Kiffe Kiffe Tomorrow

by Faïza Guène

  It's way too bad he didn't keep up with school. It's because of prison. He told me that he and his friends got mixed up in some kind of bad business, but he won't tell me what—he says "it's not for kids your age." When he got out, he dropped everything even though he was pretty far along with his studies. At least as far as the bac, the college entrance tests. So when I see the police patting Hamoudi down near our lobby, when I hear them calling him stuff like "little bastard," or "piece of trash," I tell myself that these guys, they don't know shit about poetry. If Hamoudi were a little older, I'd have liked him for my dad. When he found out what happened to us, he talked to me for the longest time. Rolling his billionth joint, he said: "Family, that's the most sacred thing." He should know: He has eight brothers and sisters and almost all of them are married. But Hamoudi says he doesn't give a fuck about marriage, that there's no point, that it's just something else to hold you back, like we don't have enough of that already. He's right. Except me, I don't really have a family anymore. We're just a half family now.

  I was feeling kind of bored, so I decided to hop a ride on the metro. I didn't know where I was going, but the metro takes my mind off stuff. You see so many different kinds of people, it's kind of a riot. I did the whole of Line 5, end to end.

  At one of the early stops, this Romanian guy with an old, fake leather jacket and a gray hat got in. He had an accordion, all worn out, with dust on the keys he never uses. He played bits of old tunes, like the kind you hear in artsy films or on those mind-numbing documentaries that run on late-night TV. It was cool because he really made the trip more fun. I saw even the most uptight old people in the car tapping their toes on the sly. And the gypsy guy bobbed his head with each movement of his instrument, and when he smiled he flashed all his teeth, at least the ones that were still left. His whole face was straight out of a cartoon, kind of like the cat in Alice in Wonderland.

  I sat there imagining that he lived in a caravan, the descendant of a great dynasty of nomads who'd crossed land after land after land; that he lived in a makeshift camp on a patch of wasteland outside Paris; that he had a pretty wife named Lucia (like the mozzarella brand) with long black hair that falls down her back in perfect curls. These two, they were married on a wide-open beach on the Spanish coast, around a huge fire with giant red flames that danced way into the middle of the night. It had to have happened that way. Anyway, each time he switched cars I followed him, so I could get the most out of his accordion poetry. But in the end, talk about dying of shame. He headed over to me, holding out his McDonald's paper cup with loose change in it, and, well, basically I didn't have anything to give him. So I played the meanest kind of trick, the kind stingy bastards do all the time. As soon as the good man got next to me, I looked the other way, as in "I'm watching what's going down on the opposite platform." Except, big surprise, there was nothing going down on the opposite platform.

  If I win the lottery on Wednesday, I'll give him a swank caravan all tricked out, it'll be the best-looking one on the campsite. It'll look just like the ones you can win in the showcase showdown on The Price Is Right.

  Then I'd buy myself some new mittens for winter, with no holes, because with mine cold air just comes right in. On my left mitten, there's a big hole right over the middle finger. I just know one of these days that's going to cause me big problems.

  Next, I'd take Mom to get a manicure, because that's what she was talking about last time with that social worker Mme DuThing, and my mother didn't even know what it was. She looked at her own nails, all completely torn up from those made-in-Chernobyl cleaning products, and compared them with Mme DuThingamajig's. That fool social worker was showing off because her nails were super clean, super shaped, super polished. She even rubbed the corner of her eye with her little finger, her mouth ever so slightly open, the way girls on TV put on mascara. All that just to gloat, to put her perfect nails all up in my mom's face, my mom who didn't even know what a manicure was. I wanted to rip them out one by one.

  At the end of the line, when I was getting out of the metro, I passed two Pakistani guys selling hot chestnuts and roasted peanuts. They kept saying the same thing, over and over again: "Hot chestnuts and roasted peanuts to warm you up!" They said it together, all musical, sang it almost, with their Pakistani accents. I couldn't get those words out of my head, and that evening, when I got back home, I ended up singing it while I was cooking Mom her rice.

  Friday. Mom and me, we're invited over to Aunt Zohra's to eat some couscous. We took the earliest possible train so we could spend the whole day at her place. It's been forever since anyone invited us somewhere.

