Boualem Sansal - Harraga

Dying is no big deal

When living is possible.

One elsewhere is worth a thousand heres.

Misery for misery

Considering the effort of the journey

The pain of being wrenched away

And the fear of losing one’s way.

The pleasure of finally believing in tomorrow

Is well worth sacrificing one’s life.

Like the bird

Like the prophet

Let us spread our wings, shake dust from our sandals

And walk into the wind

Burn a path

Somewhere in the world is the promised land.

Suddenly, in my heart, I feel like a harraga .

My door did not go bang bang , it went knock knock. That sound our doors no longer know how to make came to me like a divine breath. No one visits me except the local moralisers, the gorgon from the rue Marengo, and mad Moussa. I listen to them carefully, but they don’t understand, they just talk all the more. Then there are the officials who arrive on fixed dates hoping to take me by surprise, the meter readers for the gas, the water, the electricity, but they don’t count, they silently take their readings looking at us as though we’re invalids. I never dare to ask them about the charges for services never provided. Sometimes, trudging from afar, shuffling pitifully, the local tom-cat Missing Parts comes round to see if Minnie Mouse has returned home. He never says anything, he simply sighs as his one remaining eye stares down at his orphaned leg. It’s pitiful to watch as he contorts himself like a man on a high wire, vainly trying to scratch his missing ear with the stump of an arm. I fear for his safety, one ill-timed sneeze and he’s ready for the scrapheap. I’ve tried explaining to him that it’s pointless, that it’s all virtual, that Phantom Limb Syndrome means that though a limb is gone, the feeling continues for a time, it is persistence of sensation, a recognised phenomenon, it’s nothing new. I try to explain that there are better ways of expressing his shyness than scratching his earlobe or the tip of his missing nose. But I know it’s not easy to change one’s habits. I thought about bringing him to the hospital and fitting him with prostheses but I gave up on the idea; he would have to be completely rebuilt at which point he’d be even more at a loss. With a hook attached to his stump, persistence of feeling could kill him. I remembered the corny old joke: Tramp goes up to a tourist. ‘Hey, monsieur, I would bet a hundred francs I can kiss my right eye.’ ‘You’re on!’ says the tourist and stands back to watch. The tramp takes out his glass eye and brings it to his lips. ‘And now I bet you a thousand that I can kiss my left eye.’ ‘Impossible,’ says the tourist, setting down the stake and stepping closer. At which point the tramp takes out his false teeth and brings them to his left eye. Missing Parts could earn a living making bets now that he can’t work as a porter any more.

Then there’s 235, who shows up once a week with his bus. He comes to ask if there’s any news, with a bus full of pilgrims in tow, furious to find themselves in the back of beyond. He’s really sweet, but he tends to forget himself and his passengers end up hanging around in the midday sun while he’s sipping lemonade and telling me for the umpteenth time about his saintly mother. He’s a good boy.

My dear friends phone about once a year, always with the same cutting remark: ‘So, what are you up to these days?’ I always retort: ‘What about yourself?’ firmly believing ‘least said, soonest offended’. It’s always the women who don’t give a damn who come nosing around. ‘ Hi, how are you? ’ and they’re off badmouthing everyone in the neighbourhood. God, but the women in this country have got sharp tongues, I don’t know where they get it from. You could cut their throats and they’d still be gossiping.

Knock knock! Knock knock!

My heart was racing. I yanked the door open so fast I nearly dislocated my arm. It wasn’t Chérifa.

A young woman. Twenty-two, twenty-three maybe. Dark hair, a slightly ‘so what’ air, jeans that fit her like a glove, her chest sags a little, she needs to rethink her bra. Dark eyes, lots of eyeliner, eyebrows like circumflexes. She’s clearly a worrier, she overthinks before she speaks. Sniff sniff . She smells good. Like me, she has her perfume sent from Paris in the diplomatic bag.

‘If you’re looking for Lamia, you’ve found her. And you are?’

‘Um… Scheherazade.’

‘Please don’t tell me you’ve come from Oran or Tangiers on the advice of my idiot brother Sofiane because, I swear, I’ll kill myself.’

‘Um… I’m from Algiers.’

A beautiful voice, warm, a little husky. The name suits her to a T. She is the Orient that exists only in fairytales.

‘So?’

‘Um… I was looking for Chérifa…’

‘What? Chérifa? My Chérifa?’

‘Um… yes.’

‘Get in here right now and explain yourself.’

From the moment my little runaway from Oran showed up, I was destined to meet people. Missing Parts and 235 were at the top of the list. It was because of Chérifa that Bluebeard lost his sense of mystery; these days I just think of him as one more neighbour to distrust. Now here is the beautiful Scheherazade come to tell me extraordinary tales. I’m up to my eyes in myths and legends. Scheherazade is practically a colleague, she’s a fourth-year biology student. She hails from Constantine, a town that died with the Jewish exodus in 1962, all that remains is a pile of stones and a few old men who lean against the crumbling walls pretending to dream of the beauties of the Mesozoic era and to know all there is to know about the charms of Andalucía in their grandfathers’ day. An earthquake measuring 9 on the Richter scale could not have done a better job. The few remaining women wear black feathers, she tells me, people call them crows. While Scheherazade describes her curious hometown, in my mind I am flicking through Yasmina Khadra’s novel The Swallows of Kabul . Her grandfather works in the rag trade, he imports fabric from the Sentier district in Paris.

‘Would you credit it? And why not buy from Medina or from Islamabad, after all they are our brothers?’

‘They’re old boyhood friends.’

‘I understand.’

A wise man is a wise man, what can you say? Scheherazade lives in the halls of residence at Ben-Aknoun University, she has a tiny room on the top floor, building 12, stairwell B, which, over time, she has managed to make cosy. This is against regulations but the elderly janitor doesn’t know her or has forgotten her. She cooks, stays at home, listens to modern music and invites her girlfriends — some of whom even dare to smoke!

‘I know all about caretakers, my dear, I’ve hoodwinked my fair share in my time. The janitors at the Hôpital Parnet are ruthless, but they’ve never caught me out. I turn up on time, I leave on time, my white coat is clean and I always give them a cheery salaam alaykum .’

‘At university we have to bribe the porters, they insist on a tip at the end of the month…’

‘That’s new. In my day, it was more about the sensual. They’d beg us to show them our knickers. If you hiked your dress up to your thigh, they’d lick your hand, you could send them off to run errands, they would even lie on your behalf if need be. It sounds like they’ve aged. So, where is Chérifa?’

‘Well, that’s the thing — I’m looking for her.’

‘You mean she ran away?’

‘That’s the least of it…’

‘Tell me everything.’

‘…’

We talked. For hours. Everything I feared had happened and more besides. I blame myself: by imagining the worst, I brought it about. And that idiot Mourad played on my fears at every opportunity: ‘Women are all the same!’ he’d say every time I got discouraged and gave in to despair. In this beautiful city, there will never be a shortage of men willing to speak ill of women.