Men Don't Cry

by Faïza Guène

  ‘It’s hard for everyone! We’ve all got our shit! I hate it when men cry, it’s disgusting. Listen, you’re good-looking, you’re fit and that jacket you’re wearing is worth at least half a grand. So enough with the crying…’

  He comforted Miloud with a hug, before opening a small gold handbag and offering him a tissue.

  ‘Come on! You’ve got a dose of the blues, but it’ll pass.’

  Then he turned back to his table of girlfriends and poured himself another glass of champagne. He stared at us as he raised his glass, as if to say: ‘To your health!’

  It was dawn when we left Le Saphir Bleu.

  We could hear the birds. The sound of birdsong in the small hours always raises my anxiety levels. If I were a musician composing the soundrack for a nightmare, the album would start with birdsong at dawn. Track 1: Scary Birds.

  Miloud staggered and I helped him as best I could. After a few metres, he wanted to take a leak, which he did, against a wall, saying, ‘I piss on every one of you. I piss on all millionnaires. I piss on exile.’

  You’d have thought he was reading the epitaph of one of the ‘accursed poets’.

  We kept switching direction every few minutes. I didn’t yet know Paris well enough and Miloud was far too disorientated.

  And then time stood still. An old man in white was walking towards us. He wore a chechia and djellaba and was clearly on his way to prayers. He bore an uncanny resemblance to our grandfather, Sidi Ahmed Chennoun. Miloud stared and began to sob.

  ‘What the hell am I doing with my life?’

  In the first métro of the morning, a black woman, her forehead pressed against the glass, was staring at her feet. A rosary in one hand, she rolled the small worn wooden beads between the tips of her slender fingers. Given the time of day, I guessed she was a cleaner for some sub-contractor, on her way to clean 15 or so offices before the official working day began. Her face was round and smooth. A beautiful woman who looked as worn as the beads on her rosary.

  Back at Liliane’s, we both crashed in the guestroom. Miloud passed out cold in the middle of the bed. Even with a drunk man lying across it, the advantage of a king-size is that you’ve still got enough room to stretch out like a pasha.

  Let’s Do Lunch

  I’d received her text the evening before. Meet at the Flore, first floor, métro Saint-Germain, 12.30?

  OK, I replied, adding an affectionate x but immediately deleting it. I was getting ahead of myself.

  Did Dounia arrange all her meetings at Café de Flore because of the connection with Simone de Beauvoir? If that was the case, and she’d got some deluded idea about being next in line among feminist icons, then this was going to be awkward.

  My nerves were shot, I was suffering from hot flushes and there appeared to be a watermelon in my belly.

  On top of feeling apprehensive about our reunion, there was also my sense of guilt. The guilt I still drag around with me. The guilt I’ll drag around all my life, like I’ve got some scrawny bitch on heat following me and sniffing my behind.

  I thought of Maman and Mina. What would they say? Was I joining the enemy camp? If they found out, they’d brand me a traitor. I know it may seem counter-intuitive, but acts of betrayal often start with good intentions.

  Of course, I arrived early for our meeting. By at least half an hour.

  I ordered a Perrier with a slice of lemon, before changing my mind: ‘Er, hold on!’ The waiter returned to my table. ‘Actually, I’ll have a café allongé instead…’ He looked annoyed. ‘Er, sorry, scratch that… I’ll have the Perrier, after all…’

  He huffed and puffed, turning on his heels again. I felt very foolish.

  There were three tourists on the neighbouring table, American girls, judging by their accents. ‘Phew,’ I thought, ‘non-French speakers, so they won’t have understood my spat with the grumpy waiter, or figured out how rubbish I am at asserting myself.’

  Like all American girls on holiday, they were wearing shorts. Very short shorts, with plenty of flesh on display. White, milky flesh, with skin so delicate you could almost see the blood in their veins. It made you want to pinch them and wait for a bruise to appear.

  One of the girls fished a slice of lemon out of her fizzy drink, then gave it to her friend who sank her teeth into it.

