Sherazade

by Leïla Sebbar

  'We'll keep you informed, don't worry.'

  Algeria

  After the Tropical and Palm Tree evening with Zouzou and France, Omar had given Sherazade a lift back to the Horloge district. She jumped off the bike and walked up to Julien's flat. She rang several times. Julien opened the door. She'd not seen him wearing that light cotton kimono, with little black and white checks before. She said, 'I'm going to have a bath, will you lend it me?'

  She shut herself in the bathroom with the radio. She sang as she soaped herself. She always began with her feet, and as she meticulously scrubbed her toes, one after the other, from the littlest to the biggest, starting with the right foot always the right before the left, she'd no idea why, she simultaneously saw in her mind's eye the solitary Arab who she sometimes met in the neighbourhood, with his blanket folded over his shoulder like a carpet seller and his bottle of Evian water in his hand. He was a vagabond who slept rough under the bridges of the overground Metro. He talked to himself in French with an Arab accent and never spoke to anyone. One morning she'd seen him sitting on a sort of crate, barefoot, with his trousers rolled up to his calves. He was washing his feet, just like her grandfather did, but using the Evian water, under the bridge, near a Metro station. He put the clean foot down on a piece of cardboard in front of the crate. He'd started with the right foot, absorbed in his toilet as if he were in the sandy courtyard of an Algerian village house, in fine weather. This man, astray in the city, washing his feet, reminded her of her grandfather, preparing to say his prayers. He didn't know that she and Meriem, sitting under the fig-tree, where they were dressing their dolls made out of two olive twigs fixed together in a cross then covered with strips of cloth for the body, always watched him performing his ablutions and followed his movements until he prostrated himself on his prayer mat. He had taught them the words but not the ablutions. They sometimes amused themselves, when he was not there, washing like him, first their faces and heads several times, their arms up to the elbow, their feet up to the ankles. They argued when one of them corrected the other over the way she did a foot or her face. The next few times, they watched the grandfather carefully and pointed out in a whisper a detail that had escaped them.

  One day the grandfather had scolded Sherazade for playing with the tayemoum, the smooth stone he kept near his prayer mat to use for his ablutions. In the mosques and homes, one always saw one of these smooth stones near the prayer mats, that Sherazade thought just right for playing hopscotch under the fig-trees. The grandfather had had to explain to Sherazade and Meriem, standing in front of him, that he needed the tayemoum for his ablutions when he prayed about four o'clock in the morning when water was scarce: you smoothed your hand over the stone then over the parts of your body you had to wash, as if the stone had been water. He showed them how he did it. From that day, Sherazade respected her grandfather's tayemoum.

  Sherazade looked round but couldn't see a pumice stone for her heels.

  She slipped on the check kimono and dried her feet as the floor near the bath was wet.

  The shutters were down in the two rooms. Sherazade crept into Julien's bed, on his right. He wasn't asleep.

  Kwakker

  Sherazade didn't see anyone at the squat when she got back. Had they all left in a few days? The kitchen was still in the usual shambles, the fridge empty and dirty, crockery heaped up in the sink and on the draining-board. She didn't find any letters for her on her bed. There was nothing lying about; she realized Djamila had gone. In Pierrot's and Basile's bedroom, everything was in the same state. The beds unmade, tables cluttered up, books lying open next to the bedside lamps, piled up among newspapers. Sherazade took two letters for Pierrot out of the inside pocket of her blouson and put them on his bed, near the pillow. She glanced at the latest copy of Libé, it was three days old. She knew where the .38s were kept. They were not there. Had they done a hold-up, an act of terrorism? She'd have heard if it had gone wrong. The papers, the radio would have mentioned it.

  She'd seen nothing, heard nothing. As they never left compromising papers at the squat, knowing the police could arrive at any moment, on the pretext of looking for drugs, or with no excuse, Sherazade could find nothing to give her a clue.

  Someone was coming, it was Krim. He greeted her in Arabic, she replied in French.

  'You've decided to be a harki today? What's up with you? You speak Arabic, don't you?'

  'Yes. But I don't feel like speaking Arabic today, that's all.'

  'What's got into you?'

