You Changed My Life (3 page)

In Algiers, my father went to work wearing cotton slacks and a suit jacket. He wore a short-sleeved button-down shirt and tie and polished his leather shoes every night. I guessed that he must have had an intellectual job that didn't get him dirty, but I didn't know which one and I didn't ask: I truly didn't care what he did. In Paris, my father put on a blue jumpsuit, and a heavy cap on his bald head, every morning. As an electrician, he never experienced unemployment. There was always work, he was often tired, he didn't complain—he joined the daily
grind. In both Algiers and Paris, my mother stayed at home to take care of the cooking, the cleaning and, theoretically, the children. But having never set foot in a typical French household, Amina was at a loss to imitate anyone at all. So she opted for doing what they do in her native country: she made us delicious meals and left the door wide open. I didn't ask for permission to go outside, and she wouldn't have thought of demanding any explanations. With Arabs, unsupervised freedom is granted without restrictions.

There's a statue in my new neighborhood. The same exact one
as in New York—I saw it on television. Okay, so maybe it's a little smaller, but anyway I'm six, I'm tiny, so to me it's enormous. It's a woman, standing, wearing only a sheet, she's lifting a flame to the sky and she's got a strange crown of thorns on her head. I now live in project housing in the XVth district. No more cramped apartment in old, boring central Paris—we're now citizens of Beaugrenelle, a brand-new district bristling with high-rises just like in America! The Sellou family has acquired a first-floor apartment in a seven-story building with no elevator, made of that red brick they call
pierre de Paris
. Life here is like in any other project in Saint-Denis, Montfermeil, or Créteil. Except we have a view of the Eiffel Tower. And by the way, I consider myself to be from the suburbs.

At the base of the tower, they built us an enormous shopping center with everything you need inside—you just have to
go down and serve yourself. I don't think I can say it enough: everyone bends over backward to make my life easier.

At the checkout in Prisunic, just within the reach of my little hand, are little plastic bags. And just next to that are shelves stuffed with all kinds of things and candies. I love the Pez candy dispensers, a kind of lighter topped with a plastic head: you push on the lever, the square piece of sugar comes up, and all you have to do is slide it onto your tongue. I quickly get myself an impressive collection. In the evening, I line up my favorite cartoon heroes in order of preference. My brother, that big buzzkill, interrogates me.

“Where'd you get the Beagle Boy Pez, Abdel Yamine?”

“It was a present.”

“I don't believe you.”

“Shut your trap or I'll punch you.”

He does what I say.

I also like boats, submarines, and tiny cars for the bath: you crank a lever on the side that lifts a mechanism and the machine starts going. On many occasions at the store, I fill entire bags with them. First, I go into the store, like all the other people who go to do their shopping, then I unfold a bag, make my selection, serve myself, and leave. One day, it occurs to me that I skipped a step. I should have gone through the checkout, according to the store manager.

“Do you have money?”

“Money for what?”

“To pay for what you just took!”

“What did I take? This? This costs money? What do I
know? And let go of me, first of all—you're hurting my arm!”

“Where is your mother?”

“I dunno, probably at home.”

“And where is that?”

“I dunno, somewhere.”

“Okay. Since you're playing tough guy, I'm taking you to the
poste
”—the police station.

Now I'm really confused. I know what the
poste
is—I've been there many times with Amina. We buy stamps or rent a phone booth so she can call her cousins in Algeria. What's that got to do with the Pez? Oh yeah, now I get it! At the
poste,
you can also get money. You give a piece of paper, signed with numbers on it, to the lady at the desk, and in exchange, she takes hundred-franc bills out of a little box. I look up at the store manager, who is holding me firmly by the hand—I hate that.

“Mister, there's no point in going to the
poste
. I won't be able to pay you because I don't have the little piece of paper!”

He looks at me stupidly, like he doesn't get it.

“What are you talking about? The police will take care of this, don't you worry!”

So this guy is obviously a complete idiot. There are no policemen at the post office, and even if we found one I doubt he'd pay for my candy . . .

We enter a gray hallway. This isn't the
poste
I know. The people are sitting in chairs against a wall. A man in a dark blue uniform checks us out from his desk. The store manager doesn't even say hello. He goes straight to the point.

“Officer, I've brought you this young thief I caught stealing red-handed in my store!”

