Harraga (23 page)

There’s no need to look, everything is within reach. The place is teeming. Here the little people do their shopping far from laws and from harassment. From an aerial viewpoint, you’d swear they were free electrons, but no, they are controlled by gravitational force. The area attracts teenage runaways the way nectar attracts bees. They’ve been told that this is the gateway to a new life and that, as with any travel agency, there are endless choices of destination. Two hundred metres away, abutting the harbour walls in glorious confusion, stand the bus and train stations and between them, on a patch of waste ground, are the gypsy cabs, a riot of clapped-out rustbuckets, every one in perfect working order. ‘Direct from producer to consumer’ is a slogan from the socialist era, but it applies perfectly to the black market.

The elegant women of Algiers also frequent the square; it is the only place where they can find perfume from Paris imported from Taiwan via Dubai. People say that at customs the sniffer dogs are trained not to smell perfumes but that’s just a joke the kids tell; in fact in Algiers there are no sniffer dogs in customs – if there were all hell would break loose. The elegant ladies turn up here dressed like paupers hoping to pass unnoticed but their pale complexions and their strange lisping accent give them away and prices are hiked up.

‘She came up to me outside La Grande Poste. I . . . I buy imported perfume there . . . you can’t find anything in the shops.’

‘I get what I need from Tata Zahia who used to work at the Union. She runs a little shop from home. It’s all good stuff, and direct from Paris, too, if you please! She’s a genuine trafficker, honest, friendly, she’ll even have a little chat over a glass of mint tea. Sometimes there are fifty people there and we have a party. She has a cousin who’s a minister and he supplies her on the quiet. I’ll recommend you. So, what happened next?’

‘I brought her back to my rooms in the halls of residence . . . I felt sorry for her . . .’

‘Did she have her holdall?’

‘What?’

‘Her clothes, her gear.’

‘Um . . . yeah.’

‘So how is she? I mean the pregnancy . . . is she eating properly?’

‘Um . . . yes. I couldn’t let her move in with me, my room is tiny . . . besides I need peace and quiet to study . . . and anyway, it’s against the rules . . .’

‘So where does she sleep?’

‘Sometimes my room, sometimes one of the other girls . . . we organised a rota . . . whenever she needs to move, we distract the caretaker. During the day, she goes for a walk in the city, and . . .’

‘And?’

‘. . .’

Chérifa is slippery as an eel. After a week of doing nothing, of strolling in the sunshine, she hooked up with a homeless man who smelled of damp straw, he was succeeded by some useless cop, then an incompetent journalist and now, apparently, she’s run off with an airline pilot we don’t know the first thing about beyond the fact that he dresses too well to be honest.

‘We’re worried. She’s been gone a week now. The girls are really fond of her, she’s so happy-go-lucky but she . . . um . . . well she’s due any day now so she shouldn’t be . . .’

They’ve clearly been charmed by the siren song of my Lolita.

‘I know, I know.’

‘So what do we do?’

‘Track down the pilot, it can’t be that difficult, there’s only one airline in this country last time I checked. It’s called Air Algérie, right? We’ll just wait until he ejects from his glider.’

‘I . . . um . . . I don’t want any trouble . . .’

‘I’ll deal with everything. I’ll pop in and see him unexpectedly, the same way you came to see me. Did Chérifa give you my address?’

‘Not exactly . . . I had to search. She talked about you all the time, about Rampe Valée, the Turk’s palace, the Frenchman’s castle, the Jew’s shack, the Kabyle’s cave . . . I . . . um . . . I couldn’t understand why the house had so many names.’

‘It’s history, it’s complicated. So, what then?’

‘She mentioned the Hôpital Parnet, she talked about your friends, about Mourad, Sofiane, Monsieur 236.’

‘
235!
I’m not intimate with every driver who works for GAUTA!’

‘Sorry, Monsieur 235 . . . Missing Parts and Bluebeard, the gorgon from the rue Marengo . . . and . . . well . . . your ghosts . . . the ones in the house, I mean.’