  'Everyone's cleared off and you never let me know. You don't tell me anything.'

  'Who knew where you were?'

  'No one.'

  'Well then. Pierrot's coming back tomorrow; he's gone to Germany; he spent three days with his folks in the North. Don't ask why he's gone to Germany . . . You can be sure it's not for the pacifists . . . anyway, I've no idea. You know Pierrot. . . I play music with him, he's good, for the rest. . .'

  'And Basile?'

  'Pierrot wanted Basile to go with him. Basile said he could shift for himself, he speaks German. Pierrot didn't insist. I've got the impression they're preparing a job in his group, always busy, always secret. . . Anyway, I don't ask any questions. They plot things with Basile. I hear them sometimes in the night. Besides, you know Pierrot was going crazy, looking for you everywhere . . . In the end he thought of suicide. Basile said "You'd like that, that'd settle everything." They quarrelled. Every day he asked if you'd been back, if anyone'd seen you. Once Basile told him, "I've seen her in a bar in Pigalle, she was soliciting." You should have seen Pierrot . . . he started to yell. "It's not true, you're lying, you say that to screw me up, it wasn't her, and if it's true and I catch her, I'll do the blokes in . . . I'll do them . . ." Basile cut him short and said, "What about her? What'll you do to her?" Pierrot said, "Nothing. I won't do anything to her." In the end, Basile told him it wasn't true, he didn't know where you kip down when you're not at the squat, you're free to come and go where you please. Pierrot said, "Sure," but he went on looking for you until he left for the North. Basile's made quite a pile working for house-movers and he's gone to Africa. He said he was going to look for a wife there, a real one, a Negress, not a rotten Babylon woman, a black woman from the bush and he wasn't ever coming back here or going back to Guadeloupe . . .'

  'You believe him?'

  'No. But it's true he's in Africa. He sent a letter to Pierrot from the Ivory Coast.'

  'When's he coming back?'

  'Nobody knows. If you want to know the lot, Driss is in prison. He got nicked by the police with a syringe on him and some smack. He must have been blown that evening, or else he was asking for it, I dunno. He's in Fleury-Merogis * if you want to see him or write to him.'

  'I'll write to him. Give me the address.'

  'You see, I'm really about the only one here. Djamila's gone to Algeria. She's been wanting to go for a long time, a complicated family story. I couldn't follow what Eddy told me; he was rather upset that day, the day he got here and she'd left already, when she'd promised him, sworn they'd both go to Tunisia first. He'd started making all the arrangements, the journey, the plane tickets, a car when they arrived . . . he comes back in the evening, very pleased, he calls me, he calls Pierrot everyone, "I'm going to Tunisia, I'm going to Tunisia . . .", we say, "OK, that's no big deal", and he says, "Yes it is, it's the first time, I was scared before." I asked him, "What about the sax? We need you for rehearsals." He said for the time being he couldn't give a fuck, in any case he'd be back and he just wanted to see Djamila to explain everything to her. We told him Djamila must be in Algeria already. "I'm going to look for her . . . I'll get the tickets changed I'll go straight to Algeria." I thought it's no joke being in love with birds who do a bunk, 'cos blokes have to spend their time running after them. Look at you, Pierrot always wants to know where you are and Eddy's catching the plane this evening for Algiers . . . they must be mad or sick . . . And you think he'll find her, Djamila?'

  '
Yes, I think so . . . well, if she wants him to. Does he know she's in Setif?'

  'I think so. But I'm in the shit with these musicians who bugger off . . . Now there's no one but me. I'll have to find another group, it's no joke guys like that, I ought to've had my suspicions of these militants living in the past and guys in love it's no go. If you're into music you give up everything else, you got to be a fanatic like an ayatollah . . . Can you sing?'

  'I like singing.'

  'Want to try?'

  'OK, but first you teach me to ride the bike, you promised.'

  'That's true. Come on then.'

  Krim spent all evening teaching Sherazade to ride his Kwakker. He'd not hesitated to let her have a try on his favourite bike. He felt she'd have the knack and it wouldn't be hard to get her to learn quickly. At the end of the lesson, Sherazade said to Krim, 'Will you find me one like this?'

