Sirocco

by Danielle A. Dahl

  Pale and out of breath, his young face a study in grief, the soldier shadowed Papa. “I’m so very sorry, monsieur. I couldn’t stop in time.” He hurriedly opened the rear car door for Papa. “Can I help?”

  Maman pushed past him and sat on the back seat, extending her arms to receive her son. The door slammed on an image of Mary cradling a limp Jesus. Mouloud joined Papa on the front seat and they sped down the road.

  My sisters and I stood transfixed at our front door. It was hard to believe that only a few moments earlier Papa had been whistling, on his way to get more paint.

  “Come, Yves,” I called. Little Yves climbed the stairs, wiping tears with a dusty forearm, smudging his nose and cheeks with dirt. From the yard below, the anguished soldier called out, “Do you need help? Is there anything I can do?” His metropolitan accent fanned my gut-wrenching resentment. I shoved Yves into the house and slammed the door.

  Inside, I asked, “Why was Riri in the street?”

  Yves sniffled. “He wanted to play with the kids in the street. I told him,” he sighed, gray eyes imploring, “I told him he wasn’t supposed to cross the road.” He shrugged. “But he didn’t listen.”

  “What happened to Mouloud?”

  “He jumped after Riri and pulled him away from the truck.”

  It was a long time before Papa came home. My siblings and I rushed to the car as it turned into the yard. My heart stopped. Only Papa and Mouloud stepped down. Mouloud wore bandages on his forearms and head. Papa laid both his hands on the young man’s shoulders and gazed into his eyes. “I’ll never forget you saved my son’s life, mon fils. Anything I can do for you, just ask.”

  Mouloud smiled his wide, forthright smile. “It’s nothing, Monsieur Riri. Allah is great; your son will be all right.” Then he limped across the street to the rough accolades of the other males waiting outside their enclave.

  “How’s Riri?” I asked, a lump in my throat.

  Papa rasped, “He has a head injury and was still unconscious when I left the hospital. It will be a few days before we find out if there is any lasting damage. Your mother’s staying with him.”

  “Did you see what happened?”

  “He was across the street playing bounce the pouch. He glanced toward the house just as I stepped out on the perron.” Papa lifted his hands to his hips and shook his head as if shaking off a cloud of flies—wishing he could turn back the clock or deny the accident ever took place.

  “So he knew he would catch hell for crossing the road,” I hinted.

  “I told him to stay put, but once more, the little bastard didn’t listen.” He shook his head again, his voice cracking, “The little son of a bitch just wouldn’t listen.”

  My heart broke at the remorse concealed amid the volley of swearwords. I stifled an urge to hug him—Pa wouldn’t like that.

  That night, between spurts of dozing, I saw images of eleven-year-old Riri flash against the room’s darkness, pulsing in rhythm with my heartbeat. Riri laughing. Riri crying. Riri full of mischief.

  Riri, after my Djebel-Ouach encounter with a spider-covered tree trunk, throwing a dry leaf at me, warning, “A spider, Nanna.” Laughing like a hyena while I went bonkers.

  I woke up from another doze, bathed in sweat. On the screen of my throbbing eyelids, I replayed the moments when four-year-old Riri had climbed into the cab of Papa’s truck.

  * * *

  The truck had rolled forward without the benefit of a purring motor—its silent progress more threatening than the rippling muscles of a skulking tiger.

  I jumped onto the truck’s running board, wrenched open the driver door, and slithered up the slick leather seat. My eleven-year-old’s feet couldn’t reach the pedals. I crouched to push the brake with my hand. Three pedals. I thought back to the family car for a clue. My mind screamed, Which is the brake?

  Things outside the truck moved backward. At a loss as to how to stop the unrelenting advance and scared out of my wits, I jumped out and fell on my hands and knees. I looked up. Framed in the opening of the swinging door, Riri jumped up and down on the seat. Laughing. Loving the game. I picked myself up, brushed the gravel embedded in the heels of my bleeding hands and knees, measuring the truck’s steady progress. It would push through the gate, come to a rest perpendicular to the middle of the road, and be speared by a barreling military truck.

