Letters to the Dead

[Magnolia League]

September 13th, 2020, Bône

Two days have passed since I received the news. I still see it when I close my eyes, so engrained that moment has become in my mind. I was in Tunis, observing drills by the Troupes de Marine at a nearby testing range. The day had gone without a hiccup, everything tempered and timed like a Swiss clock, perfection, as is expected of the armies of France. I had returned from my penultimate day of duty back to my residence in the city, looking over some paperwork for the following day, and some paperwork I had, in my nature, let accumulate in days passed. An average day, like any other, nothing out of line to suspect.

Then, a distraught messenger - some faceless local official, I can't even remember what his name was, or, if he even told me - burst through my office door, his lips carrying a song that at once filled me with the greatest and lowest emotion the human heart could muster. I was enraged, yet thrilled, saddened and wounded, yet never before so alive, it was horrible news, and yet, I couldn't hold myself from rejoicing - "Your father. He's dead. - My wait was finally over.

I can't seem to recall the moments between hearing the news and my mother's phone call. I must have dismissed him, I don't know which half of my conflicting emotions was more apparent in my demeanor, for the sake of my election I hope the grieving. What hurt more than the news was my mother crying over it. She loved him so much. I could hear the tears, bawling out her eyes, flowing like the Nile, filling a basin on the floor below her. It hurt to hear her hurting. Of course, I was summoned immediately back to the capital - my second-in-command would oversee the last day of the drills. He's already in Alger, laying in state. He will remain there until Friday, when I will be elected. On Saturday they will bury him.

I find myself now, writing to you, on the shore of the République, on a beach just outside Bône, a quiet little sandy enclave between flowing green hills. I remember he used to take us here when I was still a child. I loved this place. I never quite understood why we stopped coming. It faces directly north, across the sea, straight toward the Patrie, and I wonder, gazing across the endless blue, I wonder and question, so deeply, with such distress, why. Why did they stop you? Why did your successors refuse to try again? Traitors. All of them. They truly failed to see what they'd done. I still remember that saying Philippe told me when I was still just a boy, ironic he of all people said it, the coward.

"When France sneezes, the rest of Europe catches a cold."

We are far beyond the point of 'sneezing' - France, our home, our great Patrie, has been befell by a cruel, mortal plague, one devouring its soul, its heart, its body from inside out, tearing away at it for 150 long, long years since we were forced to flee. The turmoil that shadowed Europe, the chaos the communards have brought, and all they did was stand by and do nothing - they signed the Declaration in Oran, they swore with their blood to defend France, to defend Europe, and they did nothing! But the last words have not yet been spoken, and the torch of hope has yet to be extinguished for France libre. The tides are turning, I can feel it in the wind. The Mediterranean is calling, the Azure Coast is calling, calling for my aid, calling for liberation. My grandfather failed you. My father failed you. I will not.

Général de brigade Pierre de Gaulle closed his journal, moving his gaze at the wide expanse of serene, blue sea before him. At 37 years of age, he was to become the youngest Chairperson of the Committee so far, a long and bountiful career lay before him. It felt so wrong, to feel so triumphant about his father's death. This was the man that raised him, put a roof over his head, taught him statecraft and leadership, bestowed on him all the knowledge in the world. And yet, he was a coward, hiding from his duties demanded by the Declaration, excusing himself with claims the economy could not survive or the Arabs would revolt. Even if they did, who cares? France is not in Africa. The Arabs can have Africa.

A long way still stood between the young general and Algiers to which he must arrive by Thursday, he was already behind schedule. He stood from the flat topped boulder he had perched on while writing, stretching his back and hearing the air pop between every disk. "I can't feel my ass." He noted to himself. "How long was I on that rock?" He turned southward and headed back from whence he came. As he approached the desolate winding path between the trees which connected his secret beach with civilization, he suddenly felt a strange feeling overcome him. He stopped where sand and grass meet and turned again to the sea.

