Sherazade

by Leïla Sebbar

  'And Krim?'

  'Krim's busy with his own affairs, don't worry about him, Krim won't end up in Fleury, believe me. He's hand in glove with some Japanese businessmen, you can guess what about. He's suggested some designs, he's been invited to Japan, so you can imagine, there's no holding him. "You fellers, I'm leaving you to your hand-to-mouth existence, I'm clearing off, a long way off; I've been invited to Japan, bike manufacturers who believe in what I'm doing . . . I'll come back at the head of an empire . . . you'll see . . ." He's gone. He's sent us postcards from over there. It's not phony. When Driss gets out he won't find anyone at the squat except newcomers, I don't know who, it changes all the time now. Will you write to him?'

  'Yes, I'll write. But when are you leaving?'

  Pierrot explained to Sherazade that he wanted to go back up north to see his family and friends before leaving in ten days or so. He told her about Yasmine.

  'I want to see Yasmine again.'

  'Yasmine? Do I know her?'

  'No. She stayed back there. She never wanted to come to Paris.'

  Pierrot showed her a Polaroid photo of Yas-mine, a Moroccan born in a village near Bruay-en-Artois, to a miner's family. The father had lived there for a long time. Pierrot had got to know her through her brother Mohammed, who everyone called Momo. If you didn't see him you might think his name was Maurice. They'd known each other since primary school and had become friends at high school. Pierrot never used to go to Momo's house, but Momo spent his afternoons at Pierrot's pottering about and listening to records that he didn't have at home. Pierrot lent him books for his sister Yasmine he'd seen for the first time at the municipal library. He'd taken a fancy to her. She was a plump good-natured girl, often full of fun, and Pierrot who up till then had preferred to be in the woods, on the sportsfield or at political meetings became a regular reader at the library, where he didn't read because he chatted all the time to Yasmine. He didn't see her anywhere else. Like the Moroccan girls of her age, she didn't go out – no cinema or swimming-bath or cafés. Once, with Momo as chaperon, she'd spent a couple of hours at Pierrot's; the three of them had listened to music and chatted in his room. Pierrot's mother had brought them tea and slices of fruit-cake but didn't stay with them. When Pierrot left Bruay, they'd written to each other then suddenly Pierrot didn't hear from Yasmine any more, in spite of the letters he wrote her nearly every day. Yet she'd told him she loved him, just once, in a letter she'd given him at the library before he left for Paris.

  Momo had let him know, after several months' silence, that Yasmine had been married off. He'd never seen her again, but as he was going to leave Paris, he wanted to try to speak to her. He knew she'd not left the North. Momo had made it clear she was not shut up. Perhaps she still went to the library?

  Pierrot asked Sherazade if she still wanted to go to Algeria. He was leaving by car for Orleans, he could give her a lift if she was going in that direction. Sherazade asked him to phone her the day before he left, she'd have made up her mind in a few days. She left Julien's phone number, without giving his name or address.

  She was leaving. Pierrot put into her right hand a tiny packet wrapped in red tissue paper. He was in a hurry. Basile was waiting for him in a bistro for a meeting.

  At some red lights, Sherazade undid the tissue paper. She found earrings formed from three little rings, two in gold, one in platinum.

  Verdi

  A few days after he'd left for the North Pierrot phoned Sherazade. Julien took the message for her. Pierrot hadn't give his name. Julien handed the paper to Sherazade without any comment. Pierrot had said, 'I'll ring again at midday on Thursday.'

  Julien told her, 'Thursday I'm not here . . . You'll have the place to yourself.'

  Sherazade pulled a face at him, folded the message and put it in the back pocket of her jeans.

  Julien worked all afternoon, shut up in his bedroom. Sherazade was listening to Verdi. She was beginning to like opera, the women's voices excited her; she told herself she'd take singing lessons as Pierrot had suggested; she'd be able to sing like certain Black Americans, not only rock and all that, but opera as well. She'd enroll next month, if she didn't leave. She must hurry up if she wanted to sing properly she was already seventeen, she ought to have begun much earlier. But in the suburbs where they lived the choral societies were all Catholic and her mother wouldn't hear of it; on the other hand, she and Meriem had been accepted for the municipal folk group where they'd chosen the Alsacian and Nice groups because of the costumes. Their mother had kept the costumes and they'd often worn them to dance in at the end-of-the-year parties.