  Crying with frustration, I jumped back onto the running board and slithered back up the slick leather seat. I studied the foot pedals, shoving aside my playful brother, when my hand found the stick with a round knob. Non. That’s not it. Papa moves it when he wants the car to go faster or slower. Then my eyes fell on the horizontal handle behind the stick.

  That was the last thing Papa pulled before getting out of the car. That was the brake. I wrapped both my hands around the handle and pulled up with my whole body. A grating/moaning sound followed and the truck stopped.

  Tears running freely off my chin, I pulled Riri out the door and shook him by the shoulders. “How did you manage to get into the truck?”

  “I climbed through the window,” he said, as if I should have known. It was hard to imagine a six-year-old kid could perform such gymnastics, but he had. My eyes rested on the wooden wedges Papa always put in front of the back tires. “Did you move these, Riri?”

  “Et bien, oui,” he said with pride. “That’s what Papa does before going into the truck.”

  I replaced the wedges in front of the tires and towered over my brother. “And why did you get into the truck?”

  “I wanted to go for a ride.”

  “For heaven’s sake, Riri.” I rested my hands on my hips and shook my head. “Papa’s going to kill you.”

  “You’re going to tell him?”

  “Do you think he won’t notice the truck moved?”

  * * *

  Reliving the ordeal must have exhausted me. The next time I awoke, daylight peeked through the shutters—a new day that might see my Riri back home.

  Papa returned from the hospital at lunchtime. He sat with the four of us at the table we had moved to the corridor while we painted the kitchen.

  We’d just started lunch when the soldier who’d driven the truck rapped timidly on the open door. Papa set down his knife and fork and inquired with a raised chin, “Oui?”

  The soldier doffed his cap. “Monsieur, I’m Jean Dupuis. I drove the truck that hit your son. I came to find out how he’s doing and tell you how sorry I am.”

  Papa motioned him in and indicated the chairs lined up against the wall. “Pull up a chair.”

  The soldier carried a chair into the space between Papa’s place and mine. He sat at the table and Papa said, “Nanna, bring a plate.”

  The soldier raised a hand as if swearing on the Bible. “Merci, monsieur, I already ate.”

  Papa signaled with a flick of his hand that I should get up. “Bring a glass.”

  I remained rooted to my chair. Unblinking eyes glued to the center of the table.

  “Didn’t you hear me?” he demanded. “Bring a glass.”

  I’d rather die than welcome the man who hurt my Riri. Almost killed him. I set my jaw in a mulish clamp and shook my head.

  The soldier intervened, “That’s all right, monsieur. I am not thirsty.”

  Papa glared at me. “Are your ears so stuffed with shit that you can’t hear?”

  I pushed myself up with clenched teeth, fetched a glass, and plunked it in front of my brother’s assailant.

  The soldier nodded, averting his eyes, then turned to Papa, who poured wine in his glass. “Merci.” The man fiddled with his drink. “Monsieur, I need to know your son’s condition.”

  Papa reclined in his chair. “He woke up this morning and answered questions, but my wife says he doesn’t remember anything from before the accident.”

  “Riri’s brain-damaged?” My throat squeezed so hard it hurt.

  Zizou’s chin quivered and Mireille began to cry. Yves’ eyes roamed from person to person, looking
for cues on how to behave.

  My father glared at me. “What are you talking about, asshole? Of course he isn’t brain damaged. He has amnesia. The doctor says it might last a few days or weeks, but he should be fine in a couple of months.”

  I was so thankful I almost didn’t hate the soldier any longer. He took a small sip and said, “I’m so relieved your son wasn’t more badly hurt, monsieur.” He stood and faced Papa. “You must believe me, monsieur, your son stepped in front of my truck so unexpectedly there was no time to avoid him.”

  Papa gave a magnanimous nod and the man glanced at me. “I’m so sorry,” he said with a bow of his head. He squared his cap on top of his head and walked across the threshold. When he was out of earshot, Papa surprised me, asking in a soft, measured voice, “Where were you going there, being rude to a guest?”

  “He wasn’t a guest.”

  “Anyone who’s allowed in this house is a guest.”

  “I didn’t invite him,” I spat. “I hate him.”