  'For you, yes. I'm sure you won't wreck it. But give me time.'

  Very soon, Sherazade could ride Krim's bike by herself. She borrowed his leathers, they were a bit big for her although Krim was fairly thin and not very tall. One day, she rode by herself all the way to Etampes. When she told Krim, he gave her a rocket, she could have got herself stopped by the cops, she was a juvenile, without a licence . . . she'd have gone to join Driss, but in the women's prison. Sherazade said she wouldn't have stopped, she'd have put a spurt on and shaken them off. 'Sure, sure . . .' Krim replied.

  * Prison situated to the south of Paris. There is a shuttle bus service from Denfert-Rochereau to take families who wish to visit prisoners. (Trans.)

  Vero

  'You know,' Krim said to Sherazade, after the first bike session, 'there's some new people at the squat, you didn't see them as they were sleeping; they're in Driss and Eddy's room. They get grants from the DASS and are on job training, him as a welder and boiler-maker, her as a hairdresser. They're nineteen or twenty at the most. She's always looking for someone to cut their hair, for practice, but nobody wants her to, not even Rachid who she's with at the moment. Her name's Vero. Rachid laughs at her because of her pied-noir accent. She's a scream, she takes off her mother who had to leave Algeria after independence. She comes from Oran, but she's of Spanish origin. Vero says her mother doesn't like Arabs. When she phoned her in Nice to tell her she was going to marry Rachid, her mother burst into tears. "What my girl, are you crazy, I didn't bring you up till now to give you to an Arab." Vero told her Rachid's a Kabyle, it's not the same thing, but her mother went on, "My poor girl you's completely mad, Arab – Kabyle, six of one half a dozen of the other, make's no odds, all the same filthy race, you can't possibly do that to me, your mother, you listen my girl." Vero wouldn't listen and said she was putting Rachid on the line and the mother was obliged to say hello politely. Rachid talked nicely to Vero's mother who said, "You sure you're an Arab? You talk like a Frenchman from Paris." Rachid explained he was born in Paris, but his parents are Kabyles. The mother, when she spoke to Vero again, repeated, "My girl, he's an Arab, he said so himself, your poor mother's so wretched." Vero told her if she refused to receive Rachid in her house, she'd never see her, Vero, Véronique, her own daughter again.'

  Vero made them all laugh with her comic turns. She was small, a real little dumpling; she dressed in mini-skirts that barely covered her fat thighs when she sat down. She wore black stockings, socks coming half-way up her calves and ballet-slippers. She put on a lot of make-up and was always wanting to kiss Rachid who said, "No, you've got lipstick on today," as she couldn't exist without make-up you wondered when Rachid could kiss her. She had a big mouth, with bright red lipstick and laughed all the time. She had huge sleepy eyes, outlined in black and drawn up towards her temples. You could see her skin was white and smooth under the rouge that she rubbed off without noticing when she waved her hands over her face. Exuberant and jolly, she was also very noisy. After what Krim told her, Sherazade wondered if she would get on with Vero.

  That night, Sherazade slept at the squat.

  Julien

  Julien was waiting for Sherazade. She didn't phone and he knew she hung up if the answer-phone was switched on. A chance remark about these shitty machines. Julien realized she was the person who refused to speak after the bleep . . .

  Since she'd been working, Sherazade didn't come to the library. Julien went on with his research, but not so intently. He'd begun to write a scenario that he'd mentioned to a film-director friend. Julien told him he'd show him photos of the girl he was thinking about for the heroine of the film. Sherazade often spent Sundays with Julien. She read the books she hadn't had time to read during the week and that she took down from Julien's shelves, the ones he bought thinking they might interest Sherazade. She never asked him for any, but he thought of them for her. She talked to him more about what she'd just read than about herself. He didn't even know where she worked or what she did. He'd asked her one morning as she was getting ready in the bathroom. She'd answered, with her mouth full of toothpaste, 'In a fashion boutique with Zouzou and France.' When he asked for more details, she didn't answer.

