Anyway, just now, when I saw the time, I leapt up. I threw on my djellaba for quick errands, the one that’s hanging behind the front door, and I hurtled down the three floors to the street.
I didn’t bring my shadow with me to the store, she was too slow. My shadow is Halima. All she does is follow me around. I tell her come and she comes. When I say we’re leaving, she leaves too. Even now, suddenly, she’s behind me.
Sometimes, it annoys me that she clings to me so much. But when I turn around to tell her off for slowing me down, I’m always taken aback. She sulks so much. It’s like she’s carrying the weight of the world on her shoulders. So I sigh loudly, so she’ll understand that she’s pissing me off, and I move faster. And that moron, she hurries to keep up with me.
She’s still staying at my place, and to tell you the truth, she’s starting to get on my nerves. She never wants to do anything other than work. And when she’s not working, she spends her time reading or listening to the Quran, with a headscarf—so old you can see her hair through it—on her head. Acting like she’s a good, serious girl. If you are what you say you are, what are you doing here then?
She’s never answered that question, but I don’t press. Because I know from experience that in these situations, it’s just a matter of time.
“Can you pick up the pace?” I say, turning toward Halima.
“…”
We haven’t arrived at the market yet, but I can already see the girls sitting on the stairs. They’re all there. Samira, Fouzia, Rabia. Even Hajar and her girlfriend. They’ve already found things to drink. Hajar is holding a white plastic cup to her lips. And it’s the cunning Samira who’s filling the glasses so she can control how much is poured.
Lately, Samira’s been seeing a guy who tells her all sorts of stories, and she won’t stop talking about it. This guy hit her, and then came crying back to her like a baby. He’s a cop. She would never admit it, but I think she has a crush on that asshole. When he speaks, she looks at him with her mouth wide open and she hangs onto him as if he were the only man on earth.
Physically, there’s nothing special about him. He’s big, mustachioed, he always wears a white shirt and gray linen pants. No taller or shorter than the average guy. If you don’t know him, he doesn’t seem any nicer or any lousier than the others. But I don’t like him. I know he’s twisted on the inside. He has a vicious gaze, like the devil.
On top of that, when you look at the two of them, it’s clear that she’s a thousand times better than him. She’s plain too. But she’s curvy in the right places. And her hair is an impeccable color. At its roots, it’s dark, and the farther down you go, the lighter it gets. At the bottom, her hair is almost blond. And she’s not just well endowed. Samira is a real woman. Capable. Confident. I really don’t know what she’s doing with that loser.
The other day, we were all at the bar over there, the Pommercy, with that freak Aziz and two of his friends, also cops. They had ordered a bottle of red. We were having a good time. The guys were in the mood to party and were telling us a bunch of stories about the precinct.
Samira went to the bathroom. As soon as she got up, he put one of his hands on my ass. Normally, he doesn’t put his hands on me because Samira doesn’t like when he touches other girls. And I understand that. But I left his hand where it was. I’m not crazy enough to push a cop off of me.
He was happy because in the afternoon, he had nabbed a thief, a little young thing from who knows where, and he had had his fun with him in the pit. That’s what we call the hole. While Samira was in the bathroom, he kept kneading my ass, telling us how scared the kid had been when he started asking him questions.
“So, you little hooligan, what were you doing with your friend in the middle of Maârif* this afternoon?” he said to him.
“Nothing. We went for a walk,” the kid replied.
“A walk? What’s a peasant like you doing taking a walk in Maârif?”
With that, he grimaced to mimic the bad stench he’d sniffed as he got nearer to the kid’s face.
“What were you doing there, huh?”
“Nothing, we were walking,” the young guy repeated.
