Boualem Sansal - Harraga

And then we chatted. Nothing new, the young people of Algeria are still draining away, the country is like a bathtub that’s sprung a leak. Where there’s life, there’s death and disappearances. According to the statistics, girls present a different, though no less serious, case to boys. Girls disappear inland while boys head out to sea.

‘Who would have thought sexism extended so far?’

‘Girls don’t have the same reasons for disappearing. They tend to run away from the parental home, they are looking to find freedom, to hide some mistake, to follow some forbidden love; boys are dreamers in search of some great adventure, they don’t believe that the country will give them the means to satisfy their dreams.’

‘Why do girls run away from the parental home when it is so open, so loving… do you know?’

‘It’s not simple.’

‘Tell me anyway.’

‘Love is never unconditional, it is underpinned by values… by princ—… um…’

‘You mean tradition, the whole Arabo-Islamic thing, the hijab , the whole kit and caboodle, family codes and racial laws?’

‘I wouldn’t… um… I wouldn’t put it like that exactly.’

‘But when the home is open, loving, accepting?’

‘Even then, it can still impose draconian restrictions that some girls simply can’t deal with…’

‘Then surely you talk, you find a compromise, that’s what mothers are for.’

‘Maybe, but there are brothers and uncles and cousins and neighbours. Talking involves… um… exposing oneself, young girls have been brought up to feel shame… while boys have been brought up with the most pernicious beliefs. Imagine a young man who suffers from a preference… um… how can I put this… um…’

‘Homosexual? You mean a queer?’

‘Well… if you like. Can you imagine him talking to his parents? Our society is… well, you know… um…’

‘Hypocritical and backward-thinking?’

‘Not at all, I would say that, I’d say… um…’

‘Tolerant and forward-thinking? I don’t think there’s a third option, except maybe embryonic and shambolic.’

‘No, I would say traditionalist… faced with the modern world in an… well, an unwholesome international context… yes, that’s it, unwholesome.’

‘If that’s the case, I would just have said: moronic.’

‘So, anyway, the boy runs away to Europe so he can live his life…’

‘Let’s focus on the girls.’

‘It’s the same thing. Contrary to popular opinion, they are less able than the boys to deal with authoritarian parents and society. The pressures on them are enormous. A girl could have her throat cut, while the worst that happens to the boys is they get a stern talking-to and then they’re flattered.’

‘Though it might not seem like it from my manner, I’m not authoritarian if that’s what you’re trying to say.’

‘Far be it from me… I’m just saying that talking is difficult for everyone, even parents find it difficult to broach certain subjects with their children…’

‘Let’s get back to Chérifa. She’s six months pregnant, she’s here in Algiers, ever since she was a little girl that was her dream. Where do girls in her situation go? Are there hostels, homes where they can go?’

‘I’m afraid not. They improvise, some move in with the first man they meet, some marry a rich man, some resort to begging, and then there are those who…’

‘Stop! Chérifa is not like that, she’s too proud.’

‘That’s the problem, it’s often the ones who are too proud who go down that road. The others go home eventually, regardless of what punishment awaits them.’

‘Chérifa will come back! I know it, I can feel it.’

‘…’

I wasn’t listening any more, I was watching her thick lips solemnly spouting her claptrap, her piggy little eyes rolling with dignified indignation. I pictured myself like this woman, my face contorted with po-faced piety looking scornfully at Chérifa, alone, struggling with her urges, trapped in her infantile world, it was horrible.

What was the terrible name I called her?

What was it?

‘Does that help?’

Who said that? Oh, the sad case from the Association.

Then suddenly I understood: the page has been turned. It is pointless to carry on looking. Algiers was designed to engulf people, and those lost within it never return, too many twists and turns, too many blind alleys, too many bottlenecks and closed doors and more complications than any soul could cope with, crowds tramping all over and everywhere, in the shadows and the sunlight, a tropical violence that shrieks and prowls and mauls, that stings and suffocates, intoxicates and leads astray. Chérifa is lost and I have cut off her retreat. I am a cruel, bitter, stupid old spinster. And a silly bitch besides.

We call off the search. Chérifa is out there somewhere, she is in some other place, some other life, some other plight, but none of the places where my legs blindly lead me. And my heartache comes not from the difficulties I meet along the way, but from within.

Maybe Chérifa was dead.

Or maybe I was. I was pale, my eyes ringed with blue, my lips black, I smelled like a sewer rat. Worry had been the death of me, pain had put me six feet under, yet here I was still pitifully shambling along. Passers-by stopped to stare at me with the solemn expression they reserve for the dead. The fact that they are still alive can only be because they are virtuous — that’s what the look means. ‘What are you looking at? Why don’t you just take a photo!’ I yelled at someone who clearly thought he was smarter than everyone else. Feeling sorry for others saves them from having to take a hard look at themselves. The pathetic fools can go hang, priggishness will be no consolation.

I shook myself and headed home.

Walking back through my neighbourhood, I stopped with the women who watch and wait so we could compare our sufferings. It is pitiful to see them, forever planted in their doorways, forever nailed into their slippers. They bide their time, neither frantic nor angry, just a little short of breath and a little misty-eyed. And probably a vicious twinge in the bowels, that’s something no one is spared. No, I don’t know a woman who doesn’t complain about her bowels. It’ll be my turn before long. Maybe like them I’ll park myself on my doorstep in an old pair of slippers, sit ramrod straight in my chair, plagued by an irritable bowel. The wind will bring me news of the world and I will listen and wait to discover my fate. And one day — why not? — I will see some miracle appear at the far end of the street. Is this the forlorn hope that gives these women such patience? What else could it be?

I shuffled from one woman to the next, hands clasped beneath my chin. From each I took a little of her suffering and to each I gave a little of my own. We suffer less when exposed to universal heartache, we see our misfortunes for what they are, mere commas in the immensity of human suffering. We have a duty to forget ourselves.

No, I’ll have no truck with their cut-price, off-the-shelf psychobabble. I don’t need to confuse myself any further, it’s impossible to be both honest and opportunistic. Only yesterday, I looked down on them or considered myself lower still, now here I am today putting myself on their level out of some sense of solidarity. Compassion bothers me, it’s not clear-cut. Taking on the misfortune of others and bearing it as some sort of cure amounts to drugging yourself while dosing others. Sorrow, like joy, is something that cannot be shared, I know that, certainly not through the magic of words.

Hold on, I need to sort myself out, to pick up my life from the moment when Chérifa first marched in to colonise me.