  Patiently, almost sadly, he said, “Your brother crossed the road in front of the truck. This young man is right. There was no way he could have avoided him.”

  “Riri got scared when he saw you,” Zizou charged. “That’s why he crossed without looking. He was afraid of you.”

  The jagged barb found its mark. Papa dropped his napkin at the side of his plate. He stood in the deadly silence, his chair scrapping the floor, the sound like fingernails against a blackboard. Then without a word he shuffled to his room like an old man.

  I knew well how he felt. I too bore a load of guilt.

  Guilty

  One evening, eight years before, Papa was on his way back from an out-of-town job and Pépé Honninger was fishing in Philipeville. Maman was preparing the evening meal while Zizou and Mireille played with their dolls under the kitchen table and seven-month-old Riri teethed and shrieked. Ma said, “Nanna, ma fille, pick him up, will you?”

  Riri’s crying subsided as I heaved him out of his crib. He was getting heavy for my almost eight-year-old arms, but I folded him in a blanket and cradled him in the crook of my arm. I walked him around the house, rocked him and crooned, “Mon bébé chéri, ne-veut-pa-ha-do-ormir-reux ….” In-between bouts of crying, he displayed a toothless smile full of enflamed gums.

  He grew heavier and I shifted him from one arm to the other, but my hands tangled in the blanket. I lost hold of the baby and he fell to the tile floor. Panic-stricken, I screamed and dropped to my knees. He’d stopped crying and didn’t move. I reached to pick him up. “Don’t move him,” Maman snapped as she knelt by my side.

  “I dropped him, Ma,” I shrieked.

  She listened to the baby’s chest. “He’s breathing.” She probed his tongue and quickly felt his arms and legs. “Where did he fall?”

  “On the floor, Ma.”

  “What part of his body touched the floor first?” she urged.

  “His head, I think.”

  She bundled the baby and tore out of the house. “I’m going to La Guinguette and have someone drive me to the hospital. Watch your sisters.”

  The enormity of what I had done was crushing. I wandered about the house like a mechanical toy, bumping into doorways and furniture. My skin felt stiff and cold as tin. I was filled with horrendous remorse. And grief. Oh, the overwhelming grief.

  I wrung my hands and cried like a sheep whose throat was being slashed. A tortured face, red, and gaping mouth, leapt from my bedroom tilted mirror. I froze at the eerie sight. The black hole of a mouth. Eyes big as saucers and disheveled hair.

  I approached the mirror. My crying stopped as I curiously examined the alien face and saw it was mine. I felt the drying tears stretch the skin over my cheekbones, making my face feel hard and numb. My eyelids burned. Eyelashes glued in clumps.

  Then, I remembered my sisters. I found Mireille asleep on the floor, hugging her doll. Zizou, I realized, had followed me throughout the house bug-eyed, sucking her thumb, her index finger hooked onto the end of her nose.

  I woke Mireille. Cajoled and threatened her and Zizou into eating the food Maman had prepared, coaxed them to bed and lay beside them, waiting ….

  Maman took a long time to come home.

  I arose when she turned on the bedroom light, Riri gurgling in her arms. I rushed to her. “Did I hurt him a lot, Ma?”

  “Don’t worry, ma fille. The doctor says he will be fine.”

  I stretched my arms to hug him then dropped them to my sides. I had vowed never to touch him again, but still felt a desperate need to hold him. “Can I kiss him, Ma?”

  She bent down. “Gently,” she whispered. When my lips grazed his forehead, his baby smell filled me with overpowering warmth that reached all the way to my heart. “I’m so sorry I dropped him, Ma. So sorry. I wanted to die,” I sobbed.

  “Don’t ever say silly things like that. Hear me?” Her eyes were severe. “It was an accident. He will be fine. Come. Help me change him.”

  Later on that night I went to bed but, worried about how mad Papa would be, couldn’t sleep. After a long, long wait, I woke up to the sound of tires on crushed gravel. The truck door slammed. I listened hard but couldn’t follow my father’s progress up the stairs. Even though the crepe soles of his shoes made him silent as a cat, my skin felt him draw closer. One step at a time.

  The front door opened. Closed. The latch clicked. Locked for the night.