That was all it took for Aziz to lose it. The guy he’d caught red-handed was acting all innocent, hoping he would get off. He and his friend had hopped on a motorcycle and gone to Maârif to steal a few bags as they drove around. He was the one driving. They approached a woman in her fifties, who was walking in front of them on the sidewalk. His friend got off, ran up to the lady, grabbed her bag, and hopped back on the motorcycle. Nothing abnormal about that. Except that they were unlucky. The police car was right on the street corner. As soon as they saw the car, they tossed their prize. But they were caught like a couple of idiots. And like idiots, they tried to deny that it was them.
Since their luck was really rotten that day, they found themselves confronted by Aziz, Samira’s cop. Who couldn’t wait for a guy more pathetic than he was himself to fall into his lap. While Aziz was recounting the story, he was reveling in it. The more the kid tried to protect his face, the more Aziz slapped him. A real rabid dog! And as he told the story, he was howling with laughter.
When Samira returned, she saw Aziz had his arm around me. She said nothing and simply sat down next to him. She was irritated. But Samira’s not stupid. She acted like any other intelligent girl would have done. She took a cigarette, turned toward him to ask for a light, and pressed her breasts against his chest.
He forgot all about my ass. Probably because he knows what’s under Samira’s djellaba.
And that’s when he said to her, “And I’m here at the end of the day with a bombshell in my arms, isn’t that right, beautiful?” And turning toward his friends, he said: “Look how beautiful she is, how often do you see girls like this?”
Samira roared with laughter, his friends chuckled, and I did the same. And then we ordered another round.
All that is to say that when I show up at the stairs with Halima, Samira is talking shit about Aziz to Hajar.
“That son of a bitch, he thinks I have nothing better to do than wait around for him. But guys like him are a dime a dozen. I’ll show him, that motherfucker.”
I sit down, I light a Marvel, and I listen out of one ear as I wait for them to change the subject. I’m sick of Aziz. At the beginning, I was willing to give advice, I told Samira what she should do to quit arguing with him, but I gave up because she never listens. It’s always the same story: she says that she’s going to stop seeing him and that she’s going to get rid of him. And every time we’re at the bar and he shows up, she runs to him. I’ve always told her that for him, a pussy is a pussy, and hers is wide open so there’s no reason for him to try to find another. But talking to Samira is like pouring water into sand.
“Jmiaa, what are you doing?”
Rabia is staring at me. She’s standing there with a cigarette in her hand and a grimace on her face.
“What are you doing?” she repeats.
I look at her and I look around me.
To my left, on the sidewalk, is Robio.* I hadn’t noticed him. Robio is a guy who sells hangers, thingamajigs to make cars smell good, and other junk. I know him well. He comes by often. He sells his trash near the light, next to the tree. His merchandise changes all the time, according to availability and what he manages to buy with the two pennies he has in assets. Sometimes he has socks or toys for children. So I buy things for my daughter.
He must have been there for a while, looking at me, waiting for me to get up. And so I do, but honestly, I’m not very motivated. He’s wearing glasses—thick like the bottom of a bottle—he has an eye that’s always staring off to the left, hair of an inexplicable color, somewhere between brown and red, and the breath of a corpse.
I get up, my right hand on my hip to help me stand. It’s clear that I don’t really want to, but I make an effort. He’s a
regular client. I’m the one he always seeks out before turning to Fouzia, then Hajar.
I look at him and I smile. I’m about to leave, about to walk past for him to follow me. I turn to look at Fouzia and I cross my eyes and stick out my tongue to imitate the redhead. Just to make her laugh. He doesn’t see anything because he’s on the opposite side. She bursts out laughing, and I smile while holding back a fit of giggles. I overtake him and walk toward the building.
We’re in front of my room. My daughter is there. That old lady Mina decided today of all days to go to the village. Do I pay her to watch my daughter or to buy bus tickets, that shithead?
Samia watches us enter, she gets up from her mattress.
“Did you eat?” I ask.
“No, not yet,” she responds.
“When did Mina bring you back?”
“I don’t know. Not long ago.”
Behind me, Robio is getting agitated. I have to speed this up.
“Go outside. Robio has to repair something,” I say to Samia.
