Boualem Sansal - Harraga

I thought I knew all there was to know about long nights dedicated to silence and the endless game of introspection and now, suddenly, I no longer knew where I was, what I felt, I didn’t know what to think, what to do, I had lost the measured tempo of those who are solitary by nature. I felt flustered, my natural rhythms thrown out of kilter. I felt restive. By which I mean consumed by curiosity. Such a strange feeling! This is the danger that stalks the misanthrope: the world encroaching on one’s cocoon.

Never mind, I’ll read for a bit, or turn on the TV and channel surf, I’m sure I’ll find something to send me to sleep. At this hour, everything makes you want to kick the bucket. First thing tomorrow, as soon as she bounds out of bed, my little damsel will have to set me straight on three things:

First: Who is she?

Second: Where is she from?

Third: Where is she going?

I can’t think of anything else to say, that’s how it happened. To say more, to relate the details, the impressions, the misgivings, the repetitions, the hesitant silences, would add nothing. On the contrary, it would take away from the incident, which, in and of itself, was curiously moving: Sofiane has finally made contact and the means he has chosen is this strange little girl.

That day, a trite grey day like every other, a day of nagging doubts, I could not have guessed what upheavals lay in store for me. Worse still, I couldn’t think how to get rid of the silly little goose. Did I really want to be rid of her? It hardly matters, the presence of this giddy girl is the bombshell that will shake my defences to the core. Already I sensed this, I knew it was inevitable, another life had grafted itself on to mine and would consume it from within, engulf it, twist it off course.

To what extent, my God, are our lives really our own?

I spent a long time watching the intruder. She slept the sleep of the fairies. A fine-looking girl with the face of a spoiled child. The colours of the cushions, the soft light, the deep silence, the familiar rumblings from the depths, the delicacy of the sheen, all these add to the aura of enchantment. The image of happiness, that serene happiness that makes us beautiful and gentle. If angels slumber, this surely is how they look, like Chérifa adrift in her dreams. And if demons surrender to sleep, surely they too look like this. There is no reason to think that the good and the wicked do not take equal pleasure in their natural urges.

I don’t know how it happened. Hardly was she out of bed than my interloper had ploughed up the whole house and scattered her belongings like seeds. Some people don’t need to move in to feel at home. The bathroom, my bathroom, had suffered a complete makeover. ‘What’s all this mess?’ I shouted finally. Never in the depths of my depression had I wreaked such havoc on my old dwelling place. The silly goose never stopped but she started, I could see her slight frame rushing round, turning on lamps, torturing the radio, flicking through the television channels, rummaging through my chest of drawers, delving into nooks and crannies, then reappearing looking like a package tourist at the end of a tour realising they’ve missed out on everything. She batted it back to me when she said ‘What mess?’: I was a stranger in my own house. She was eyeing me up the way you might a greengrocer out of season. Following her lead, I ate a breakfast of biscuits standing up in front of the fridge and brushed crumbs from my clothes without worrying about ants coming in from the garden. Just yesterday, ants were my worst nightmare, I could keep them at bay on the other side of the kitchen door only by sheer force, cleanliness… and a healthy dose of pesticide. The ancient scents and smells so deeply rooted in my memory yielded before the radioactive perfume of this little strumpet and the irritating odour of youth metamorphosing uncontrollably. I was absolutely furious, disgusted by my own passivity and, unless I’m very much mistaken, thrilled by her presence. I felt like a big sister reprimanding her naughty little sibling.

Novelty has its charms, but it also shocks in that it forces us to change. I was alarmed and, at the same time, I was spellbound. Our beliefs, our habits, after all, are what they have always been: a stopgap. To suddenly discover that she is an old maid is a terrible thing for a woman. Chérifa terrorised me by her dissoluteness and charmed me by her untidiness.

But while there is a time to be soft-hearted, there are many more when it is best to be hard-bitten.

‘Listen, little girl , it’s all very well letting yourself go, but it helps to know where you’re headed! Who are you, where have you come from and where are you going in that condition? You can start by telling me how you know my idiot brother and what he has to do with that big belly of yours. And don’t think your little Lolita act will save you!’

‘But, Tata, why are you angry with me?’

‘What’s with this “Tata”? I’m not your auntie! And I’m not your mother!’

‘What can I call you, then?’

‘Well, really! You don’t call me anything, you address me as mademoiselle .’

‘Aren’t you a bit old to be a mademoiselle?’

‘Well, really!’

Anyway, I’m not about to give chapter and verse of such an inane conversation, especially one that hardly portrays me in a flattering light.

With simpletons, everything is simple, the trick is not to overcomplicate things. Seen in this light, the problem seems pitifully banal. Somehow, in Oran, Chérifa, one of so many lost girls, encountered my idiot brother who was also on the road to ruin. In their misery, they exchanged ideas, no doubt kisses, and all the calamities that this entails. The little damsel is not backward in coming forward, though she has clearly retained some sense of propriety, since she makes no mention of her belly. Did she conceive by the Holy Spirit? Well, all that matters is the result. At a guess, I’d say she’s five months gone. Beware, there’s trouble brewing, I wouldn’t be at all surprised if this girl is the kind that attracts problems. Well, I’m telling you right now, she can go bake that bun in her oven somewhere else!

Knowing the silver tongue Sofiane has, and the gullibility of silly little geese, I assume that their goodbyes went something like this:

‘Chérifa, my destiny is not to stay here in Oran but to continue on my way. I must find freedom and fulfilment. Those who went before us swear by Allah that such things are only to be found over there in the West.’

‘All I want is to get as far as Algiers, the capital, a girl can live there like a queen. All my friends back in the village dream of going there. Look at my belly… I’m starting to show, aren’t I? If I go back to the douar with a baby in tow, they’ll cut my throat.’

‘Go to my sister Lamia. She has a big house, there’ll be a room for you and a cot for the baby. She’s a doctor, so you won’t lack for medicine. She’s old and she’s prickly as a cactus, but that will be good for the child, it will keep him on the straight and narrow. I’m off to Tangier to look for a ship.’

This is how they talk, the children who have strayed from the path.

But, humbled by age and by wisdom, how are we supposed to talk to them — especially when life has long since taught us to bite our tongues and pretend we still believe?

Unable to talk to her, I tormented her. My questions came so thick and fast that she was paralysed, she did not understand what they meant nor why they were so urgent. There I was expecting the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth, but she started blubbering and hiccuping like a barking seal. Her eyeliner trickled miserably down her face. Then, hup , she leapt to her feet and rushed out, slamming the door behind her. For minutes afterwards, the walls of the house shuddered from the bang. When it finally finished sundering, my heart was left in pieces and I cried my eyes out.