Red-handed . . . this guy's watched
Colombo
too many times . . . I pout and tilt my head to the side: I try to look like Calimero, the cartoon chicken, when he gets ready to lisp his famous line: “Ittho unfair. Ith really tho unfair!” The manager makes it worse by presenting my loot to the on-duty officer.

“Look! A whole bag! And I bet it isn't the first time, either!”

The cop sends him on his way.

“Okay, okay, leave him with us. We'll take care of this.”

“Well, you make sure he's punished to the maximum! That'll teach him! I don't want to see him hanging around the store again!”

“Sir, I just said we'll take care of it.”

Finally, he goes. I stay there, standing, I don't move. I've stopped doing my impression of the poor little victim of an outrageous injustice. In fact, I've just realized I really don't care what happens now. It's not even that I'm not afraid: I don't know what I could be afraid of! There were bags there, just at my height, and candies, too, just within reach, so they should have known I was going to help myself, right? I'm being honest, I thought that's what they were there for—the Carambars, the strawberry Tagadas, the Mickey Mouse Pez, Goldorak, Albator . . .

The cop barely looks at me, takes me into an office where he presents me to his two colleagues.

“The manager of Prisunic caught him swiping from the shelves.”

I react immediately.

“Not from the shelves! Just next to the checkout, in the candy!”

The two others smile kindly. I don't know it then, but I'll never again meet such gentle faces in this place again.

“You like candy?”

“Well, yeah, of course.”

“Of course . . . so you'll tell your parents to buy it for you from now on, okay?”

“Yes . . . okay.”

“You know how to get back home by yourself?”

I nod.

“Well, that's good. Now go.”

I'm already halfway out the door. I hear them making fun of the store manager behind me.

“What did the guy think? That we were gonna throw the kid in the slammer?”

I'm the best. I managed to slip three chocolate-covered marshmallows into my pockets. I wait until I get past the street corner to taste the first one. I still have my mouth full when I get to the door of my building. I run into my brother, who's coming back from grocery shopping with Mother. He immediately suspects something.

“What are you eating?”

“A chocolate-covered marshmallow.”

“How'd you get it?”

“Someone gave it to me.”

“I don't believe you.”

I give him a big smile. All black with chocolate, no doubt.

The French grow up with a leash around their neck. That reas
sures their parents. They're controlling the situation. At least . . . that's what they think. I watched them coming to school in the morning. The parents would hold their offspring by the hand, they would walk them to the gate, they would encourage them for the day with all of their silly pep talk.

“Work hard, honey, be good!”

They thought they were giving their kids the strength they'd need to survive that pitiless jungle—the playground—where the parents themselves had been hazed thirty years before. But they were only making the children weaker.

To know how to fight, you have to have chosen your weapons. You can never start too early.

I was the smallest, not the toughest, but I always attacked first. I won every time.

“Give me your marbles.”

“No, they're mine.”

“Give 'em to me I said.”

“No, I don't want to!”

“Are you sure?”

“Okay! Okay! I'll give them to you . . .”

The lessons in the classrooms didn't interest me, and the worst thing was, they really took us for clowns. Revere the Yamine, they said. So, what, I was going to be ridiculed, standing in front of the class reciting a story about cows and frogs? That was for the white kids.

“Abdel Yamine, didn't you learn your poem?”

“What poem?”

“The fable from Jean de la Fontaine that you were supposed to learn for today.”

“Jean de la Fontaine? Why not
Manon des Sources
?”

“Well, the young man knows Pagnol!”

“I prefer Tylenol.”

“Out, Sellou!”

I loved getting kicked out of class. This punishment, the most humiliating of all, according to the teacher, gave me, more than anything else, excellent opportunities to do what I did best. Either the architect of Parisian schools never planned on naughty little Abdel coming along or he decided to make my job a whole lot easier: the coatracks are hung just outside the classrooms in the hallways! And what do you find in coat pockets? A franc or two, sometimes five on a good day, cookies and candy! So getting kicked out of class, well, it was paydirt.

I imagined the kids going home in tears that afternoon.

“Mommy, I don't understand what happened, my coins disappeared . . .”

“Well, once again, you didn't take care of your things. That's the last time I give you any money!”

Yeah right, until next time, and little Abdel's next harvest will be just as good . . .