Old Bébert virtually worshipped his customers’ cars. He handled them as if they were made of nitroglycerine or porcelain. He even sometimes polished them in places with the end of his apron. His customers came from the city’s nouveaux riches, people who cared about appearances and displayed their social status like war veterans displaying their medals, proud of the struggle that had led them from the gutter to the heights when nobody would have given them much chance of survival.
You had to see these toffs leaving their cars with us. So many detailed instructions, insistent recommendations, adamant warnings. They wouldn’t leave the garage until they had made sure that their ‘gem’ was in good hands, promising large tips to the deserving and a thunderbolt from heaven for the slightest scratch on the bodywork.
Bébert kept an eye on things. He had surrounded himself with a team of four hand-picked specialist mechanics whom he ruled with a rod of iron and pushed hard. He had given me simple jobs to do: changing the wheels, cleaning the seats and the floors, polishing the bodywork and other safe little things, which didn’t stop me watching the others working because I wanted to learn the trade.
The team ended up adopting me. There were two old mechanics who had worked in factories, a young Corsican named Filippi who knew engines like the back of his hand, and Gino. The atmosphere was good and we worked relentlessly, telling each other a load of gossip about such and such a nabob and jokes that kept us human among the scrap iron and the smells of fuel.
After a few months, Bébert put me together with Gino. At last I had the right to touch the innards beneath the bonnets. I could connect a hose, replace a coil, clean a carburettor, adjust a headlight.
I was earning decent money, and not once had I been lectured by the boss.
But this respite was not to last.
It was about four in the afternoon. We were on schedule to deliver a superb vehicle which a customer had entrusted to us for a complete overhaul, a Citroën B14 touring car that looked as if it had come straight off the assembly line. Its owner, a red-headed muscle man with a broken nose, was crazy about it. He couldn’t stop running his finger over the bonnet to wipe away imperceptible specks of dust. When he came back for it and saw it waiting for him, all shiny and new, in the middle of the garage, he put his hands on his hips and stood there gazing at it for a while, then turned to his companion to see if he was as impressed as he was. ‘Lovely, isn’t she, my old crock? Girls won’t be able to resist me.’ Then he opened the door and his face suddenly turned dark red. ‘What’s this shit?’ he roared, pointing to a grease stain on the white leather seat. Gino came running to have a look. The customer took him by the throat and lifted him off the floor. ‘Do you know how much my old crock cost? You could spend your whole life forging banknotes and you wouldn’t be able to afford her, you slob.’ I grabbed a cloth and rushed over to wipe the seat, but all that did was to spread the grease further on the leather. Horrified by my clumsiness, the customer uttered a fierce curse and, letting go of Gino, gave me a slap that made me spin round. Gino didn’t have time to grab me round the waist. My arm threw a lightning hook and the customer collapsed like a house of cards. He writhed weakly on the floor, shuddered two or three times and went stiff. His companion stood there petrified, leaning back as if about to retreat. The mechanics stopped what they were doing and looked at us open-mouthed. Gino lifted his hands to his temples, devastated; I guessed that I had just committed a capital crime. Old Bébert burst out of his booth, white-faced with panic. He pushed me aside and bent over the customer. In the icy silence of the garage, all that could be heard was the heavy breathing of old Bébert, who didn’t know which to tear out: his hair or my eyes. ‘Have you gone mad?’ he screamed at me, rising again to his full height, shaking from head to foot. ‘You dare raise your hand to a customer, you toerag, you maggot? Is that how you repay me? I give you a job and you attack my customers? I don’t want to see you again. Get out of here. Go back to your cave until the police come for you. Because, trust me, you’re going to pay for this.’ I threw the cloth on the ground and went to get changed. Bébert ran after me, continuing to insult me while I took off my overalls and put my street clothes back on. His salivating mouth sprayed me with spittle and his eyes had a murderous look in them. He went back and helped the customer to his feet. The man was still dazed and couldn’t stand up straight. They put him in his car as best they could and his companion immediately started the engine. When the car left the garage, Bébert laid into Gino. He blamed him for my behaviour, held him responsible for the consequences of my attack and told him that he too was fired.
