Harraga

by Boualem Sansal

  As it turned out, I was right: the man in the photograph was indeed the culprit responsible for her swollen belly. There was a moment when I both feared and hoped that it might turn out to be that idiot Sofiane. If my horoscope decreed I was to raise a child, I thought, it might as well be my own flesh and blood.

  The man’s name, she told me, was Hachemi and he was thirty-eight. In the photo, he could pass for ten years younger. It was this discrepancy that had dazzled the little ninny. ‘He’s so handsome,’ she told me, squirming in her seat, ‘he’s so intelligent, and kind, and strong . . .’ I cut short her litany, this man was not the good Lord, he was a swine, he was a complete and utter bastard. You can find a baker’s dozen of them in the nearest alleyway.

  ‘Where and how did you meet him?’

  ‘In Oran. I was walking along the Corniche with my new best friends, Lila and Biba . . .’

  ‘Lila and Biba, did you ever hear of such a thing!? So then what happened?’

  ‘He came up to us and said: I’d like to buy you girls some ice cream.’

  ‘So you went with him.’

  ‘Yeah. Afterwards, he took me for a drive in his car.’

  ‘Don’t tell me, I can guess what happens next. He offered to show you his etchings, or his collection of human scalps.’

  ‘Huh?’

  ‘Never mind. What were you doing in Oran, I mean it’s not your douar, is it?’

  ‘I ran away, I couldn’t stand it. My parents were getting on my nerves, they wanted me to stay at home, to wear the hijab, to hide away. There were Emirs prowling around slitting young girls’ throats. The imam said the girls deserved it, but he’s a moron. He expects us to be Muslims 24/7, that’s no life for anyone.’

  ‘That’s obvious – calm down.’

  ‘Oran is cool, we spent all day hanging out.’

  ‘I never had the chance. Algiers is not like Oran, the government doesn’t tolerate joyous outbursts, it’s best you know that right now. So, you fell head over heels and before you knew it you were pregnant. So what did he do then, your brave and gallant friend Hachemi?’

  ‘He went back to Algiers. He’s a big shot, a manager or something. He promised he’d come back for me.’

  ‘Don’t tell me, let me guess: it slipped his mind.’

  ‘No, he used to visit two or three times a month, he brought me presents, clothes, jewellery . . .’

  ‘The get-up you’re wearing now?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘I see . . .’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Never mind. What else did he give you?’

  ‘Money, and he took me to cafés and to restaurants.’

  ‘Well, well, so you were a kept woman?’

  ‘I already told you he was generous.’

  ‘But then, one morning, he was struck by amnesia.’

  ‘Struck by what?’

  ‘By some pressing business.’

  ‘How did you know? Biba came by and showed me a photograph of him in the paper, he’d just been appointed Minister or Wazīr or something like that. I don’t know how to read, but she told me what it said, only I don’t remember.’

  ‘OK, I’m with you now, I knew I’d seen his ugly mug somewhere. Now I remember! I saw him on the television once, he was so wooden you could have sawn him in half.’

  ‘What are you talking about? He’s not a magician!’

  ‘On that point we agree. Does he know about the baby?’

  ‘I told him.’

  ‘And that’s when he forgot all about you.’

  ‘He promised . . .’

  ‘You silly girl, a government minister can’t afford for people to find out he’s got fleas.’

  ‘Why are you talking like that? He’s very clean!’

  ‘Did you come down with the last shower? People like that are dangerous lunatics.’

  ‘But he wasn’t a minister when I told him.’

  ‘You told him before the amnesia, that’s good, and then the baby was thrown out with the bathwater.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Never mind. So, given your choices were coming to Algiers to beard him in his ministerial den, committing suicide or going back to your douar where your father would likely cut your throat, what did you decide?’

  ‘To go to Morocco, to Spain.’

  ‘And that’s how you met my idiot brother, there you both were down on the shore looking for a likely boat. And viva España!’

  ‘Now where am I supposed to give birth? I don’t have anyone to sign for me.’

  ‘Sign what?’

  ‘Everything . . . the paperwork . . . and what about money?’

