Harraga

by Boualem Sansal

  The Triple Function of Linear Time

  I was

  I am

  I will be

  Three stories to make you laugh, cry and blow your nose

  I was

  I am

  I will be

  Three times to sleep, wake and wash

  I was

  I am

  I will be

  Three words to say, to greet and disappear

  A day

  A year

  A century

  Three silent bars and four times three: zero

  This is all I have managed to write in two weeks, and it’s rubbish.

  It is impossible to return to old habits after leaving them behind. We don’t know how. Here I was, playing a role I knew by heart and botching it, faltering, overacting or underacting. I found myself stopping in mid-scene, repeating myself, flailing around for help. To be condemned to watch yourself live is a terrible thing, I found myself criticising every move, every word. I found myself ugly, I hated my voice, loathed the way I look, was sickened by my wounded-animal expression. I felt ill, I was stammering, I was thinking in black and white. Yes, that’s it, I was a robot, hypnotised by its reflection in the mirror.

  In reality it was different, I was afraid, terribly afraid, I plunged back down into the solitude thirty-six floors below. It was too much, God Himself would have been unable to resist. I curled up in a corner, turned my back on the world. Then, suddenly, I leapt to my feet, threw open the windows and sucked in lungfuls of air. I was not about to bury myself alive. No, no, absolutely no way!

  I needed a new life, I needed to extemporise, to bounce back, I needed a plan.

  The first idea that occurred to me was to leave, to go abroad. I wouldn’t be the first or the last to go, and certainly not the only one to think about it. I toyed with the thought and then rejected it. Too complicated, it’s an obstacle course, a sea of paperwork, it’s humiliation at every turn. Passport, visa, black-market currency, residence permit or political refugee, finding accommodation, applying for social security, registering for this and that. Furtive meetings in corridors with bright sparks who’ve managed to pass the test. The endless waits, the rigorous screening process, the countless questionnaires, the suspicion you could cut with a knife, the smart-arse computers at every fingertip and in the end, when you finally think you might have reason to hope, the guillotine, the trap door, the categorical niet. And my heart stops. Or I end up killing the woman behind the counter, get branded a terrorist only to have the authorities go easy on me for fear of reprisals by some terrorist cell lurking in the suburbs while the newspapers rally to my cause for as long as I can hold their interest. Dear God, the things people think of. Here in Algeria, people would see me as a coward, a traitor, a girl looking for a good time; over there, they would see me as an interloper, a liar, a benefit scrounger and I don’t know what else, they would glare at me with my bundles and my hangdog expression. They would refuse to believe I was persecuted by the State and its religion. They would laugh in my face. No Muslim has the right to complain about religion, about petty tyrants; we are seen as collaborators, accomplices or willing victims, or worse, we are unassimilated Muslims who require close surveillance. I would go insane before I could work out what they thought of me.

  Move to another neighbourhood, another town? Hah! On short journeys, your troubles and your griefs end up being packed into the removal van with you.

  And besides, who said I’m prepared to leave my house? It would kill me: my house and I are bound by blood ties.

  Silence was the only solution. No ideas, no noise.

  Get yourself married and take each day as it comes! What? Who said that? Husband, hardship – any other bright ideas? A Zorro in my house, Muhammad and his whole family breathing down my neck and the imam keeping an eye on me from the minaret, no fear! Can you imagine me waiting around for a husband to cut my throat instead of shaving? Can you imagine me taking him by the hand and teaching him everything? The men of this country never really recover from their childhood, as you well know. I sometimes wonder if they’ve got all their teeth. I don’t understand their fixation with touching everything, with putting things in their mouths. And I’m telling you, I feel like grabbing a knife when I see them scratching their balls, picking their noses at the steering wheel, scratching their arses as they walk, spitting as often as breathing. Even Mourad, cultured as he is, is a good for nothing, he’s the last man I’d think of marrying. He can’t even find Chérifa for me.

  I’m reminded of the film Not Without My Daughter. The satellite channels play it on a permanent loop. Will an Algerian TV station ever broadcast it? Not this century, certainly. It tells the story of an American woman married to an Iranian who, finding herself trapped in Teheran when her husband abducts their child, is forced to challenge the Islamic Republic of Iran, its men, its women, its Revolutionary Guards, its preposterous laws, if she is to be free. I’ve seen the movie ten times and I can’t understand how something so absurd could happen to an American.