We trudged back to Boulevard Mascara. Gino walked silently, stricken, his head down. I was devastated, but I couldn’t find the words to apologise for the wrong I had done him. When we got to his place, he asked me to leave him, which I did.
Sitting on the doorstep of our courtyard, I was waiting for the promised Black Maria. I imagined myself at the police station, subject to the wrath of the cops. I had hit a European, they weren’t going to treat me with kid gloves. I knew Arabs who had found themselves in jail on a hunch, sometimes simply to be made an example of. And the fellow I had knocked out couldn’t have been just anybody, judging by his big car and Bébert’s panic.
The sun was starting to go down, but there was still no sign of the police. Were they waiting for nightfall to surprise me in my bed? I was sick to my stomach. I didn’t know what to do with my hands, which were sticky with tension. I remembered all the horrible stories I’d been told about prisons and the inhuman treatment meted out to prisoners. I panicked every time I heard a screech of tyres …
Instead of the police, it was three Europeans who came to see me: a stocky old man with a paunch, a straw boater pulled down over his head, and two other men, one stocky and bald, the other tall and thin – I’d seen this one at the local cinema, where he worked as a pianist, accompanying silent films.
‘Are you Turambo?’ the old man asked me.
‘Why do you want to know?’
‘You work at Bébert’s garage?’
‘Yes.’
He held out his hand, but I didn’t take it, afraid he would hit me with the other hand.
‘My name’s De Stefano. The fellow with glasses is Francis, and this is Salvo. I run a gym in Rue Wagram, just opposite the Porte du Ravin. Everyone’s talking about you, son. Filippi, who works with you, told me you knocked out Left-Hand with a single blow. I can’t get over it. Actually, nobody can get over it.’
‘Do you know who Left-Hand is?’ the bald man asked me.
‘No.’
‘He’s the only boxer in the Oran region to have stood up to Georges Carpentier. Three fights, and he never went down. You do know who Georges Carpentier is?’
‘No.’
‘He’s North African champion and world champion. He beat Battling Levinsky. Do you know who Battling Levinsky is?’
‘Stop,’ the pianist said. ‘You’re confusing him with your “Do you know who this man is?” and “Do you know who that man is?” He probably doesn’t even know who his own father is.’
The old man told his companions to keep quiet, then said to me, ‘Listen, son. What would you say to joining my gym?’
‘The police will be coming for me.’
‘They won’t. A boxer doesn’t lodge a complaint when he gets beaten outside the ring. It’s a matter of honour. Either he demands a return match or he throws in the towel. Left-Hand won’t be going to any police station to report you, I guarantee it. You have nothing to fear from that quarter … So, will you accept my offer? Who knows? You may be a champion and you don’t even know it. We’re one big happy family in Rue Wagram. We know how to make a top boxer, all we need is the boy. According to Filippi, you like to use your fists, and that’s already the mark of a champion.’
‘I don’t like fighting. I just defend myself.’
‘You don’t seem in a fit state to think clearly right now,’ the pianist said, wiping his dark glasses o
n his sweater. ‘We don’t want to force your hand. These things are too serious to be taken lightly. We’ll come back tomorrow and talk it over with a clear head. Is that all right with you?’
‘Or you could come and see us at the gym,’ the old man suggested. ‘Then you’ll be able to see for yourself what it’s all about. Allow me to insist on this, my boy. You really look like a champion. You’re well built and you look people straight in the eye. I’ve been in this business for twenty years and I’ve learnt to recognise a rare bird when I see one. We’ll wait for you tomorrow morning. If you don’t show up, we’ll come back here and find you. Will you promise to wait for us, just in case?’
‘I don’t know, Monsieur.’
The old man nodded. He pushed his hat back on the top of his head without taking his eyes off me. Again, he held out his hand, and this time I took it.
‘So, Turambo, can I count on you?’
‘I’m not that keen on fighting, Monsieur.’
