Boualem Sansal - Harraga

‘They’re simple people. Weighed down by tradition and the pressure of other people, they would do precisely that with a clear conscience.’

‘We can’t know that… we are in no position to judge.’

Oh, please, not that! Anything but that! It was on the tip of my tongue to say that it’s precisely because we refused to judge when there was still time that we are in the mess we are in today. We accepted barefaced lies as honest truths, traded fine promises for utter madness and we have ceased to try to find our way. Islam lapsed into Islamism and authority into authoritarianism and still we felt we had no right to judge. I wanted to tell her that it’s one thing to stare at the pretty flames through the window of a stove, but to be bound hand and foot and tossed into an incinerator is a very different matter. I was tempted to tell her that we judge not like judges or policemen, but like human beings who do not understand and yet recognise those things that hurt, that kill, that demean. Judging is like breathing, a power bestowed by God that we must not give up, it is the very essence of our humanity, it must not be sub-contracted or scattered to the first wind whipped up who knows how by who knows whom. To hell with tolerance when it goes hand in hand with cowardice!

I responded with an all-purpose platitude, I can’t remember what exactly: ‘You’re absolutely right’, ‘Maybe, maybe not’, or something more heartfelt, something more my style: ‘We know all we need to know, they would toss the baby out with the garbage because that’s how these things go. There are days when the Algiers rubbish tip is like a nursery crawling with kids, these days they’re tossed away alive, no one takes the trouble to suffocate them. Call it tradition, murder, madness, governance, it’s all the same.’ Thinking about it now, I believe I was silent, I just sighed, we were operating on different levels, she was considering the question from a transcendent viewpoint while I, being caught up in the bedlam of everyday life, relate everything to the abject folly of men.

Sometimes, God listens to us.

Sometimes, life smiles on us.

Sometimes, in the distance, a light glimmers

At long last.

It is deep within the abyss this comes to pass

It is here that we are

Closest to happiness

Perhaps.

When the words have been said, we must fall silent, pray in our hearts and, when calm is restored, carry on our way. Nothing is ever finished.

Chérifa lies in the old cemetery next to the convent. The place looks set to be an archaeological relic; to those who come after us, it will speak of the end of a reign that was cruel and inglorious. No one had been buried there for years since no one lives here any more; the Islamists long since subverted their maquis , the army destroyed their villages, made their lives a living hell, so they left to die elsewhere, in the shantytowns on the outskirts of the cities, living cheek by jowl in even greater poverty. One day they, or their grandchildren, will return, as migratory birds unfailingly return, but they will be strangers in their own land; life waits for no one and the land is thankless.

A slab of marble is carved with her first name and the dates that mark out her time on earth.

Chérifa

1986–2002

At the town hall, it was stated that the dead girl had no family, no home and no identity papers. It was further stated that, having lost her way, the girl had asked for refuge at the convent for a few days, which was granted. And then, following the mysterious ways and designs of Heaven, she died in her sleep. Sister Anne did not mention the pregnancy. In certain circumstances, to lie is not to deceive, it is a means of safeguarding life. The secret will never go beyond the four walls of the convent.

Nothing moves the bureaucrats in this country. They would happily send each other to the gallows if it were a matter of sharing out three lean cutlets. Insipid and underpaid, they drift towards crime as naturally as soap suds flow towards a drain. The one who talked to Sister Anne was a hard-headed brute, he paid her no attention but simply chewed his gum and picked his nose, all this with his eyes closed. ‘It was like talking to a brick wall the live-long day,’ Sister Anne smiled, ‘and they say walls have ears!’ A lost girl is a lost girl, there are so many of them, they disappear every day, their names are jotted down in the daybook and that’s the end of it. In witness whereof, a permit was granted to inter the deceased stipulating that the aforementioned, identity unknown, had died of natural causes at the convent of the Sisters of Our Lady of the Poor located in the commune of Chréa. All that would remain of Chérifa was a pending file in an office which in time would also disappear. A request for information would be circulated to the various regional police stations and one day she would simply melt into air.

Far from the city and far from danger, sheltered within its circle of lopsided stones, the cemetery has a tranquil air. Step inside and time seems to stand still. Magnificent trees solidly rooted in the stony ground serene as Buddhist monks. It is deeply reassuring. In summer and autumn and especially in spring, the birds will come to disturb the peace of these leafy branches, but it is always wonderful to see life whip up the wind, anarchic and joyous. So it had been for me back when I trudged through the wilderness. A bird landed on my shoulder. ‘Cheep cheep, cheep cheep…!’ he chirruped in my ear as he fluttered and frolicked. I did not understand since my life was made up of silences, mindless rituals and second-rate ramblings. Since then, I have learned the language of the birds; it is glorious. Wild cats will come and brush against the trunks of these trees and mewl at the moon. Right now, they are pretending to doze on the ramparts. They too have abandoned the cottages and forever forgotten their masters. Blood will drip from the low branches as, breaking the hushed silence, frantic squawking erupts from the higher branches, a terrified chirping that could put a scarecrow to flight. Cats are like that, it is senseless to condemn them, it is in their nature to lie in wait and attack by surprise. Chérifa will have all winter to sleep like an angel; here on the shores of our much-loved Mediterranean, the rains merely soak the grass and the winds scarcely ruffle the owls’ feathers. The skies are so deep that everything vanishes into the distance and the nights too short to give melancholy time to fear the worst. The cold is piercing, but this is not the North Pole, it would not kill a homeless tramp. For the dead who have felt the cold when they were alive, it is an evening by the fireside. And besides, three months’ sleep is enough for a flighty girl with all eternity ahead of her.

With my black marker, I added a line to the gravestone that the sun will have faded before night falls:

Her Maman who loves her

And then I remembered what I had called her, the cruel taunt I had spat in her face: harraga . ‘You’re a harraga , that’s what you are, and you’ll die as one.’

God, I can be cruel when I don’t listen to myself.

Forgive me, ma chérie. I said those things, I screamed and spluttered not because you couldn’t hear, but because I couldn’t understand: you were searching for life and in these parts we can only talk about death.

Sister Anne could read my thoughts. I suddenly turned and we stared at each other through the curtain of tears. In her poor, tormented face I saw strength whereas mine was a mask of defeat, of helplessness, of infinite regret. She blinked her eyes gently, and on her closed lips I could read the entreaty: Pray, it is the only thing we have to overcome fear and find our way.