It’s very rare that she’s there when I bring men home, but when she is, I tell her that they’re repairmen. For the wooden furniture, the television, the fridge, the windows…whatever.
I don’t know what she thinks, but what’s certain is that she’s growing up and if this continues, it might start to cause some problems.
“I’ll be right there, it won’t take long,” I continue, handing her a wooden stool to sit on and signaling to four-eyes with the other hand for him to get himself ready.
I close the door. Let’s go, on the mattress. Pull down your boxers, lay me on my back, lift my djellaba. He’s a two-pump chump. It won’t take long. With Samia outside, I’m happy it’s him and not someone else. The problem with this line of work is that you never know who you’ll end up with. It’s not worth it for me to go into the details or to recount everything I see. But let’s just say that I’ve come across everything you can imagine and things you wouldn’t even want to think about.
The guy who wants you to devour him, holding onto your neck like it’s the last thing on earth. Drowning in a raging sea, he suffocates you in his flabby flesh and wants you to swallow for him. In his shipwreck, you are the raft. Neither flesh nor blood nor liver. Back on land, he leaves you on the briny bank—foaming and filthy. And the tide takes you again.
Another.
This guy is furious. He needs to empty his vigor in a long, hard jet into everyone he meets. Your ass is his due. The overzealous cop charges, he kicks, hits and tears your shoulder. In this field, where he sees a crowd cheering for him, his hands whip you like the air whipped up while he’s racing. When he’s done, his menacing eye challenges the earth over which he is the master. But once he’s ejected his sticky glory into you, the illusion transforms into hatred. So he hits you, because he is only himself. Tortured, drunk, and alone.
And another.
Who transfers filth from girl to girl, room to room. He skips the latex, preferring the yellowed streaks that he leaves behind, the better to find them—still warm—inside of another. In the haze of alcohol, you gave in without a second thought. But the night doesn’t play favorites, and as you scratch until you bleed, you’re afraid. And in the morning you wash everything, and you move on to something else.
A few bills smoothed out by an uncertain hand.
The kid who delivers them wants to leave his innocence and his cheeks, turning red, behind the door. The stories he told his friends are no longer enough to make him a man. He tries to puff up his chest, his lips tremble beneath some peach fuzz, his tongue is dried up by fear. You watch his attempts to gather himself. You want to tell him that there’s no going back after this. But you keep quiet. You even help him to slide in, to shed the peace that encumbers him.
You straddle all of them. The loser, the frustrated guy, the lonely guy, the son of a whore, the one just passing through.
The one who blames the warmth of your hand for his weak, sterile joy.
And the one for whom no hole satisfies his hatred. Who is not appeased until he hears the ripping sound of a brown and bloody stain.
And the one who pumps his useless sweat into your stomach. He has been cursed never to eat his fill, so he bites your flesh. So that his teeth—today at least—serve some purpose. And in the wheeze of his sulfur breath, he spurts his bitterness onto your cheek and your tangled hair.
And then there’s the guy who drowns his shame in drink every day and who—when night comes—makes you vomit your own, in dirty toilets and with the excuse of contaminated wine.
But, in the end, you don’t give a shit about them, their misery and their grime. Because you know that’s just how it is. And that on this earth, everyone has their lot.
And so, in the shitty grab bag of fate, I feel simply blessed when I get a quick one.
Like this Robio, who looks at me while pulling up his pants, which he had hardly lowered, and says, “What was she laughing at, your whore friend earlier?”
“You know her, she’s an idiot, you know she laughs at anything,” I answer in a detached voice.
He settles for that response, but I know he’s bothered. When he goes back there with a few glasses of wine in him, it’ll turn sour between them.
He zips up his fly and takes a bill out of his pocket. I stand, pull up my underwear, lower my djellaba, and follow him.
My daughter is sitting with her back to the wall. She’s waiting for us to leave so she can return to her cartoons.
“Thank you for coming,” I say.
