THE SEXUAL LIFE OF AN ISLAMIST IN PARIS
by Leïla Marouane
Translated from the French by Alison Anderson
Europa Editions 116 East 16th Street New York, N.Y. 10003 www.europaeditions.com [email protected]
This book is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people, or real locales are used fictitiously.
Copyright ©2007 by Leïla Marouane Published by arrangement with Agence littéraire Pierre Astier & Associés
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
First Publication 2010 by Europa Editions
Translation by Alison Anderson Original title: La vie sexuelle d'un islamiste à Paris Translation copyright ©2009 by Europa Editions
All rights reserved, including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available ISBN 978-1-933372-85-3 Marouane, Leïla The Sexual Life of an Islamist in Paris Book design by Emanuele Ragnisco www.mekkanografici.com Prepress by Plan.ed – Rome Printed in Canada
With thanks to "Mohamed" for his trust and his outspokenness.
PART ONE
DISSIDENCE
"Before you are someone, you must first be no one."
L'Ombilic des limbes Antonin Artaud
"Biological racism has given way to cultural racism. It is no longer the color of one's skin or the shape of one's nose that are stigmatized, but a certain manner of being."
Les Damnés de la terre
FRANTZFANON
It came over me all of a sudden, he said. I was at my desk, hardly listening to my client, and I couldn't take my eyes off the dome that was shining like a mirage beyond the bay window. You're in Paris but you're not in Paris. A shadow passing through the city. Morning after morning. Going back to the gray skies of your banlieue. Night after night. Paris shines for other people. You're becoming lackluster, there among your family. That's the point you're at, old boy. Strolling by the banquet, not allowed to taste. Existing without an existence.
I'm fed up with this situation, I said again, so distraught that I immediately had to cut short the appointment with my client.
A few minutes later, with the smile of the perfect capitalist plastered on my face, I was seeing my client to the door. I told my assistant I'd be out for a while, and I left the office.
I smoked a cigarette, watched the passers-by, looked at the shop windows, the cars … Then I strolled around for a while. Like someone stretching their legs to empty their mind. My mind was boiling over, and my feet refused to advance any further.
I looked at the passersby again, gauging their faces, as if I were looking for something encouraging, and then, brushing aside any thoughts that might interfere with my intention, I ordered my feet to keep going.
A moment later I was outside the real-estate agency that is located a few yards away from the bank where I had just been posted on the rue de Sèvres. I looked through the list of rentals, and then at some of the photos of the interiors, and finally at the price of rents: four digits minimum, enough to take your breath away. But I was ready for anything. I picked out a twoand-a-half-room apartment on the rue Saint-Placide, and went through the door into the agency.
It was of June 26, of the year 2006, the penultimate Friday of the month. As I left the agency, although a stiff breeze was sweeping through the city, I could feel the sweat soaking my shirt.
That same evening, in Saint-Ouen, in the apartment where I'd lived since my tenth birthday—in other words, for thirty whole years—out of sight of my mother and my younger brother I filled out the agency's application form: name, date and place of birth, profession, nationality, and so on. In the square marked "current address," I put my younger sister's address in the 7th arrondissement of Paris, which made me look good to my employers and where, for reasons I will explain below, I was actually receiving all my administrative correspondence.
When I'd finished with the application form, I began to check and sort and classify all the required documents in order: ID, three most recent pay stubs, tax papers … Nothing was missing.
Easy peasy Japaneasy, I smiled, scratching my neck with the cap of my ballpoint pen. You are number one, old man, I thought, flattering myself without a trace of irony. Even your mug in the photo doesn't give away a thing about your origins, your skin looks even paler than it is in reality. No cause to be jealous of any white guy. Lucky dog. Your whitening creams and hair straightening sessions on the Avenue Rochechouart have been effective, incontestably. Long live progress …
Pleased with my file, which ought to set me up nicely to make my escape, I started murmuring and humming "Curly locks curly locks wilt thou be mine?" and if anyone had come in on me at that moment, they might have seriously questioned the state of exaltation I was in …
I had reached a certain point in my murmurings and hummings when my mother appeared on the threshold to my room. She noticed my ecstatic behavior right away and said, "You look all funny, apple of my eye …"
"It's nothing, my mother," I said, recovering my composure. My usual gloomy and sullen demeanor, that is, the one I've been going around with for a while already, maybe since my father died fifteen years ago. Or maybe since some time after that. Or maybe since always. What do I know. The fact remains that my sullen face meant she'd leave me in peace over dinner, dinner which we ate together, my mother, my brother andmyself, night after night. Enough to discourage them from their favorite topic, that is, was I going out with anyone, some girl I might introduce them to, because the ones chosen by my mother did not tend to find grace in my eyes, and my temples were going gray, and my brother's temples would very soon do likewise, although he was already engaged, but was prepared to respect tradition, and was waiting for nothing else, therefore, than for his older brother to get married so that he in turn might be wed. In short, I donned my usual demeanor and, reassured, my mother said, "Your dinner is getting cold, light of my days, and your brother is getting impatient." I locked my file away in the drawer where I hid all my administrative documents as well as my poetry manuscripts, and slipped the key into my pocket. "This obsession of yours with locking things away," said my mother irritably. "As if we were strangers, apple of my eye."