  My parents’ voices blended as they traveled from the kitchen to their bedroom and, I was sure, the cradle.

  I was straining to make sense of their murmuring, when my door opened. Papa’s backlit shadow came into view—sharp-edged and flat like a paper doll. I shut my eyes tight and stopped breathing. The side of my bed dipped. The heat of Papa’s body coursed across the covers, wrapped around me like electric current from a stripped wire. “Are you awake?”

  My eyelids quivered.

  “Tell me what happened,” he whispered. “Don’t be afraid.”

  I opened my eyes. Tears ran freely. “Riri was heavy and I wanted to change arms and my hands got tangled up in the blanket and ….” I sobbed, “Pardon, Papa.”

  “It was an accident, ma fille.” He wrapped his hands around my shoulders, sat me up. “Here, kiss me good night.”

  I threw my arms around his neck and buried my face in his shirtfront. Inhaled the smells of dry cement, cigarette, and brillantine—the smell of my papa.

  He unlocked my embrace, eased me onto my back and straightened my blankets. “Don’t worry; your brother is all right. Go to sleep now.” He rose and left, closing the door behind him.

  I rubbed my eyes and relaxed. My world was right again.

  * * *

  Yes, even eight years later, at sixteen, I too carried guilt. It was like an old injury that seemed to be healed until a rainy day came along.

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Referendum

  January 8, 1961

  Papa and Maman dressed in their Sunday clothes and drove to Constantine. It was January 8, 1961, when French citizens everywhere would cast ballots on De Gaulle’s referendum for Algeria’s self-determination. I watched the car disappear behind the bend, wishing bitterly I were a year older and eighteen so I could also cast my vote.

  The previous day at La Guinguette, Papa had declared, “The metropolitan French will vote for self-determination. No doubt about that.” He pulled on his cigarette and faced Monsieur Cavalier. “I think De Gaulle is right to call for self-determination.” He waited for a rebuke that didn’t come. “Want to know why?” he challenged.

  Monsieur Cavalier’s jowls bounced up and down.

  Monsieur Fournier, who played poker at a nearby table, snarled, “Because you are a traitor to the Pieds-Noirs, Vincent. That’s why.”

  Monsieur Cavalier studiously wiped the bar.

  Papa allowed a pitying grin to pull the corner of his mouth and cut into the patrons’ frosty silence. “Oh man of little brain, listen to Vincent’s genius.” He took a sip of anisett
e and turned sideways to lean against the brass railing. “If Algeria remained a French province, France would have no alternative but to grant French citizenship to six-and-a-half million Arabs.” He threw a fatalistic hand aloft. “In that case, within twenty years France herself would become Muslim.”

  The men at the poker table gave grudging nods of ascent. Papa raised his glass in a victorious salute and downed his drink.

  I was both proud and despairing when Papa was again proven right. Three-quarters of the voting French citizens in the Metropole and abroad approved Algeria’s right to self-determination. But then, how could it have been otherwise? The Pied-Noirs numbered only one million-and-a-half souls—a handful of confetti in the ballot box.

  On the heels of the referendum, the French government and the FLN Provisional Government of the Algerian Republic held secret negotiations in Evian on the terms of Algeria’s independence.

  “Why the secrecy?” Papa asked as I stood next to him at the bar. “Why is only the FLN represented? Why not the French from Algeria? As a matter of fact, why not the Mouvement National Algérien? They are also involved in the fight for independence.” Papa glared at La Guinguette’s other patrons.

  “I’d like to know that,” Monsieur Voisin said, breaking the preoccupied silence.

  Monsieur Michelet hit the counter with his fist. “We ripped this country out of the thirteenth century and yet have no say in its future?”

  The ticking of the new clock on the wall underscored the men’s seething silence. Each tick, each tock, a rosary bead marking time ’til our fate was sealed.

  Papa drew wet rings on the counter with the bottom of his glass. “And what of the one million Muslims who pledged their loyalty to France? Les Ancients Combatants who fought in our ranks during two world wars and the Harkis, at this very moment? What about the Berber and Kabyle tribes France armed for self-defense and territory control against the FLN?”