Algiers, Third World Capital

The youngest of six boys, Mokhtar was born and raised in Berrouaghia (the Asphodels), a village in the plateau region south of Algiers. He was the only one of the brothers to graduate from high school, a French lycée. It was there that he began organizing for Algerian independence, creating and recruiting for an FLN clandestine cell. In 1957 he joined the liberation army, receiving training as a radio operator in the newly formed signal corps. He was deployed in the southern war zone at the head of a transmissions detachment.
In 1962, Mokhtar was elected president of UGEMA, the national student association, and tasked with its reorganization in the newly liberated country. He attended college in Algiers and obtained masters’ degrees in sociology, economics and law in Paris. He held positions in the Ministry of Agriculture and Agrarian Reform—in charge of training and education—as well as in several state companies. Later, in Paris, he wrote illustrated books for young readers on Islam, the Arab world, and North Africa.
Mokhtar had given his life to Algeria. He and his comrades joined the liberation army prepared to die for their flag and more—for an idea, for justice. Following independence, to see the ideals they had fought for soiled, spit upon, was more than he could bear. When I was deported for refusing to become an informer for the military police, it was the final blow. As he wrote at the time: “My last illusions are gone. Exile remains the ultimate solution when mediocrity and feudalism triumph and return as our judges.”
Mokhtar lived for twenty years in Paris and twenty years in New York. Paris often tore at his entrails. He felt surrounded by the racism of his youth. He was happy in New York, despite the frightening lack of sympathy for Palestine. He felt free here, and found peace in writing. His final book, J’étais français-musulman. Itinéraire d’un soldat de l’ALN, was a memoir of his life, telling how he became a nationalist, a militant, and a soldier of the Algerian liberation struggle.2 When he learned that Éditions Barzakh of Algiers would publish the manuscript in 2016, he felt the warm rush of accomplishment.
A few days after his eightieth birthday, Mokhtar learned that he had liver cancer. “I want to go home with Elaine and die there,” he told his doctor. “My life is behind me.” His last piece of writing was a short text in English: “I had a wonderful life,” it declared. “I don’t want to waste Elaine’s time and mine going to hospitals and clinics. We adore each other and want to protect our happiness.”
Mokhtar’s last words to me: “Je t’embrasse.”

Mokhtar returned to Algeria once a year to see his family and visit the graves of his mother and father in Berrouaghia, his hometown. “Ils m’ont donné la vie,” he would say. (They gave me life.)
Mokhtar died on April 4, 2015. He was eighty years old. Ten days earlier, barely able to raise his body from the bed, he dressed, leaned on a cane, and slowly climbed the slight incline to Broadway. We hailed a taxi and crossed the entire city from west to east to reach the Algerian consulate near the UN. He wanted to finish his business with Algeria, to provide his nephew Djamel with an authorization to act in his name for family affairs

Mokhtar’s talent as a researcher and writer was recognized by two of the top French publishers. His first book, an illustrated history for teenagers, Aux premiers siècles de l’Islam (The Rise of Islam) was published by Hachette in 1985 and translated into English, Indonesian, German, Japanese, Polish, and Portuguese. A second illustrated book, L’Égypte au présent, came out in 1989. Éditions Nathan published Les Arabes au temps de l’âge d’or (The Arabs in the Golden Age) in 1991 and Maroc, Algérie, Tunisie: les pays du Maghreb in 1992, also illustrated history books for young readers. A revised edition of his first book with a new title, Les débuts de l’Islam, came out in 2003.
Still refusing to be outdone, I published, in 1990, an illustrated book for young readers on the American Civil War, La Guerre de Sécession, with Éditions Nathan. In 1992, for Albin Michel, another French publisher, I wrote and produced an illustrated book with Yann Le Béchec, a very fine artist, called New York Quartiers Noirs. I published two travel guides with Hippocrene Books of New York in 1991 and 1993, Insiders’ Guide to Paris and Language & Travel Guide to France. Finally, Paris: An Illustrated History was published by Hippocrene in 2002. After a trip to Buenos Aires in 2005, I illustrated a series of my own Japanese-style tanka poems for a chapbook.

It’s worth remembering that in Soul on Ice, Eldridge tangles with James Baldwin over Baldwin’s criticism of Norman Mailer’s The White Negro. Did he identify with Mailer’s psychopath? Had his rapes and violence found justification there? Mailer was vicious when aroused, which earned Cleaver’s respect, whereas he railed against Baldwin for “the hatred for blacks permeating his writing” and “the most shameful, fanatical, fawning, sycophantic love of the whites that one can find in the writings of any black American writer of note in our time.” “Homosexuality is a sickness,” Cleaver added.11 Baldwin understood Mailer and feared the “show” character in his writing. Baldwin eschewed half-truths: “you hear only your own voice,” he would admit, “and you begin to drown in this endless duplication of what looks like yourself.” It seems Baldwin was deeply affected by Eldridge’s attack.