  It begins in the States. Our couple are cuddling in a dream house on the shores of a beautiful lake. A little girl, all dimples and giggles, is chasing after a ball of fur that yaps delightedly. The man – the Iranian – is trying to persuade his beloved to go with him to his home country for a two-week vacation with his family. He talks about it as a pilgrimage which will make their love stronger: ‘You’ll see, they’re charming, they’ll make you very welcome,’ and so on and so forth. The woman refuses point blank. The man insists, like any good son who longs to see his parents and to introduce them to his wonderful family. At the end of Act I, the miscreant has succeeded in his fiendish plan and we find ourselves in Teheran, in a Third World city in a profoundly deprived neighbourhood in a gloomy house. It’s like a descent into hell. The chador, the doors of the harem closing one by one, the increasing surveillance, the warnings, the glowering patriarch, his harpy of a wife constantly finding fault, the uncles criticising, the cousins gesticulating, the wives whispering and rolling their eyes in joyful submissiveness while outside the streets are teeming with Revolutionary Guards. What can she do now that the trap has been sprung? Will she lie down and die as we do? Will she weep and wail? Accept her subservience? No, she is a daughter of America and hence a woman of action. In the second part, we watch as the American woman plays a long game, she wears the chador, bows and scrapes to the men, huddles in dark corners with the women, washes the feet of her husband and of the patriarch, breathes discreetly, blindly obeys the harpy, smiles happily at her daughter who is also beginning to wither away (God, how beautiful she is in her little black shroud). She plays the happy Muslim wife in chains, uses oceans of purifying water, but whenever she can, she slips out of the house, she runs, she ferrets around, she phones people and, after almost superhuman effort, finds a route by which she and her daughter can leave Iran. And then, one sweltering afternoon, she snatches her daughter and flees. There is a chase sequence that takes us all the way to northern Iran, to the Turkish border at the foot of Mount Ararat. Her (by now ex-) husband and his clan stumble after them. Oh, the blind fury as they shriek at each other, tear at their djellabas, splutter with rage; they feel deeply humiliated. We are convinced that . . . and then suddenly we realise: they don’t want to kill her, THEY WANT TO BRING HER BACK TO THE HOUSE ALIVE! Oh no, dear God, anything but that! With a mixture of dread and relief we watch as our heroines trek the last few miles and, when they see the star-spangled banner fluttering above the American consulate in Turkey, I wept as only happiness can make us weep.

  Oh, the terror and the pain of the hour I spent thinking that the way things are these days, it is insane to marry a Muslim and even more insane to follow him to his home country. I was angry at myself for thinking that, it’s nonsense, it’s shameful, but how can we ignore the reality stifling us, how can I forget my poor Louiza who has spent the past twenty years slowly dying in some godforsaken douar and all the women who, one fine morning, w
atched the sun go out? It’s awful to have to live in fear that some bout of depression might suddenly transform your loving Muslim husband into a slavering Salafist. Please God, let our husbands, our brothers, our sons be temperate in their faith.

  So, perhaps I should forget about Chérifa? Perhaps, but it would be more accurate to say ‘cut myself off’, since forgetting is not always possible, you become accustomed to absence, conjure a desert island, a cocoon like Robinson Crusoe, you build a kingdom of odds and ends and commune with the wind, the sun, the rain, the pretty crabs, the shrieking gulls, with nights heart-wrenching in their poetry.

  Ultimately, life offers few choices: leave, stay, forget, brood. It’s not a cheering thought. We prefer to think we can imagine, attempt the impossible, wipe the slate clean, bring the house down, move heaven and earth, found a new religion, liberate the masses, transform into a butterfly, play among the stars and I don’t know what else.

  But the days are long and dreams are not easy. In the course of a life, you lose so much. You find yourself alone with tattered memories, dusty habits, worthless treasures, outmoded words, with dates that hang mindlessly on the pegs of time, with ghosts that merge with shadows, landmarks that have blurred, remote stories. You replace what you can, surround yourself with new bits and pieces, but your heart is no longer in it and that colours what little life remains.