  I tried to copy her, but the acidity made my gums tingle and I pulled a face like the headlining chimpanzee in a travelling circus.

  I was thinking back to my conversation with my mother that morning. I had called home, not about anything in particular, just to find out everyone’s news.

  ‘My heart is cracked! It has been torn apart! I thought you were dead! I’m so disappointed. Am I not even worthy of a phonecall, in your eyes? Did you know that I go to sleep with your photo? The one of you wearing the blue shirt and your mouth braces… I thought you understood the value of a mother… Do you appreciate what it means to carry a child inside the womb? To feed him from your breast? To watch over him when he has a fever? To worry night and day on his behalf? I am mad! Hopping mad!’

  Eight days without phoning = end of the world.

  ‘Sorry, Maman. Forgive me. I was busy here. And it’s the first day of term on Monday, so I had to get everything ready.’

  Yes, I lied. The truth was, I’d been lounging about. Reading my favourite Russian authors, while lying in my underwear on a scandalously comfortable king-size bed. But now I was scared. Scared she’d rumble me, just from my voice. With her nif, her nose for sniffing things out, her Algerian mother’s intuition, I was convinced she’d realise I was plotting with the enemy.

  ‘You’re so ungrateful, all of you! Did you know that people who don’t behave well towards their mothers never amount to anything? Did you know that? They’re cursed!’

  ‘I know, Maman.’

  ‘What’s going on? You’re acting funny!’

  ‘Nothing, Maman. Everything’s fine!’

  ‘Are you sure about that? I can tell you’re hiding something from me! I know you, Mourad! Your voice, it’s not like normal!’

  ‘And I’m telling you, I’m fine, Maman.’

  ‘Ya Allah, have you slept with a women?! Is that it? Eh? Tell me the truth!’

  ‘Maman!!! No, there’s nothing! Stop it!’

  ‘You be careful. I can feel it when something’s going on, I can feel it in my womb.’

  ‘So anyway, how’s everything? What about Papa? Is he making progress with his neuro rehab?’

  ‘Things don’t progress with your father. They go backwards!’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘He’s got it into his head that it’s all pointless! I visit him in hospital every day God gives us! From noon to nine o’clock at night! I spoon the food right into his mouth. And I wash him, because he refuses to let anyone else do it! As for his rehab, he just tells us: “It’s not worth it! I’m too old! It’s all over for me!”

  ‘He’s so self-centred! The truth is, because of him it’s all over for me! He moans about everybody. The black nurses insult him in their own language, you know! And if I spoke that language, I’d do exactly the same.’

  ‘What about the doctors? What do they have to say?’

  ‘Tfffou, doctors! Tfffou! Why do they even bother with ten years of studies, eh? I bring them cakes, I bring them couscous, and what do they say to me? “Your husband doesn’t want to fight. We can’t do the work for him. He has to want it for himself!” I’ve seen the exercises they do, and they’re rubbish! They make him shell pistachio nuts and pick up coins. He barely moves his fingers.’

  ‘It’s called occupational therapy, Maman, it’s for his fine motor skills.’

  ‘Do you want to hear the best? Now, when he’s annoyed, he says to me: “The thing is, everyone will be happy when I’m dead!” Can you imagine? Yesterday, he said, “Djamila, throw me out of the window!” So what was my answer? “Even for that, you need me!”’

  ‘You’re still holding things together, though?’

 
‘If I don’t hold them together, who will? Eh? A son who phones me once a year? Let me tell you, my morale is at zero, zero, zero. Any other woman in my shoes would have packed her bags and headed for Algeria, without a backwards glance.… But I’m doing my duty. And it is my duty.’

  Of course Maman’s very dedicated. She always has been. And she’s making a big deal out of it too. She always does. That doesn’t bother me. What’s terrifying is that she expects as much back.

  Clearly, it wasn’t the moment to tell her that I was about to see my sister again.

  A week without a call from me and she was already grievously wounded, so I hardly dared imagine how she’d react. ‘By the way, Maman, I’m having lunch with Dounia at midday and I bet she’s going to badmouth you for hours behind your back.’

