Sirocco

by Danielle A. Dahl

She hurried to their bedroom while he opened the door.

  Soldiers rushed in, turning on the lights, searching every room. When they were done, Papa vented his anger. “What do you think you are doing invading French citizens’ homes without their leave?”

  One very handsome soldier with marks on his sleeves said, “Je suis désolé, monsieur. We are only following regulations. Terrorists could have forced themselves into your house or you could be sheltering them.”

  While he spoke, his eyes swept over everyone in the room, briefly lingering on me. Papa barked at me. “Get dressed.” He glared at Zizou and Maman. “You too.”

  When we returned to the kitchen, wearing dressing gowns, the soldier was saying, “Our foot patrol was ambushed by terrorists hiding in your front yard. At first, we could see their silhouettes against the light filtering through your shutters, but then it went dark.”

  Zizou and I glanced at each other. I made big eyes at her, but she couldn’t shut up. “Yeah, Nanna turned it off.”

  My ears burned with embarrassment. “I heard gunshots, and I think a bullet hit the balcony.” I pointed at Zizou. “She says I got out of bed and switched the light off.” I glanced at my father. “A normal thing to do, I guess, when one hears shooting. But I don’t remember doing it.”

  The soldier said, “The attackers must have shot at your window, hoping someone would do just that.” Seeing my discomfort, he smiled. “You had no way of knowing, mademoiselle. We still got them.”

  For Papa’s sake—or, rather, mine—I lowered my eyes until the soldiers left the room, Papa at their heels. Zizou cast me a knowing glance. I stuck my tongue out at her and returned to bed.

  The next morning, Papa used the tip of his pocketknife to extract pieces of shrapnel that had become embedded in a shutter after a round hit the balcony’s wrought-iron railing and disintegrated. If not for the balcony’s interference, Zizou or I might have been hurt, maybe killed. Is that Maktoob or what? Destiny must have had better things in store for us—like allowing me to see Angelo, even though Papa still confined me to the house and fenced yard.

  Papa Meets Angelo

  The fenced yard. That’s where Angelo called on me when Papa wasn’t home. One Friday afternoon, as we met on opposite sides of the fence, my father’s car rounded the bend at the bottom of the road. My stomach did a somersault. Papa wasn’t supposed to be home until much later.

  My first reaction was to bolt up the stairs and into the house, but either pride or pigheadedness kept me rooted.

  Angelo and I watched Papa park the car and amble toward us, a frown creasing his brow. He snarled, “Who’s that punk?”

  The insult burned my cheeks and I struggled to keep calm. “Papa, this is Angelo. I met him at Susanne’s party.”

  Papa zeroed-in on Angelo, his green glare venomous. “What do you want here?”

  Angelo grinned. “Bonjour, Monsieur Bjork. I was passing by and stopped to say hello to Danielle.”

  Were it not for the fence between them, Angelo would have offered to shake hands, I thought, filled with admiration for his pluck.

  Malice greased Papa’s voice. “‘Passing by, hein?” He stuck his balled fists on his hips. “Do you take me for an asshole?”

  Angelo’s eyebrows shot up, but he remained silent as my father barreled on, “That’s what I did when I came to see her mother and have her fall for me: ‘passing by.’ ” He took a pack of Gauloises out of his breast pocket. “Where do you live?”

  “Sidi Mabrouk Inferieur, monsieur.”

  Papa leisurely tugged out a cigarette and turned toward me. “Did he ever touch you?”

  To hide my humiliation and stifle the urge to scratch out his eyes, I stared at my feet. “Non ….”

  “Didn’t you dance?”

  “Oui … Oui, but we didn’t get too close.

  He studied me while striking a match and lit his cigarette. “Not too close … Right.” He shut an eye against the rising smoke and turned to Angelo. “What’s your name?”

  Mischief danced in Angelo’s eyes. “D’Amore, monsieur. Angelo D’Amore.”

  “Italian.” Papa shifted from one foot to the other. “What does your father do?”

  “He’s a commercial contractor.”

