And Their Children After Them

by Nicolas Mathieu

  —

  Before going upstairs, Anthony and his mother paused under the Picasso tower arcades across from the Cézanne one. He wanted to piss and wash his hands. The life and luck lines on his palms were filthy. He felt sweaty and bloated.

  “Stop fidgeting like that,” said his mother.

  “I need to pee.”

  “So do I. Just hold it.”

  To buck herself up, she popped a Tic Tac in her mouth.

  “Okay, let’s go.”

  Anthony groaned, but she was already crossing the street. It was just after three o’clock. Ahead of them on the right, kids were playing in a playground, riding spring-mounted pandas and watched by weary mothers sitting on benches. Some of them rocked strollers with sleeping babies. When Anthony and Hélène crossed the street, the mothers looking in their direction saw a tall brunette in platform shoes and a boy with a backpack walking by. They looked like thieves.

  * * *

  —

  In the lobby, mother and son were surprised by the coolness of the concrete. They took the stairs. The silence was total. On the steps, their soles made an unpleasant squeaking that echoed in the stairwell. They stopped on the third floor and checked the names under the doorbells. The Boualis lived in the first apartment on the right.

  “So?”

  “Go ahead.”

  Hélène rang the doorbell, and a shrill sound rose to the upper floors. In the tomb-like silence, it felt as if the entire building suddenly had goose bumps.

  “That’s enough, stop it!” said Anthony, grabbing her arm.

  The echo of his voice paralyzed them. Within these walls, every sound betrayed them. They waited for a response, but nothing came. Anthony and his mother were alone with their fear in enemy territory, their boldness quickly draining away.

  Then the lock began to make metal clicking sounds. Complicated mechanisms were activated behind the door, which opened to reveal a small man with a mustache, dressed all in denim. Hélène tried to smile; Anthony hung his head. In the hallway’s yellow light, Malek Bouali looked misshapen, with a big head and over-large hands. His face was marked by deep, concentric wrinkles, in which his eyes glinted weakly. He observed them peaceably, looking mildly intrigued.

  “Good afternoon, sir,” said Hélène apologetically.

  Curious and alert, the man said nothing. When Hélène asked if Hacine was there, the furrows on his brow deepened.

  “No, he is not here.”

  “Do you know if he will be home soon?”

  “You want what?”

  Hélène and Anthony were aware of the emptiness of the stairwell behind them, the building’s silent verticality, a numerous, mobile presence, a dull agitation. A whole group of underemployed people on the lookout, held by TV sets, drugs and distractions, heat and boredom. The smallest thing could rouse them. Hélène answered that she wanted to talk to Hacine, that it was important.

  “What is happening?” asked the man.

  “I would prefer to discuss it when your son is here, sir.”

  There was something suspicious about Hélène’s politeness. It suggested the calculated distance of a notaire, or the tone of a doctor with bad news to deliver.

  “He is not here,” he repeated, and started to close the door.

  Hélène blocked it with her open palm, then her shoulder.

  “It’s important. I really have to talk to him, Monsieur Bouali.”

  Hélène had sensed vacillation beneath the man’s exterior. She asked if they could come in for a moment. Bouali wasn’t sure. He was worried. Mostly, he just didn’t want to be bothered. Hélène insisted.

  “No,” he said. “Leave me alone.”

  One floor up, a door opened and young foreign voices could be heard, joined by the rattle of a chain, panting, and the growling of a dog. At that, Anthony firmly pushed the door open and pulled his mother inside.

  “Come on.”

  “What are you doing? You have no right.”

  Bouali staggered as the intruders pushed their way in. He gaped at them in disbelief.

  “You are crazy! Get out!”

  Anthony closed the door behind them and locked it. The three of them were now squeezed into the narrow hallway. The man caught the scent of Hélène’s hair. It was a fresh, spicy lime perfume, the smell of a woman. It stirred him. She was looking at him wide-eyed, a finger to her lips, begging him to keep quiet. The neighbors came downstairs with their dog, chatting cheerfully in Arabic. Anthony’s need to piss was getting stronger by the minute. When the other people were far enough downstairs, he asked:

  “Do you have a bathroom I can use?”