  Julien had dozens of albums of operas. He knew them all and Sherazade often heard him singing in the bath. He also had records of contemporary music: experimental, sophisticated, electronic music, created by researchers at the IRCAM* who Julien sometimes worked with out of curiosity; he listened to this music with a concentration that Sherazade thought ridiculous . . . Julien flew into a rage and told her to go and listen to her crap in the underground carparks in Crimée, urban rock which was more her style, in a Tower of Babel, concrete wired for sound by dago musicians.

  'I want to sing, that's what I want, to sing opera and all that. . .,' said Sherazade.

  'You really want to?' said Julien who'd calmed down.

  'Yes.'

  'And what about the film? What about Zina?'

  'I can do that as well.'

  Sherazade listened to Verdi to the end. Julien was still working. It must be three or four o'clock in the afternoon. She'd got time . . . She'd taken a day off from work with a sore throat. But it wasn't serious.

  Sherazade took her putty-coloured mac and went out.

  *Institut de Recherche et de Coordination Acoustique-Musicjue, Institute for Research and Coordination of Acoustic Music. (Trans.)

  Sherazade

  Sherazade rang Julien from a call-box in Beaubourg. She'd decided she'd Wait for Pierrot at the squat, so she could leave immediately. She'd go and fetch her things from Julien's when he wasn't there, she knew more or less, she'd see.

  'Hello! Julien! It's Sherazade. I'm off . . .'

  'What?'

  'I'm off. You heard me. I'm leaving . . .'

  'Who with?'

  'With Pierrot, if that's what interests you.'

  'But who is this Pierrot?'

  'I've already told you. A buddy. He's got a car, he's going in the Orleans direction, he's giving me a lift.'

  'But you, where are you going?'

  'I don't know . . . I'm going to Algeria.'

  'To Algeria? Why didn't you tell me? We could've gone together. I'd really like to go there with you. You know that, I told you once, and you know I was born in Nedroma, besides . .

  'Besides what?'

  'Besides, besides . . . nothing. Anyway, you're kidding. If you like we can leave straight away. I'll drop everything, I'll leave with you. We'll go to Orly and go by plane. Will you? Sherazade. . .'

  'I want to go to Algeria alone, ALONE, you understand.'

  'But this bloke, Pierrot that you're going with?'

  'I've told you; I dunno where he's going; I'm going with him as far as Orleans, that's all. Afterwards I'll see.'

  'You can go there alone and I'll join you there. That's possible, isn't it?'

  'No.'

  'When are you leaving?'

  'Tomorrow.'

  'Shall I see you this evening?'

  'Dunno.'

  That night Sherazade slept with Julien. But Julien was unhappy. He woke her several times to look at her. As they made love, Sherazade had said she loved him, and he didn't believe her.

  Sherazade was the first up.

  She looked at Julien as he slept. She'd told him she loved him, just once, and he hadn't believed her. She knelt down near the bed and kissed him on the corner of his eye where it's soft just before the beard begins, and stroked his shoulder, he always slept naked. Julien sighed with satisfaction, without waking.

  Sherazade went down to
have a coffee.

  Julien had an appointment at nine o'clock. Sherazade kept an eye on the clock in the café. At nine fifteen she went back up to get her things. Julien had left.

  In the big bag she put:

  Her red panties nicked from the Monoprix stores.

  No bra she has small round breasts.

  White T-shirts, short ones for daytime, long ones for night.

  A blue and white Norwegian pullover that Julien often lent her.

  A pair of jeans, Levis.

  Two pairs of socks, white bouclé cotton.

  A red towel belonging to Julien, who's got plenty more.

  Paper handkerchiefs good quality.

  The white burnous taken from her mother's cupboard.

  In a little white leather case belonging to Julien, that she finds convenient for toilet things, she put:

  A tube of toothpaste, Julien's white Sanogyl.

  A toothbrush, her own.

  A hairbrush, pig's bristle, belonging to Julien.

  A horn comb, her own.

  Some cakes of expensive soap, Julien's.

  A box of Tampax normal.

  A little bottle of powdered kohl given her by her mother.

  A little rod made of olive wood, carved by her grandfather in Algeria.

  In the inside pockets of the bag, she added:

  Her red and black notebooks nicked from a Chinese shop.

