That’s why I’ve never talked much with them. I thought it would be easier for us to talk in France, but even around the dinner table I feel as if they’re elsewhere, already gone and merely showing up. Nothing happens. They chat among themselves about their friends, their plans. I don’t understand, and a few polite words are all we exchange. But I’m not the only one in this fix. Did my father talk to me? It’s true, he didn’t say a lot to me, but I knew what had to be done. No need for big speeches. He taught me the fundamentals of our religion: My son, Islam is simple: you alone are responsible for yourself before God, so if you are good you will find goodness in the afterlife, and if you are bad you’ll find that instead. There’s no mystery: everything depends on how you treat people, especially the weak, the poor, so Islam, that means you pray, you address the Creator and don’t do evil around you, don’t lie, don’t steal, don’t betray your wife or your country, don’t kill—but do I really need to remind you of this? My mother said nothing, rarely spoke. The day I told her I should get married, she replied, I’ve thought about that and found you the wife we need. She emphasised the “we.” As expected, I married my cousin—a distant cousin—and everything was fine. No trouble, never a harsh word, everything quiet; she has never opposed me, and I have never troubled her. My mother knew what I needed; I’ll be eternally grateful to her. Parents should always be trusted, for they know better than their children what’s best for them. That’s not always true, I know: times change, but I don’t. With my children, I couldn’t manage it. I don’t understand—I’m lost and don’t know what to do. I allowed things to happen and said nothing. That wasn’t a good solution. Children need to hear their parents, and there I think I made a mess of it. But that’s another story, between LaFrance and me.
I never dreamed about LaFrance. True, I heard about people who left to find work in LaFrance, but that’s all. When they came back they never talked about LaFrance, just the cold, the difficult language, the people who never smiled at you. They brought back money, though, and things we didn’t necessarily need. I remember my uncle who brought home an electric oven and an iron. He’d forgotten that we don’t have electricity and use candles and kerosene lamps, and butane gas bottles to run the TV. They used the oven for a pantry. It was so funny! My aunt took precious care of it, wrapped it in an embroidered shawl, and no one else could touch it. The iron was useful for flattening dough to make perfectly thin crêpes. A nephew brought back some underwear, silk bras, but his mother had never worn them and hung them on a nail, saving them for his future fiancée, except that no young woman wanted him because he stuttered, and children made fun of him. When he was angry his stuttering upset him even more, and everyone just laughed louder. He said that in France no one mocked him and the next time he’d go spend his vacation with some peasants in Brittany! He never came back to the village—we lost touch with him.
When I was little my dream was to learn the Koran inside out, to understand it completely, maybe even explain it to others. I recited whole suras yet could not completely grasp their meaning. Nobody in the village could interpret this flood of images. The recitation would excite me so much that I would stutter a little like my cousin, swallowing words so that some vanished down my throat; others left only fragments because they were too long to hold on to. I had other dreams but never dared speak of them. I didn’t want to be rich; I just wanted enough money to give presents. Whenever I gazed at the horizon, at that dry mass of red and grey rock, my dreams were too intimidated to show their faces; I feared they might become stuck in that barren landscape, so hard and hopeless. Everything was exaggerated in that place: cold and heat, light and storms, the stars that swarmed in infinite numbers on some nights, and the clouds that blanketed the sky without shedding the tiniest drop of rain. So the dreams stayed sleeping in a cave I never dared to explore. I was scared of what I might find. Dreams, they’re like memories: I don’t know where they go or where they hide. One of my children once asked me, Where does the light hole up during the day? I thought, That’s the sort of question I’d never have asked my father. It was my son who told me the answer: The earth turns, the light stays put, and us, we move with the earth. That was the time when my children asked me questions even if I didn’t answer. Now they barely look at me.
Neither Brahim (may God keep his soul in his mercy!) nor Lahcen nor Hamdouch nor Larej nor even Ahmed (who wanted to be called Tony) nor lots of others—none of us asked for citizenship, which we left to the young people, because us, we’ll never be one hundred per cent Frenchified. Let’s be honest, that’s not our thing. We’re Moroccans, Algerians, Tunisians, Libyans—we’re not going to pretend, just to get some documents, and it’s not good when guys who can’t even speak correctly call themselves French, putting on that TV-announcer accent.
All my children are French, on paper, which at first I had a hard time accepting. I had to sign documents; I hesitated, and we talked about it, my pals and I, but couldn’t agree among ourselves. Rabi’i even hit his two daughters with a belt after they filled out the citizenship forms, and they raised a huge stink: the police and press got involved and the girls weren’t minors anymore, so poor Rabi’i almost went to prison for assault, but to him their becoming French meant he was publicly admitting that his children didn’t belong to him anymore, that LaFrance had taken them under her wing and he had no more say in the matter. All fired up, a reporter stormed the projects with a camera, to hear what he had to say for himself, and ambushed the poor man in a café, where he didn’t know what to say or how to escape her trap: she bombarded him with questions without giving him time to think, accusing him of every evil plaguing immigrant society, and he was so miserable after this ordeal that he left for Algeria with the youngest of his children, enrolled him in an Algerian high school, and thought, At least they won’t get this one.