  ‘And you think that in Europe no one has to sign anything?’

  ‘Sofiane said it was dangerous to be a harraga in my ­condition. At the Moroccan border, they shoot at people and you have to dive into the ditch. He told me to come to you.’

  ‘And now that you’re here, we’ll make the best of a bad job.’

  ‘. . .’

  It’s three o’clock in the morning and still the night drags on. Three times the hall clock has tried to make its presence felt but these are troubled waters, even a ghost would struggle to make itself heard. This is no country for rational people. Not that I have been rational recently, things have been moving too fast.

  Chérifa passed out, arms folded, mouth agape, legs likewise, drunk on laughter and Turkish delight. I know, it’s her way of dealing with things and now that I know her secret I find her a lot less indecent.

  Secret is a bit of an overstatement . . . the whole story is a cliché! Older man seduces girl, refashions her to his taste, keeps her as a little indulgence for his business outings, then tosses her overboard with a bun in the oven. A well-worn tale that just keeps repeating itself.

  It’s a cliché I experienced myself – minus the bun in the oven – so I can hardly cast the first stone. I was the same age she is now, I’d just arrived at university, my hair still in schoolgirl pigtails. Like her, I was swept off my feet, like her I got to go to the ball, like her I waited patiently for my Prince Charming to call and like her I was tossed aside once I’d been used. I had my studies to take my mind off things, all she has is her carefree madness to keep her sane. Later, just as the brainwashing sessions were beginning, I found out that my Romeo was the Party bigwig assigned to keep the university under surveillance. This was his hunting ground, his personal fiefdom, the university chancellor licked his boots, the professors kissed his hand, those students who already had one foot on the Party ladder organised a guard of honour for him. He was handsome, his patter was slick, he only had to click his fingers and they would have hurled themselves from the highest tower. I felt privileged, all my girlfriends were infatuated. He and I talked of a bright future together, promised to help each other out, to marry our fortunes. Then, when the new academic year began, my mentor took his pick of the new students. It was his routine, he was exercising his droit du seigneur. This was the year of the blonde. The lucky girl had a shock of flaxen hair and about as much common sense as I had had in the year of the redhead.

  Thinking about it nearly twenty years later, it sounds stupid, but at the time, it felt like the end of the world. At seventeen, coming straight from the bosom of a family, you never do anything by halves; you fall head over heels and it feels like dying.

  It was not so much this incident that led me to this solitary life. There are the things that, day by day, slowly blacken and decay, sucking us into their quagmire logic, turning our stomachs and our hearts. The things that howl, that violate and slaughter. The things that smack of duplicity, the stifling atmosphere, the maddening charade. And above all, there are the unshakeable truths, the fearsome certainties, those dank prisons that engulf, demean, stultify, annihilate and vomit up fanatical mobs bent on nightmare. Then there is everything else, everything that is lacking, disappearing, crumbling, futile, mind-numbing. The monstrous showdown between those who exploit with a jerk of the chin and those who suffer with
heads bowed.

  Why would I want to be on such a ship? I am better off on my raft, I drink water, I watch the sky, I listen to the wind – everything is perfect. If sometimes I gnash my teeth, and if sometimes my flesh grates on my bones, it is simply a reminder of my failings.

  The clock has just whirred four times. How time flies.

  At this point, I am tormented by indecision, not knowing whether to sleep or wake.