Of course he couldn't see across the Mediterranean, such is impossible. And yet, he saw, something. A silhouette, a vague, far outline of land. A mirage above the waves. He could see the tricolor, flying above Marseilles. He could see the Troupes de Marine, his personal - his presidential - guard, parading down the Champs. Ships sailing up the Rhône. Languedoc, Cévennes, the winter white Alps! The cathedral in Avignon! France, he saw France, liberated. He remembered that century old Gypsy prophecy, uttered to Henri when he had just arrived in Africa, that superstitious nursery rhyme, so foolish, yet, for some reason, kept alive in the family, passed father to son. It always rang so right in Pierre's ear.

With father come a nation born,
who questions blood would be a fool,
three sons of blood would meet Fate's scorn,
but come the fourth and he will rule.

Henri de Gaulle had fathered the nation. Three of his direct male heirs had tried, some more than others, and failed to return their people to the Patrie. Pierre was the fourth in line. And by the grace of God - and a Gypsy curse - he would rule.

[Magnolia League]

The bells of the Basilica were heard across the city. Black flags hung from balconies, window sills, rooftops. Before every government office the republican flag hung half mast. Never in my life have I seen Alger so empty, so desolate, as if every last man, woman and child had died of some mysterious plague or had been expelled as a result of a war that ravaged the city. None of these was the case. Instead, it was mourning. Like a bee colony, that cries in unison when the monarch dies, the beating heart of Alger had passed to the realm of spirits and was awaiting his assumption, as the people of the nation he had presided over remembered his 25 year reign. A time of peace, prosperity, a time of optimism. During Jean de Gaulle's chairing of the Committee, the République d'Alger changed, from 'France across the Sea' to a nation in its own right, with its own identity, it had developed its own culture even before, but it was only in the last three decades the people began to truly embrace it, the European and Arab civilizations, so long at odds with each other, had grown accepting, and merged.

Most notable was religion. Christian churches in the Republic had long adopted Moorish architectural motifs, and embraced Islam's focus on cleanliness and community - it started with fountains on church grounds, where before mass and prayer the believers would clean themselves. It soon became markets, baths, schools, libraries, and so much more, surrounding the high clerical towers. The Algerian Catholic Church became a leader in cultural integration, and catholic schools were among the first in the country to offer integrated classes, free of charge, for all seeking an education. The Muslims of the Republic had become some of the most moderate in the entire Islamic world. While Metropolitan French remains the prestige dialect in the Republic, the Pieds-Noir and especially Métis have adopted a strongly Arab-influenced French dialect, which spread to the Arab population and has become a lingua franca in Algiers. The Arabs and Europeans truly had grown so fond of each other. It was what many considered the greatest time to be alive and they believed, truly, la Paix Gaulliste was eternal. Oh the fools.

It was disgusting to see. These people mourning, the people so saddened, they couldn't show their faces in public, these people waving flags dark as night from their townhouses, they were French! They were Continentaux! And they shed tears over a coward! It almost brought me to tears - how little they valued their homeland, how few thought of the liberation. I'll show them what really deserves tears. A few hours passed after my arrival in the city. I had first gone to meet the Committee, to discuss the agenda and proceedings of the following days. Almost bawled my eyes out in boredom and spite. Fourteen ancient fossils, half of them had known Charles! He died half a century ago! Before anything else was to be done in my new fiefdom, these relics were to be replaced. There would be no liberation of France with these cavemen drawing me back. Unanimously, I was elected Chairman.

After the meeting I went to the family townhouse near the city center to console my mother in person. I couldn't pin as much guilt on her as I could the citizenry, she grieved of love, not cowardice. My grandfather, Philippe, his predecessor - a coward of the same cast - was there as well. 99 years of age, 100 come next December, another artefact I'd most rather have embalmed and sent to the Musée d'Histoire together with the velociraptors. For some strange reason, I don't know if it was his honest feeling or if he was just too old to really care about anything at all anymore, he seemed to be mourning about as much as I was. The next day, it was time for the assumption. A grief parade marched through the city until we arrived to Notre-Dame d'Afrique, in the foothills to the west of the city. All de Gaulle Chairmen were buried here, in a crypt below the Basilica. Politicians, celebrities, officers, distant family and friends, all came up to me to speak their sorrow for my loss, while I truly could hardly care less. My feelings of doubt and guilt that overtook me in the heat of the moment in Tunis were long gone. Why should I feel bad for the way I feel, I will bring this nation glory and fame and a homeland, something this selfish, corrupt prick could never bring himself to do. I am in the right, and the people of Algiers will soon see it. They played the anthem as he was lowered into the crypt. What disrespect. You claim to love him so much, hang all the flags and dirty laundry in the country to mourn him, then you don't even give his soul the mercy of ascending to the clouds in silence, I pity the fools who oversaw this sham.