  Papa nodded as if pleased Angelo’s family seemed respectable. He threw the half-smoked cigarette at his feet and ground it into the dirt, then, heading for the house, he spat over his shoulder, “Stay away from my daughter, you hear?”

  Papa climbed the stairs and disappeared into the house.

  Angelo defiantly pointed his chin at the empty doorframe. “I guess I’d better go.”

  I nodded.

  “À bientôt,” he said.

  “À bientôt.” I smiled, heart in my throat, fearing “soon” might turn into “never again.”

  Au Revoir

  Since the dreadful encounter with my father, Angelo had not come back to see me. Seven days of sitting on the kitchen windowsill, making believe I read a book while casting covert glances at the road. Seven days of dashed hopes.

  I tried to read, but after half a page, I cut an eye toward the scorched road to Sidi Mabrouk Inferieur. No Angelo. Zizou nagged, “You’re letting in the flies. Close those darned shutters, for heaven’s sake.”

  I pulled the shutters, leaving enough open space to keep an eye on the road, and returned to my book. Not a word stuck to my brain.

  On the eighth day, at last, a faraway speck emerged from the road haze. My ears pricked like a puppy’s at its master’s voice.

  As the speck grew, I recognized Angelo’s gait. I jumped off my perch. Maman looked up from her knitting and teased, “Amor, Amor, Amor ….” The old popular song making my heart flutter, I hurried to comb my hair and ran down to the front yard to stage an accidental encounter. I lingered over the weeds in a flowerbed when Angelo called up from the fence.

  “Bonjour, Mademoiselle Nanna.”

  “Oh ….” I turned with raised eyebrows and a handful of weeds. “How long have you been here?”

  “I just arrived.” He grinned. “Are you going to say bonjour?”

  I dropped the weeds behind a calla lily and ambled to the fence, let out a breathy bonjour and laced my fingers through the wire. Angelo traced them with the tips of his. The shine of his black curls competed with the glow of his velvet eyes.

  I looked down at our touching fingers. Blood raced to my face, adding to the heat of the blazing sun, but Angelo’s next words hit me like a bucket of ice water. “Nanna, I came to say good-bye. We are leaving.”

  My heart skipped a beat. “You’re leaving Sidi Mabrouk?”

  “We are leaving Algeria.” He wrapped his fingers around mine. “Nobody’s building nowadays and my father’s business has gone down the drain.” His features dimmed as if under the shadow of a passing cloud. “An uncle in Italy offered him a job and we are moving there.”

  “Italy ….” I murmured, “When?”

  “Next week.”

  “Next week?” A vein at my neck marked time like a runaway metronome.

  “We’ve known this for a couple of months,” he added. “I hoped plans would change, but ….” He retrieved a piece of paper from his shirt’s pocket. “This is my address in Italy.”

  I unfolded it. “Siena. I’ve never been to Siena.”

  “I’ve been there on holidays. It’s in Tuscany—where Florence is.” He closed an eye against the sun. “Maybe, one day you’ll come and see me?”

  “One day ….?” I tried to keep a squeak out of my voice. “Maybe ….”

  He shoved his hands in his pants pockets, sidestepped until he reached the road and said, “I’ll write.” Then raised a hand and left.

  I raised mine and followed him the length of the side fence along the sloping road and called out, “Angelo.”

  He stopped and looked up, shielding his eyes with a cupped hand. My heart hopped to my throat. “Did you ….” I wavered, but had to know. “Did you bet with your friends that I would f
all in love with you?”

  He grinned. “I did.” Then he sobered. “But I discovered I liked you … a lot … then all bets were off.” He studied the toe of his shoe, tracing squiggles in the dust and looked up. “It’s too bad we didn’t have time.” He flashed his cocky grin. “I would have loved to be your boyfriend.”

  Air filled my lungs and I beamed. “For sure?”

  “For sure.” He blew me a kiss with the flair of a plumed d’Artagnan and strolled down the road.

  I rushed upstairs and leaned out the kitchen window. I held onto the sight of him until his silhouette dissolved into the shifting haze; then he was gone. Sadness at a friendship’s lost potential and regrets at an unfulfilled romance followed in his wake.