  Dear God, what a week! Like a marathon crossed with an assault course. The maternity clinic, the blood tests, the chemist and then straight on to the shops, the flea markets, the bazaars, the souks. The usual unpleasant encounters. Everywhere and elsewhere, restless hordes thronged the streets while droves of snorting old bangers charged the crowds and mounted the pavements. We were caught up in an end-of-the-world scare which turned out to be a dummy run organised by people with too much time on their hands. It’s enough to give anyone a migraine. A race against the clock in the morning, a race against the clock at night. Taxis, buses, stairs, more taxis, more buses, more stairs. And in between, the endless standing around in the sweltering heat. We were offered free travel and personalised stops on the route 12 bus, which was a relief. Intimately acquainted with every nook and cranny of Algiers, our friend from GAUTA, the master of the good deed, supplied us with useful addresses and even went so far as to drive us everywhere. There was panic aboard the 235, people accusing him of hijacking, of blue murder, of favouritism, but the passengers all heartily approved when the gallant admiral, hand on his heart, explained his plan: ‘Hey, they’re my family, I’m taking them home, are you people Muslims or what?’ A quick stop at midday to grab a bite, delicious morsels dripping with grease, coated in sugar, teeming with bacteria. Algiers seems to have one food stall for every inhabitant, but no one to sweep the streets. Dying of starvation here would take some doing, but it’s not enough to eat, people need dignity. It’s beyond me: the more dire the poverty, the more cheap eateries there are, and the more people snack! The haggling alone is enough to make you abandon all hope. This, I realised, was the much-trumpeted free-market economy in action. All the albatrosses, the white elephants, the turkeys and the shiny gadgets manufactured around the world are offloaded here where people scrabble to buy them, despite the fact that the people here have no jobs and don’t know where their next pay packet is coming from. I wish some armchair economist would leave his comfortable sitting room and explain it to me. And spare me the nonsense about oil revenues and all that malarkey! The prices here read like science fiction. The swindlers make them up as they go along. And, God, their beady eyes! They specialise in exploiting people who are down on their luck, so my well-groomed appearance didn’t help. Stallholders quoted us the sort of prices they reserve for the wealthy and the well-heeled. We moved on to the next stall double-quick only to be greeted by the same nightmare. It was Catch-22. Chérifa is impulsive, she wants everything and she wants it now! If I hesitate, she sulks and stamps her feet. She doesn’t care about my purse or my health.

  And, dear God, her taste! The colours, the patterns, the fabrics, it’s enough to make you throw up. The girl is a disgrace. And she has a terrible temper. Even though she’s an expectant mother, she’s still determined to be quirky. Luckily for me, I have an old feudal law to deal with such eventualities: she who pays, decides.

  But the evenings, what bliss: hot baths, fresh scents, beds so soft you dream of dying in your sleep! Not to mention the pleasures of tearing wrapping paper, opening buttons, trying clothes on, taking a step back, a step forward, twirling in high heels, laughing all the while. What can I say? Pretending to be a fashion model is the greatest pastime in the world. How glorious it feels to play at being middle class when you’re penniless. And how dangerous. Chérifa is no princess, and everything I inherited, I got from my old prole of a father. I couldn’t help thinking that for poor anaemic creatures like us, doomed to fretfulness and mumbling, every step forward brings fresh pain. When faced with such ethical dilemmas, we are tempted to retreat into our shell and watch the economy die on its feet, because we know only too well that, for the poor, the worst is always yet to come. OK, you killjoys, get out of my dreams, it’ll be time enough to weep on Sunday. There is no abyss deep enough to wake the blissful dreamer.

  In the end, I acquitted myself pretty well, I bought practically everything for next to nothing. Whenever my smile didn’t work, I bared my teeth and went for the conman’s jugular. Scam artists don’t know how to deal with outraged women, panic sets in and suddenly they find their shop flooded by people attracted by the scent of blood and ransacked by every urchin off the streets. That’s life, we all have our problems. Chérifa and her kid are now ready for the battle to come. I even got each of them a piece of jewellery worth a small fortune. We’ll go on a diet to replenish the coffers.