  Come to think about it, Big Baba isn’t the only one who might benefit from re-habilitation. Our whole family could do with some re-education: back to basics, picking up coins and shelling pistachios in our heads. Group therapy. Starting again from zero. Except it’s always the same refrain, nobody starts again from zero, not even the Arabs who invented it, as Big Baba would say.

  Dounia walked into the café. She was on her phone and glancing around, so I waved my right hand which was horribly clammy. She saw me and ended her call. I stood up. I was tense and as stiff as Mario.

  I won’t lie, it was very emotional. I was on the verge of tears, but Big Baba said men don’t cry, and the transvestite in Le Saphir Bleu, the one with the red wig, went further, saying it’s disgusting when men cry.

  It was weird seeing Dounia walking towards me. I stared at her. She looked thin.

  She placed her handbag carefully on the chair, hesitated, then threw herself at me. ‘Oh my God…Mourad!’ she kept saying, as she hugged me tight. She smelled of fruits-of-the-forest yoghurt. We stood there, staring at each other for the longest time.

  The Americans were shooting us discreet looks. Well, discretion, Midwest-style.

  ‘Oooh cuuuute!’ said one of them, wrinkling her nose.

  They must have thought it was a lovers’ tryst. Hello, team blonde shorts, you couldn’t be wider of the mark. There’s a whole other story playing out here.

  Same as the last time I’d seen her, there were tears in Dounia’s eyes as she opened her handbag. She was rummaging around for something. And it was taking forever.

  ‘Nice handbag,’ I said, to break the spell of feeling awkward.

  ‘Really? You like it? It’s from the new Balenciaga collection.’

  What could I add to that?

  ‘Here you go!’ she announced, finally producing a book from her luxury accessory and holding it out. ‘This is your copy. I’ve written inside it for you, but please don’t read my dedication now, it’d be embarrassing…’

  I had a quick flick-through and glanced at her photo on the cover. A beautiful portrait of Dounia. Her face looked less gaunt. The text on the promotional wrap-around band read: Director of the charity Speak Out Sister!

  ‘I hope you’ll find time to read it. You’ll give me your honest opinion, right?’

  Not on my life.

  ‘Of course!’

  The grumpy waiter returned to our table. He inquired very politely of Dounia what she’d like to drink. He was pulling out all the stops, with my sister and her little linen dress.

  Dounia ordered a diet drink. To match her bag and dress.

  In half an hour, I’d had plenty of time to down my glass. Not a single ice cube remained. Everything had melted.

  ‘So, are you coming to see Papa?’

  It wasn’t like I had any convincing arguments up my sleeves. I just sat there, arms splayed, elbows on the table, sucking through a straw.

  ‘Seeing Papa means seeing Maman and Mina again.’

  The Americans were heading off now. No doubt for a spot of shopping on the boulevard Saint-Germain.

  I stared idiotically at Dounia, willing her to agree. I felt like a job applicant at their first interview: limited qualifications, zilch experience, nothing to offer. The kind of candidate who’s hoping for a charm offensive. Except they answer in monosyllables – yes, no – and they’re so transparent you can see right through them. The kind of candidate who writes films, reading, travel under ‘Interests’ at the end of their CV.

  If I’d been interviewing me, I’d have extended a limp handshake and said, ‘We’ll let you know!’

  ‘Mourad, you should pay more attention to your posture,’ Dounia rebuked me. ‘You’ll end up with scoliosis!’

  So I sat bolt upright. ‘Sir, yes sir!’ I nearly answered.

  Military service is no longer compulsory in France, thank God. But if it were, my mother would have devised a cunning get-out plan, which would probably have involved getting me psychologically classified.

  Speaking of which, that was why Miloud enrolled at a university in Paris: to escape national service in Algeria. He was granted an exemption. ‘It wasn’t so much a brain drain,’ he confided, ‘as a case of cowards splitting!’

  Dounia bucked my expectations by ordering not warm goat’s cheese salad but steak tartare.

  Eating steak tartare? I’ll eat my hat if that’s not true integration for you.

