Discovering a mismatched volume of Montaigne, I open and reread his magnificent letter on the death of his friend Étienne de la Boétie. It leaves me plunged deeper in somber reverie than before. A few drops of rain have begun to fall. Each one, falling on the window sill, creates a star in the dust that’s accumulated since last year’s rainy season. The book slips from my hands and I sink into a prolonged contemplation of those melancholy stars. Two o’clock sounds on the municipal clock mounted on the white wall of the tomb of a local Muslim saint. The poor old mausoleum! Who could have told him thirty years ago that today he would have a big clock stuck in his chest and that every Sunday it would send out the signal to the Christian churches in Milianah that they should ring vespers? Ding, dong, there they go, and it’s going to last a long while. This room is getting really depressing. Those fat morning spiders called Deep Thoughts have spun their webs in every corner. Let’s get out of here.

     I emerge into the central square. The regimental band of the Third Infantry, unafraid of a few drops of rain, is moving into place around its conductor. In a window in the Officers’ Quarters, the general appears with his daughters. In the square, the chief of police strolls back and forth with the chief judge. A gaggle of half-naked Arab urchins shriek out as they play marbles in a corner. Further on, an old Jew in rags comes out to search for the sunny spot he had left there the previous day and he is mystified that he cannot find it. “And a one, and a two, and a three!” The band launches into a tired mazurka by Talexy that hurdy-gurdies had played in the alleyways years before. That tune used to annoy me to no end, but on this occasion it moves me to tears.

     Oh, how happy they are, those musicians in the Third Infantry brass band. Their eyes glued to the notes in front of them on the music holders, intoxicated by the tempo, they think of nothing but counting their measures. Their entire soul is laid out on that square of paper hardly bigger than my hand, trembling on the instrument in its copper clip. “One, two three, hit it!” That amounts to everything for those boys. The patriotic tunes they play never make them homesick. Alas, not being a part of the band, I get disturbed by the melodies and I walk on…

     Where, oh, where could I while away this grey Sunday afternoon? Right! Sid’Omar’s place is open. Let’s go visit Sid’Omar.

     Although he has an open-air shop, Sid’Omar is no shop-keeper. He’s a prince of the blood royal, son of the former Dey of Algiers who was strangled by his Turkish guards. His father dead, Sid’Omar took refuge in Milianah with his beloved mother and lived there for a number of years like a lordly philosopher surrounded by his dogs, his falcons, his horses and his wives, in a comfortable shady mansion brimming with orange trees and fountains. Then came the French. At first our enemy and an ally of the insurgent chieftain Abd el-Kader, Sid’Omar eventually quarreled with the rebels and submitted to the colonial authorities. Out of revenge, the rebel leader burst into Milianah, pillaged his palace, tore out the orange trees, stole his horses and his wives, and all but decapitated his mother with the lid of a huge wooden trunk. Sid’Omar’s anger was terrible. That very instant, he became an active agent of the French, and we never had a more ferocious soldier at our service during the arduous struggle against the natives. Once the war was over, Sid’Omar settled again in Milianah. Yet even today, if one mentions Abd el-Kader, he grows pale and his eyes fill with fire.

     Sid’Omar is sixty. Despite old age and smallpox, his face remains handsome: thick lashes, a woman’s complexion, a charming smile and a princely air. Impoverished by the colonial wars, he lost all his former wealth except a farm in the plains of Chélif and a townhouse in Milianah, where he lives among the merchants and keeps track of his three grown sons. The native leaders from miles around hold him in great respect. Whenever a dispute arises, they appeal to him right away for arbitration, and his word is almost always law. He seldom leaves home. Each afternoon he sits in his store-front on a rug overlooking the busy street. The white-washed room is sparsely furnished with a circular wooden bench, some cushions, a few hookahs and two brasiers. There Sid’Omar holds audience and dispenses justice. Solomon in a store-front.

     This Sunday the space is packed. A dozen sheiks draped in their burnous robes crouch around the room, each with a hookah nearby and a small glass of dense coffee sitting in a finely-wrought metal holder. When I come in, none of them reacts. From his seat of judgment, Sid’Omar shows me his most gracious smile and beckons me with his hand to sit at his side on a cushion of golden silk. Then, with a finger to his lips, he bids me be silent and heedful.

