‘There’s no reason we should. I go there all the time.’
‘My uncle says people get run over by cars there every day.’
‘Your uncle knows nothing about the city. He’s never walked on a pavement in his life … Come on. Sidi Bel Abbès is quite something, you’ll see. It isn’t meant for the likes of us, but there’s nothing to say we can’t go there.’
‘No, those big places scare me.’
‘My grandfather used to say: a man born in hell doesn’t fear volcanoes. Trust me. I’ll show you things you could never imagine. You can speak a bit of French, can’t you?’
‘Of course. I grew up on a colonial farm. My father worked in the stables and my mother did the housework. Xavier let me play with his kids. I can do arithmetic too. Division’s difficult, but as far as addition and subtraction go, all I need is a blackboard and a piece of chalk.’
‘All right, all right, no need to go on about it,’ he cut in, sounding jealous. ‘Will you come with me to the city, yes or no?’
I still hesitated.
‘Learn to make up your own mind, Turambo,’ he went on. ‘Someone once said: if you want to get to the moon, start climbing now.’
Sid Roho managed to convince me and we ran off to wash our faces in a drinking trough where a mule was quenching its thirst. Then Sid Roho took me to his place to try on a shirt, a pair of trousers that reached down to my calves and sandals with hemp soles.
‘In your country clothes, they’d put you in the dog pound before you got to town.’
Sidi Bel Abbès was a real shock to me.
My universe had been limited to Turambo and the colonial estate. As far as I was concerned, the Xaviers’ farm had been the height of affluence, comfort and modernity. I’d never seen anything as opulent. I’d spend hours gazing at the big house with its tiled roof, its wide front steps bordered by balustrades, its big front door of carved wood opening onto a light-flooded reception room, its French windows painted green looking out on a vast flowery veranda where, on Sunday, the owner and his guests ate grilled meat and drank ice-cold orangeade. That, I had thought, was the pinnacle of fine living, the acme of success, a privilege so rare that only those blessed by the gods could enjoy it.
I had never set foot in a city before and had only a vague notion of Europeans, confusing them with sultans from the stories Aunt Rokaya told Nora and me when we were hungry or had a fever.
For a boy with limited horizons like me, there were only two, diametrically opposed worlds: the world of the colonial Xavier, a tall, strapping man who had orchards, a carriage drawn by a magnificent thoroughbred, and obsequious servants, and who ate méchoui on every public holiday; and the world of Turambo, where time seemed to have stood still, a sad, joyless, deadly place, without prospects, where people went to ground like moles.
And now here was Sidi Bel Abbès, which swept away my points of reference with a lordly hand by revealing a world I had never suspected, made up of paved streets, proper street lighting instead of the old-fashioned gas lamps we had, pavements lined with trees, shop windows displaying fine lingerie that would have frozen me with embarrassment just imagining it on Nora’s body, bistros with sun-drenched terraces and people in their best clothes puffing contentedly on their pipes.
I stood there open-mouthed for a long time, watching the carriages coming and going at a syncopated rhythm; the cars parked here and there when they weren’t backfiring along the boulevard; the women in colourful, figure-hugging dresses, some on the arms of distinguished gentlemen, others sheltering beneath pretty hats, all breathtakingly beautiful; the officers striding with a martial air in their freshly pressed uniforms, chests thrown out; and the children in short trousers running about like will-o’-the-wisps on the square which was bedecked with flags.
This discovery would remain engraved in my memory, like a prophetic revelation.
For me, Sidi Bel Abbès wasn’t so much a chance encounter as proof that a different life, poles apart from mine, was possible. I think it was that day that I started dreaming – I certainly couldn’t remember having done so before. I would even say that dreams, like hopes, were barely familiar to me, so convinced was I that everyone’s role was determined in advance, that there were those who had been born to strut in the limelight and those who were condemned to fade away in the wings until they disappeared. I was bewildered, charmed and frustrated all at once …
Sidi Bel Abbès awoke feelings in me I had never suspected. I was faced with a challenge. To be or not to be. To make a choice or give up. The city wasn’t rejecting me, it was opening my eyes, removing my blinkers, showing me new prospects; I already knew what I no longer wanted. Well before it was time to go back home, I was certain I couldn’t settle for Graba. I was determined to do anything, even commit a sin, in order to rebuild my life elsewhere, in a city where sounds had their own music and the people and the streets smelt of luck and hope.
