The Dust of Promises

by Ahlem Mosteghanemi

  I didn’t want to tell him something that, on the pretext of consoling him, would only have made his pain worse.

  What he had said reminded me of something I’d heard once about the mother of Ahmed Ben Bella who, despite her fragile constitution and tiny frame, astounded the French with her courage. When they imprisoned her son and brought her to visit him in order to destroy his morale and torment him with the sight of her, she surprised them with her reaction. When she saw him in shackles, her only response was to say, ‘The free bird doesn’t thrash about as if it were in a trap.’ Later they realised that by quoting this proverb she’d been urging her son to be a mighty eagle, a predator, not a meek little sparrow that trembles with fright in the hands of the enemy.

  Meanwhile, life was preparing another test for her. After Algeria’s independence, Ben Bella emerged from the enemy’s prison as a political leader, only to find that the prisons in his home country had opened their doors wide to receive him for another seventeen years. His ageing mother wasn’t allowed to see her son until a full two years after his arrest. On that day, to humiliate her son, she was stripped naked and searched, then left to tremble with cold within sight of the revolution’s guard dogs. Given her advanced age, she didn’t hold up against the chill winds of history, and she died not long afterwards of misery and cold. And it all happened in full view of heartless spectators, and a homeland that could mutate mighty birds of prey into frightened sparrows.

  In his prison cell, the eagle known as Ben Bella had become a trembling, orphaned sparrow now that his wings, whose feathers had grown in French prisons, were no longer able to carry him to his mother’s funeral procession.

  He would have to wait fifteen years before the prison doors were opened grudgingly once again and he could alight, broken-winged, tearfully on her grave.

  I don’t know why, but somehow I suffered pain on the very day when I’d been the happiest. I had called Nasser in hopes of catching a whiff of his sister, only to find myself weeping over his mother. So haunted are we by our sufferings that we turn even love into sorrow.

  The next day I got up early to have breakfast with Françoise, to give her the requisite warm send-off, and to receive her final instructions on how to manage household affairs in her absence. When I headed back to the apartment after carrying her suitcase to the front entrance, a strange feeling came over me as I locked glances with the doorman, who eyed me with a curiosity that betrayed a certain unspoken hostility.

  I felt as though, rather than living in the apartment, I was hiding out there like some undocumented immigrant. I’d established an illicit relationship with this residence, and for as long as I skulked there I had to be careful not to attract the neighbours’ attention. I wasn’t to open the door for anybody since I wasn’t ‘anybody’ in this place. Nor was I to answer the telephone for fear that ‘he’ might be on the line. After all, I was in the wrong place atop the mines of memory. And when that same telephone rang and rang without my answering it, I discovered that I’d been there at the wrong time, too!

  The only thing I could muster any enthusiasm for was the project that had fallen to me given a certain bizarre intersection of chance happenings: I’d decided to lure Hayat to the house where I was staying as a way of forcing her to confess that once upon a time she had passed this way, and that a particular man actually existed.

  She had once commented that memory has a variety of tricks, one of which is writing. But what she’d meant by ‘writing’ was ‘lying’. By giving me the false impression that novel-writing always involves fantasy, she thought she could get away with smuggling this fact into a book. She who so loved to document her crimes of passion, how could she have failed to describe his house down to the last detail, including a certain statue of Venus in one corner of the living room, the paintings of hanging bridges on the walls, the balcony overlooking Pont Mirabeau, and the art studio whose shelves were piled high with the outcomes of years of toil? After all, she’d never imagined that one of her readers might, some day, be destined to reside in her book’s secret chambers.

  I was aware of what a privilege life had granted me. Consequently, I decided to spend my day at home, enjoying my detainment in the labyrinths of a novel into which I’d been thrust as one of its main characters.

  Actually, something in me was anticipating her voice, something that kept waiting for some part of her, and this apartment was the only place I knew that was suited to the state of tension I was in.