‘We’re not talking about a street brawl, son. Boxing is a skill. It’ll open lots of doors for you. You can earn a heap of money and privileges, and everyone’s respect. Respect is important for someone from the gutter. In fact it’s one of the few opportunities an Arab gets to rise in the world and he shouldn’t miss it. I don’t know why, but something tells me you won’t miss your opportunity. Think about it tonight. Tomorrow we’ll talk.’
All three of them said goodbye and left.
They came back the next day, and the days after that. Sometimes together, sometimes separately. The old man promised me the earth. He told me his intuition had never let him down and that I was a real centaur. It was as if his future depended on my decision. He was so friendly I was afraid to disappoint him. I promised him I’d think about it. He told me that was the one thing I’d been doing for two weeks now, and that it all boiled down to one question: should I become a boxer or continue to roast in the sun?
Gino found the offer interesting. ‘All you ever do is fight,’ he remarked in a slightly reproachful tone. ‘Boxing is a job like any other. The guy you knocked out in the garage was nothing but a roughneck before he got in the ring. You saw the car he drove, the clothes he wore. If you learn quickly, you can climb the ladder and be rich and famous.’
Encouraged by Gino, I asked my uncle for advice. Mekki utterly disapproved of my wish to join the gym in Rue Wagram. ‘It’s a sin,’ he decreed. ‘You don’t dip your bread in other people’s blood. If you want to bless your food, water it with the sweat of your brow. Any profession that throws two people into a ring like animals isn’t a profession, it’s a perversion. I forbid you to raise your hand to your fellow man to earn a crust. We’re believers, and no faith condones violence.’
When De Stefano came back the next time, I informed him that the family council had made its decision and that I wouldn’t be a boxer. He was so upset, he didn’t know what to say. He took off his hat, wiped his head with a handkerchief and stared at the toes of his shoes for five or six minutes before withdrawing with a heavy heart.
Back to square one.
A wholesale merchant hired me for his ironmonger’s in Rue d’Arzew. From morning to evening, I pushed a cart laden with all kinds of tools which I had to deliver to the different shops in the neighbourhood. My employer, an old Maltese riddled with rheumatism, was kind, but his customers would always find something to blame me for and would yell at me for any fault in the merchandise as if I was the one who had made it. I was ill at ease in those well-to-do neighbourhoods where the rattle of trams and the shrill blare of car horns drowned out the murmur of simple things. I held out for a few months, but after a while I’d had enough.
I was no longer the hungry kid ready to take on any cheap task, and employers were suspicious of hardened labourers. The foremen on building sites would shake their heads at me from a distance. The warehouse owners would pretend to look elsewhere. I was firmly rejected everywhere. In the harbour, there were lots of people willing to work for peanuts. The fights that broke out among the men jostling for work quickly sorted the wheat from the chaff. When the gate closed behind the lucky ones, the rejects immediately looked for scapegoats to take it out on. Poverty had reduced the unemployed to a state lower than that of wolves, and woe betide the man who succumbed. On one occasion, I almost didn’t escape with my life either. A big brute had caught his hand between the two halves of the gate. The recruiter ordered him to move away. The brute couldn’t obey because of his trapped hand. The recruiter started beating him with his club until the poor fellow’s face was streaming with blood. I threw myself at the recruiter and his big arms descended on me like vultures. Nobody came to my rescue. Not even the brute himself, who, in order to be noticed by the recruiter and show him how loyal he was in spite of the attack, took the liberty of finishing off the job after the thugs had left. He kicked me in the back, yelling that nobody raised his hand to Monsieur Créon. He yelled louder and louder so that the recruiter could still hear him as he walked away. The brute didn’t get hired that day, but he was convinced he had scored a point. After he’d finished with me, he knelt down next to me and said, ‘I’m sorry. I have twelve mouths to feed and no other way out. I’d sell my soul to the devil for peanuts …’
Gino had found a job at a printing works in Rue de Tlemcen. He no longer bore me a grudge for the incident at the garage. ‘I wasn’t planning to work there for the rest of my life anyway,’ he admitted. On the evenings when a neighbour volunteered to keep his mother company, Gino took me to cafés-concerts to hear musicians and singers. My uncle’s partner the Mozabite, who was a lyric writer in his spare time, used to say: Music is the proof that we are capable of continuing to love despite everything, of sharing the same emotion, of being ourselves a wonderful, healthy emotion, as beautiful as a dream emerging in the dead of night … What is an angel without his harp but a sad, naked demon, and what would paradise be for him but an exile full of boredom? Gino was absolutely of the same opinion. He loved music. Unlike me. I only liked the Kabyle songs my mother hummed while going about her household chores, but, going around with Gino, I was starting to discover new worlds. Before him, I didn’t know anything about films or different kinds of music. Gradually, my senses had opened to other people’s joys, and I wanted more.