  On Sunday mornings, if she'd slept at Julien's, Sherazade went to buy a fresh baguette and brought him a glass of orange juice while he was still dozing. She would shake him affectionately and put the glass down on the carpet. Julien would get up, saying, 'You've already got your walkman over your ears. So early. Not yet dressed . . . It's a bad habit . . . and I can't even put on some opera.'

  He would go and have a bath. Often, Sherazade who kept the black and white kimono on all morning, would join him in the bathroom, sitting on the edge of the bath or the bidet, and they'd chat.

  Julien would stretch out in the water.

  Sometimes they spoke Arabic, since Sherazade had noticed books written in Arabic script on the work-table and Julien had told her he knew this language; they laughed at each other's accents and sometimes recorded their talk to listen to each other and laugh at their blunders. Julien taught Sherazade words of literary Arabic and Sherazade made him repeat after her expressions in the Algerian dialect she spoke with her mother and that her grandfather had begun to teach her to read and write in Algeria, with her sister Meriem. The two girls used to sit side by side, holding a slate; the grandfather gave them a lesson every day. But they hadn't stayed long enough in their mother's home village. In France, they'd soon forgotten what their grandfather had taught them.

  Sherazade told Julien popular Algerian stories which he didn't know. He laughed with her over the bizarre adventures of Djeha. She also talked to him about things to do with the Algerian War that their grandfather had liked to tell his two grandchildren, who'd been brought up in France and might not have heard about there . . . as if nothing had happened, as if they hadn't gained anything, those Algerians who today and for some years now were emigrating to the land of mirages, as they called France. They were becoming Roumiettes, little Europeans, were Meriem and Sherazade, his favourites who were going back to the foreign country, living among infidels. Their grandfather spent long hours with them in the courtyard of the house, in the fields where they accompanied him. They listened to him, from time to time opening their mouths for a ripe fig which he selected, not too big, one for each. He spoke to them of Allah, simply. He told them legends and said, 'Your grandmother would have told you even finer stories if she'd been alive, but she died during the war.' The girls asked him about their grandmother's death but he wouldn't answer. They'd insisted and he'd said, 'Don't talk any more about that.'

  Julien was happy.

  And then suddenly, Sherazade brought the conversation to an abrupt end with 'I'm going biking this afternoon.'

  'All alone?'

  'No. With Krim.'

  'Who's he?'

  'A buddy.'

  'You coming back?'

  Sherazade didn't reply, got dressed after a rapid toilet and left.

  Julien hadn't the energy to get out of the bath, or to add hot water. The phone rang, forcing him to get out of the cold water, which was still
clean as he hadn't washed. He knew it wasn't Sherazade. He was disappointed because it wasn't her. If he hadn't got photographs he needed to print, he'd accept Enrico's suggestion to go to a committee meeting for the magazine,Combat for the Diaspora.

  When he got home, he finished working on a game programme for the computor.

  On Sundays, if Sherazade didn't go off suddenly, without leaving any way of getting in touch with her – and he thought he might never be able to see her again and he'd never see her again because he knew nothing about her. Should he give her description to the police? He wouldn't go as far as that – Julien took photos. She let him do so but never obeyed his injunctions when he said, 'Raise your head, look at me, don't sit down . . .' In the evening, he'd find on his table up to six, ten reels, each of thirty-six poses. Every time he'd say to himself . . . 'I'm crazy, completely crazy.' He'd start again at the first opportunity. He'd spend the night developing and printing them; he'd start again if he wasn't completely satisfied.

  Sherazade made no attempt to see the photos. He'd been the one to insist on showing them to her and she couldn't avoid seeing the ones he pinned up on his cork board and all over the flat.

  He was there when she came back from the bike ride, flushed from the wind; he wanted to take some photos but he gave up the idea; he was afraid she'd go off immediately. She'd kept on Krim's leather cat-suit as he had several. Julien still hesitated, got up to fetch the camera but came back to Sherazade, empty-handed. He stroked her cheeks.

  'Will you show me your bike?'

  'It isn't mine.'

  She took off the leathers. She was wearing a white T-shirt and red tights. She put on a pair of jeans and her blouson but took out of a bag clothes that Julien hadn't noticed, something looking like a sort of battle-dress.