  Finding a room that was to her taste and decorating it the way she wanted took time – God, but that girl is a handful! My house has eight bedrooms, three reception rooms, four box-rooms, twenty alcoves and three terraces, one with a sea view, a vast cellar riddled with unexplored passageways that is a world unto itself and feels like a medieval crypt, an attic with three separate levels, hundreds of metres of winding corridors and tortuous stairways, and still Chérifa turned her nose up at everything. In the end, she settled on a room no more spacious than the others. It is right next to mine, and the rooms are connected by a grand, vaulted vestibule; it was the acoustics that decided her. ‘We can chat all night without having to get out of bed or even raise our voices,’ she decided. A pity Uncle Hocine is no longer with us, he would have made the room into a cosy little nest. I’m not sure how happy he would have been to do so for my little Lolita, he held attitudes from a bygone age when girls were girls to be seen and not heard – exactly the opposite of our Chérifa. But between the two of us, we did what we could. We managed to cover up the worst and refurbish the remainder. When I dimmed the glare from the bedside lamp by covering it with a veil of rarest crimson, we thought we were in paradise. Chérifa had tears in her eyes, and for the first time, I took her in my arms and kissed her ear. I felt an electric jolt of happiness. Dear God, she’s all skin and bone, I thought, and suddenly I felt a pang of guilt. My poor Louiza was another one who didn’t have much flesh on her bones, but there was something plump about the way she moved, it was a joy to behold. I miss her so much. And I worry about my little refugee.

  I immediately put Chérifa on the UNICEF African baby diet: all the sugar, fat and carbohydrates she could eat. I gave her vitamins, too, I measured every spoonful. After a week on this diet, she was a little heavier and my conscience a little lighter. She had some colour in her cheeks and her new clothes made her look almost human. The baby began to kick and squirm. We joyfully followed its progress. At six months, the little tadpole was beating all records. All was for the best in the best of all possible worlds.

  We argued over baby names and colours. Chérifa is a pain in the neck, she’s so stubborn I have to scream to make myself heard. I realise that this is her baby, but this is my house so I’m entitled to my say. If I couldn’t persuade her to choose a beautiful Amazigh or Phoenician name, at least I might dissuade her from plumbing the depths of Oran where they give kids names that make me wonder what planet they’re from. She had two names in mind, the first would have made a dead man’s skin crawl, the second would have had him biting a dog.

  ‘Are you completely out of your mind? What on earth is Seif El Islam – a declaration of war? Believe me, giving your child a name that translates as “The Sword of Islam” would make him a sitting target for terrorism, not to mention counter-terrorism. Is that really what you want for your son?’

  ‘In Oran, people think it’s cool.’

  ‘Well, it’s not, it’s repellent! And what was the other one again?’

  ‘Benchiha . . . you know, like Cheb Benchiha, the Raï singer from Canastel.’

  ‘You really are out of your mind! What on earth is Benchiha, an order to kill? Be
lieve me, a singer called Benchiha has a one in a million chance of ever making the Top 40. Is that really what you want for your son?’

  ‘In Oran, people think it’s cool.’

  ‘Well, it’s not, it’s hideous! When it comes to names, you have to think about things carefully. You can’t imagine the handicap a name can be. You need to choose something short, musical . . .’

  ‘And besides, it’s going to be a girl, and I’ll call her . . . um . . .’

  ‘You see. Now you’re thinking. If it’s a girl, we’ll call her Louiza, it’s beautiful, it’s charming, it’s elegant.’

  ‘Hmm.’

  ‘OK, that’s settled. And if it’s a boy, you’ll call him . . . um . . .’

  ‘Hachemi?’

  ‘Don’t even think about it!’

  ‘Sofiane?’

  ‘Oh, no! One harraga in the family is more than enough! Now Yacine is a fine name, a very fine name. It’s all the rage in Algiers.’

  ‘Hmm.’

  So, that’s one thing settled. Now I need to come up with a system for tackling the rest. Teaching her to read is the most pressing problem, I can’t possibly live with an illiterate under my roof, I’d end up killing her. Once I’ve taught her to cook, to sew, to mend, at least she can make herself useful. But first I need to get the golden rule for living in Algiers through her thick skull: be suspicious of everyone: passers-by, neighbours, sermonisers, hooligans, policemen, judges, and especially well-dressed men who use their refined manners to seduce young girls.

  Then there are the basic virtues she needs to get into her head once and for all: order, discipline, kindness, cleanliness and whatnot. I set great store by the inspirational properties of self-control, cleanliness and a dulcet speaking voice. She’ll feel my fists before long, believe me.

  Good God, you can’t help but wonder sometimes what it is that parents teach their children.