  I was waiting for her voice the way I was used to waiting for a photograph. When you’re sitting on the bench of squandered time, not waiting for anything at all, you find that things are waiting for you, and life gives you a picture of a scene that will never be repeated.

  When you wait without waiting, without knowing you’re waiting, that’s the moment when the picture comes. Like love, like a woman, like a telephone call, it comes when the place is filled with possibility.

  I myself was filled with that house, living amid dust-covered objects that reached out and touched me in their noiseless din, reminding me that I was just passing through. So I got my camera and began, in my own way, to document my fleeting time in their presence. I’d grown accustomed to firing a stream of flashes at anything I felt was in danger of vanishing, as though I were killing it in order to rescue it.

  I’d learned to seize fugitive moments and halt time’s flow in a shot. A photo is a desperate attempt to embalm time.

  When the roll of film was full, I was surprised to find myself feeling like a father. It was as though the camera that had been my life’s companion had turned into a woman who was carrying my children inside her. The fleeting, mysterious moment when shadow and light intersect to create a photograph is no less miraculous than the instant of conception between a man and a woman.

  I don’t know why this idea occurred to me. Maybe it was because, given my orphan complex, I’d always been obsessed with women’s bellies and breasts, in constant search of a womb to which I could entrust a child.

  Like Venus, Hayat had the fresh resilience of a belly that’s never carried a child, the sadness of a woman who coyly conceals the tragedy of her emptiness. Every time I had intercourse with her, I would pray to the gods of fertility to liberate the womanhood that had been taken by force in the beds of the military. In a never-ending state of erection, my memory rebelled against the idea of her womb growing old without revealing our secret.

  One time I said to her jokingly, ‘You’ll never get pregnant by anybody but me. Since the death of Fascism, women have stopped conceiving under duress, capitulating to the brute force of their dictators. One time I read about a woman who said, “When I saw Mussolini passing by in his motorcade, I felt as though I’d conceived by him.” Talk about the miraculous charisma of power! Now, by contrast, the fires of passion have melted the royal seals on princesses’ closed wombs, and blue bloodedness has lost its appeal to would-be royal mothers.’

  I was so preoccupied with her, I nearly forgot I was waiting for her.

  I was still busy bringing her to mind when my heart jumped to the sound of the gadget that had been waiting for her voice.

  I ran to look for my mobile where I’d left it in the bedroom.

  ‘Good morning. I miss you! Why did you take so long to answer? Are you busy gathering firewood?’

  How was it that, with so little, the gentle rain of her voice could awaken all those sweet storms inside me?

  Lord, have mercy. I’m helpless before the power of a voice that, with a few words and half a laugh, launches a romantic attack on me!

  Stunned with joy, and in a nod to memory, I replied with a name I used to call her. ‘Madame, “bearer of lies”,’ I said, ‘we won’t be able to rekindle the flames without bearing more firewood.’

  Rejoining with words from Ahmad Shawqi’s play, Qays and Layla, she said, ‘Woe be to thee! Hast thou come seeking fire, or to set the house on fire?’

  ‘Stray kitty in the Paris rain, I’m the only he
arth you have to warm you. Come, and let the house catch on fire!’

  I wished I could have talked to her longer. Her voice had a body. It had an odour and a texture. It was all I needed to survive, all I needed to remain in a state of bliss.

  She told me she’d had to sneak in a call to me while people were distracted with other things, and that she wouldn’t be able to meet me that day because Nasser and her mother had her hemmed in on all sides. But then she shared an unexpected piece of good news that hit me like a joyous thunderbolt: ‘It would be hard for me to see you during the day, since it wouldn’t be right to leave Nasser and Mama alone. However, I’ve figured out a way I could spend tomorrow night with you. Imagine it being easier to see you for an entire night than for half an hour during the daytime!’

  Not believing my good luck, I said, ‘How did you manage to pull off a miracle like that?’