  Aunt Zohra isn't my real aunt, but seeing as she's known Mom for a very long time, I call her that just out of habit. Before, they always used to do their sewing together. Then Aunt Zohra moved to Mantes-la-Jolie, which is sort of northeast of Paris, on the way to Rouen. Mom told me she signed up for sewing lessons because it was practically all Maghrebian women and those Wednesday afternoon sessions with all those women at their eighties-style Singer sewing machines reminded her a little of the bled.

  Aunt Zohra, she's got big green eyes and she laughs all the time. She's Western Algerian, from a region called Tlemcen. She's got a funny story, because she was born on July 5, 1962, the very day Algeria won its independence. For so many years in her village she was like the little child who meant freedom. She was like a baby good-luck charm, and that's why they called her Zohra. It means luck in Arabic.

  I like her a lot, because she's a real woman. A strong woman. Her husband retired from civil service and married a second wife back in the old country, so he spends six months over there and six months in France. Is this a trend, or what? All these men, it's like they get to be retirement age and they want to totally start their lives over and marry a fresh young woman. The difference is, Aunt Zohra's husband knew how to hit the right balance, rein himself in. He does it part-time...

  It doesn't seem to bother Zohra one bit seeing her husband six months out of twelve. She says she's just fine without him, that she can keep herself happy. And then, one time, she laughed and told Mom that a man his age, he doesn't really serve her purposes anyway. That didn't really click at first. Then I kind of got the picture.

  I hung out a little with Aunt Zohra's sons, Réda, Hamza, and Youssef. They spent almost the whole time playing video games. These were the kind of games you see in TV reports on "youth and violence." The idea was to break car-speed records while knocking over as many pedestrians as possible, with bonus points if they were kids or old ladies ... I've known these boys since we were little, but I don't really talk to them anymore. So it was a little tense, no one really knew what to say. They made so much fun of me for that. They kept comparing me to Bernardo in Zorro, the short guy who looked like a dumbass and who warns Zorro of danger through a system of gestures. He was mute, poor guy.

  At one point, I caught the end of a conversation about my dad between Mom and Aunt Zohra. Mom was telling her he wouldn't go to heaven because of what he'd done to his daughter. The way I see it, he won't be going because of what he's done to Mom. Heaven's bouncer just won't let him in. He'll send him packing, straight out. And you know, it bugs me they're still talking about him. He's not here anymore. The only thing to do is forget about him.

  Aunt Zohra's couscous is so special, and what really makes it are the chickpeas and the very gentle way she prepares her semolina grains. Aunt Zohra cracks me up. She's been in France for more than twenty years and she still talks like she stepped off the plane at Orly a week ago.

  Once, a while ago, she was telling Mom how she'd signed Hamza up for "carrots." Mom didn't have a clue what she was talking about. But a few days later, back home, she started giggling to herself. She suddenly realized that Aunt Zohra meant to say she'd signed Hamza up for karate ... Even Aunt Zohra's sons tease her. They say she does remixes of Molière's language. They've tagged her "DJ Zozo."

  At the end of the day, Youssef drove us back. He put on some rap
and nobody said a single word the whole way. I could see that Mom was thinking about something. She had her face turned to the window, staring into space. Whenever we were stopped, she would just look blankly at the red light. Her head must still be somewhere else.

  Youssef drives fast, he's tall, and he's very good looking. When we were little, we went to the same elementary school and he always stood up for me because I didn't have a brother and he was "a big fifth grader." I remember we did some campaign together called "A Grain of Rice Can Save a Life," back in the nineties when there was the famine in Somalia. He got me to believe the slogan was serious truth, like for every grain of rice we sent over we really saved one life. So when Mom bought me a bag of rice that weighed five hundred grams, I was all proud of saving so many lives. That would have been enough, but I even wanted to count each grain of rice in the package so I could be totally sure there would be a huge number of Somalians who wouldn't die of hunger, thanks to me. Thought I was Wonder Woman. But Youssef was lying to me all along. I'm still pissed at him ... Now that I think about it, I never did hear if my bag of rice arrived safe and sound.