"I'm coming," I said calmly. I put my ballpoint into my old genuine-leather pencil case, a gift from my late father when I started high school, and I followed my mother out the door.
The next morning, he continued, while my brother and mother were saying the morning prayer, I avoided offering any explanation for my hasty departure, and slipped out the door. An hour later I left my car in the parking lot at Sèvres Babylone, in my usual spot. As I was early, I located the nearest brasserie, and sat down on the terrasse, well away from the cacophony that regularly accompanied the sun in its estival levitation. A cacophony of luxury languages, that is—English, German, and something that might have been Norwegian or Swiss German—and not a single wog or tar-face in sight. This is standard in neighborhoods frequented by nationals of countries with honorable economic growth and commensurate purchasing power. This is standard in neighborhoods that are deserted in the summer months by those of precarious income, who in any event do not show their faces in sidewalk cafés. This is standard in the neighborhood that will accommodate my days and my joys, I thought with a frisson as I ordered. I drank my coffee and glanced through my application one last time. Then I checked my watch—only a few minutes left until my appointment. I put a five-euro note on the saucer and, without waiting for change, got to my feet. I looked at my watch again, and headed for the building directly across the street from the brasserie. I decided against the elevator, and at full speed, without pausing,
I climbed all five flights of stairs. On the landing, like a sprinter, I breathed out in short little puffs. When my heartbeat had returned to normal, I admired the double door made of solid wood and wrought iron, then buttoned the first two buttons of my linen jacket and smoothed it carefully. I made sure that my file was still in my leather briefcase, that I hadn't abandoned it there amongst all the high-end tourists, and, on the very stroke of eight A.M., as punctual as a denizen of Switzerland, I rang the bell.
Perfect, I thought, as we toured the apartment. Perfect, I thought over and over, feeling as if I had wandered onto a film set. Oak parquet flooring all through the apartment. It's been sealed, said the young woman from the agency; walls so high, between nine and twelve feet, that you practically had to twist your neck around to admire the molding on the ceiling; an entrance where I could put a little chest and an armchair; a double living room with fireplace and the original mirrors, alcoves, and moldings—I could picture a leather sofa and armchairs, a modern carpet, a designer lamp, and a little bar decorated to my taste and that of my guests; a dressing room that could easily house a family of gypsies and that would be perfectfor my designer clothes; a kitchen of sky-blue earthenware tiles, with a loggia overlooking the courtyard, an American bar the size of a studio, where I could organize my candlelight dinners; a bedroom with the original fireplace and mirror, alcoves and moldings, overlooking a leafy courtyard—I've heard that a blackbird lives in the plane tree, explained my guide, while I determined where the bookshelf would go, along with the desk, facing the window, above the foliage that would inspire poetry to make Antonin Artaud and Octavio Paz weep in unison in their graves, and then of course the bed, maybe a palatialking-size, where I would roll about with creatures to tempt angels and demons alike; a bathroom in tones of green and yellow, two sinks side by side, an oval tub that could easily seat two adults and into which I would plunge each of my future conquests and myself along with them; a separate toilet with a bookshelf that went right to the ceiling, where I would place my collections of Diplo and Politics, my graphic novels, and the girlie magazines I intended to acquire; and all the closets, wide and deep, and all the copper doorknobs, as old as the mirrors …
And all of it just like new. Now all I had to do was settle in, according to my dream. I was admiring the mirror above the fireplace when the young woman's reflection appeared in it. I turned around to look at her. While she was talking about this and that, things to do with the building—the neighbors, most of them owners, aging residents, often absent, particularly in the summer, no children, of course, two apartments on each landing, no one directly opposite, sublime peace and quiet, and the concierge, Madame Lisa, discreet and efficient, who was in her loge from eight to twelve and then again from two to four, every day except Sunday and holidays, and she handed out the mail and so on—my nostrils were suddenly assailed by her delicately spicy perfume, and I began to observe her with the intense interest of a virgin who is only too ready to put his virginity behind him. Thirty years old, scarcely more, tall, almost my height, in any event much taller than the average Frenchwoman, blonde hair cut short, revealing the harmonious curve of her neck, tight trousers and a discreet but suggestive neckline, shoulders wide and muscular, hips narrow: she gave off something androgynous, almost mannish, and very sexy. But from her eyes, which were blue and heavily made up, there exuded a sort of malevolence—was it scorn? at any rate it was unpleasant—that immediately turned me off. This is all pink marble, she said, sliding her hand over the mantelpiece. And in perfect condition, she added in her professional tone of voice. While she was urgently advising me to have the chimney swept any time after September, I began to imagine scenes from my future life. Naked as the day I was born, on a plush carpet, there I'd be, warming myself by the fireplace and at the very vaginal source of a blonde or a brunette or a redhead or, why not, all three at the same time, going from one sex to the next, breathing in, drinking my fill from all their secretions, which I imagined to be as sweet as honey, as fragrant as musk. My thighs trembled, a thousand butterflies brushed my skin with their powdery wings, and I went hard. As a rock. A moment later, as if I had been found out, my ears turned bright red. I discreetly fastened the third button on my jacket and stopped moving. As soon as my gaze alighted on my guide's blue eyes, everything went slack. I walked over to the wide-open door to the balcony and once again had the impression I was in a film. Would I be the hero, or just a mere extra?
