10
WHAT MOHAMMED NOW HAD TO DO was get to his feet, put away the prayer rug, close up that crack in the wall, stop that gone-crazy clock, and announce to his wife that as of tomorrow he would begin his ’tirement: the end of his working life, a change of habits, a new existence. How could he tell her all that? He’d have to prepare her, find the right tone, simple words. If I sound happy, she’ll be content; if I feel sorry for myself, she’ll be disheartened. It was momentous news. He wasn’t used to talking to her about his work. But what will I do with a new life? he wondered. I really liked the old one. I’d gotten quite used to it, had no gripes; I got up and left for the plant, it was work, that’s all, yet I was fond of that routine, that early morning departure, with my lunch box in my bag. What will a new life be like? Colourful, full of joy? Or dull and cheerless? I didn’t ask for anything. I’m not the type to ask for anything at all. In a pinch I might dare to ask for directions: Where is city hall please thank you very much excuse me for bothering you….
According to his documents, he’d reached the mandatory age. Suddenly he remembered that he’d had to add on two extra years for some administrative reason known only to the mokaddem back home. Negotiate with management? Gain two more years of work at the plant? Scrounge around for whatever he could get, even offer to work for less pay, but above all, avoid winding up without any work, any routines. Why forbid a man in good health to work? It was too late now, though, to fiddle with his papers. He might even risk prosecution for having lied. He gave up his idea; he wasn’t the kind to commit fraud. Said not a word to his wife or children.
As usual he rose early, made his ablutions, prayed, donned his overalls, fixed himself some tea that he drank standing up as if he were late, took the lunch box prepared by his wife, and left the apartment, saying, See you tonight. It was seven o’clock. On his way to the station, he stumbled two or three times. A small worry kept nagging at him: he should have been sleeping late that day, taking a bath, dressing as if for a holiday, beginning his new life. Something inside him was fighting back; he felt that his fate had strayed from the line traced long before, a clear, straight, dignified line. He took the métro, recognised some familiar faces, smiled a couple of times, then got off at his usual stop. He sat down on a bench to reflect. What exactly am I doing? I must snap out of this. The plant is over. I can’t handle the assembly line anymore. I’m ridiculous. People will make fun of me. I’ll be a unique case in the history of this plant. No one’s ever seen an employee return to work when he’s been fortunate enough to retire! I’m not even looking to earn any money, I could just be there, be useful in case someone gets hurt or sick; I’d fill in for absentees, be the guy who keeps things going, get set up in an office where I’d wait for the call to go wherever I’m needed—and that’s something that’s never been done before. The unions would have a fit. They’d label me a troublemaker, say I was nuts. No, I don’t want any problems with the unions, they don’t like it when anyone steps out of line.
Outside the entrance to the plant, Marcel, the union delegate, came over to say how much he envied Mohammed in his retirement, having all his time to himself now. Mohammed smiled; he felt like offering to switch places with Marcel, but replied instead that he’d come to settle some administrative issues, that he was glad to have a chance to spend time with his children, whom he hadn’t seen much of as they were growing up. He cranked out a few more empty phrases before thanking Marcel for his kindness. Standing at the big gate, he let the others pass by, stared for a while at the ground, took a last look at the entrance, now completely deserted, and walked away. Mohammed was despondent; he felt so sick at heart that his memory felt stuck in the day he’d arrived in France. He had trouble walking, felt his body collapsing, but he got a grip on himself and went to the nearest café to order a large glass of milk. Sitting at his table, he fiddled with the ashtray piled high with butts, then shoved it away and began to make plans.
He thought about spending a few months in Morocco, to start with, but he wouldn’t act like Hassan, who’d taken advantage of his ’tirement to get himself a second wife—a younger, prettier one, obviously—and had never returned to France. He had promised the new wife to take her to the wonderland across the water, but his courage had failed him, and when his young wife became pregnant, Hassan was forced by the disapproval of his entire village to move to the city, where he wrote off his first family and his immigrant past, to start all over again in difficult conditions.