  When we got to our building, Mom thanked Youssef and he left. You could say the super of our development doesn't give a shit about our towers. Luckily Carla, the Portuguese cleaning lady, gives them a quick once-over from time to time. But when she doesn't come, they stay disgusting for weeks on end, and that's how they've been lately. There's been piss and globs of spit in the elevator. It stank, but we were all just happy it was working. It's lucky we know which buttons are for which floors, because the display panel's all scratched and melted. Must have been burned with a cigarette lighter.

  Apparently, the super's racist. Hamoudi told me. Me, I wouldn't know, seeing as I've never spoken to him. He kind of scares me. He's always frowning so he's got two lines sticking up in the middle of his forehead, like the number eleven.

  Hamoudi told me how back in the day, before this guy was our super, he fought in the war in Aunt Zohra's country, in Algeria. Maybe that's why he hasn't got any earlobes and he's missing the thumb on his left hand. I don't think the war's fully over for him yet, and I think the same goes for plenty of other people in this country too...

  Mme Burlaud just suggested something crazy weird: a skiing trip organized by the city. She went on and on about how it'd be really good for me, how I'd meet some people, get away from the neighborhood. She said it might help me open up.

  I don't want to go because I don't want to leave my mom on her own, even if it's just for a week. Anyway, a group vacation with people I don't get to choose, no way! Even just the ride ... not in your dreams. Eight hours in a bus that reeks of puke, where everyone's singing songs from the eighties and we take piss stops every half hour? Forget it.

  At first, Mme Burlaud thought I didn't want to go because of the cash.

  "You know how it works. The trip's funded, we've already talked about it. It won't cost your mom anything, if that's what's worrying you..."

  Whatever, skiing sucks. It's like sledding, except you're standing up wearing a silly hat and a big fluorescent fat suit. I know, I've seen ski competitions on TV.

  I'm sure Mme Burlaud spends some time every winter at the ski resort, but she never actually does any skiing. She just lounges around on the patios with a hot chocolate, a pink pom-pom hat, and her husband nearby taking photos with a disposable camera. Come to think of it, does she even have a husband? Never thought about that. That's what's so tired about psychologists, psychiatrists, psychoanalysts, and all things that start with psy ... They want you to tell them your life story, but them, they don't tell you one thing about themselves. Mme Burlaud knows stuff about me I don't know about myself. After you realize all that, you don't want to talk to them anymore. It's a rip-off.

  Now, our social worker, though, she'll take any excuse to tell you her whole life story. I found out through Mom she was getting married. And so right off I'm thinking, why did she need to tell her that? We don't give a shit if she's getting married. Yeah, OK, so she's lucky. We get the picture, no need to make a big deal about it. Still, at least now she'll actually have a reason to be smiling all the time. So that'll get on my nerves a lot less.

  Yeah, all right, so maybe I'm jealous. When I was little, I used to cut the hair off Barbie dolls because they were blond, and I chopped off their boobs too because I didn't have any. And they weren't even real Barbie dolls. They were like poor people's dolls, the kind my mom bought me at that cheapo discount store Giga. Crappy dolls. You played with them for two days and they looked like land-mine victims. Even their first name was total shit: Françoise. Not exactly the kind of name that little girls' dreams are made of! Françoise—that's the name of a doll for little girls who don't even dare to dream.

  When I was younger, I dreamed of marrying a guy who'd make everybody else look like losers. Regular guys, the ones who put two months into making shelves from a kit or do a twenty-five-piece puzzle with ages 5 and up on the box, no thanks. I saw myself more with MacGyver. A guy who can unclog your toilet with a can of Coke, fix the TV with a Bic pen, and give your hair a perfect blowout with his breath. A human Swiss Army knife.

  I'm picturing a super wedding, an all-out reception that would make people dizzy, a white dress with tons of lace all over, a beautiful veil and a long train, at least fifty feet. There'd be flowers and white candles. My witness would have to be Hamoudi, and the bridesmaids would be those three little sisters from the Ivory Coast who're always playing jump rope in front of our building.