  What’s got into you, you old bat, are you senile, are you going gaga, do you want to die? No, I’m young, I’m a fighter, I’m in control, I’m going to pull myself together!

  I took a bath, I got dressed and I made a pot of tea.

  Tomorrow is another day, life will smile on me.

  What is it that moves without moving?

  That leaves without going or returning?

  And covers its tracks?

  What is it that flows without flowing?

  That fills without emptying or filling?

  And skews the results?

  What is it that improves without improving?

  That propels without accelerating or braking?

  And cuts the ground beneath our feet?

  What is it that says without saying?

  That dictates without repeating or inventing?

  And drives us mad?

  What is it that heals without healing?

  That guides without leading or forsaking?

  And breaks our heart?

  What is it that enriches without enriching?

  That gives without adding or subtracting?

  And fails us utterly?

  What is all this, some flight of fancy? Time is time, it is anything and everything, I don’t care about that, all I want is to find Chérifa as soon as possible.

  Everything is falling apart, I’m running a temperature, my head is splitting. And my bowels are giving me gyp. I don’t know what to do. We start to miss someone and everything tumbles into darkness. I’ve taken to wandering around the house, I talk to the walls, I question the objects, I find them ugly, I have to stop myself from smashing them. I function like a robot whose batteries have run down, I cook half-heartedly but the results are either mushy, chalky and disgusting, or glutinous, floury, horrible, I can’t tell, I throw everything to the ants and the cockroaches and watch as they feast, it keeps me entertained. A creepy crawlies’ banquet is something to behold. The house is gloomy, filthy, strange, worm-eaten and . . . my God, this can’t be happening! I think it’s falling down around me! Or maybe it’s me, I feel dizzy and faint, I have to hold on to the walls. I try to breathe but I can’t seem to, I feel panic welling inside me. I walk, I hum, I try to calm myself. I come upon the ghosts that haunt this house; like me, they are pacing the corridors. I hardly recognise them, shrouded as they are in a cloud of dust. The storm did not spare them. Come on, you need to keep your mind occupied, let’s have a little chat with these gentlemen from the past.

  Here comes Mustafa, appearing from a dark alcove in baggy breeches, wearing a saraoul and a fez, his features mottled, one claw-like hand clutching an Aladdin’s lamp, the other a scimitar for decapitating elephants. This is how I see him, this is how he appears, that’s fine by me.

  As-salam alaykum, Mustafa! What’s new since Algiers was captured by the Infidels?

  ‘. . .’

  ‘Well, yes, it’s had its low points.’

  ‘. . .’

  ‘Well, if you’d wanted to, you could have gone back to Turkey with the Dey. You might be haunting some palace on the Bosphorus instead of being bored stiff here in Rampe Valée, this place is the pits.’

  ‘. . .’

  ‘A disaster? Who are you telling? There’s no question I’d go home if Kabylia were a free and independent country – and if it had nuclear warheads to guarantee its safety from the Arab League.’

  ‘. . .?’

  ‘Sort of a cannonball that makes holes the size of the Mediterranean.’

  ‘. . . ! . . .’

  ‘Hmm, yeah, it would take about two or three thousand mules to haul the bombard, but mules aren’t the only thing we’re short of.’

  ‘. . . . . . . . . . . .’

  ‘Oh, no, no, my friend, you’ve got that all wrong! The Ottoman Empire isn’t part of the Arab League or the European Union, it floats between heaven and earth, between the Mediterranean and the Black Sea! I should probably mention that there’s not much left of the empire, a couple of acres around the Bosphorus, your brothers have all left to go and work in Prussia just as ours went to France.’

  ‘. . .’

  ‘As you say, interesting times.’

  ‘. . .’

  ‘It’s true, exiles have an understanding, but don’t forget you died so my grandfather and I could live, I can’t tell you the trouble it caused. Bye then.’

  I can’t believe the Turks! Here’s Mustafa, the ghost of a nineteenth-century colonial officer, trying to give me advice! ‘As long as the Sultan lives, be patient and pay all tributes on time,’ he told me. Actually, like any good Mussulman tickled by his moustaches, he can’t imagine a common woman getting involved in politics and military science.

