For several years Tata Houria waited in her tumbledown hovel as the days trickled past; she moved to Algiers where she waited a few years more then left for France where in this town or that she continued her wait. When nothing came, she moved to Germany – a country where disappearing was commonplace in the years after the Apocalypse. There, in one city or another, she waited a few years more in the company of others who had come from far-flung places in order to wait. As the circle rippled out, she waited all over the world. One day, a scrawled letter arrived in the douar announcing her death. The schoolteacher – a different one, a young man freshly graduated from university – was unable to read it and asked around until finally one day he appeared in the tiny village square, brandishing the letter to announce the results of his research: the letter, dated 22 June 1966 and written in pidgin French, had come from the far side of the world and was signed simply Rosita. This good soul said that it was she who had closed the eyes of Tata Houria, having taken her in and cared for her. She had found her by the roadside waiting to die. But by then the douar was no longer as it had been; the children had left never to return and the old people no longer remembered anything. The story was forgotten by everyone but Maman, who would tell it to us every time it rained on the city and every time it rained in her head. Poor, wonderful Houria, she died without ever giving up hope that she might find the man she had loved as a girl. Like Maman I would like to believe that in the next world, her husband had been waiting for her just as lovingly from the very moment he lost his way and his life. It’s true, this story haunts me.
The Mother Superior spoke to me at length after her fashion, using few words and long silences. Chérifa made herself at home in the convent precisely as she had in my house and at the university halls of residence. I’d describe it as an invasion followed by a systematic obliteration of the inhabitants’ frame of reference at the cost of great sacrifice. Her blood pressure was dangerously low, she was nine months pregnant, all skin and bone, yet in a few short days she managed to turn a tranquil convent into a railway station at rush hour. Her laundry fluttered from every window, every arrow-slit, her radioactive perfume drowned out the scents of incense and soot which had good reason to linger. The nuns rushed around trying to keep up with her, they could not possibly catch her. They’re all ancient and they have no flair for competition. Eventually, she came to a stop in mid-dash, overcome by an inexplicable spasm. And then her waters broke. She was running a high temperature, she visibly paled. Everything happened quickly, the contractions, a last gleam shone in her eyes, a last word trembled on her lips. ‘We were confused, we were helpless, we prayed harder than we had ever done in our lives. This calmed her, the pain subsided or she found it easier to bear.’ Sister Anne’s voice was heavy with remorse. I know the feeling: at Parnet, we are constantly dealing with emergencies and, not having the resources, we suddenly panic and we appeal to God, implore any name that comes to our lips, and then, abruptly, comes the silence and the cold that sends us back to our corners, pale, dazed, clammy, and overcome by guilt once more.
‘She died peacefully . . . she was smiling, her mouth was open,’ the Mother Superior whispered tenderly.
‘Yes. That’s how she always slept, her mouth open, her eyes half-closed, her arms crossed . . . and her legs.’
‘Yes, she had her peculiar little ways.’
‘She had her peculiar little ways in everything she did. I mean, she decided to die in a convent while giving birth, which says a lot.’
‘It’s cruel to say such things.’
‘I apologise. Like her, I have my little ways of being stupid and cruel.’
‘She talked about you all the time. Lamia, Lamia, Lamia . . . Just before she passed away, she whispered Where’s Maman Lamia? Please tell her to come.
‘Ma . . . Maman?’
There are words like this, words that express all the happiness in the world. I have spent so many years longing to hear that word. I felt myself melt inside while an electric current trilled through me and every hair on my body stood on end. I could no longer contain my tears, nor could Sister Anne.
‘Yes . . . Maman.’
‘I suppose I was her mother and I didn’t realise it . . . or she didn’t realise it. We somehow kept missing each other . . .’
‘God willed it so, my child.’
‘You believe that He willed it so?’
‘I do.’
‘I wish some things were in our control, at least that way we’d know why we make each other miserable. But I suppose if I am here it is because God wills it.’
‘No doubt, no doubt.’
The ensuing silence seemed the only possible answer to these delicate questions. I did not dare to break it. Realising this, Sister Anne continued in a lighter tone.
‘She told stories about you and she mimicked the phrases you use: “Would you credit it! Did you ever hear the like? And I don’t know what else!” She could be difficult . . . but it was just that she liked to poke fun.’
‘Oh, she could be absolutely unbearable.’
‘Now she’s with God, she’ll calm down, depend on it.’
‘Hmm . . . maybe . . . maybe you’re right.’
‘After the birth, she regained consciousness just long enough to see the baby, she smiled down at that little face and explained the great plans she had. It was so funny! She . . .’
Something had clicked. Some vast, incredible piece of news had fallen into place.
‘Say that again . . .’ I spluttered.
‘It looked like she was going to pull through, but two days later . . .’
‘No, what you said just before.’
‘I’m sorry, I don’t . . . What’s the matter?’
‘The baby – it’s alive?’
‘Of course.’
‘Why didn’t you tell me that before?’
‘I . . . I’m sorry . . . I wanted to, but I’m in a delicate position, you can’t just hand over a baby without some assurances, surely you can understand my misgivings, dear Lamia?’