  I stood vigil at that window for days, wishing Angelo would come for one more good-bye. I waited with the same fervor and ache with which, as a five-year-old child, I had waited for Malika’s return. But, unlike Malika, Angelo never turned up at the end of the road.

  Angelo D’Amore had blazed through my life like a shooting star and no wish, however fervent, would ever bring him back.

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  In the following months, no hope—however fervent—for the survival of Algérie Française had ever seemed more futile.

  “Listen to this, Pa,” I said and read aloud from Le Constantinois. “ ‘Recanting on the pledge of Algérie Française he made to the Algerian French and the army who brought him to power, General De Gaulle announced in his September 16, 1959 address that the fate of Algeria would be determined by a referendum on Self-determination.’ ”

  I set the paper down beside Papa’s plate and asked, “How can there be any chance at all that Algeria will remain French when millions of Arabs will surely vote, Algérie Algérienne?”

  Papa pushed the daily aside. “Most Moslems will vote for Algérie Française if France assures them it will stand firm in its resolve to remain in Algeria. Short of that, in fear of the FLN reprisals, once they come to power, they will vote, Algérie Algérienne.”

  “So, which is it going to be?”

  “De Gaulle doesn’t want to keep Algeria,” Papa said. “That’s your answer.”

  I seethed at De Gaulle’s betrayal of his promises to us.

  So, apparently, did thousands of other Pieds-Noirs.

  Les Barricades

  January, 1960

  The insurrection exploded on January 24, 1960. Civilian Pieds-Noirs erected barricades in the streets of Algiers and seized government buildings. General Challe, commander of the Army in Algeria, declared a state of siege and announced a general twenty-four hour curfew.

  Unable to venture outside, we gathered around our kitchen radio, holding our breath. In spite of General Challe’s order to the army not to fire and the scattering civilians pleading, “In the name of France, don’t shoot!” the French soldiers fired, leaving twenty unarmed insurgents dead in Algiers’ Boulevard Laferrière. Never the less, in defiance of curfew, the insurgents in the capital held on to their barricades until De Gaulle made an appeal for the people’s support and the army’s loyalty to France.

  To my bitter disappointment, the barricades came down, putting an end to the one-week rebellion the media dubbed La Semaine des Barricades.

  Meanwhile, De Gaulle’s betrayal of the Pieds-Noirs and of the Muslims loyal to France fueled bitterness and rage, causing some Pieds-Noirs to form l’Organization de l’Armée Secrète.

  The OAS took action against the proponents of De Gaulle’s auto-determination and FLN supporters, thus becoming the champion of most Pieds-Noirs, gaining in the process their unconditional loyalty and, in many instances, their complicit support.

  The Bottles

  March, 1960

  “Papa, I’m confused,” eight-year-old Riri said, a few months after the Barricades came down.

  “Confused about what, mon fils?”

  “Who is for or against the Pieds-Noirs? And why?”

  “Time for the old bottles,” Zizou chuckled, eyes brimming with mischief.

  This thing with the bottles had become a family joke when, needing to illustrate a complicated matter, Pépé Honninger lined up bottles on the table, each representing one of the points in question.

  Papa’s green eyes fixed on Zizou. We expected him to ram her for being flippant. Instead, he bit the inside of his cheek and motioned with both hands, “Right, bring in the bottles.”

  I asked, “How many?”

  “Four should do it.”

  Brouhaha ensued as we spread out to grab bottles and set them on the tabletop.

  Papa lit a cigarette and spoke around it. “I will explain this only once.” He closed an eye against the smoke. “Because, if you haven’t gotten the picture by now, you are all a bunch of assholes.”

  He set the cod-liver oil bottle apart. “This is the FLN—the Arab activists who seek the independence of Algeria from France through terrorist acts.”

  He fingered the bottle of red wine. “Now, this is the French government, represented by President Charles De Gaulle.”

  “You mean La Grande Zohra?”

  A smug grin stretched my lips at Zizou’s mention of De Gaulle’s disparaging nickname. The Pieds-Noirs started calling De Gaulle, La Grande Zohra after a cartoon that depicted him wearing an Arab woman’s garb and earings, suggesting that he was prostituting himself to those in favor of l’Algérie Algérienne.