  The question disarmed the old man. He told Anthony to go to the end of the hallway and turn right. Hélène took advantage of her son’s absence to tell Bouali everything. She had rehearsed her story for a long time, and now told it smoothly, stressing the points that mattered. She said the word “thief” twice, but in a gentle, consoling voice. Bouali’s face gradually changed. All at once he felt responsible and terribly old. He and Rania had emigrated from a poor country and found something of a refuge in Heillange. At the steel mill, he had taken orders for forty years, while being punctual, falsely docile, and an Arab, always. He very quickly understood that the hierarchy at work was determined by more than skills, seniority, or diplomas. Among the workers, there were three classes. The lowest was reserved for blacks and North Africans like himself. Above them were the Poles, Yugoslavs, Italians, and the least competent French. To get any job higher than that, you had to be born in France; that was all there was to it. And if by some unusual circumstance a foreigner did become an apprentice or a journeyman, an aura of suspicion always hung about him, some vague quality that forever put him in the wrong.

  There was nothing innocent about the way the mill operated. At the outset, you might think that efficiency would dictate workers’ assignments and the use of their strengths, that the logic and brutality of production and mandatory shifts would be enough. In reality, behind the ideals that were held higher and higher as the valley became less and less competitive lay a tangle of tacit rules, coercive methods inherited from the colonies, seemingly natural classifications, and institutional violence, all of which guaranteed that the oppressed were disciplined and knew their place. Malek Bouali and his ilk were all the way at the bottom, regularly called ragheads, camel jockeys, and sand niggers. With the passage of time, this contempt for him and his fellows became more covert, but it never disappeared. Bouali even earned a promotion. But a stew of anger had been simmering in his gut for forty years. Today, it didn’t matter anymore. He was collecting unemployment and was using his Metalor layoff bonus to build a little house back in Morocco. Rania had returned there before him. They had worked so hard. And what about their sons, who, even when they were very little, knew more and understood better? What had happened?

  Malek Bouali cleared his throat and said:

  “I will make the tea.”

  He headed for the kitchen, leaving Hélène in the little hallway. In a moment she heard a cabinet opening, water running, a gas stove being lit.

  * * *

  —

  They drank their tea in silence from hot little golden glasses that left circles on the oilcloth. Their host said little. Staring at his glass, he was ruminating darkly. Hélène, meanwhile, was fascinated by his meditative face, as furrowed as a field, and his workman’s hands. He reminded her of her father, oddly enough.

  “You are mistaken. Hacine is not like that.”

  He was looking at her without pity. He wasn’t lying, but neither was he interested in the truth. He was just doing his job as a father. Later, he would do that job with Hacine; that was to come. In the face of Bouali’s stubbornness, Hélène again laid out the facts, and he listened. Then he smoothed the oilcloth with both hands and turned his cloudy eyes to her. Hélène’
s shoulders were bare; she was beautiful. Nothing here was simple.

  “You come to my house and you insult me.”

  “I think we’re well past that by now,” said Hélène. Outside, a blackbird kept singing. Anthony told himself that if the old man tried anything, he would tear his head off. He’d been stamping his feet, jiggling his thighs, and tapping his heels under his chair since they arrived. He wondered when Hacine would come home and imagined what would happen then. Anthony was always telling himself stories like that, about settling scores and throwing punches. But Bouali just closed his eyes.

  “So where is this motorcycle? I do not have a motorcycle here.”

  “I don’t know,” Hélène admitted.

  “So?”

  “I want to talk to your son. I’ve been saying that right from the start.”

  “He is not here.”

  “I’m very sorry, but I’m not leaving without the motorcycle.”

  “You are going to leave now,” said Bouali in his husky, gravelly voice. “Right away.”