  Writing paper

  Some cassettes, liberally distributed by Krim.

  Some books, her portable library: novels by Mohamed Dib and Mouloud Feraoun which she hasn't read yet. Nedjima, The Repudiation, Algerian Women in their Apartment, Nana, which she hasn't had time to read. Two books by Rousseau, taken from Julien's collection: Discourse on the Origin of Inequality and the Confessions and, finally, Soledad Brother, the prison letters of George Jackson.

  Last of all, on top:

  The road map of France.

  The road map of Algeria, until such time as she could get hold of ordnance survey maps.

  In her shoulder bag, she put:

  One red and black notebook.

  Envelopes.

  Stamps.

  A Waterman fountain pen given her by Julien.

  Waterman cartridges black and violet.

  A purse made of beads, given her by her mother.

  Her residence permit.

  Pieces of chalk, red and white for leaving messages.

  Whiting for graffiti on window-panes.

  Three lipsticks, Dior Fury No. 847, nicked from the perfume counter of a big department store.

  She had neither address-book, engagement-book, mascara, rouge, cigarettes – consequently no cigarette-lighter – no photos of Julien or her family, no wallet.

  A Puma penknife with lock catch, given her by Krim.

  She made a bundle, or rather several, of the clothes she wasn't going to wear, the shoes she wasn't taking with her and anything belonging to her that she didn't want lying about here, and straight away threw the lot into the rubbish chute.

  She left a note for Julien asking him to look after her mother's jewellery, he'd find it all in the bookcase behind the books of pictures of The War in Algeria or Rural France she couldn't remember which and hadn't time to look; at the end of the note which she left open on the desk in the bedroom, she wrote, 'I'll be walking across France as far as Marseilles, and then Algeria. I've got maps, I won't get lost.'

  On a page torn out of one of the notebooks in which she kept her diary and wrote her poems which she'd never let anyone read – before she left, she must remember to send a couple to Esther for her magazine for African and West Indian women – Sherazade wrote, 'I love you. S,' She folded the page in eight and slipped it under Julien's pillow. On the mirror in the bathroom, above the washbasin, she wrote with her lipstick, 'I love you. S.' and before she pulled down the plastic shutters, she wrote on one of the window panes with whiting – she always kept a piece in the pocket of her blouson – 'I love you. S.'

  She left, slamming the door behind her. She'd left the keys inside.

  Matisse

  Sherazade spent the day in the library at the National Centre for Art and Culture, that everyone called Beaubourg and which you could see picture postcards of everywhere, taken from the front, the back, the side, the air, by day and by night. There were even reproductions of the Centre painted by a third-rate Place du Tertre artist. These postcards sold better than reproductions of pictures from the National Museum of Modem Art, that Sherazade hadn't yet visited. Julien had told her about it. She hadn't got his habit of going to museums, art galleries. She liked looking at the posters in the street, in the Metro, but to stand in front of a picture hung in a room in an art gallery just to be looked at, in that particular spot, at a certain time, standing in front of it, without quite knowing why she should pay more attention to this picture rather than that one . . . A picture had to move her deeply, like an image, a photo, a poster. She was certain that if she'd talked to her squat-mates about The Women of Algiers in the Louvre, they'd have laughed at her, they'd have called her a bourgeoise or a tourist, she'd have felt insulted, they'd have quarrelled and perhaps she'd never have seen them again. For them, pictures in art galleries represented rotten bourgeois culture, the decadent West, it was old, stale, dead . . . It didn't exist. They lived their lives separate, elsewhere . . . If an art gallery had burnt down, it wouldn't have affected them. They knew, through some of their receiver friends, the value of what people called works of art, and the loadsamoney you could get for them, but for the work itself, they'd no idea and couldn't give a damn. A Picasso, a Renoir, or a Delacroix, stolen from collectors or from galleries, this was just incidental, a means of evaluating the risks and profits of the operation, but as for the object itself, it was just an object. Sherazade didn't tell her squat-mates what she read either. They didn't read much, and then only newspapers, political works, detective stories, and most of all comics that she glanced through when she found them near the red armchair in front of the telly, or in the loo where albums piled up round the pan, you didn't know where to put your feet. Pierrot liked political novels; he knew them all and often talked about them when they all gathered in the kitchen or late into the night when the TV had been switched off. The latest, that Pierrot kept telling them bits of, although he didn't agree with the politics of the blokes who'd written it, was called Powder Kegs, Sherazade had begun it but she'd be leaving without being able to finish it. She wouldn't take it with her, it was too heavy to carry.