To Mohammed, abandoning your loved ones to begin a new life back home could only be the work of Satan, who loves to divide and destroy families. In his tribe that was not done, no: a man never deserted the mother of his children. Mohammed did not look at other women. He lowered his eyes whenever he spoke of his wife. He did not mention her name or pay her compliments or display any tenderness toward her—at least not in public. He barely glanced at his daughters, never said, How beautiful you are, my princess! Not like that character in a Lebanese soap opera he’d seen on TV.
Was he going to spend his days in Areski the Kabyle’s café? To do what? Play cards or dominos? He didn’t like either game. Drink beer? Never. Watch TV, follow the races, daydream about those half-naked girls in the American shows? Didn’t interest him. As Mohammed was leaving the café, one of his pals called out to him: It’s my old friend! So, I hear you’re in ’tirement, finally, free at last, can you imagine—they pay you not to work anymore, fantastic, no? That’s France! So grateful to us, it’s wonderful, not like back home, where if you get sick, you croak; if you go to the hospital, you have to buy your own medicines and even the thread they sew you up with after an operation, so if you’re lucky, you make it, otherwise you’re done for. Here, you see, you work, and, all right, we don’t make millions, but we earn a good living, and then when you’re tired out they give you your pension to live on, and you can still go to the hospital. It’s free and first rate too, which is wonderful in this country where there’s racism, as you know, but when you step into the hospital you’re treated like everyone else, no racism—I can testify to that—and besides, when you go for a consultation, what do you see? There’s more blacks and Arabs waiting than Frenchies, you ever notice? Not bad! No racism, plus you don’t pay—that’s LaFrance. This country—you’ve got to admit, after all—there’s not just those Le Pen guys here. Hey, let’s drink to that, I’ll buy you a sparkling water! Me—thanks be to God and Mecca—I don’t touch alcohol anymore, but cigarettes, ah, that’s harder, I can’t manage that, so anyway, what are you going to do with yourself? Move back home, take a pretty girl as a second wife—you’re allowed, mind you, you can do as you please, and you know, Ammar is over sixty and he’s a father again, got himself a girl and got her in the family way; it’s all legal, but his kids won’t have anything more to do with him, which is tough but his own fault, he should have been more discreet about it and above all, not made her pregnant! Well, so long, see you soon. Oh, I forgot to tell you: I opened a little grocery store nearby, I sell everything, stop by to see me sometime!
Mohammed remembered how Ammar’s wife Rahma had taken revenge on him after he abandoned her for that brunette from Agadir. Arriving one day out of the blue with her five children, Rahma passed herself off as his younger sister, moved into the newlyweds’ apartment, and presented the young wife with a fait accompli. Frightened, the girl ran home to her parents, who demanded a divorce and damages from the husband; seems he’d forgotten to mention that he was already married. The affair made a huge splash: the polygamous husband had to accept all Rahma’s conditions, and once she was back in France (after beating him soundly without leaving any marks), Rahma demanded her own divorce—on the grounds of polygamy! Ammar had been ordered to pay three-quarters of his pension to his wife and children.
Rahma: now there was a strong, capable, determined woman. When the couple were Mohammed’s neighbours, people used to say she beat her husband, but it was hard to believe, since in their milieu it was usually the other
way round, and Ammar wasn’t the kind to complain and admit to any mistreatment by his wife. Although his pals suspected something, they didn’t dare broach the subject with him, but they could see he was unhappy, listless, in poor shape. Rahma was the one who handled everything; Ammar came home from the factory, ate, and wasn’t allowed to spend the family’s money in bars. She always took charge of his earnings, letting him have only enough to go to the café now and then. Whenever he dared protest, she’d shut herself up with him in their bedroom and whack him with the children’s big Larousse dictionary, and she must have had to buy them a new one, because the first one was a wreck. Physically she was stronger than Ammar, a peasant woman unfazed by anything, fearless, sure of herself, forging ahead, sweeping everything from her path. Ammar had thought about a divorce, but it was complicated, and besides, it just wasn’t done in his tribe—Rahma was a distant cousin. No one would have believed him if he’d admitted she beat him, so he kept quiet, submitted, and like all weaklings, ran away instead of standing his ground. He’d thought to get back at her by leaving some money on the kitchen table and taking off, never imagining she would follow him to foil his plan.