While Sid Roho set to work shining shoes, I couldn’t help lingering over my discoveries, absorbing everything down to the smallest detail, like a dried-up sponge thrown suddenly into a stream. That neat church regally watching over the square, those shop windows reflecting back at me my own bad fortune, and those dazzling girls who seemed to dance as they walked, and those avenues so clean that no dirt dared land on them, and those grassy verges strewn with roses, and those children, the same age as me, who had everything they needed, in their sailor suits and caps, with socks up to their knees and their feet in soft shoes, and who passed me without seeing me, racing around like streaks of pure happiness! Watching those children moving about in such a carefree way, I told myself, without wishing to offend the saints, that their God was more considerate than ours and that, if paradise was indeed promised to us rather than to them, a semblance of decency in our lives wouldn’t have gone amiss.
‘Hey, don’t just stand there gawping, come back down to earth. This is real life, Turambo. Watch how I handle the brush if you want to learn the trade.’
Sid Roho was putting the finishing touches to a soldier’s leather boots. After polishing them, he went over them with a cloth, his wrists moving as fast as pistons. The soldier ignored us. With his hands in his pockets and a lopsided smile on his face, he was ogling two young girls on the opposite pavement.
‘There you are, Monsieur. Your boots are as good as new.’
The soldier dropped a coin on the ground and crossed the road, whistling.
‘Do you think I’ll ever live in a city like this?’ I asked, my eyes full of all the colourful details.
‘Who knows? My grandfather used to say that what’s difficult isn’t necessarily impossible.’
‘What did your grandfather do?’
‘He made children. One after the other … Well,’ he added, making a large circle with his arm, ‘do you believe me now? Sidi Bel Abbès is magical, isn’t it?’
‘I can’t believe there are so many wonderful houses in a single place.’
‘And you haven’t seen what they’re like inside. The people all have their own rooms, separated by corridors. Their lamps don’t use wicks. They have lots of mirrors, and prints in gold frames. And carpets on the floor so they don’t hurt their feet. And they have beds. Not straw mattresses, not mats, but iron beds with springs that cradle them to sleep. And sometimes pianos. These people don’t have to go to the well to fetch water. Water comes to them in pipes. They have it in the room where they cook and in the room where they relieve themselves. While we have to look in every direction before we pull our trousers down behind a bush, they just have to kick open the toilet door. And you know what? Apparently, they read the newspaper while they’re doing their important business.’
‘I saw some of these things on the Xaviers’ farm, except that for water they had a pump in the yard.’
‘Not the same thing at all. You’re in the city, my poor Turambo. Here, the streets and squares have names and the doors have numbers. In these houses, you don’t live, you take it easy. You’re the luckiest of luck
y devils and the gods eat out of your hands. And that’s not all. Tomorrow is Sunday, when high society throngs the square after mass. Sometimes there are bands playing in the open air, and the women powder their noses to make themselves more beautiful than their daughters.’
‘Will we come back tomorrow?’
‘You can’t learn everything in a day.’
And he hurried off to offer his services to a fashionably dressed man.
By the time I got back to Graba, my head was filled with stars. I was so obsessed by Sidi Bel Abbès I didn’t sleep a wink. I recalled the extraordinary neighbourhoods and the refined people who walked in them as if they had nothing else to do. In the morning, I ran and woke Sid Roho, eager to go back to the city and draw from its sun the light that was lacking in my life. We found a few shoes to shine, then went to a park and watched the young lovers whispering sweet nothings to each other on the benches. We quite forgot that we were hungry.