My heart began to pound against my ribs, my thorax went tight, and I felt a burning in my guts. And what if, for some reason or other, they wouldn't rent this little Versailles to me? What if this blonde with her malevolent gaze grew suspicious at the sight of my birthplace and decided to get hold of a copy of my birth certificate, only to come upon the entry, "Name Frenchified, such-and-such a day and month and year"? And thereby discovered my birth name at the bottom of the page? My birth name was that of my father, who was an only son and who had lost both parents in the war—the Second World War, it goes without saying—and of my paternal great-uncle, who had raised my father because he was a native at the time, unlike those compatriots including one young Camus, Albert by name, my father had not been able to benefit from the status of war orphan of the Nation. The name of my paternal great-uncle who, as I was saying, was also my father's father-in-law, my maternal grandfather, therefore, a man as pious as Bendy,1but also as wise as Gandhi.
1Bin Laden (clarification provided by Mohamed).
In any event, throughout his entire life this man who had raised my father did nothing but good deeds, and would have been utterly incapable of attacking even the meanest of flies that swarmed over us in the summer in Blida, my place of birth, as it happens. Therefore my father, an illiterate worker at Renault who was doomed to die of fatigue and melancholy, was much pleased upon seeing my results at school, and then, further encouraged by my mother, he moved heaven and earth to undertake a naturalization procedure on my behalf. As far as he was concerned, he couldn't care less about nationality; he was neither a doctor or a lawyer, a residence permit sufficed amply for a worker like him. Nor did he undertake the procedure for his eldest daughter, my twin sister, who was a good student on top of it but still too much of a flirt, and no one viewed her future in this debauched country in a favorable light; therefore her life as a wife and mother would be among her family, in our town, in our country, in Blida, as advocated by my mother. And my father approved. My father, who, despite my timid nod to the employee of the courts, had firmly opposed my name change. Ben Mokhtar we were born, Ben Mokhtar we shall die, he exulted as we left the courthouse, calling me his Doctor, okay so now I was a Frenchman, but I was still Mohamed Ben Mokhtar, son and grandson of Ben Mokhtar. Aren't you, my son?
Yes, my father, I promised, with all the gravity of my sixteen years. But, said he, just before I finished my studies at HEC, the famous business school, with the support of Martine—the lady in whose care, upon our arrival on French soil and while waiting to find decent accommodation, my twin sister and I had been placed—I wrote to the state prosecutor.
A letter where I expressed the wish to Frenchify my name. In the blink of an eye my name was Frenchified. It goes without saying that my family, who are real sticklers for principles, were totally ignorant of my new name—which explains the address lent to me by my sister who had become my friend and accomplice shortly after her ostracism from the tribe for having consorted with a roumi who stubbornly refused to convert to our religion.
Whatever the case may be, with my new identity, my hair straightened, and my skin whitened, I did not suffer from any discrimination due to my origins. The path before me was wide open. And the doors. And arms. Please, Monsieur Tocquard, come this way. You're very welcome, Monsieur Basile Tocquard, just step that way …
The name might raise a smile, it's true, but it is more believable, less suspicious, than a Jean Dupont or a Paul Duchemin, or even the Charles Martel suggested by the employee at the courthouse, who was dismayed by a
last name that would surely be very difficult to live with, so she said, and who proceeded to inform me that it might be rejected by the authorities. That I must have substantial grounds … Thus, I invented a childhood friend, no longer with us, whose name had been that very one, Madame, Monsieur. Etc.
Later, when I was settled in that place where wolves howl and men are silent, I wondered whether there was not something premonitory about my choice1—or was it not simply that I wanted to punish myself for betraying my grandfather, my father, and all the present-day and future descendants of the Ben Mokhtar clan?
Whether it is a betrayal or not, if my brother, who is ten years younger than I am and who was born French, if he, a research manager with a degree from a good school, had put aside his pride, and gotten rid of his little beard, and smeared his skin with whitening cream, and straightened his little curls, and written to the state prosecutor, he would not be reduced today to rotting like a meskine between his mother's walls and those of the neighborhood mosque.
As for me, very early on I abandoned my pride. However, at the time when I began my physical and patronymic metamorphosis, my piety was on a par with that of my brother, and my knowledge of Islam far surpassed his own.
I was the good Muslim, the kind of Islamist—nowadays we would say "fundamentalist" or "terrorist"—who was respected and solicited for advice by the entire neighborhood. To such an extent that I was called on to lead prayers, or recite a sermon, or give my opinion on questions from simple to complicated. What was to be done if a child inadvertently ate pork at the school cafeteria? Should one allow one's wife to be examined by a male physician? Could one accept a job in a bar? Or a butcher's shop? Should one allow one's daughter to remove her headscarf at school, hoping that the angel who keeps tabs on such misdeeds won't take them into account?
The Sexual Life of an Islamist in Paris Page 1