  Across the table, he and Hélène were sizing each other up. They were now down to the nitty-gritty. “Parenting” is a big word. You can put it in books and flyers, but in reality, each of us does the best we can. Whether you slave away or don’t give it a thought, the outcome always involves some degree of mystery. The child is born, you have plans for them, you have sleepless nights. For fifteen years you get up at dawn to take them to school. At the dinner table, you constantly remind them to close their mouth when they’re eating and to sit up straight. You find them entertainment, buy them sneakers and swimsuits. They get sick, fall off their bikes. They sharpen their willpower on your back. As you’re raising them, you lose strength and sleep; you become slow and old. And then one morning you discover you have an enemy in your own home. That’s a good sign. They will be ready soon. And that’s when the real troubles begin, the ones that can cost lives or wind up in court. This was the stage that Hélène and Bouali had now reached: salvaging anything they could.

  “When Hacine comes home, I will talk to him,” Bouali promised. “If it is him, he will give the motorcycle back.”

  Hélène decided to believe him. She even felt a brief moment of tenderness for this decent, humiliated old man.

  He stood up and added, “You can trust me.”

  Bouali picked up the three glasses and put them in the sink. Then he gestured toward the way out. Each of them covered the exact distance required by protocol. At the front door, they all shook hands.

  * * *

  —

  Once he was alone, Malek Bouali leaned against the wall. His lips had begun to tremble and he felt his legs failing him. He stuck his hand in his mouth and bit down hard. He drooled. Later, he put on his shoes and went downstairs to the basement. There wasn’t much in his storage area besides suitcases and his tools. Certainly no motorcycle, anyway. He took his time now, first picking up a shovel, then a pickax. He tried a hammer. He hefted each tool, judged his grip, manipulated the object in the light from the bulb hanging from the ceiling. At last he made his choice. After wedging the pickax against the wall, he sawed the handle off just below the head. Then he went upstairs with his ax handle, sat down in front of the television, and watched the Olympics. The Americans were winning everything, the men’s and women’s 200 meters. Carl Lewis finally beat Mike Powell in the long jump. Time passed and night fell. Bouali dozed off a little before ten o’clock and was awakened by his son’s return. He looked at his watch and muttered something in Arabic. He had to push on his knees to haul himself upright.

  “Is that you?”

  “Yeah, yeah.”

  The young man was taking his shoes off in the darkness. He was a bit stoned and hoped the old man wasn’t going to bore him with his complaints: Where were you, what were you doing, did you see your brother?

  “I have been waiting for you.”

  “I was with friends. I’m really tired. I’m going to go to bed.”

  Hacine felt someone moving behind his back. When he turned around, he saw his father holding the ax handle above his head. Before he could say a word, it crashed down on his skull, producing a surprisingly hollow sound. As a follow-through, a second blow hit his elbow. Hacine fell to the linoleum floor, protecting himself with his hands as best he could. The blows continued to fall, and pain stabbed at his fingers, his ribs, his lower back. He could hear himself pleading. His father said nothing. He was breathing, taking his time, putting something into each blow, giving it the weight of work.

  When it was over, Bouali locked his son in his room. There, Hacine examined the damage in the closet mirror. His brow was smashed, and he had bruises pretty much everywhere. He could barely move his fingers. He carefully stretched out on his bed. He hurt so much all over that he started nervously chuckling. Soon an unusual murmur rose from the room next door. He put his ear to the wall. In his bedroom, his father was praying. That’s how serious the situation was. Hacine pulled the sheet up over his head. He racked his brains, trying to think what his father could be angry at him about. He was in pain, and he felt ashamed. Eventually, he fell asleep. At one point during the night he wanted to take a piss but found the door locked. He had to relieve himself in the wastebasket. Next morning at six, his father came to find him. They had a discussion, man to man. His father said that if he ever did something like that again he would kill him with his own hands. Hacine had nothing to say to that. On the other hand, he was going to find that little faggot and his cousin. That much was absolutely clear.