After the ceremony I faked a handful of tears and fled the scene, excusing myself to family and reporters with supposed grief, I couldn't possibly bare to discuss these matters at the moment, I told them. I fled to my own townhouse by the sea, just a bit up the road from the harbor. I poured myself a glass of single malt scotch and sat on the lonely chair on my balcony, gazing out to sea. I hadn't had a glass in a while, I couldn't possibly risk one of the commanders in Tunis seeing me, so it stung a bit more than I was used to when I took the first, oversized sip. The ocean was calm, and the afternoon sun had cast a beautiful orange glare on it. That image from Bône crept in my head, that Gypsy curse screeching like a siren. All I could think of as he was lowered into that cold, marble tomb was, "Finally, the fourth may rule."

[Magnolia League]

"How's work, honey?" She was the light of my life. "Hehe, surprised you, didn't I?" Marlène - the star of the sea.

We met in high school. She was the daughter of a wealthy Italian industrialist and his French noble wife. Originally from Bône, they shipped her off to Algiers to attend the Académie Henri de Gaulle at 14 years of age. She was two years my younger. 35. I smirked, delighted. "You know, it's funny." I always loved seeing her. "You're the only person in this country I can't seem to hear walking down that hallway." It was true, too. Saied's uneven gait, - Hip replacement. I wasn't lying when I said these guys are old. - Édouard's confident, remarkably even, stride, like a metronome on marble, and don't even get me started on Corne's hammer heels. I could tell who I needed to yell at and what paperwork to get out of my drawers 15 minutes before anyone even knocked on the door. And yet, Marlène, she eluded me.

"It's cause I glide down the hall," What followed from her lips, I think truer words have yet to be spoken. "like an angel." We stepped closer to each other, I grasped her hands in mine when we were about arms length apart. Her eyes were as bright as when I first saw them. The only eyes I ever liked staring at. "If only I could argue." We got together when I was 17 and she was 15. She was the most beautiful girl at the Academy. I remember they taunted me, said I only had her as a trophy, cause I was a de Gaulle, and not out of love. They taunted her, said she was only with me cause I was a de Gaulle. History has proven them wrong. "How's work?"

"My hair is starting to grey." Her lips opened in a wide smile. Her teeth shone like the beaches of Djerba, a string of pearls and marbles, the corners of her eyes wrinkling, closing like beartraps for my gaze, I couldn't possibly take it off her. "Well stay alive long enough for Nicole to graduate. Then you can croak in this office for all I care" A brief episode of nausea took over. "Nicole is graduating this year." Oh, how the years fly by, the unrelenting march of time, cursed be.

Nicole was an unplanned pregnancy. I was 20, she was 18. We did everything we were supposed to, and yet - somehow. Just one of those twists of fate God above has up his sleeve for every mortal, to make your life, and his audience of it, that much more entertaining. Given we were both from wealthy families, we decided to keep her. I remember we made a deal. If it's a boy, I give him his first name and she chooses the middle name, if it's a girl, opposite. As is my luck, it was a girl, not that I'd love her any less because of it. My contribution was Clara - bright, famous. I thought it was a spectacular choice. Of course though, Marlène outshone me. Nicole. From Greek Nike, victory, and Laos, people. Victory of the people. Nicole.

"I'll try my best not to be assassinated by then." She smiled, but also gave a warning gaze. She didn't like jokes like that. She lifted on her toes so our lips could lock, then she departed to from where she came. I couldn't hear her while she was leaving either. Weird.