Description

A weary soldier wanders the dim streets of Oran when a brusque sous‑officier, Wassermann, drops a sudden order: the next morning he must board a train for Algiers and join a battalion bound for South Tunisia. The night air is thick with the glow of cafés and street lamps, and the protagonist’s practiced reserve hides the ripple of anxiety the news creates. He moves through the city’s hurried construction—banks, theatres, hospitals—while the logistics of his new posting loom large.

Amid the military routine, a fragile thread of personal longing lingers. He is haunted by Mercédès, an elusive Spanish woman whose meetings are as unpredictable as the city’s bustling boulevards, and whose absence sharpens his sense of loss. The narrator’s thoughts drift between the promise of duty and the yearning for a connection that feels both vital and vanishing.

Even as he packs his bag and prepares for the dawn departure, the night grows restless with unanswered questions. Will the journey to Algiers carry him farther from the fleeting romance he clings to, or will it offer a chance to redefine his place within the colonial world? The story captures that tentative balance between obligation and desire, set against the vivid backdrop of 1920s North Africa.

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