  ‘It just fell into my lap – a gift of coincidence. But, in keeping with your advice, I used my novelistic talents to make it happen.’

  With a giggle she went on, ‘I used to waste my literary energy on ruses like this. But a novelist who can’t come up with a lie that will fool the person closest to her will never succeed in marketing her lies in a book. Novel-writing takes daily practice!’

  Laughing, I thought about how she couldn’t possibly know I’d be bringing her to this house to confront her with a lie that hadn’t fooled me – assuming, that is, that I was ‘the person closest to her’.

  ‘So,’ I asked with excited curiosity, ‘what’s the idea you’ve based this novelistic ruse on?’

  ‘It’s a simple idea and, like all convincing lies, it’s based on a bit of the truth. Mama’s going tomorrow to the place where Nasser’s staying to fix a Constantinian dinner for him and his friends, and she’ll probably spend the night there. As a married woman, I can’t go with her to a strange man’s house and spend the night there. I can’t stay alone at the hotel, either. So I’ve suggested that I spend the night with Bahiya, a relative of mine that I haven’t seen for quite some time. She’s actually my paternal cousin, whose house I stayed at when I was a student. She lives in Paris, but her husband is always away on business, and he’ll be gone all week. I called her, and we’ve agreed to say that I’ll be going to visit her. She’s been my accomplice in mischief ever since we lived together ten years ago.’

  I concluded that the gathering she’d mentioned had something to do with the dinner Nasser had invited me to at Murad’s house. But I went on playing dumb, of course.

  In a serious tone she added, ‘I prefer that we not meet at my hotel. You choose the place, provided, of course, that there aren’t any Algerians around.’

  Laughing, I said, ‘You can run, but you can’t hide! They’re everywhere – from the fanciest hotels to the seediest! So I suggest that you come to the house where I’m staying. That would be safer.’

  ‘And where is this house?’ she asked, as if to reassure herself that it was in a decent neighbourhood.

  I wanted, of course, to avoid giving her the address. ‘Don’t worry,’ I reassured her. ‘It’s in a quiet location on the West Bank of the Seine.’

  ‘Give me the address, and I’ll take a taxi there.’

  ‘I prefer to wait for you in a café at the Metro exit and escort you there. What time do you expect to be here?’

  ‘At around seven thirty.’

  ‘I’ll be at the Mirabeau Café at the Metro station exit from seven o’clock on.’

  She was silent for a moment, as though the name of the café had aroused some sort of reaction on her part.

  ‘Don’t go on being like a frightened squirrel. We’re off the Arab map of fear. Don’t turn coward when life gives you a coincidence this wonderful.’

  ‘Maybe it’s because it’s so wonderful that it scares me so much. We get used to the wonderful things in our lives being accompanied by a feeling of fear or guilt.’

  Love for her was an exercise in danger, and it would have to remain thus. Simple though she was, she couldn’t afford to take risks. In this respect, she was like all other women.

  As I hung up the phone, I felt as though all the seasons of the year had passed through the vibrations of her voice in the course of a single conversation, and that I was lost between the sunshine of her laughter, the clouds of her silence, and the mist of her secret sadness.

  That telephone call had stirred up conflicts born of emotions so unruly they bordered on the violent.

  After her voice was cut off, an inexplicable sadness came over me. For all the happiness she brought me, she also had a way of unleashing waves of grief.

  An old wish came back to me: if only her voice could be bottled up and sold in pharmacies so that I could buy it whenever I liked. I needed it to survive. I needed to be able to take it three times a day: once on an empty stomach, once before bed, and once whenever I had a fit of joy or sadness, as had happened just then.

  Chapter Seven

  To the right of memories, along the Left Bank of the River Seine, chairs awaited an encounter with coincidences, tables sipped evening ennui, and, at a café’s front window in a corner prepared for two, I awaited her not far from an apartment that had come straight out of a book.

