Boualem Sansal - Harraga

The rules of hospitality are what they are, but I really feel they could do with a little clarification. The matter of preconditions isn’t addressed, for example, or the problem of consequences. Before offering hospitality, it would be nice to know whether it’s compulsory, what the conditions are and whether — when it’s over and done with — you’ll have the strength to stomach the sense of indignation. We wouldn’t find ourselves so frequently put upon, upset, humiliated and disgraced if we took the necessary measures and sent people packing.

In this case, the bus driver — whose name, like the number on his vehicle — was 235, proved to be a crude but charming individual. I have fond memories of him.

This, then, was how things had played out, not in the way Mourad had suggested. Mourad obviously doesn’t understand the first thing about girls. No bus stations, no university halls of residence.

Whenever I come through a crisis, I tend to become a little crazy. I threw myself at Chérifa, prepared to tear her to pieces on the spot.

‘You could at least have let me know you were alive…’ I spat in her face. ‘You had me worried half to death!’

‘But, Tata, you said not to come back!’

‘I said, I said… that doesn’t mean you had to believe me!’

‘Well, as it happens, I didn’t believe you… that’s why I’m back.’

‘That’s still no reason!’

The bus driver was staring at us, his headlights on full. The day men finally learn to listen to women without standing around looking pathetic is still a long way off.

‘So tell me, my dear Monsieur 235, what were you doing when you crossed paths with Chérifa and what exactly have you done to her since?’

The guy was obviously not one of nature’s storytellers. He seemed to think that our actions are entirely decided by mektoub — fate. Which didn’t get me very far. A storyteller who doesn’t give his characters room to develop has no business in a souk. The whole reason people tell stories is because they’re sick to the back teeth of mektoub , we want our characters to act, to take decisions, hatch plots, screw up, land on their feet like a cat, win the game, make the sultan look ridiculous, we don’t want pathetic creatures like ourselves who wait pointlessly for heaven to send us a sign.

‘What could I do, sister? Three days ago, this girl got on my bus first thing in the morning while the engine was still cold and coughing like it had tuberculosis, I couldn’t even change gears. I’ve told the supervisor a thousand times that imported engine oil is better than domestic, but he’d rather foul up the engines — it makes no sense, I mean, we’re talking thoroughbred Magirus Deutz motors, they only speak German!’

‘Why can’t they be converted into Arabic?’

‘You’re not allowed, it invalidates the warranty. Anyway, like I was saying, I work route 12, from Chevalley to La Grande Poste via Rampe Valée. That’s a lot of steep hills, as you know yourself. So anyway, she takes a ticket and she sits behind me. Even looking at her in the rear-view mirror I could tell she was… well… a lost soul. Her mektoub …’

‘Yes, let’s leave her mektoub out of this…’

‘She spent the whole day sitting in the same seat, shuttling back and forth from Chevalley to La Poste, La Poste to Chevalley. Well in the end she fell asleep, as you can imagine…’

‘I can easily imagine, I feel myself nodding off right now, but I’d like to hear the end of the story… So, where were we?’

‘What’s the matter, Tata? He’s telling it just like it happened, I swear.’

‘I’ll believe you, I’ll believe anything, I realise disbelief is not an option… So, monsieur, you were saying?’

‘At 8 pm, when I finished my shift, I said to her, I said: Last stop! All change, please!”

‘And did she change?’

‘No, she asked if she could sleep on the bus. I’ve never heard the like. I told her it was impossible, that it was against regulations, I have to take the bus back to the garage and you’re not allowed in there.’

‘The plot thickens.’

‘Absolutely not, we’re devout Muslims, we know all about hospitality. I said to her if you’ve nowhere to sleep, you can come back to our house, my mother would be happy to have the company. The poor thing, she…’

‘OK, so you get to the house and…?’

‘My mother looked after her like she was her own daughter. You have to understand, I’m an only child, and I’m a man and amah needs someone she can talk to about cooking and cleaning, someone who’ll listen to her problems…’

‘I can well understand her. And then what?’

‘So, anyway, three days later, this morning to be precise, the girl says to me, I’m coming with you.’

‘Would you credit it! And?’

‘So she came with me. And after a little while, when I was inspecting the bus before taking it back to the garage in case anyone had left their papers or their lunchbox under a seat, she says to me: I’m going back to Tata Lamia.’

‘That’s me!’

‘So, well, anyway, I brought her back to you. Now, I must dash, the depot closes at 8.30 pm sharp.’

‘Not before you have a glass of lemonade, dear Monsieur 235. I know a little about hospitality myself, and it doesn’t only work one way; besides, the garage is hardly likely to vanish because it’s missing a bus.’

‘A minute late is a minute too late!’

‘Only in Switzerland, my friend, only in Switzerland. Here in Algeria, it’s more like: where there’s life there’s leeway. We’ll tell the depot that the bus broke down, it probably happens six times a week and if they can put up with six, they’ll put up with seven.’

And then the gallant bus driver told me his life story. This is it in a nutshell: at the age of sixteen, he was hired by the Greater Algiers Urban Transport Authority — GAUTA — where, by dint of perseverance and engine oil, he worked his way from cleaner to grease monkey to bus conductor right up to the dizzy heights of bus driver in less than twenty years. And from here? Ticket inspector, if God wills it. And why should God not will it, isn’t it what He has always wanted, to punish fare-dodgers and nit-pickers? Maybe, but his bosses operate on a different policy: they give jobs to their friends. Things had taken a philosophical turn, so I put on the brakes. Was there life after work? Truth to tell, he had never had time to dawdle, he spent his leisure hours looking after his saintly mother and his great dream was for her to make the pilgrimage to Mecca. Married? No, unfortunately, mektoub had dictated otherwise. His problem is he’s an awkward so-and-so who wants everything to be perfect for him and his elderly mother. Any sporting activities? Pétanque with his co-workers sometimes during lunch break, but otherwise… Hey, wait a minute, do you shoot or do you point, I’ve heard that in pétanque it makes all the difference? Um… it depends. So, what else? Fishing, during holidays. And? Dominoes with friends in the neighbourhood and um… going to the mosque on Fridays. And I’ll bet you watch TV? Oh yes, every night.

Good old 235 clearly lived a life almost as thrilling and hectic as my own, all that was missing was the essential, those little extras that make the heart skip a beat. I was sad to see him drive away in his thirteen-wheeled, four-eyed dragon.

The Greater Algiers Urban Transport Authority is very fortunate to have a man of such calibre. As is his sainted mother. There aren’t many like him these days. Though she might loosen the aprons strings a bit, the poor guy needs to let his hair down.

Chérifa left me in a foul mood and has returned to find me in a foul mood. The little baggage is completely brazen, she sulks, she does a bunk, she shows up whenever it suits her, she brings bus drivers to my door. People behave better in hotels — you let the hotel know when you’ll be arriving, when you’ll be leaving, you leave your taxi driver at the door, you’re polite to the staff, you put your things away, you flush the toilet and turn off the tap when the water is running low. A few rules and a little common decency are essential in any family. She should tell me everything, whether there are people looking for her, whether she’s in danger, whether… Well, the possibilities are endless.