But things didn’t work out the way he’d planned. The kid ran away, back to Yvelines, where he fell in with a gang of young guys with beards, who were French but wanted to defend the honour of Islam on Christian soil. Even though they knew squat about the Koran, they observed rituals they didn’t much understand. The boy was troubled by his predicament: between this band of bearded youths trying to brainwash him and his family with their violent arguments, he no longer knew where he belonged. One day he couldn’t take it anymore and shouted, I don’t believe in God! The “brothers” started praying to drive Satan away from him, while he just sneered, provoking them with taunts: In the name of your god, they’re cutting the throats of little girls in Algeria! Then he bolted and took up with a bunch of petty thieves and drug dealers led by his cousin, known as One Eye. When the cousin died in a car accident, the boy took over for him and grew rich. He kept changing his name and address until he was forced to flee and wound up in Australia, where people say he opened a restaurant called the Couscous King. That’s the last we heard of him. His father was so shaken by despair that he stopped speaking and shut himself up in a long silence to wait for his deliverance in death.
5
MY CHILDREN ARE Mourad, Rachid, Jamila, Othmane, Rekya, and the marvellous Nabile, who is actually the son of my sister, who entrusted him to me in the hope he might get into a school for retarded children. Nabile is my favorite. He was born with a problem, and I believe he has transformed this problem into something wonderful. I’m told he’s a “Mongolian,” whatever that means, but I know he’s an astonishing boy. He throws himself into my arms, hugs me tightly, and says “iluvyoo.” My children never tell me that. I don’t say it either, actually—that’s not the sort of thing the family says at home. Once a secretary at the factory handed me back a form that wasn’t properly filled out, so I said, But he filled it out; I’m sure he’s right. And she said, Who’s he? My youngest daughter! The woman was shocked, but how can I explain, that’s how it is with us. We don’t talk about our daughters or their mother, it’s a question of respect, but the secretary didn’t get it. I’ve never complimented my girls; it isn’t done, to s
ay, You are beautiful, my daughter. No, that we don’t do.
My children have Arab features and gestures, but they claim they are “assimilated,” a word I’ve never understood. One day Rachid showed me a card and said, With this, I vote. I’m French and European too. So I said, Hold on: you already waited more than a year and a half to get your papers; you’re not going to start the same nonsense so you can call yourself European! Don’t forget where you come from, where your parents come from; it’s important: wherever you go, always remember that your native land is written on your face, and it’s there whether you like it or not. Me, I never had any doubt about my country; you kids today, you don’t know what country you’re from, and yes, you say you’ve been Frenchified, but I think you’re the only ones who believe that—you think the police treat you like a 100 per cent Frenchman? True, if you go to court the judge will say you’re French, he has to, but he considers you a foreigner, or else a bastard. It’s as if LaFrance had a bushel of babies with someone from someplace else and then forgot to declare them; what I mean is recognise them. It’s very strange, but in any case nothing is going to be easy for you! When we arrived, there were already immigrants, from Italy, Spain, Portugal, and they gave us more or less the fish eye. Actually, they weren’t really immigrants like before, their countries were all going to join Europe and we, we got left at the station, I mean on the sidewalk. It was all right for us to be here, but we had to be discreet, not talk or move around too much. Then one day—I hadn’t been here long—the Algerians, who were fighting for their independence, decided to demonstrate in the streets of Paris. I wasn’t there, but I know that lots of rooms rented by Algerians were left empty after the demonstration. Their tenants were dead. We whispered about it and were afraid because the police were constantly lurking around the projects.*
Don’t ever forget where you come from, my son. Tell me: is it true that you call yourself Richard? Richard Ben Abdallah! It doesn’t go together, you’ve fiddled with the first name, but the family name betrays you: Ben Abdallah, “son of the worshiper of Allah”! That’s silly! What did you do? Changed that name too? Ah, I see: you got rid of the servant part and kept just the Ben. Now people might take you for a Jew, that’s it, you want to erase your roots and find yourself a spot, a little corner among the French, the Jews preferably, and tell me, is it working? Is it easier for you to find a job? You did that to get into a nightclub? He didn’t answer me, ran off. Richard! To think I had a fine sheep slaughtered on the day he was baptised! Rachid is more beautiful than Richard, but what can I do? I’m lucky he didn’t erase his father completely like Abdel Malek, our neighbour’s son, who left with an American family and sent no news for ten years until the day he turned up back home, calling himself Mike Adley and speaking Berber with a foreign accent. He was ridiculous and didn’t even know that his mother was dead. He saw his father, gave him some dollars, and then said good-bye, like some tourist, before vanishing again. Adley! Mike Adley!
What is it they find so attractive in these modern countries? Perhaps it’s our way of life that puts them off. They don’t like us anymore. We’re no longer cool; we’re behind the times. They feel ashamed of us. I have never in my life committed an offence, never lied or cheated or stolen. I have always been upright, openhearted, with nothing to hide. I worked so my family would lack nothing, I always gave them presents, vacations, I was an honest father, too honest. My children don’t want to be like me. That’s the problem. But do I want to be like me?