     The case is this way: the leader of the Beni Zougzoug clan having a dispute with a Jew from Milianah over the property rights to a lot, the two parties resolve to submit the matter to Sid’Omar and to abide by his decision. The matter has been put on the docket that very day, witnesses already duly summoned, when the Jew up and changes his mind, walks into court all alone and without supporting testimony, declaring that he would rather involve the French colonial magistrate than Sid’Omar. That’s how it stands when I arrive.

The old, grimy-bearded Jew wears a maroon jacket, blue stockings and a velvet skullcap. He raises his nose up to the heavens, rolls his eyes in supplication, kisses Sid’Omar’s slippers, inclines his head, joins his hands, and kneels. My Arabic is a bit rusty but from the Jew’s pantomime and his constant refrain of “Frensh zhudge, Frensh zhudge,” I can guess the tenor of his eloquent statement.

     “I doubt not the word of Sid’Omar. Sid’Omar is wise. Sid’Omar is just. But the Frensh zhudge can handle this matter more suitably.”

     Though inwardly irate, the listener nevertheless remains impassive, true to his Arab nature. Slouching on his cushions, his eyes half-closed, the amber mouthpiece of the water pipe in his lips, Sid’Omar, god of irony, smiles as he pays attention. All at once in the middle of a most finely turned conclusion, the Jew is interrupted by an outburst of “Carramba!” that stops him in his tracks. At that instant a Spanish colonist who had come as witness for the sheik rises from his seat and advances on this Judas Iscariot. He splatters the Jew with a bucketful of insults in every language and style, including certain French phrases too filthy, sir, for me to repeat in this account. Sid’Omar’s son, who understands the idiom of Paris, blushes to hear such terms in the presence of his father and rushes out of the room. That tells you something about an Arab upbringing. The arbitrator is still impassive, smiling away. The Jew gets on his feet and sidles backwards towards the door, shaking with fear but still intoning his interminable “Frensh Zhudge… Frensh Zhudge.” As he exits, the furious Spaniard leaps after him , catches up with him in the street, and punches him twice in the face – biff! baff! Judas drops to his knees and hides his head in his arms. The Spaniard comes back into the store-front with a hang-dog look. As soon as he has gone away, the Jew hops back up and casts a suspicious gaze on the motley crowd that has gathered around him. There are people of every color there, Maltese, Balearic Islanders, blacks, Arabs, all united in their hatred of the Jews and overjoyed to see one of them roughed up. Judas hesitates a second and then grabs an Arab by the edge of his burnous.

     “You saw him, Ahmed, you saw him. You were there. The Christian attacked me. You will be my witness. Yes, yes! You will serve as my witness.”

     The Arab pulls away from his grasp and shoves him off. He knows nothing. He sees nothing. At the crucial moment his head was pointing in another direction.

     “But you, Kadour, you saw it. You saw the Christian assault me,” cries the unfortunate Judas to a fat black fellow who had been peeling a prickly pear.

     The black man spits as a sign of scorn and hurries off. He saw nothing. Neither did the little Maltese whose eyes burn like hot coals underneath his headband. That Minorcan woman with skin red as a brick, she didn’t see anything either, and she runs off laughing, balancing a basket of grenadines on her head.

In vain, the Jew pleads, implores, gesticulates. No one has seen anything. No witnesses. By chance, two of his tribe appear at that moment, their eyes lowered, skittering along the walls. The Jew spots them.

     “Quick! Quick, my friends! To the agent! To the Frensh zhudge! You two saw it. You saw how he battered an old man.”

     And did they ever see it!

     Back at Sid’Omar’s place there is a flurry of activity. Hookahs are relit, coffee cups are refilled. Everyone chats and laughs out loud. It’s such a hoot to see a Jew get thrashed! I make my way discreetly though the smoke and the brouhaha. I feel like prowling over to the Jewish quarter to see how Judas’s tribe is reacting to the mistreatment of their brother.

     “Come dine with me, moussiou,” Sid’Omar calls after me.

     I accept with thanks. I’m back on the street.

     In the Jewish quarter, everyone is running this way and that. Word has already gotten around. Not a merchant is in his stall, not a tailor, not an embroiderer, not a leather worker. The whole tribe of Israel has taken to the streets, the men in their skullcaps and blue stockings in noisy, arm-waving clusters, the women with faces framed in black fabric, shifting from one group to another, pale, stiff, and red-eyed, calling out like cats. The second I arrive, the crowd stirs, piles together, and rushes forward. Supported by the shoulders of his witnesses, the Jew who is the hero of this adventure hobbles between a double hedge of skullcaps amid a shower of encouragement.