‘Well how do you like that? A veritable menagerie!’

‘She’s very fond of you, and she really is very sorry. One day she actually went to see you at the hospital and she came back so upset . . . You were in a terrible mood and she didn’t dare talk to you.’

‘Let’s dispense with sentimentality for the moment, just give me the facts. So what happened next?’

‘. . .’

I choked back my tears, I would have to hear this drama out to the bitter end if I was to understand.

So, she had met some peasant in the woods next to the university campus. It’s the sort of place that attracts lovers trying to get away from prying eyes and radical preachers. Our two country bumpkins meet and realise they are kindred souls and before you know it they’re embroiled in some vegetarian discussion. They pretend they’re living in a commune, they draw up a list, life is beautiful. Their little game lasts a week before things turn sour. ‘
He’s as much fun as a lizard,
’ she said. That’s Chérifa all over, the minute she’s bored, she’s off.

The next day, some other freak was trailing her back to the halls of residence. No need for binoculars to spot this one, the other girls knew immediately where this nasty piece of work came from. The dark glasses, the walkie-talkie glued to the ear, that swagger like a boat putting out to sea, that arrogance that says you have the world at your feet and a Colt 45 swinging by your side, these are the hallmarks of an institution, the most important institution in this country: the police.

Her new companion offered Chérifa a season ticket to the seediest parts of Algiers which, if Mourad is to be believed, are among the most stomach-turning in the solar system. Things move at a break-neck pace, Chérifa learns to smoke, to drink, to fight, to strike a pose and she also learns a new vocabulary. The other girls stop their ears and listen, the little fool dropped words like bombs. She would go out at ridiculous hours, come back at all hours without so much as a by-your-leave. The girls at the halls of residence couldn’t handle it, one by one they closed their doors to her. Young women from good families are more terrified by a whiff of scandal than they are by terrorism. The caretakers started to grumble openly, the rumours spread. Attracted by the scent, dubious cars began showing up on the campus. Before long the sticklers came out of the woodwork claiming that stranglers were operating in the area. I suspect this means the sermonisers and the Defenders of Truth. It’s high time we standardised the vocabulary, we can’t go on using different words for the same things. The problem is people stammer and shift and shilly-shally about anything to do with Islam. It’s like the Tower of Babel, people say stickler, strangler, cut-throat, Islamist, lunatic, fanatic, fundamentalist, terrorist, suicide bomber, jihadist, Wahhabi, Salafist, Djazarist, Taliban, Tango, Zarqaouist, Afghani, born in the
banlieue
, member of al-Qaeda and I don’t know what else – it’s like these people had nothing to do with Islam. But they’re all basically the same person with different clothes and different beliefs. The specialists should at least agree on their terms, that way we would be able to have a frank discussion about the problem, but let’s be honest, if Islam is responsible for anything, it’s producing Muslims, there’s no way of knowing how they will turn out later, and there’s no after-sales service. For crying out loud, if people have children, they should keep them under control.

Chérifa imposed herself on Scheherazade, a seven-month swollen belly commands respect. But Chérifa did not change her ways. A few days later, she showed up with a clueless journalist who had a pen tucked behind his ear and a newspaper tucked under his arm. Scheherazade, who has a mouthful of peculiar expressions from her part of the country, dispatched him quickly: ‘A skinny little runt who wouldn’t need to catch a sheep to play knucklebones.’ The handover between policeman and journalist did not go well, there was a punch-up and the newshound found himself in hospital with cuts and contusions. The following day, the front-page story in his newspaper read:
Our star reporter K.M. suffered a savage beating from police officers as a result of his hard-hitting investigation into the misconduct of Inspector H.B., who has been implicated in a major arms-dealing racket with the Islamist maquis
. Scheherazade showed me a press clipping. What a story!