  She was sure to come. After all, she had a lover here on pins and needles hotter than any fireplace, while I had desires with a pinch of cardamom, and black coffee brought to me by a neatly groomed, melancholic waiter.

  I was sitting there daydreaming behind the glass of anticipation when suddenly her face illumined the place like a flash of lightning. I stood up to greet her and unthinkingly placed a kiss on each cheek, Paris being a place that lets you steal kisses in public.

  She pulled out a chair and sat down across from me. Catching her breath, she said, ‘I got lost in the Metro’s mazes. I’ve gotten out of the habit of moving around in that crowded underworld! So what brings you here? I’ve never heard of this station before!’

  I didn’t believe her, of course. The only thing I could believe was the blank spaces between her lies, and I could see she needed a lot of suitcases to smuggle even one of them.

  ‘Sorry. I thought you were good at getting around on the Metro.’

  Dropping her purse on the chair next to her, she replied, ‘For a minute there I was afraid you’d given me the wrong directions.’

  ‘Of course not,’ I said, grinning, ‘though I’d love to go back down the wrong path with you!’

  She studied me for a moment as though she were trying to decipher a signal I was sending her between the words. Then she said irritably, ‘You still insist on talking to me in riddles!’

  ‘Not at all,’ I said with a laugh. ‘I just meant that I’d lived a whole lifetime wrong, and the only right thing I ever did was to stumble across you.’

  I’d contented myself with telling her half of what I meant. The other half, she’d discover later.

  ‘Please,’ she begged, ‘don’t force me to make any extra effort! I haven’t got the strength to go rummaging around between the words. I’m worn out from making sure Ma and Nasser didn’t change their minds and make me go with them to that dinner.’

  When the waiter came to take her order, she said she didn’t want anything, and that she preferred to leave the café.

  Was she in a hurry for us to be alone together? Or was she nervous, apprehensive about some surprise I might have in store for her?

  I paid for my coffee and we left.

  She looked dazed, and seemed to be dawdling as she saw me following a route she was apparently familiar with.

  I asked her if there was something bothering her.

  ‘I’ve just forgotten what it feels like to walk down a street safely. I’m used to distrustful cities that wait outside your door and keep you under surveillance, whether out of curiosity or malice. It keeps you in fear’s grip.’

  We were turning down the street that led to the apartment when it started to rain all of a sudden. I asked her if she had an umbrella with her. />
  ‘No. I was in such a hurry, I forgot to bring one.’

  ‘And I was so excited, I forgot to bring one, too! But that’s all right. We’re almost there.’

  Teasing her about walking several steps ahead of me, I asked, ‘Are you in a hurry?’

  ‘I’m in a wet spot,’ she replied a bit crossly as she covered her hair with her purse.

  I picked up my pace as we approached the building, thinking about her oblique eloquence.

  She stood beside me in speechless amazement as she watched me press in the secret code that opened the door to the building. I refrained from asking her why she was amazed, continuing to play dumb.

  ‘Do you live here?’ she asked.

  ‘I’ve always lived on the side streets of your love,’ I quipped.

  Surprise seemed to have frozen her in place at the door. ‘Come,’ I said, pulling her along by the hand. ‘Don’t let your questions stop you short.’

  Like someone who’s been sleepwalking, then suddenly wakes up, she asked me, ‘Where are we going?’

  ‘You know the words from Swan Lake: “Come on tiptoe, placing a hand over your mouth lest you divulge the secret of the place to which I’m leading you, so that you can possess alone the jewels that stud your name.”’

  ‘Is this the time for Swan Lake?’ she grumbled. ‘I ask you a question, and you answer me with poetry!’

  ‘Your presence always immerses me in lovely things!’ I replied as we got into the elevator.

  When the elevator door closed, she wasn’t thinking about our first moment alone together. Instead her gaze was fixed on the elevator control panel.

  Maybe she’d begun to realise which floor I was taking her to. However, she just kept staring at the control panel as though she were betting on the possibility that she’d guessed wrong.