     “Avenge yourself, brother. Avenge us. Avenge the Jewish nation. Fear not. The law is on your side.”

     A hideous dwarf redolent of pitch and old hides approaches me sighing in a piteous manner. “You see,” he tells me, “We poor Jews. You see how they treat us. Look, he’s an elderly man. They nearly killed him.”

To speak the truth, poor old Judas seems more dead than alive. Eyes vacant, face distressed, dragging along rather than walking, he passes by. Only a hefty judgment against the wrongdoer will be capable of curing him. So they don’t take him to the doctor, but instead to the colonial agent.

     Algeria is full of colonial agents. They teem like locusts. Business seems very good for them. One of the greatest advantages is that you can step right into that job without tests, without degrees, without bond, without training. Just as in Paris you can magically become a Man of Letters, in Algeria you can magically become a colonial agent. All you need is a passing acquaintance with the French, Spanish, and Arabic languages, a fat volume that passes as a legal code, and above all the right professional attitude.

The functions of a colonial agent are diverse. Barrister, solicitor, salesman, consultant, interpreter, bookkeeper, sub-contractor, public scribe, all at once or one at a time, he’s the colonial equivalent of Moliere’s Maître Jacques from The Miser, doing anything and everything. Except Molière’s miser had only one Maître Jacques in his employ, while the colony has a lot more than it could ever conceivably need. In Milianah alone, you can find dozens of them. Usually, to keep a low overhead, these gentlemen meet with their clients in a cafe on the main square and give their advice between the coffee and the liqueur – but do they ever really give it?.

     Thus, it is towards the café on the main square that Judas and his witnesses proceed. Let us not accompany them further.

     Leaving the Jewish quarter, I pass by the entrance to the Bureau of Arab Affairs. From the outside, with its tricolor flag waving and its neat red tile roof, you could take it for a house along the Rhone. I know the interpreter, so let’s go have a smoke with him. Cigarette by cigarette, I’ll manage to finally finish off this sunless Sunday.

     The courtyard in front of the Bureau is jammed with ragged Arabs. At least fifty of them squat along walls in their robes. Though open to the weather, this Bedouin waiting area reeks of human hide. Hurry up. In the office I find the interpreter dealing with two braying idiots who seem naked but for a layer of greasy cloth. They are acting out some crazy story about a stolen string of prayer beads. I sit on a mat in the corner to watch. It’s a really classy uniform, that of the interpreter in the Bureau of Arab Affairs, and this interpreter wears it really well. They seem to be made for each other. The uniform is sky blue with black embroidery and shiny gold buttons. The interpreter has curly blond locks and a rosy complexion, a handsome cavalry man full of fun and imagination. A bit talkative, but then, he speaks so many languages. A bit skeptical, but then, he knew Ernest Renan back at the Oriental Institute. Quite a sports enthusiast, as much at ease in a native camp as at the Chief of Police’s receptions. Whirls a girl around the dance floor better than anyone and whips up a mean plate of couscous all by himself. In sum, a Parisian. That’s my man, and no wonder the ladies go wild about him. For a dandy, he has only one rival in these parts, the sergeant of the Bureau of Arab Affairs. That Beau Brummel, with his custom-tailored tunic and his spats with mother-of-pearl buttons, is the envy of the entire garrison. On special assignment in the service and absolved of all menial tasks, he parades daily through the streets with white gloves and a fresh haircut, carrying folders of important-looking documents under his arm. He is feared and respected. He is the embodiment of authority.

     This case of the stolen beads seems to be dragging out. Goodbye. I won’t wait for the end.

     On the way out I find the waiting area all stirred up. The crowd presses in around a tall native man, pale, proud, and robed in black. A week ago, near Mount Zaccar, this man fought with a leopard. He killed the leopard, but not before it chewed off half his arm. Morning and evening, he comes to have his wound dressed at the Bureau of Arab Affairs, and each time they stop him in the courtyard to make him recount his story. He speaks slowly with a fine, deep voice. Every so often he opens the folds of his burnous to expose the bloody bandages around his left arm in a sling against his chest.

     No sooner do I reach the street than I’m caught in a violent downpour. Rain, thunder, lightning, desert wind. Quick, find shelter. I slip into the first doorway I come to and find myself in a batch of homeless wretches heaped together under the arcades of a Moorish courtyard. Belonging to the central mosque of Milianah, this courtyard is the habitual refuge of the Muslim rabble and is called the Paupers’ Court.