  Papa cast her a withering look then addressed me. “You saw him when he toured Algeria after he became President.”

  I nodded. The newly elected president, Charles De Gaulle, had pledged to thousands of ecstatic French and Arabs gathered on the Place de la Brèche that “L’Algérie restera française!” Algeria would remain French.

  I was only fourteen at the time, but Papa had allowed me to accompany him and Maman to the gathering. “I remember,” I said, and mimicked the president’s famous index finger pointed upward and gravelly voice. “Je vous ai compris.” I understood you, he had said. And, “Vive l’Al-gérie Fran-çaise.” I could still hear the distinctive speech pattern resound among the buildings that framed Constantine’s central square.

  The recollection of the shameful lies, the betrayal of us who had led him to power, filled me with bitterness and anger.

  While I reminisced, Papa had moved the red wine bottle next to the cod-liver oil. Now that the two bottles touched, the cod-liver oil’s dark gold and wine’s deep ruby overlapped over the oilcloth into a telltale muddied pool.

  Pointing to the contiguous olive oil and vinegar bottles, Papa said, “These two represent the French Army. Its duty is to protect France against its enemies and follow orders from its government. In this case, that duty is to enforce De Gaulle’s policies in Algeria.”

  Little Yves asked, “Why does the Army get two bottles?”

  “I am getting there. Just shut your trap and listen. Better yet, make yourself useful and bring one more bottle.”

  Yves came back with the water pitcher. “I can’t find any more bottles,” he said.

  Papa returned to the oil and vinegar bottles.

  “Now, remember, De Gaulle was elected with the help of generals,” he said, indicating the oil bottle, “who wanted to keep l’Algérie Française.”

  He lifted the vinegar bottle. “This represents the generals who will follow the president’s order no matter what.” Moving it to the side of the cod-liver oil and red wine, Papa continued, “However, now that De Gaulle changed his mind and recommends self-determination, I predict that these generals ….” He held up the olive oil bottle by the neck and set it beside the water pitcher. “I predict that, in the near future, these generals will rebel against the new policy and take the side of the Pieds-Noirs,” he tapped a finger on the pitcher’s rim, “meaning us.”

  My guts tightened at the sight of the two separate sets of bottles and pitcher. They glowed under the kitchen light like a malefic portent of things to come. A gathering of forces of Evil against outnumbered forces of G
ood. A battle of epic proportions that didn’t bode well for the Pieds-Noirs’ future.

  Riri laid his hand on the bottle siding with the pitcher. “So, this olive oil army is on our side?”

  “Oui. It’s on our side.”

  “And what is the OAS, Pa?”

  “It stands for l’Organization de l’Armée Secrète. A group organized by Pieds-Noirs and a couple of generals. Its goal is to keep on fighting for l’ Algérie Française by eliminating FLN terrorists and their supporters here and in France.”

  “By the way,” he grabbed his empty glass and upended it on top of the cod-liver oil bottle, “this represents the French and international Communist Party, which gives the FLN its unconditional support.”

  Our father looked around the table. “Do you understand my explanation?”

  We all nodded, except for Yves, who said, “Kind of.”

  “Right,” Papa said. “Now get off my ass and let me eat in peace.”

  The Barricades down, curfew was raised and our life went on as if no hopes had been dangled then dashed. Our parents returned to work. We went back to school and home chores.

  Some days brought little pleasures, others little miseries such as petit Yves soon came to experience.

  * * *

  Yves, age 6, at La Boule Tricolore.

  La Trottinette d’ Yves

  June, 1960

  Thursday afternoon. Half-day off from school, I sat at the kitchen table, gutting a chicken for dinner. Mireille washed lettuce from the garden and Zizou peeled potatoes. Nine-year-old Riri stood at her side, flicking the peels across the oilcloth to the floor.

  “Stop that.” Zizou rapped his fingers with her knife handle.

  He wrinkled his nose at her and sent another peel skittering over the table’s edge. She pointed the knife at him like an accusing finger. “Pick that up.”