Sid Roho taught me how to rub the shoes to get the dust off, then how to polish them without getting the laces dirty and, finally, how to go over them with a cloth to make the leather shine. At the end of the day, he entrusted two pairs of shoes to me that were difficult at first, but which I managed to clean acceptably. Then he went and sat on a low wall to rest for a while and left me to get on with it by myself.
‘Well?’ he asked when he returned.
‘I’ve no complaints.’
‘That’s you set up, then. Now give everything back to me,’ he said, seeing a policeman approach. ‘I need to make some real money today.’
The policeman immediately stuck out his foot, raising the hem of his trouser leg so as not to get it dirty. Sid Roho displayed his skills with unusual dexterity, as if the uniform inspired a particular enthusiasm in him. At the end, the policeman grunted with satisfaction and went on his way without putting his hand in his pocket.
‘He didn’t pay you.’
‘He doesn’t have to, I suppose,’ Sid Roho said, putting his equipment back in the box. ‘Only, he’s made a big mistake.’
When we were some distance away, he took a whistle from his pocket.
‘That copper thought he could get away with anything,’ he said, excited. ‘Well, so do I, my friend. I pinched that stingy bastard’s whistle.’
‘How did you do that?’
‘The ways of the Lord are unfathomable.’
He was really impressive.
That evening, we didn’t go straight back to Graba. Sid Roho was determined to show me the extent of his daring. When night had fallen on the city, he took me to a neighbourhood lit by gas lamps. No sooner did he start blowing the whistle than other whistles sounded in the surrounding area and we saw two policemen run past. Sid Roho was doubled up with laughter, his hand pressed to his mouth. ‘I’m going to drive them crazy all night long, those uniformed skinflints who won’t pay a penniless shoeshine boy.’ Thinking the alarm had been raised, the policemen inspected the area thoroughly before withdrawing. Sid Roho took me to another neighbourhood and repeated the performance. Again, other whistles answered him. Again, we had a good laugh and moved on to a different area. The poor cops sped past us, holding their kepis down with one hand while clutching their truncheons with the other, bumping into each other as they turned corners, yelling orders at each other, running back the way they had come, before finally, panting, driven to distraction by the fact that they couldn’t understand what was going on, they went morosely back to their station. Huddled in the shadows, Sid Roho and I laughed until we cried, our feet pedalling in the air, our throats tight with the effort to keep as quiet as possible. This practical joke of ours gave us goose pimples, it was so wonderful and at the same time so scary. A few streets further on, Sid Roho took out his whistle once more and started all over again. The poor policemen emerged from the darkness, looked around like disorientated spaniels, and set off again on their wild goose chase. One of them, out of breath, wheezing like a dying animal, came close to our hiding place and threw up. It was an amazing sight, which almost made me throw up too. I was laughing so much I could barely stay upright and had to beg Sid Roho to give it a rest. Towards midnight, absolutely delighted by our prank, we got back to Graba to enjoy a well-earned sleep.
In the morning, the ghetto was like a punch in the face.
Now that I had seen Sidi Bel Abbès, I didn’t want to see anything else.
In Graba, there were no shop windows, no bandstands, no esplanades lined with verdant hedges, no dance halls. There was only the stench that gnawed at our eyes and throat; the shacks blackened with use and overgrown with weeds; the dogs trailing their colonies of fleas from one end of the shanty town to the other, so skinny you could have played the zither on their ribs; the beggars huddled in their own shadows and the bare-bottomed brats running in all directions like mad things.
I could no longer bear this hell that fried our brains and dried our veins without leaving us a drop for our tears. One moonless night, I vowed, I would set fire to it and watch the flames destroy these dishevelled slums that wanted me to believe they were my graveyard and I was a ghost.
‘What’s the matter?’ Mekki asked, catching me talking to myself on the doorstep of our shack.
‘I want us to leave here.’
‘On what? A flying carpet? We can’t afford it. Why don’t you get back to the hammam instead of talking nonsense?’
‘The owner fired me.’
He almost choked. ‘When was this?’
‘A week ago.’