The authorities’ response came the following day via the pages of the government daily
El Moudjahid
(The Holy Warrior), from which Truth spills out over the country. Under the banner headline
there is journalism and then there is journalism
, it reads:
It has been discovered that Monsieur K.M., a disgrace to a profession that has done so much for democracy, is involved in drug trafficking on a vast scale in collaboration with a certain sister country whose hatred for our homeland is matched only by its vicious oppression of the heroic Saharan people engaged in a legitimate struggle for independence recognised by the international community, and with certain groups in Algiers known for their pathological greed and their contempt for the extraordinarily progressive policy initiated by the President of the Republic. When challenged by the heroic Inspector H.B., the suspect attempted to corrupt the officer, offering him the services of a prostitute known to the police, a certain C.D., however the gallant officer, a man of irreproachable morals, flatly refused. Concerned by the seriousness of the facts alleged, and alarmed at the effects on law and order, the Public Prosecutor immediately issued a warrant for the arrest of Monsieur K.M. and ordered a search of the newspaper’s offices. The case continues.

What has Morocco got to do with any of this? And what, precisely, has the President’s policy achieved? God, how these people love things to be complicated!

The university campus witnessed a brief war of attrition between the press and the police, and then everything went back to normal, the journalist vanished without trace, the newspaper was shut down, the offices auctioned off and the editor got two years’ hard labour. While they were about it, the police interrogated and tortured a few other journalists as a precaution. The inspector was not forgotten in all this chaos: he received a promotion.

Chérifa, having brought disgrace on the university halls of residence, was formally requested to leave the premises. There was nothing else the girls could do, their exams were looming, their parents were panicking and visiting more often. This was no time for jokes.

Chérifa wandered the city for a while before hooking up with the pilot in a café next door to the offices of Air Algérie. Scheherazade caught a glimpse of him behind the wheel of his magnificent car when the runaway returned to campus to collect her belongings. Fortysomething and with a little paunch, the pilot looked quite dapper and seemed to be a cheerful character. Scheherazade thought she heard the shameless hussy refer to him as ‘Rachid’.

Their goodbyes were minimal, since the little madam is incapable of saying good morning or goodnight.

Since then, there had been no news. Had she taken the train? Had she gone back to Oran? Is she somewhere else and, if so, where?

Curtain. End of drama. Now, I could let myself weep.

Who would have believed that I, Lamia, a paediatrician, a strong-minded, intelligent woman, oblivious to everyday contingencies and immune to sentimentality, would be turning my life upside down for the sake of a little country girl who’s become a scarlet woman! I was filled with a curious feeling.
Guilt?
That’s certainly part of it, I smothered her and she ran away. Telling her she needed to be educated was another mistake, it made her feel a fool, cut off from the world.
Anger, the resentment that comes from failure, from . . .?
Not just that, rage, a desire to . . .
It’s envy, pure mother-daughter envy!
Yes, I suppose. Chérifa is happy to give her all to the first man who comes along, and yet I love her, I offered her my life, my home, and she refuses even to grace me with her presence. Not a single visit, not a phone call, not even a message. It’s stupid, it’s pathetic to get involved in such idiotic relationships.

What was it that I called her, what was the word I spat in her face when all she wanted was a smile, a glance, a hug?

I give up. I’ve already given her everything I had to give!

Louiza and Sofiane left me with deep scars, Chérifa ripped my heart out. It’s not fair. I’m done with it, I need to move on. I am not going to let this haunt me to my dying day.

‘So, tell me, my dear Scheherazade, do you really miss that lunatic so much that you’ve come all the way to Rampe Valée? Isn’t that a little like something out of a fairytale?’

‘We’re very fond of her . . . um . . . we . . .’

‘Go on.’

‘Well, um . . .’

‘I get it.’

We’re all in the same boat; like me, the girls at the university are filling an emptiness in their lives. Apart from their textbooks and their notebooks, they have nothing that makes them feel human. Their lives at the university felt hollow, formless, a prelude to their lives as women, a shadowgraph, a mere outline; they were hardworking, diligent, dutiful, submissive, slaves to timetables and rituals, and Chérifa, naive and happy-go-lucky, came along and challenged everything. In discovering our innermost dreams, we do not emerge unscathed. And, being women, we have too many dreams.