‘Oh my God! Oh my God!’
‘Chérifa used to say, “My little baby will drive Tata Lamia mad.” I think now I understand why.’
‘My dear God, our baby is alive . . . my baby is alive!’
‘I’m not asking you to take care . . .’
‘Oh my God! Oh my God!’
‘An adorable baby, the spitting image of its mother. She named the little mite Louiza . . .’
‘Louiza? It’s a girl? Oh, my God! Oh, my God!’
‘We’ve grown very fond of her, in fact I don’t know how we will manage to live without her.’
‘Thank you . . . thank you from the bottom of my heart.’
‘May God forgive me, but I could not bear to think of that baby being taken into care, Child Services simply don’t have the means, this whole wretched country is sinking into . . . into . . .’
‘If it was just the poverty, the corruption and the brutality, I wouldn’t mind, but when the idiots are in power, what’s to be done, you tell me that!’
‘She’ll be happy with you, I can tell. All I ask is that you bring her to visit from time to time, it would make us so happy.’
‘I owe you my life . . . I’ll never forget that.’
‘But I implore you, be more careful when you speak. You’re so forthright, it could land you in trouble.’
‘Don’t worry, I’ll play the hypocrite with the imbeciles.’
‘I’ll leave it to you to decide what to do about Chérifa’s parents. Duty would dictate that they be informed and the child given into their care. That was not what Chérifa wanted. She pleaded with me. “Don’t do it, please . . . to them my baby is nothing but a bastard, they’ll suffocate her and toss her out with the rubbish.” ’
‘They’re simple people. Weighed down by tradition and the pressure of other people, they would do precisely that with a clear conscience.’
‘We can’t know that . . . we are in no position to judg
e.’
Oh, please, not that! Anything but that! It was on the tip of my tongue to say that it’s precisely because we refused to judge when there was still time that we are in the mess we are in today. We accepted barefaced lies as honest truths, traded fine promises for utter madness and we have ceased to try to find our way. Islam lapsed into Islamism and authority into authoritarianism and still we felt we had no right to judge. I wanted to tell her that it’s one thing to stare at the pretty flames through the window of a stove, but to be bound hand and foot and tossed into an incinerator is a very different matter. I was tempted to tell her that we judge not like judges or policemen, but like human beings who do not understand and yet recognise those things that hurt, that kill, that demean. Judging is like breathing, a power bestowed by God that we must not give up, it is the very essence of our humanity, it must not be sub-contracted or scattered to the first wind whipped up who knows how by who knows whom. To hell with tolerance when it goes hand in hand with cowardice!
I responded with an all-purpose platitude, I can’t remember what exactly: ‘You’re absolutely right’, ‘Maybe, maybe not’, or something more heartfelt, something more my style: ‘We know all we need to know, they would toss the baby out with the garbage because that’s how these things go. There are days when the Algiers rubbish tip is like a nursery crawling with kids, these days they’re tossed away alive, no one takes the trouble to suffocate them. Call it tradition, murder, madness, governance, it’s all the same.’ Thinking about it now, I believe I was silent, I just sighed, we were operating on different levels, she was considering the question from a transcendent viewpoint while I, being caught up in the bedlam of everyday life, relate everything to the abject folly of men.
Epilogue
Sometimes, God listens to us.
Sometimes, life smiles on us.
Sometimes, in the distance, a light glimmers
At long last.
It is deep within the abyss this comes to pass
It is here that we are
Closest to happiness
Perhaps.
When the words have been said, we must fall silent, pray in our hearts and, when calm is restored, carry on our way. Nothing is ever finished.
Chérifa lies in the old cemetery next to the convent. The place looks set to be an archaeological relic; to those who come after us, it will speak of the end of a reign that was cruel and inglorious. No one had been buried there for years since no one lives here any more; the Islamists long since subverted their maquis, the army destroyed their villages, made their lives a living hell, so they left to die elsewhere, in the shantytowns on the outskirts of the cities, living cheek by jowl in even greater poverty. One day they, or their grandchildren, will return, as migratory birds unfailingly return, but they will be strangers in their own land; life waits for no one and the land is thankless.
A slab of marble is carved with her first name and the dates that mark out her time on earth.
Chérifa
1986–2002
At the town hall, it was stated that the dead girl had no family, no home and no identity papers. It was further stated that, having lost her way, the girl had asked for refuge at the convent for a few days, which was granted. And then, following the mysterious ways and designs of Heaven, she died in her sleep. Sister Anne did not mention the pregnancy. In certain circumstances, to lie is not to deceive, it is a means of safeguarding life. The secret will never go beyond the four walls of the convent.
Nothing moves the bureaucrats in this country. They would happily send each other to the gallows if it were a matter of sharing out three lean cutlets. Insipid and underpaid, they drift towards crime as naturally as soap suds flow towards a drain. The one who talked to Sister Anne was a hard-headed brute, he paid her no attention but simply chewed his gum and picked his nose, all this with his eyes closed. ‘It was like talking to a brick wall the live-long day,’ Sister Anne smiled, ‘and they say walls have ears!’ A lost girl is a lost girl, there are so many of them, they disappear every day, their names are jotted down in the daybook and that’s the end of it. In witness whereof, a permit was granted to inter the deceased stipulating that the aforementioned, identity unknown, had died of natural causes at the convent of the Sisters of Our Lady of the Poor located in the commune of Chréa. All that would remain of Chérifa was a pending file in an office which in time would also disappear. A request for information would be circulated to the various regional police stations and one day she would simply melt into air.
