Boualem Sansal - Harraga

Oh, the terror and the pain of the hour I spent thinking that the way things are these days, it is insane to marry a Muslim and even more insane to follow him to his home country. I was angry at myself for thinking that, it’s nonsense, it’s shameful, but how can we ignore the reality stifling us, how can I forget my poor Louiza who has spent the past twenty years slowly dying in some godforsaken douar and all the women who, one fine morning, watched the sun go out? It’s awful to have to live in fear that some bout of depression might suddenly transform your loving Muslim husband into a slavering Salafist. Please God, let our husbands, our brothers, our sons be temperate in their faith.

So, perhaps I should forget about Chérifa? Perhaps, but it would be more accurate to say ‘cut myself off’, since forgetting is not always possible, you become accustomed to absence, conjure a desert island, a cocoon like Robinson Crusoe, you build a kingdom of odds and ends and commune with the wind, the sun, the rain, the pretty crabs, the shrieking gulls, with nights heart-wrenching in their poetry.

Ultimately, life offers few choices: leave, stay, forget, brood. It’s not a cheering thought. We prefer to think we can imagine, attempt the impossible, wipe the slate clean, bring the house down, move heaven and earth, found a new religion, liberate the masses, transform into a butterfly, play among the stars and I don’t know what else.

But the days are long and dreams are not easy. In the course of a life, you lose so much. You find yourself alone with tattered memories, dusty habits, worthless treasures, outmoded words, with dates that hang mindlessly on the pegs of time, with ghosts that merge with shadows, landmarks that have blurred, remote stories. You replace what you can, surround yourself with new bits and pieces, but your heart is no longer in it and that colours what little life remains.

What’s got into you, you old bat, are you senile, are you going gaga, do you want to die? No, I’m young, I’m a fighter, I’m in control, I’m going to pull myself together!

I took a bath, I got dressed and I made a pot of tea.

Tomorrow is another day, life will smile on me.

What is it that moves without moving?

That leaves without going or returning?

And covers its tracks?

What is it that flows without flowing?

That fills without emptying or filling?

And skews the results?

What is it that improves without improving?

That propels without accelerating or braking?

And cuts the ground beneath our feet?

What is it that says without saying?

That dictates without repeating or inventing?

And drives us mad?

What is it that heals without healing?

That guides without leading or forsaking?

And breaks our heart?

What is it that enriches without enriching?

That gives without adding or subtracting?

And fails us utterly?

What is all this, some flight of fancy? Time is time, it is anything and everything, I don’t care about that, all I want is to find Chérifa as soon as possible.

Everything is falling apart, I’m running a temperature, my head is splitting. And my bowels are giving me gyp. I don’t know what to do. We start to miss someone and everything tumbles into darkness. I’ve taken to wandering around the house, I talk to the walls, I question the objects, I find them ugly, I have to stop myself from smashing them. I function like a robot whose batteries have run down, I cook half-heartedly but the results are either mushy, chalky and disgusting, or glutinous, floury, horrible, I can’t tell, I throw everything to the ants and the cockroaches and watch as they feast, it keeps me entertained. A creepy crawlies’ banquet is something to behold. The house is gloomy, filthy, strange, worm-eaten and… my God, this can’t be happening! I think it’s falling down around me! Or maybe it’s me, I feel dizzy and faint, I have to hold on to the walls. I try to breathe but I can’t seem to, I feel panic welling inside me. I walk, I hum, I try to calm myself. I come upon the ghosts that haunt this house; like me, they are pacing the corridors. I hardly recognise them, shrouded as they are in a cloud of dust. The storm did not spare them. Come on, you need to keep your mind occupied, let’s have a little chat with these gentlemen from the past.

Here comes Mustafa, appearing from a dark alcove in baggy breeches, wearing a saraoul and a fez, his features mottled, one claw-like hand clutching an Aladdin’s lamp, the other a scimitar for decapitating elephants. This is how I see him, this is how he appears, that’s fine by me.

As-salam alaykum , Mustafa! What’s new since Algiers was captured by the Infidels?

‘…’

‘Well, yes, it’s had its low points.’

‘…’

‘Well, if you’d wanted to, you could have gone back to Turkey with the Dey. You might be haunting some palace on the Bosphorus instead of being bored stiff here in Rampe Valée, this place is the pits.’

‘…’

‘A disaster? Who are you telling? There’s no question I’d go home if Kabylia were a free and independent country — and if it had nuclear warheads to guarantee its safety from the Arab League.’

‘…?’

‘Sort of a cannonball that makes holes the size of the Mediterranean.’

‘…!…’

‘Hmm, yeah, it would take about two or three thousand mules to haul the bombard, but mules aren’t the only thing we’re short of.’

‘…………’

‘Oh, no, no, my friend, you’ve got that all wrong! The Ottoman Empire isn’t part of the Arab League or the European Union, it floats between heaven and earth, between the Mediterranean and the Black Sea! I should probably mention that there’s not much left of the empire, a couple of acres around the Bosphorus, your brothers have all left to go and work in Prussia just as ours went to France.’

‘…’

‘As you say, interesting times.’

‘…’

‘It’s true, exiles have an understanding, but don’t forget you died so my grandfather and I could live, I can’t tell you the trouble it caused. Bye then.’

I can’t believe the Turks! Here’s Mustafa, the ghost of a nineteenth-century colonial officer, trying to give me advice! ‘As long as the Sultan lives, be patient and pay all tributes on time,’ he told me. Actually, like any good Mussulman tickled by his moustaches, he can’t imagine a common woman getting involved in politics and military science.

Even so, we have fond memories of the Turks. We owe them the recipes for chorba , for dolmas, for shish kebabs and Turkish delight, thanks to which we acquit ourselves honourably during Ramadan, our month of widespread famine. We bear them no grudge for colonising us, oppressing us, fleecing us and leaving us the legacy of their barbarous customs: scheming, freebooting and a taste for extermination. Muslims have a deeply-held tradition of letting bygones be bygones, the principle being that faith inspires the same convictions and the same abnegations in everyone. Which is probably why their countries spend most of their time justifying themselves. In religion, time does not matter, only fervour counts.

Mustafa was clearly not hidebound by his faith. We have his travel diaries, we didn’t need to read them, he travelled all over the place, the swine. It doesn’t matter, he left us this confounded house, where he obviously did more than sleep. I don’t know why, but he designed it to be gloomy and byzantine, an immense whole that is the sum of minuscule parts, tortuous in layout, extravagant in ornamentation, absurd in appearance. It’s a pity we cannot fathom the mysteries that drive people. They’re devious, the Turks.