Big, emaciated hounds covered with fleas and lice start to approach me with hostile looks. I lean against a pillar in the gallery and try to appear unaffected, as I watch the raindrops ricochet across the colored tiles of the courtyard. The homeless are lying in clumps on the ground. Nearby a young woman, nearly beautiful, with bare breasts and legs and thick iron rings on her wrists and ankles, sings a strange melody composed of three nasal notes. As she sings, she suckles a naked infant colored like dark bronze, while, with her free hand, she grinds barley in a stone mortar. Driven by nasty gusts of wind, the rain periodically drenches the infant’s body and the mother’s legs, but she pays no attention and continues the song, while giving her breast and crushing the grains.

     The storm peters out. Taking advantage of a clear moment, I hasten to leave this beggars’ court and head for Sid’Omar’s dinner. It’s high time. Crossing the main square, I again run into the same old Jew from earlier in the day. He’s leaning on the shoulder of his colonial agent. His witnesses file along joyfully behind him. A flock of nasty Jewish kids scramble around them. Their faces are all glowing. The colonial agent has taken the matter under advisement: he’s asking for a settlement of 2000 francs in damages.

     At Sid’Omar’s house, a sumptuous dinner. The dining room opens onto a Moorish courtyard where several fountains are babbling. An excellent Turkish meal right out of Baron Brisse’s cookbook. Among other things, there are chicken with almonds, vanilla-flavored couscous, meat pies (a bit heavy but with exquisite taste), and honey pastries. For wine, nothing but champagne. Despite Muslim law, Sid’Omar partakes a bit – when the servants’ backs are turned . After dinner, we proceed to our host’s sitting room, where hookahs, coffee, and more sweets are brought in. The furnishings in this room are as simple as can be, a divan, some woven mats, and in the background, a big, high bed with two small red cushions embroidered in gold thread. On the wall hangs an antique Turkish painting depicting the exploits of a certain Admiral Hamadi. It seems in Turkey the artists only paint with one color per canvas, so this one’s painted green. Sea, sky, ships, and even Admiral Hamadi himself are green as can be.

     Arab custom dictates that one should retire early. The coffee drunk, the pipes smoked, I bid farewell to my host and leave him to his wives.

     Where should I finish the evening? Too early to go to bed. The bugles of the spahi troops have not yet sounded taps. Anyway, the golden arabesques of Sid’Omar’s abode are still dancing around in my head and would keep me awake. Here I am in front of the theater, so let’s go in.

     The theater in Milianah is a former storage barn more or less disguised as a house of entertainment. Crude oil lamps that are replenished at intermission do the job of chandeliers. The low price seats are not seats at all, but standing room, and the better seats are on a bench. The highest price seats are very exclusive because they have actual chairs stuffed with straw. All around the theater runs a long, dark corridor without flooring. You might as well be outside, it’s all the same. The night’s performance has already begun when I arrive. To my great surprise, the actors are not half bad, at least the men; they have enthusiasm and sincerity. Almost all are acting amateurs, soldiers from the Third Infantry. The regiment is proud of them and applauds them whole-heartedly every evening.

     As for the ladies, alas, it is always the same question of the eternal distaff side of provincial theaters, pretentious, exaggerated, and phony. Nevertheless, there are two among them that interest me , two Jewish girls from Milianah, still quite fresh to the profession. Their families are in the audience and can’t get enough of them. They have convinced themselves their little girls will bring in millions of sheckels in this racket. The legend of the great Jewish millionaire actress Rachel has already begun to spread among the children of Israel all over the Mediterranean.

     Nothing could be more tender and comical than those little Jewish girls on the boards. They shrink timidly back at one corner of the stage, powdered, rouged, low-cut and rigid. They are cold and a bit ashamed. Once in a while they spit out a line without understanding it and while they are speaking their big Hebraic eyes scan the house in a stupor.

     I leave the theater. Amidst the surrounding shadows, I notice cries from a corner of the square. It must be a couple of Maltese settling scores with knives.

     I slowly head back towards the hotel along the ramparts. A heady fragrance of orange blossoms and juniper berries rises from the plains. The air is soft, the sky nearly cloudless. There at the end of the path looms a ghostly old wall, the remnant of some nearly forgotten temple. The spot is still sacred; Arab women come there every day to hang little charms and effigies, fragments of old robes or scarves, plaited tresses of reddish hair bound with silver thread, strips of unknown cloth. They all flutter in a thin moonbeam, blown by the warm night air.