I locked myself in the bathroom and stared in the mirror for a long while. I saw someone else, old before his time, a face marked by hard work and many years. What have I done with my life? I worked every day, and I slept the rest of the time to recover from work. It’s a life the same colour as my grey overalls. I never wondered whether my life might have had other colours. When I’m back in Morocco, I don’t ask myself all these questions. There I’m in tune with nature even when it’s yellow with drought. I’m at home. This feeling has no equal anywhere in the world. How can I put it? It’s feeling safe even when storms and lightning threaten, even when there’s not enough sugar and water. That’s it: here in Yvelines I have never felt at home in our home. It’s no one’s fault, that’s how it is. I’m not accusing LaFrance or Morocco or Jean or Jacques or Marcel or the king or the queen, no: I am not at home where I live. Perhaps my children don’t ask themselves that question, so much the better, but that means … that I came here so I wouldn’t feel at home and they would. But where is it, their home? I’ve never travelled outside LaFrance; the auto plant committee organises trips to Italy, Spain, and communist countries, but I’ve never wanted to leave my children to spend a few days discovering other cities, I’ve never felt the need. Maybe I should have travelled. I don’t know what it’s like to be foreign, a tourist in a foreign country; I haven’t the time to do things like that.
Fortunately, Nabile is here. Nabile, a gift from God, a light in my life. Like me, he doesn’t read well and writes with difficulty, but there’s something enchanting about him. He’s an angel. When he enters a room, he can spot right away those people who make faces or won’t accept his condition. He ignores them. He’s incapable of having negative feelings. To me, he has been more than a son: a compass, a guide, sunshine in my grey life, a smile that wipes away a world of woe. I like to go out with him to a restaurant. He loves to dress up and have fun. It’s for him that I put on a tie. He insists on that. Without him, I think my life would have been even more difficult and dispiriting. I thank God for sending him to us. When he goes back home to the village, he talks constantly to his parents, telling them about his life with words that no one understands, but he knows that, so he expresses himself with gestures, and then he gets them laughing. He’s a clown, a comedian, he’s a real actor, by the way, he loves putting on a show, doing magic tricks, acrobatics, and he’s so limber and inventive that everyone’s astonished. I believe that if he’d stayed in the village he’d be a vegetable today, drooling, with no zest for life. Back home we don’t do a thing for such children, just leave them to nature, like animals; no one hurts them, but no one takes care of them, either. In LaFrance he’s been to school, played sports, learned music; he’s happy.
I’m afraid for him. One day he was the one who said to me: I’m afraid for you. He said it quite clearly. He may be the only one in the family who has understood me. He’d noticed I was glum, pensive, dejected. It brought tears to my eyes. Afraid for me! He’s right: sometimes I too am afraid for my health, my mental equilibrium. I may be silent, but I’m thinking, I think all the time, which doesn’t show, so my wife, poor woman, doesn’t know all this and cannot understand how unhappy I am, but I don’t want to upset her. She’s a good mother who lives only for her children, as I do, even though I’ve begun to realise that something is wrong. Then I remember Nabile, and the sun comes out again in my heart. He’s the only child in the family who brightens my Sundays.
At a school assembly, his principal once announced that he was on the honour roll. Nabile was pleased, but expectant, and finally asked, So where’s the roll? Everyone laughed, and so did he. He’d done it on purpose, to add some fun. At home my youngest daughter has paid the most attention to him. She’s deeply fond of this gentle, sensitive boy. Another time he got into a fight during recess because a boy called him a Mongol, and he taught that kid a lesson.
Nabile is athletic, well built, muscular, and good-looking. He doesn’t think of himself as handicapped and likes to help people. When he sees someone having trouble walking, he’ll take an arm and escort that person across the street. He has hidden gifts. One day we were at Marcel’s place. Suddenly we heard somebody playing the piano—and not a beginner, either, just hitting any old keys. It was Nabile, who had quietly sat down at the instrument and begun improvising, to the delight and amazement of us all. He’s an independent boy, meticulous, a bit of a perfectionist.
6
I WATCHED THE ELECTIONS, when Le Pen sprang his big surprise o
n Chirac, and I had a good laugh, but my wife was afraid and wondered if we should start packing.* No, I said, don’t worry, Le Pen needs us, oh yes. Imagine this country emptied of its immigrants, when he could no longer blame all evil and uncertainty on us, claiming that we’re taking advantage of social security and child benefits! He’d be in a fix without Arabs to pick on. No, he’s putting on his usual act. He’ll never get any real power, but who knows, politics—sometimes I watch it on TV, and when they talk about us it’s a bad sign. No one says anything nice about our work. That’s how it’s always been; I’m used to it.
And you know how I hate suitcases and those huge plastic bags in garish colours from discount stores, “migrant bags” they’re called, and I hate packing cases crammed with useless stuff we have to lug along to the village to hand out to the stay-at-homes. I hate luggage, obligatory gifts, junk that piles up in the cellar. I hate things that glitter and aren’t worth spit—but you, you’re always afraid of running out of something, you carry so much with you that even I begin to wonder if maybe war might break out, if we’d better stock up, so I don’t object, I keep quiet, let you do what you want.
A Palace in the Old Village Page 4