A good-natured rivalry forced the musicians to excel. From Medina Jedida to the Casbah by way of the Derb, the singers warded off ill fortune just by clearing their throats. For my part, I started showing Gino what my own people could do. I took him to a Moorish café down a dead-end street in Sidi Blel, frequented by those in the know. There was a highly experienced violinist, a lute player, a derbouka, and a singer with vocal cords as solid as ropes. Gino fell in love with the group. He promised me that one day he would write a book about the music of the different neighbourhoods of Oran.
Times were hard, especially for the people of my community. My people could still cling to the flotsam, but they weren’t allowed on board the ship. The greater the poverty, though, the less the people of Oran gave in to it. Anger and humiliation might have been rife in the streets, but the wounds healed by themselves whenever the sound of the mandolin replaced the cacophony of men. In any case, we had no choice: either we listened to music or we gave in to our frustrations. These cafés were warm, welcoming places where the poor could find some respite and even, for a few hours, imagine that they were privileged. They sat on rickety chairs, their fezzes or tarbooshes tilted ostentatiously over their temples, some in suits, others in fine traditional robes. The better off among them smoked nargileh and sipped mint tea while on a makeshift stage legendary tenors took turns, men nourished by their native soil. By taking refuge in the music, I was leaving my furies behind. It was my way of hearing the sound of another bell, of feeling lucky for as long as the singing lasted, of drowning my sorrows in the sorrows of the lyric writers. It was only a brief reprieve, but for a lost soul like me it was almost a moment of grace.
Whenever Gino took his leave of me, I didn’t
dare go back home immediately. I would continue to wander the dark alleys until morning, the songs still echoing in my head. In order to be left in peace, I told my family that I was a nightwatchman.
It was a Friday.
My mother had come home later than usual, tottering with exhaustion. I asked her what was wrong.
‘She made me brush her hair three times in a row,’ she sighed, throwing her veil into a corner. ‘I think she’s losing her mind.’
My mother was talking about Madame Ramoun.
‘She’s been raving since midday,’ she went on once she had quenched her thirst. ‘I didn’t know if I should listen to her or finish the housework. The poor woman’s not acting normally. She kept reciting something in a language which wasn’t Spanish, French, Arabic or Kabyle. I think she’s possessed.’
‘It must have been Italian,’ I said. ‘Did she fire you?’
My mother told me to let her catch her breath. She lay down on a sheepskin rug and slid her arm under her head as a pillow. ‘She’s asking for you, my son. She wants to see you. She won’t take no for an answer.’
I went to get a box of Pernot biscuits, which Gino’s mother was particularly fond of, and proceeded to Boulevard Mascara.
The door wasn’t locked.
I called to my friend and he came out onto the balcony and signalled to me to come up. I didn’t like the darkness on the stairs. A vague sense of foreboding clutched at my heart.
Gino was sitting on his mother’s bed with a defeated look on his face. Madame Ramoun lay spread over the mattress, gasping for air, a Bible on her chest. She slowly turned her head towards me. Her eyes lit up when she recognised me. She gave me a sad smile and motioned to me to come closer. Gino gave up his seat for me and stood by his mother’s bedside. I sat down on the edge of the bed, with a pang in my heart.
The Angels Die Page 11