‘Why didn’t you say anything?’
‘You get angry about a lot less.’
‘What did you do this time?’
‘It wasn’t my fault.’
‘Whose was it – mine? If you can’t even hold down a job, how do you plan to leave here? You should follow Nora’s example. She works so hard, she’s almost worn her fingers to the bone. And she doesn’t complain. And what about your mother? And your aunt? As for me, I’ve forgotten what having a rest means, while you don’t seem to care that we have no money.’
‘I couldn’t force him to keep me.’
‘He’s a reasonable man. But you just do whatever comes into your head, if you still have one, that is. I’m fed up with you being under my feet.’
‘I’m going to work for myself.’
Mekki gave a brief, dry laugh, a kind of irritable hiccup. ‘For yourself? Are you planning to start a business? With what, may I ask? With your fingers up your nose?’
‘I’m going to be a shoeshine boy.’
Mekki staggered as if the sky had fallen on his head. He frowned to make sure he had heard correctly, then, his face ashen and his nostrils dilated with anger, he grabbed me by the throat and pushed me up against the wall with the clear intention of seeing me disappear through it.
‘A shoeshine boy? Nobody in our family has ever kissed the feet of a master. Our houses may be nothing but ruins, our fields may have been confiscated, but we still have our honour. When are you going to get that into your head, you mangy dog?’
I pushed him away angrily. ‘Don’t insult me.’
‘Is there a worse insult than lowering yourself to polish the shoes of your fellow men?’
‘It’s a living, like any other. And I don’t want you ever to raise your hand to me again. You’re not my father.’
‘I’d tear your heart out with my bare hands if I was your father. And since I’m the one who gives the orders here, I forbid you to dishonour the name of our family. A shoeshine boy! That’s all we need. What’ll you do when your brush is worn out – shine shoes with your tongue?’
I didn’t know any more whether to laugh or cry. Mekki dared to talk to me about honour and abstract, solemn duties while I sniffed shame with every breath of air. Was he blind or stupid? Didn’t he understand that I was as determined as he was to flee this backwater of canvas and zinc, where people kept their rotten luck like an ember still smouldering beneath the ashes and refusing to die? Didn’t he understand that I had
just become aware of a reality other than the one I’d always thought was our lot, that at the very moment I was confronting him I was becoming someone else, that it was Sunday, a Sunday unlike any other, no longer just the day of the Lord and Roumis, but a crucial day that would stand out for me and that there are some dates that matter more than others, in which you are born again? I didn’t yet have the words to express these things, but I felt them deep inside. It was a strange feeling, nagging and confused, like the one you feel when you have a name on the tip of your tongue and you just can’t find it. And I was determined to find it.
Sid Roho advanced me the money to buy a box, brushes and polish, and I set off in search of shoes to shine. I soon realised that I wasn’t the only one who’d had that idea. I needed to negotiate according to the current rules, because competition was tough and supply was limited. The Arab kids who did the same job as me were quick with their fists and didn’t hold back once they’d got the intruder on the ground. But I held firm and defended my territory.
What mattered to me was to make as much money as possible to allow Mekki to find us a house in stone on a real street, in a real neighbourhood with street lighting that came on at night and shops with window displays. I wanted to see high society pass beneath my window, take a moment’s rest on a public bench and – why not? – believe that I was a man of my time, capable of making the most of it. To do that, I had to earn the right to dream and the right to hope. I didn’t deceive myself that I would ever achieve the same status as a Roumi: it wasn’t my territory; but it wasn’t unreasonable for a poor boy to find another way, another destiny, and, with a bit of luck, to escape once and for all those disaster areas where songs echoed like curses, and where tomorrows were inspired by yesterdays as dark as night. I had seen a few Arabs who’d apparently done well for themselves. They wore neat suits and there wasn’t the slightest stain on their fezzes. They walked among Roumis without tripping up and lived in whitewashed houses with doors that could be locked and shutters at the windows – the kind of houses I dreamt about. And that had given me confidence.
The Angels Die Page 5