Boualem Sansal - Harraga

But the evenings, what bliss: hot baths, fresh scents, beds so soft you dream of dying in your sleep! Not to mention the pleasures of tearing wrapping paper, opening buttons, trying clothes on, taking a step back, a step forward, twirling in high heels, laughing all the while. What can I say? Pretending to be a fashion model is the greatest pastime in the world. How glorious it feels to play at being middle class when you’re penniless. And how dangerous. Chérifa is no princess, and everything I inherited, I got from my old prole of a father. I couldn’t help thinking that for poor anaemic creatures like us, doomed to fretfulness and mumbling, every step forward brings fresh pain. When faced with such ethical dilemmas, we are tempted to retreat into our shell and watch the economy die on its feet, because we know only too well that, for the poor, the worst is always yet to come. OK, you killjoys, get out of my dreams, it’ll be time enough to weep on Sunday. There is no abyss deep enough to wake the blissful dreamer.

In the end, I acquitted myself pretty well, I bought practically everything for next to nothing. Whenever my smile didn’t work, I bared my teeth and went for the conman’s jugular. Scam artists don’t know how to deal with outraged women, panic sets in and suddenly they find their shop flooded by people attracted by the scent of blood and ransacked by every urchin off the streets. That’s life, we all have our problems. Chérifa and her kid are now ready for the battle to come. I even got each of them a piece of jewellery worth a small fortune. We’ll go on a diet to replenish the coffers.

Finding a room that was to her taste and decorating it the way she wanted took time — God, but that girl is a handful! My house has eight bedrooms, three reception rooms, four box-rooms, twenty alcoves and three terraces, one with a sea view, a vast cellar riddled with unexplored passageways that is a world unto itself and feels like a medieval crypt, an attic with three separate levels, hundreds of metres of winding corridors and tortuous stairways, and still Chérifa turned her nose up at everything. In the end, she settled on a room no more spacious than the others. It is right next to mine, and the rooms are connected by a grand, vaulted vestibule; it was the acoustics that decided her. ‘We can chat all night without having to get out of bed or even raise our voices,’ she decided. A pity Uncle Hocine is no longer with us, he would have made the room into a cosy little nest. I’m not sure how happy he would have been to do so for my little Lolita, he held attitudes from a bygone age when girls were girls to be seen and not heard — exactly the opposite of our Chérifa. But between the two of us, we did what we could. We managed to cover up the worst and refurbish the remainder. When I dimmed the glare from the bedside lamp by covering it with a veil of rarest crimson, we thought we were in paradise. Chérifa had tears in her eyes, and for the first time, I took her in my arms and kissed her ear. I felt an electric jolt of happiness. Dear God, she’s all skin and bone, I thought, and suddenly I felt a pang of guilt. My poor Louiza was another one who didn’t have much flesh on her bones, but there was something plump about the way she moved, it was a joy to behold. I miss her so much. And I worry about my little refugee.

I immediately put Chérifa on the UNICEF African baby diet: all the sugar, fat and carbohydrates she could eat. I gave her vitamins, too, I measured every spoonful. After a week on this diet, she was a little heavier and my conscience a little lighter. She had some colour in her cheeks and her new clothes made her look almost human. The baby began to kick and squirm. We joyfully followed its progress. At six months, the little tadpole was beating all records. All was for the best in the best of all possible worlds.

We argued over baby names and colours. Chérifa is a pain in the neck, she’s so stubborn I have to scream to make myself heard. I realise that this is her baby, but this is my house so I’m entitled to my say. If I couldn’t persuade her to choose a beautiful Amazigh or Phoenician name, at least I might dissuade her from plumbing the depths of Oran where they give kids names that make me wonder what planet they’re from. She had two names in mind, the first would have made a dead man’s skin crawl, the second would have had him biting a dog.

‘Are you completely out of your mind? What on earth is Seif El Islam — a declaration of war? Believe me, giving your child a name that translates as “The Sword of Islam” would make him a sitting target for terrorism, not to mention counter-terrorism. Is that really what you want for your son?’

‘In Oran, people think it’s cool.’

‘Well, it’s not, it’s repellent! And what was the other one again?’

‘Benchiha… you know, like Cheb Benchiha, the Raï singer from Canastel.’

‘You really are out of your mind! What on earth is Benchiha, an order to kill? Believe me, a singer called Benchiha has a one in a million chance of ever making the Top 40. Is that really what you want for your son?’

‘In Oran, people think it’s cool.’

‘Well, it’s not, it’s hideous! When it comes to names, you have to think about things carefully. You can’t imagine the handicap a name can be. You need to choose something short, musical…’

‘And besides, it’s going to be a girl, and I’ll call her… um…’

‘You see. Now you’re thinking. If it’s a girl, we’ll call her Louiza, it’s beautiful, it’s charming, it’s elegant.’

‘Hmm.’

‘OK, that’s settled. And if it’s a boy, you’ll call him… um…’

‘Hachemi?’

‘Don’t even think about it!’

‘Sofiane?’

‘Oh, no! One harraga in the family is more than enough! Now Yacine is a fine name, a very fine name. It’s all the rage in Algiers.’

‘Hmm.’

So, that’s one thing settled. Now I need to come up with a system for tackling the rest. Teaching her to read is the most pressing problem, I can’t possibly live with an illiterate under my roof, I’d end up killing her. Once I’ve taught her to cook, to sew, to mend, at least she can make herself useful. But first I need to get the golden rule for living in Algiers through her thick skull: be suspicious of everyone: passers-by, neighbours, sermonisers, hooligans, policemen, judges, and especially well-dressed men who use their refined manners to seduce young girls.

Then there are the basic virtues she needs to get into her head once and for all: order, discipline, kindness, cleanliness and whatnot. I set great store by the inspirational properties of self-control, cleanliness and a dulcet speaking voice. She’ll feel my fists before long, believe me.

Good God, you can’t help but wonder sometimes what it is that parents teach their children.

My first plan of action is to re-read Robinson Crusoe which is full of pointers on how to teach savages. I feel a certain affinity with the congenial castaway. I already have my desert island, my house is out of time and far from any thoroughfare, and if memory serves, my own little savage showed up on a Friday or some other day. As for me, even in these straitened times, I have no shortage of pugnacity and good manners. All of which is good news for her. Providence has brought the sickness to the cure. And another thing, I’m beginning to enjoy my role as the kind-hearted lady of the manor. All I need is a sedan chair or a Rolls-Royce to bear my solitude, I already have a pallid complexion, a deportment that is aloof without being excessive while the house itself is pervaded by an end-of-era atmosphere, while outside, in Algeria, life is strange: the proletariat are disoriented, the patricians exhausted by their vices, the Emirs sated on blood and the poor President has no opponents left to assassinate. What news of the outside world trickles through to us arrives centuries late, drowned out by the whine of machines and the sighs of the mourners. All of which seamlessly becomes my image as the benevolent lady of the manor holed up in the ancestral home.