Robio stares at me and eventually responds, with a crooked smile, “Whenever you like.”
I signal for Samia to enter. My daughter is like me when I was her age. I was thin like a gazelle, with straight black hair. She seems tiny and dainty in this hallway. I want to take her in my arms and eat her up. But I still have the guy’s smell on my face.
* * *
—
It’s night now. I made dinner for Samia—two eggs with olive oil and cumin—and I left. When I arrived at the stairs, the girls were no longer at the market.
I find them at the Pommercy. I’m at the entrance, and the curtain of green and yellow beads hanging there is disgustingly filthy. The pig manager doesn’t use sanicroix* to wash the floor, and she hardly rinses the glasses before putting them back under the counter. So you can imagine the state of the curtain.
Fuck, no! Chaïba! Chaïba is here! His giant mouth is twisted with laughter behind a good dozen empty Spéciale bottles and an enormous belly. I don’t know why I want to bury my tongue in it. It’s not that he’s all that good-looking or anything. He just has that effect on me, I can’t help it. Bouchaïb is the only guy I sleep with who has that effect on me, and he’s the only one whose name—Chaïba—leaves a nice taste in my mouth.
But I have no desire to talk to him today. We saw each other barely a week ago and there’s no way I can find myself involved yet again in a situation where I start to develop feelings.
I turn slowly toward the door to leave, without letting my djellaba swish, without a sound, lowering my head. Please let no one notice me, please let no one notice me, please let no one notice me…
“Jmiaa! My beauty! We haven’t even said hello and you’re leaving already?” he yells from behind his table, in my direction. His voice is so loud that from where I am, and even with my back to him, I feel the beers in front of him tremble.
I stop. I turn. I flash a fake smile, all the way to my ears, and I say, as if I hadn’t seen him, “Chaïba! Is that you?”
“Come here, beauty. I’ve been waiting for you since noon. Where’ve you been?”
“Here and there, out and about. Where did you think? And you, where’ve you been?”
“Me? Nowhere special. Come, sit with us.”
He’s at a table with his two friends who work for him—Belaïd and Saïd.
I walk slowly toward them, skirting the tables and pushing aside the empty chairs in front of me. I approach him, he stands up and kisses my hand while bowing very low, as if we were in a film. He squeezes me in his arms so tight that I’m lifted off the floor, and he orders another round for the table.
I take a sip of beer from the bottle in front of him while I wait for my own. I like beer. Red wine is good too, but beer is better. It fizzes in the mouth like lemon soda, and it smells good. There’s a song by Abdel Halim* playing in the background.
We down the Spéciales, one after another. The bar starts to fill up. I see the girls, each with her guy, except Halima. She’s at the corner of a table where everyone is laughing, and she’s sitting with an empty stare in front of a Coke. Moron!
Chaïba orders more beers as soon as they’re empty. He leans toward me and says, “A trip to Jdida,* what do you think?”
* * *
—
Honestly, I hesitated before saying yes. But in the end, you only have one life. What’s the point of filling it with nothing?
I’m sitting in the front of the car, next to Bouchaïb and his enormous belly. Belaïd and Saïd are in the back. Chaïba must have an important business transaction to see to if he’s bringing the two of them. The sound of the slamming car doors resounds in my head. There’s no one outside except for two bums vegetating at the foot of a tree. It’s bizarre. This street, I know it well but it’s as if I were seeing it for the first time.
The buildings, gray and grimy during the day, are nearly orange in the glow of the streetlights. The cars parked in the lot are silently aligned. No movement, no yells, no cars fighting over who has the right-of-way, no bicycle about to knock you over. There’s no beggar half-fallen into the trash, no mothers selling fish alongside the street vendors, no one selling fruit, no children coming back from school stopping for a Dannon. There are also no sellers of pepitas or mattresses or thimbles. There’s nothing. Nothing but a single cat crossing the street, taking its time, without fear of anyone yanking its tail.
Straight from the Horse's Mouth Page 2