Smiling at the idea of the henpecked husband, Mohammed began to walk along, staring idly at the sidewalk, with his fists clenched in his pockets, as if following a doctor’s orders to get some exercise. When he thought about his children, he had the feeling he’d lost them. It was more than a feeling: a certainty, a definite certainty. It was as if he’d been pitched into a void, tipped into nothingness like a sack of trash. A sack full of useless junk. There was a dead rat in the sack, rotting away with a dreadful stench. I’m the sack and the rat, Mohammed told himself. I’m the rubble and the rusting iron. I’m the animal no one loves. He saw himself tossed onto a garbage dump, tumbling down its side with broken bits of things, old wires, debris, dust, and suddenly—oblivion. He no longer exists. No one thinks of him or wants to see him. He’s at the end of the long road: it’s over. None of his children has come to reclaim him from the dump. Then the rat woke up and scratched Mohammed’s leg, making him jump: it was a plant he’d just brushed by.
11
MOHAMMED’S SON MOURAD had a good position in a department store and had married Maria, a Spanish woman, born like him in France but whose parents had gone back home to Seville. Mourad was athletic. He could have been a professional soccer player, but he had a heart murmur, so he’d studied accounting and continued to play several sports. His greatest desire: to escape his suburban neighbourhood and everyone in it to go live in Paris. He was fond of his parents but loved his freedom more, the independence he’d won by working even while he was still in school. He kissed his father’s hand and his mother’s forehead, signs of respect but not submission. As soon as he had begun earning money, Mourad had decided to give some of it to his parents, for which his father had thanked him, saying that the money would go toward the construction of the house. What house? Mohammed had only gestured vaguely and turned away without another word.
After his marriage, Mourad had stopped spending his vacation back in the village, preferring his in-laws’ house in the mountains of the Alpujarras. He’d often wondered why the Spanish were more successful than Moroccans, and his wife had come up with an answer that shocked him: it was because of religion, because of Islam! Outraged, Mourad reacted as if he were an imam—although he himself never observed a single Muslim ritual. When Maria tried to clarify what she meant and described how Francoism had used the Catholic Church to cling to power, Mourad was hurt. Islam could not be a force for backwardness! Maria carefully explained that no religion on earth encouraged change and modernity, but Mourad had actually been thinking about his father, for whom Islam was more than a religion: it was a code of ethics, a culture, an identity. What would my father be without Islam? Mourad wondered. A lost man. He finds religion soothing. He loves his rituals; they bring him a peaceful sense of well-being.
One day Mourad’s father-in-law took him to visit the palace and gardens of the Alhambra in Granada, where the young man was fascinated by the beauty of Arab architecture. It was your ancestors, said his father-in-law, who built these magnificent things. That was a long, long time ago. What a lovely civilisation, and there’s nothing left of it. Luckily, we’re here to preserve these treasures.
Mourad was offended, yet unable to contradict his father-in-law. Facts were facts. What could he possibly say?
Mohammed no longer saw his eldest girl, Jamila, who had defied her parents and married an Italian. So painful had it been for him to see a non-Muslim enter the family that he’d behaved as if she were no longer his daughter. At first he’d tried to reason with her, but Jamila was in love, refused to discuss anything, and had tantrums the like of which he’d never seen before. It’s my life, not yours! You’re not going to keep me from living simply because we’re Muslims! And just what kind of a religion is it that lets men marry Christian or Jewish women but won’t let its women do the same with men? Well? You think I’ll be happier with some countrified jerk, one of those lousy peasants who’ll lock me up while he goes out to get drunk with his pals? No thanks, Papa, wake up: I decide how to live my life, so you can give me your blessing if you want, and if you don’t approve, there’s nothing I can do about such garbage! You’re sick—you need to get help!