  Julien wouldn't be coming to the library, he'd said he'd be busy all day and late into the evening. Sherazade chose a corner protected by the green shelves, a sort of isolated fortress where she'd be undisturbed till closing time.

  When she was walking back through the corridors of the Centre she saw, as she'd always seen without taking any real notice, written on a white board in black letters, ART GALLERY, she didn't hesitate and immediately made her way to the gallery,

  Open every day

  except Tuesdays

  from 12.00h to 22.00h

  Saturdays and Sundays

  from l0.00h to 22.00h

  In her shoulder bag, she'd kept two bars of nut chocolate that she'd picked up at Julien's just before slamming the door.

  She was expecting to find rooms enclosed with ceiling and panelling, high dark walls. She found it was constructed on the principle of a maze of cubicles like the open-plan library up above. Here the walls were white and hard. When you looked up you saw enormous pipes in somewhat neutral colours. The women sitting giving information to the visitors didn't look at all like the attendants at the Louvre. They didn't wear uniforms, simply a badge. Sherazade walked for some time from one cubicle to another, without any landmark except the windows through which you could see Paris and the Sacré Coeur, which she'd never been into but which she knew well from the outside, as she'd had to meet someone there several times about the business of the forged identity card that she still hadn't got. Perhaps Pier
rot would surprise her when she went to the squat after leaving the gallery, if he'd got back and hadn't stayed up north for Yasmine. He might have her card and they could leave straight away.

  Sherazade sat down facing the big windows, with her back to the pictures which she hadn't looked at, and the gallery far behind her.

  She stayed there a long time, as if on a terrace. She thought that what was missing was the sea; but a blue mist behind Paris, if she screwed up her eyes tight for a few seconds, then opened them, was the sea; as she'd never seen it, anything was possible.

  She gazed at the sea until evening.

  Someone came in. Sherazade heard, 'Is there anyone in there?' She climbed noiselessly on to the lavatory-seat; through the crack at the bottom of the door you could see the feet of the person inside if you looked. No one tried the door. Who would think of shutting themselves in the toilets? You'd have to be mad, and besides, if anyone had been there they'd have answered. Up to now nothing like that had ever happened.

  With the emergency exits locked, and no admittance to the museum through the main entrance after ten p.m. except for staff, Sherazade was now alone in the dark in a space that she'd made no attempt to get to know. She had to stay close to the windows to take advantage of the lights of Paris by night. Sherazade ate one of the bars of chocolate, slowly, then got up to go and get a drink of cold water from the washbasin in the toilet. In the most isolated cubicle, the smallest and darkest, she found a spot which suited her.

  She fell asleep.

  Sherazade never had a watch, but like her grandfather, she knew the time exactly to a couple of minutes. It was seven o'clock when she woke up. The gallery opened at midday.

  She washed her face thoroughly in the wash-basin, like her father did in the mornings. She rubbed her hands several times over her cheeks, her ears, neck, and blew her nose with water, like the Arabs, and certain fanatical ecologists who do a kind of inhalation with water in the morning to purify themselves from the night and in the evening to get rid of the day's urban pollution. She tidied her hair with her fingers, she didn't feel like opening the big bag and she always forgot to put a pocket comb in her shoulder-bag. Since she'd had her hair cut very short she could pat down the sides and run her fingers through the curls on top and in front to restore their spring. She'd first decided to wear a soft felt hat that Basile had lent her to hide her long hair. But the second or third day she'd gone into a local hairdresser's, the first one she came to, to have her hair cut without really knowing what she was going to ask for. The hairdresser said it was a ruination, when so many women would have given anything for such hair. Sherazade insisted and the hairdresser lifted the mass of soft curly hair, felt the weight expressed his admiration again and what a shame to sacrifice it to a ridiculous fashion that didn't flatter women, he told Sherazade, who was still waiting for him to make up his mind. He asked her if she'd mind giving him her hair. Sherazade agreed immediately to make him get on with it. He called the apprentices and the other hairdressers who gathered round him, adding their exclamations as he cut. Sherazade threw her slides into the wicker basket at her feet.