  10

  By the time Steph woke up, the house was already empty. She padded into the kitchen barefoot, still very sleepy and in a bad mood. Her mother had left a Post-it note on the table asking her to turn the oven on at 11:45 and to remember to make an appointment with the orthodontist. Caroline had drawn a little heart at the bottom of the note and stuck it to Steph’s bowl.

  She poured herself some fruit juice and walked out onto the patio with an old copy of Voici under her arm. She was just wearing a pair of oversized boxers and her Snoopy tank top. She began leafing through the magazine while sipping her juice. Johnny Hallyday, Julia Roberts, Patrick Bruel—same old, same old. She and Clémence were fond of the two Monaco princesses, whom they called the mussels, a pair of idiots clinging to their rock. Those chicks had nothing else to do and couldn’t even snag themselves a decent guy.

  Just then, the telephone rang. At that hour it had to be Clémence. Steph had forgotten to bring out the wireless phone. She could have gotten up and run to answer, but she was comfortable where she was. You could see the last drops of dew glistening on the green grass. The warm air was gradually getting heavier. Soon she would be feeling the heat weighing on her stomach, yellow and oppressive. The whine of a motor rose from their neighbors’ place. That was odd, because the Vincents were away. They’d gone to Ramatuelle for three weeks, as they did every year. The noise grew louder and Steph soon spotted a slim man pushing a lawn mower. She watched the play of his shoulder muscles under his skin, and his broad, ripped back. She lifted a foot onto her chair and absentmindedly began to play with it. She’d put on nail polish the night before. She ran her index finger between two toes and sniffed it. A discreet, sweetish smell, her body’s familiar odor. While she was at it, she smelled her armpits. At night she would wake up in a sweat, hair plastered to her forehead and temples, because she couldn’t stand sleeping without a sheet. She had tried to, but when she did, all her childhood monsters came out from under the bed.

  The guy mowing the neighbors’ lawn was taking a break now. He lit a cigarette and pulled off his tank top, draping it over the mower’s handlebars. His chest was taut and muscular, with blue tattoos. Steph thought of Serge, who also had a tattoo, a very faded seahorse. But Serge didn’t have a body shaped by work like this, to say the least. He spent his days sitting on his butt in his executive armchair, and when he moved, it was to go
eat lunch with his colleagues or with service providers who picked up huge restaurant tabs in the hope of selling him software solutions. Serge did a little mountain biking on Sunday—with Steph’s father, Pierre, in fact—but after a few miles, the men were just as happy to go have a drink in the shade.

  Across the way, the man stubbed his cigarette out on the sole of his shoe, pocketed the butt, and resumed working. His back was tan from the sun and his hair was thinning on top. Despite being under an open umbrella, Steph could feel a drop of sweat sliding down her right side. She vaguely felt like eating something but didn’t know what—sugar, maybe. She pinched her thigh, hard. The phone began to ring again. Sighing, she decided to go answer it. The patio chair left rectangular marks on her back and thighs.

  * * *

  —

  Clémence didn’t even bother saying hello.

  “So?”

  What she wanted was news about the previous evening. Serge and his wife, Myreille, had come to dinner at the house, and whenever that happened, it sent the two girls into a delirium of high-flying invention.

  “So, what?”

  “Don’t be coy! How did it go with Porco Rosso?”

  “It didn’t go anywhere,” said Steph.

  “Yeah, right! Spit it out, you hussy!”

  Steph chuckled.

  “Did he show you his prick?”

  “Stop it! You’re completely nuts!”

  “I’m sure he showed it to you.”

  “He just told me to be careful.”

  “What a filthy pervert!”

  The girls started to giggle. Serge Simon had become their whipping boy ever since the evening, after drinking two whiskeys and the equivalent of a bottle of rosé, he dared ask Stéphanie if she shaved her pubes. Everybody around the table pretended to be shocked, but it was just for show, because, after all, the question was worth asking. Serge had read in VSD magazine that girls were all shaving their pussy nowadays. “Heeeeeyyy!” Steph’s father, Pierre, had cried, but he was even drunker than his buddy.