Mohammed had bowed his head and walked away with tears in his eyes. Trying to comfort him, his wife told him it would all blow over, and Jamila would soon come back home. Mohammed kept repeating, almost in a daze, But what’s this being in love? What is this thing that’s collapsing on me like a ruined house and breaking my back? Were we, you and I, in love? I don’t know what that means, and you know how hard it is for me to talk about those things. Love: we don’t discuss that; we see it at the movies, not in real life. Being in love! It means she’s gone. She has fallen to the ground. It’s like that business with Fatiha, who suddenly fell in with a man and never again set foot in the village, a man from the city, with money, and she left with him even though she knew he was married with five children. No, if my daughter follows this stranger of hers, she’s not coming back to us again—it’s over, it’s him or us, it’s him or her father. I don’t want to see her anymore; she’s no longer my daughter. I’ll erase her from the family register, it’s finished. A daughter I spoiled, giving her everything she wanted, brings to my house a Christian who never goes to the barber and who asks for my blessing? It’s impossible, out of the question. I’ll do what Louardi did: he refused to sanction the marriage of his daughter to a non-Muslim and he was right—a year later she came home: It’s not working—we’re different, too different.
When Mohammed’s wife reminded him that Mourad had married a Christian woman, he shouted angrily, But he’s a man, the man runs the family, and that Christian woman will convert to our religion in the end. No Christian man has ever sincerely converted to Islam to marry a Muslim woman! They pretend, change their name, recite the shahada to profess their new faith—and think no more about it.* No: it’s the man who decides, not the woman.
Ever since Jamila had left the house, no one had spoken her name in Mohammed’s presence. She had wounded him so deeply that he could not forget his pain.
On Eid al-Kebir, the Feast of the Sheep, Mohammed learned that his other two sons had dropped out of high school to go work in the provinces. None of his children were home for this all-important holiday except little Rekya and Nabile, and for the first time Mohammed realised that the boys had made lives for themselves elsewhere without anyone telling him. One son was a mechanic at a garage in Dreux; the other, who had a real nose for business, had gone to work in his uncle’s grocery store in Compiègne, and he too sent his mother a money order from time to time. The apartment was now too big for Mohammed, his wife, Nabile, and Rekya, the last girl, who worked hard in school and wanted to be a veterinarian. The family had broken up.
Mohammed consoled himself with the thought that life was like that: You have children, you spoil them,
then one day—off they go. They hardly remember us anymore, but what can you do? If we were in the village, they’d all be there, before my eyes, but here we’re in a country that knows no pity: you must fight every moment to live, to breathe, to sleep in peace. Mohammed dreamed of bringing everyone back together and having a celebration, but since he was sure his children wouldn’t come, he decided to fall ill, gravely ill. That was the solution! They would come to say good-bye to him in his hospital bed. Mohammed was superstitious, though: one shouldn’t trifle with disease and death and the will of God. Now all his affection was turned toward Rekya, who, having neither the time nor the inclination to comfort him, shut herself in her room to study. At least she’ll pass her finals, her father thought, and go on to graduate school. She’ll be an animal doctor and will come give me a hand on the farm back home.
Mohammed couldn’t imagine, still less accept, that his children’s lives could slip through his hands. He would never forget what Jamila had shouted in anger: You’re sick—you need to get help! Loving your children, wanting them to love you, wanting to be close to them and wishing only the best for them—that’s being sick? That’s why I need help? Fine: I’ll go see a doctor for crazy people and tell him, Well, I’m sick because I love my children, so what medicine should I take for that? Should I swallow some anti-paternal-affection syrup or stuff myself with suppositories to make me forget I have five children, including a daughter who went off with someone foreign to our culture, our religion, and our land? Her behaviour was appalling! And I—I did everything to raise my kids properly, I don’t know where they got this raging resentment of their parents. I don’t think French schools teach children to hate their mothers and fathers. No, it isn’t school; it’s the TV, all those American and French films where families aren’t families anymore, where parents have lost their authority. And I need to get help! I’m sick, all right, and that’s the way I like it!
A Palace in the Old Village Page 8