  Trouble is, the one who leads me down the aisle is supposed to be my asshole of a father. But since he won't even be there, we'll have to call the whole thing off. The guests'll take back their wedding presents and snag food from the buffet to take home with them. Anyway, who gives a shit, before you start thinking about a wedding it helps to find a husband.

  Our generation's lucky because you get to choose who you're going to love for the rest of your life. Or the rest of the year. Depends on the couple. In Forbidden Zone, Bernard de La Villardière was talking about the divorce problem. He was explaining why it was on the rise. Only reason I can see for this is The Young and the Restless. In that TV series, they've all been married to each other at least once, if not twice. The story lines are totally crazy and my mom, she's been following every plot twist since 1989. All the neighborhood ladies are so into it. They meet up in the square to get the full lowdown on episodes they missed. They're way worse than that shameful boy band phase, when we were all fanatics. I remember a girlfriend giving me a poster of Filip from 2 Be 3 that she'd cut out of a magazine. Crazy happy, I stuck it on my bedroom wall. In this photo Filip was almost too much, with ultrawhite teeth that were practically see-through they were so clean, and he was shirtless with a bulging six-pack straight out of a cartoon. That evening my dad came into my bedroom. He lost it and started ripping down the poster, shouting: "I won't have any of this trash in my house, it's the devil's work, it's Satan!" It's not exactly how I'd pictured the devil, but there you go ... On my empty wall there was just one tiny scrap of poster left with Filip's nipple on it.

  On the school front, the trimester ended as badly as it started. It's a good thing my mom can't read. Well, you know, I mean as far as my report card goes ... If there's one thing that bugs me, it's teachers who get all competitive about who writes the most original report-card comments. End result: They're all as screwed up and stupid as the others ... The worst I ever saw was Nadine Benbarchiche, our physics and chemistry teacher, who wrote: "Exasperating, hopeless, the kind of student who makes you want to resign or commit suicide." She must have thought she was being funny or something. I'll give her that. It's true that I'm useless, but, really, there's no need to cross that line. Whatever, I don't give a shit. She wears thongs. So, anyway, the kind of comments I keep getting, the ones I call skip-repeat comments, are stuff like: "seems lost" or "seems somewhere else," or, worse, really pathetic lines like: "Get your head out of the clouds! Earth to Dori
a!" The only one who wrote anything nice about me was Madame Lemoine, the drawing teacher, oops, sorry, make that Plastic Arts. She put: "Malleable skills." Yeah, OK, it doesn't really mean anything, but it was nice of her anyway.

  Even though I've got my malleable skills, a friend of Mom's suggested that her son help me with my homework. According to her I'll get better than As, because her son Nabil's a genius. I pointed out that Arab mothers usually think that way about their sons. But Nabil's mom, she's way over the top. She thinks he's the Einstein of the projects and she's always going on and on about him to everybody. And he plays into it, all just because he wears glasses and knows a little about politics. Sure, he's probably got a vague idea what the difference is between right and left. Luckily, my mom didn't exactly say yes. She played that wildcard, aka "inshallah." It doesn't mean yes or no. The real translation is "God willing." But, thing is, you can't ever know if God's willing or not...

  Nabil's a nobody, a loser. He's got acne and when he was in elementary school, almost every day at recess he got bullied into handing over his snack. A big fat victim. Me, I prefer heroes, like in the movies, the kind of guy girls dream about ... Al Pacino, I'll bet you nobody could take his snacks. Straight up, he'd pull out his semiautomatic and blow your thumb off, so you couldn't suck it at night before you fell asleep. All done.

  So for the past few weeks, Nabil's been coming over to my place every so often to help me with my homework. This guy, he talks about himself way too much! Thinks he knows it all. Last time, he laughed in my face because I thought Zadig was a brand of car tire. Yeah, OK, so now I know it's this Babylonian satire by Voltaire. But he kept snickering for like forty-five minutes just because of that ... At one point, he saw it didn't make me laugh one bit, and he said: "Aw, no worries, I'm only kidding. You know it's no big deal, in life there are intellectuals and there's everyone else." Fool. His mother just dumped him on me. Bet she just wanted to get rid of him...