  Because learning a language, respecting state institutions, embracing a country’s culture by cherishing its great writers, marching for the glory of the nation… all that counts for nothing compared to stuffing your face with raw chopped steak splatted with egg yolk and some condiments.

  Culture clash.

  Suddenly, I’m picturing Uncle Aziz, sitting at table with us. The reckless farmer who still takes pride in wearing his rezza, the traditional yellow turban he wraps around his head. The man who whispers in his sheeps’s ears before slitting their throats. Or who only has to spit out a fruit stone to make a tree grow.

  ‘Look, uncle, this plate of raw meat costs €27. That’s about 2800 dinars!’

  I can picture him shaking his head in bewilderment: ‘Tffffou!’

  Yes, no question about it, an appreciation of this expensive gastronomical muck represents an enormous step towards integration.

  I have to admit that it was with a certain amount of disgust I watched Dounia masticating her raw meat. I couldn’t help but think of the anonymous homo erectus, thanks to whom we owe the discovery of fire some 400,000 years before Jesus Christ. Dounia wasn’t doing him justice.

  I communicated our family news over the course of our meal. Or, at least, the bits I thought were essential.

  Dounia freaked out when she learned that Mina was married with three kids. Her eyes were as wide as those of a presidential candidate just before the results are announced.

  ‘What can I say? I feel so uncomfortable with these pre-ordained paths. Why lead a monumentally dull life, walking in Maman’s footsteps? Working at the care home, marrying a blédard…’

  ‘Who said he was from the home country? He was born here, just like us! Plus, Jalil’s a super nice guy.’

  ‘Yeah? I hope he’s not some kind of fanatic who’ll keep her stuck at home, force her to wear the veil, Macho & Co!’

  ‘Not at all! Stop it! Where’s all this coming from? You know as well as I do that nobody can force Mina to do anything.’

  I felt like emptying that plate of raw chopped meat into her handbag. Was I developing a new obsession?

  ‘What can I say…? Personally, I couldn’t do it.’

  ‘Couldn’t do what?’

  ‘Be in a relationship with a guy… who was just like me. Someone too similar to me.’

  ‘Jalil isn’t similar to Mina just because he happens to be an Arab. Take you, you’re her own sister and you two are complete opposites.’

  ‘That’s got nothing to do with it. I mean, he’s given her three kids! Settling down with a guy who shares the same heritage as you, the same references, the same codes, the same upbringing, well, you’re missing out on a lot of enrichment as a couple.’

  ‘Or not. You might be missing out on a l
ot of hassle.’

  I was thinking of Miloud and Liliane, who are hardly a role-model couple.

  In any event, if slamming the door in your parents’ faces and cutting off from your roots led to ‘enrichment’, we’d have known about it, and that’s for sure. For now, all I could see was that it led to cannibalism.

  We were both feeling a bit awkward after that conversation and Dounia, who’s a smart woman, despite her convictions and the caper caught between her teeth, sensed this.

  ‘Anyway, it’s not like I’m in a position to tell anyone what to do…. At 36, I’m unmarried and I don’t have any kids! Back in the bled, they’d have thrown me on the rubbish heap, at my age!’

  A deep sadness entered her gaze, framed by her smoky eyeliner.

  I felt sorry for my big sister.

  ‘What about you, Mourad? Are you with someone?’

  ‘Me? Er… no…I’m not with anybody.’

  ‘Really? How come? You haven’t turned out so badly!’

  I blushed.

  ‘I haven’t got the headspace for it. I work a lot.’

  ‘Working never stopped people falling in love!’

  She pulled out her gold bank card which she waved between two skinny fingers in the waiter’s direction. Like any self-respecting career woman, she settled the bill while listening to her messages, her Blackberry wedged between ear and shoulder.

  We hugged at length, but I felt as if I were holding a stranger in my arms. A stranger who smelled of fruits-of-the-forest yoghurt.

  ‘I don’t think I’m up for going by myself. I’d like us to go together.’

  So we agreed to make a date in two months’ time, during the next school holidays. That way, I’d have a chance to do some groundwork.