As soon as I left the SM offices, I called Cherif Belkacem—better known by his nom de guerre, Djamel—one part of the three-man brain trust closest to Boumediene, and one of the instigators of the 1965 coup. He was a leading member of government, had headed two key ministries, education and finance, and was a member of the Council of the Revolution, created following the coup. In the 1960s I had been a frequent guest at his famous parties. I knew his gorgeous Swedish wife and his close collaborators. I had also witnessed his descent into heavy drinking and womanizing

ministry in my Mini, she hailed someone coming out of the bakery across the street and told me to stop. I stepped on the brakes and Behja wound down her window. The man carrying a baguette who doubled over to greet us through that open window was Mokhtar Mokhtefi, a liberation war veteran with whom Behja had worked at the Ministry of Agriculture right after independence. I had heard his name many times over the years from Behja, Zohra, and others, always with respect for his character and intelligence. He was already familiar to me.
Mokhtar called Behja the next day, suggesting she organize a party and invite him, me, and anyone else she desired. The party was just a party, but for me it is the unshakable turning point of my life. Behja made her signature dish, chicken with citrons confits. We drank La Cuvée du Président, red wine from the orchards along the coast. Someone put on records and we danced. As people were leaving, Mokhtar told me he had no transportation: “Can you drop me off on your way home?”
He was a beautiful man: over six feet tall, with large dark eyes that addressed one directly, an aquiline nose, and longish hair that covered his head in ringlets. He was intelligent and clear-spoken: he said things so that they would be understood, not buried in terms that diluted meaning. He had a sense of humor and of dignity. I had often heard from my friends that he was brave and principled. I have marveled ever since at the wonder of our encounter. Can I say we were made for each other? Is that too banal a thought? It is what I believe.

Roger, now unemployed, had been a tank and helicopter gunner with the US Army in Vietnam. He was smart; he had handled the hijacking alone from start to finish. It was his brainchild. The New York Times described him as “a slim, cool black man in his twenties.” According to the Western Airlines pilot, Bill Newell, “the hijacker was a highly intelligent man dissatisfied with his experiences in the Army.”1 Cathy worked in a massage parlor in San Diego

Jérôme Savary, whom I had known since he was a child—the irrepressible director of the Grand Magic Circus, France’s first post–World War II attempt at musical comedy, and later director of the Théâtre National de Chaillot and the Opéra-Comique—agreed without hesitation to do a show dedicated to the Algiers Panthers and hand over the evening’s proceeds, on condition that his crew of artistes agreed. They did, and I collected roughly $1,000 in francs after the performance

How to put it? The groups I had met and talked with were the remnants of an organization. Their leaders were either dead, in prison, on the run, or on the defensive. Those who rejected the Oakland gang were on their own. The only new group I’d seen was the far-out teenagers in Chicago. Our meetings at universities were organized by students, not Panthers, and were not a solid indication of the strength of revolutionary groups on campus. People had come out to hear Kathleen more out of curiosity than conviction or a need to get back into the struggle. People in the Black community still participated in local programs, like breakfast for children and food distribution; they would come out on call. But the dynamics had changed. I told them that I didn’t feel the sparks of revolution. Fresh leadership and new or renewed energy were required, and those could not be sourced from Algiers. Eldridge and DC were both in their late thirties. I suddenly saw them as survivors. I imagine they felt the same

He’ll make an engaging houseguest,” I said.
On December 21, I flew back to Algiers from Marseille. I found Eldridge getting ready, outfitting himself, and making his farewells to those he was close to. But when he asked for the keys to my apartment “in order to say goodbye to someone,” I flipped. That “someone” was a veiled lady who lived on one of the upper floors. Eldridge often took my keys during the day. He said my apartment was an oasis of peace, far from the noise and agitation of the Embassy. I had imagined him there reading, writing at the table, dozing off. That he had forged an intimate connection with a lady in the next stairwell was mind-blowing. He told me everything had started one day as he parked my car behind the building, while the mysterious lady was on her back balcony hanging the laundry out to dry. This was a woman permanently closeted in her apartment, who only ventured outside when accompanied by a male member of her family. But, somehow, Eldridge had been secretly rendezvousing with her for months. I learned to put nothing past him, as would be clear to all the world as his life wound on