  Even so, we have fond memories of the Turks. We owe them the recipes for chorba, for dolmas, for shish kebabs and Turkish delight, thanks to which we acquit ourselves honourably during Ramadan, our month of widespread famine. We bear them no grudge for colonising us, oppressing us, fleecing us and leaving us the legacy of their barbarous customs: scheming, freebooting and a taste for extermination. Muslims have a deeply-held tradition of letting bygones be bygones, the principle being that faith inspires the same convictions and the same abnegations in everyone. Which is probably why their countries spend most of their time justifying themselves. In religion, time does not matter, only fervour counts.

  Mustafa was clearly not hidebound by his faith. We have his travel diaries, we didn’t need to read them, he travelled all over the place, the swine. It doesn’t matter, he left us this confounded house, where he obviously did more than sleep. I don’t know why, but he designed it to be gloomy and byzantine, an immense whole that is the sum of minuscule parts, tortuous in layout, extravagant in ornamentation, absurd in appearance. It’s a pity we cannot fathom the mysteries that drive people. They’re devious, the Turks.

  It goes without saying that no piece of modern furniture has any place in this house. It would be impossible to get it inside – the doorways and casements let in a gentle breeze, a ray of sunlight, but nothing more. We had a terrible time furnishing the place. Papa nailed up planks and shelves which Maman variously named wardrobe, sideboard, dresser, and two shelves in my room on which I set my small collection of books and my alarm clock. Later, it was Tonton Hocine’s turn to nail up timbers while I took over the naming of the planks. Everywhere in this vast house feels cramped.

  As children, we loved it. Playing hide and seek and ‘you’re getting warmer!’ in such an intricate warren was heaven. You can easily end up lost. Louiza and I left the best of ourselves in its mazes and its alcoves. Those things we hid, o
ur choicest secrets, are there to this day, shrivelled, irretrievably lost. Poor, dear Louiza, she was incapable of hiding anything, of finding anything, she trotted after every breeze, panting a little foolishly. ‘Can I put it here, lift me up so I can hide it here,’ she would say with a sigh, ‘. . . but don’t look!’ We made the most of this house. God, how I miss my beloved little Carrot Cake! How have I lived without her?

  I spent the day in the attic, el groni, Papa called it – in his Kabyle accent, he spoke Arabic as if it were French and vice versa. This twofold solecism is the dialect we call pataouète. Here in the attic, two centuries of life lie piled beneath a shroud of thousand-year-old dust. I don’t remember whether we fought wars of attrition, or whether it was simple neglect, but the space has long since been overrun by the pitter-patter of mice. I always intend to go through everything, but I never find the time. Sometimes I come up and rummage through a trunk, a basket, a crate, I ferret around upsetting the mice, panicking the cockroaches, exasperating the spiders who hate to have their gymnastics disturbed. A mantle of fur and hair and glowing eyes suddenly skedaddles. Over there is an old daub, a full-length portrait depicting the master of the house in ceremonial regalia, I have summoned Colonel Louis-Joseph de la Buissière, alias Youssef the Moor, the Christian convert. His gaze speaks volumes about the dignity of imperial wars. I have to admit he’s a handsome man, tall, thin, with reddish hair and bushy sideburns one can guess are dear to his heart, a gold-rimmed monocle magnifies his right eye and a richly engraved sabre hangs by his side. A helmet adorned with feathers and a cockade. The pose is intended to be distinguished, the shoulders are thrown back, one hand is balled into a fist at the hip, the other grips the pommel of the sword. I have to confess this is the sort of escort with whom I would gladly have galloped through forests or boated on a lake under the watchful gaze of my chaperone. I can just see my red hair fluttering in the breeze making the crystal waters of the lake iridescent. In the background of the scene, dark forest that looks wet with dew and, hence, the silence, the scent of mildew, the play of shadows, the military bearing of the subject, you can picture a castle filled with State secrets nestled in a misty valley just beyond the horizon. In the canvas you can almost hear the whispered conversations, see the long marches far from safety where heroism is the concern of soldiers and property that of the men in tailcoats and opera hats. All at once I hear a revolutionary air and feel an urge to take on the hero. Let’s have it out, Viscount!