Far from the city and far from danger, sheltered within its circle of lopsided stones, the cemetery has a tranquil air. Step inside and time seems to stand still. Magnificent trees solidly rooted in the stony ground serene as Buddhist monks. It is deeply reassuring. In summer and autumn and especially in spring, the birds will come to disturb the peace of these leafy branches, but it is always wonderful to see life whip up the wind, anarchic and joyous. So it had been for me back when I trudged through the wilderness. A bird landed on my shoulder. ‘Cheep cheep, cheep cheep . . .!’ he chirruped in my ear as he fluttered and frolicked. I did not understand since my life was made up of silences, mindless rituals and second-rate ramblings. Since then, I have learned the language of the birds; it is glorious. Wild cats will come and brush against the trunks of these trees and mewl at the moon. Right now, they are pretending to doze on the ramparts. They too have abandoned the cottages and forever forgotten their masters. Blood will drip from the low branches as, breaking the hushed silence, frantic squawking erupts from the higher branches, a terrified chirping that could put a scarecrow to flight. Cats are like that, it is senseless to condemn them, it is in their nature to lie in wait and attack by surprise. Chérifa will have all winter to sleep like an angel; here on the shores of our much-loved Mediterranean, the rains merely soak the grass and the winds scarcely ruffle the owls’ feathers. The skies are so deep that everything vanishes into the distance and the nights too short to give melancholy time to fear the worst. The cold is piercing, but this is not the North Pole, it would not kill a homeless tramp. For the dead who have felt the cold when they were alive, it is an evening by the fireside. And besides, three months’ sleep is enough for a flighty girl with all eternity ahead of her.
With my black marker, I added a line to the gravestone that the sun will have faded before night falls:
Her Maman who loves her
And then I remembered what I had called her, the cruel taunt I had spat in her face: harraga. ‘You’re a harraga, that’s what you are, and you’ll die as one.’
God, I can be cruel when I don’t listen to myself.
Forgive me, ma chérie. I said those things, I screamed and spluttered not because you couldn’t hear, but because I couldn’t understand: you were searching for life and in these parts we can only talk about death.
Sister Anne could read my thoughts. I suddenly turned and we stared at each other through the curtain of tears. In her poor, tormented face I saw strength whereas mine was a mask of defeat, of helplessness, of infinite regret. She blinked her eyes gently, and on her closed lips I could read the entreaty: Pray, it is the only thing we have to overcome fear and find our way.
Where can it be, the path
Which from the unknown
Will fashion my native soil
My love, my life
And my death?
I had been feeling somewhat melodramatic and a little foolish when, in the depths of despair, I wrote those lines; the reality had proved to be infinitely more heartbreaking. It brought a lump to my throat.
I fell to my knees, I threw my arms around the headstone and I prayed:
God who art in heaven, my daughter Chérifa is with you. She’s sixteen, she hasn’t got a lot of meat on her bones, and life had left her black and blue. I couldn’t protect her. I only had a few short months in which to find her in this misbegotten world and to realise she was my daughter. Please, take care of her, love her as I loved her, but keep a close eye
on her, she’s quite capable of doing a bunk from heaven and leaving a dreadful mess behind her. I know it doesn’t look good, a Lolita among all the sinless souls dressed up in white silk, but give her time, she likes to be eccentric. Intercede on my behalf, tell her I never intended to hurt her when I called her a harraga. This country is governed by soulless men who have refashioned us in their image, petty, spiteful and greedy, or rebels who curl up in shame and insignificance. Our children are suffering, they dream of goodness, of love and of games and are lured into evil, hatred and despair. They have only one way to survive, become harragas, burn a path as once people burned their boats so they could never return. My idiot brother Sofiane is caught up in that chaos, help him find his path. Take care of my sweet, gentle Louiza, my beloved Carrot Cake, her life is a living hell. Thank you for giving me a daughter and a granddaughter when I had long since given up hoping for anything from life. Believe me, I will prove myself worthy. Give my love to my parents, to my brother Yacine and watch over us. Amen.
I took a deep breath, I could feel life coursing through me. I was like a ship run aground suddenly floating free and setting a new course. I am not the sort to let myself be beaten or to give up along the way, this was something else I could ask of God:
Please, God, recall to Yourself the ghosts that haunt my house, Mustafa and the others. They deserve some rest, life betrayed them and death has forgotten them, I think that they are tired having wandered the earth for so long. They are my friends, they supported me when I too was but a shadow on the walls, but now I have a baby to bring up, I need freshness and light.
I long wondered whether our lives truly belong to us, I despaired of ever finding meaning. All things come with time. Was it foolish of me to doubt it? At the time, I could not have known: I was dead then, my eyes had yet to be opened to life.
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