Boualem Sansal - Harraga

I’m tense and overwrought.

Where can the little vixen have got to? She hasn’t the first idea what she’s letting herself in for. Algiers will sweep her up in its madness. This crumbling city is pitiless, constantly reviling and condemning girls, and every day the outcry grows a little louder. The first passing taxi will whisk her away to some seedy den of iniquity. The way the old rattletraps prowl the streets makes you sick. ‘Get in or I’ll run you over!’ She’s a child, a stranger, a tourist, she has no idea, she’s too trusting. What does a girl from Oran know about the pitfalls of Algiers? In Oran, they take their misery and turn it into mournful melodies they call Raï, here in Algiers we play double or quits. That way Chérifa struts about, that hair of hers, that smile like a precocious nymph, that perfume, that ridiculous scarf — are these the signs of a good Muslim? Damn it, you don’t go around playing the starlet during a religious epidemic!

I spent the day pretending to work, tormenting myself, fearing the worst — which is usually the most likely. I just hope I didn’t accidentally poison some child on my ward, they’re so distracted they’ll swallow anything you give them. I was beside myself, in my mind I was running through the streets of Algiers, trying to imagine where I would go if I was wearing the sort of grotesque Chérifa favours. It was useless thinking about the places that marked my childhood, they’re all ancient history. What attractions are there left? The area around La Grande Poste, with its feverish crowds and its cosy tearooms, is a trap for any girl. Then there’s Maqam Echahid — the Martyrs’ Memorial — with its fancy boutiques and its hanging gardens where gilded youth parade, trailing the wannabes and the work-shy from the suburbs in their wake. In such situations it’s the followers rather than the leaders who are the real problem. There’s the famous Club des Pins — formerly the hacienda of Lucien Borgeaud, the greatest colonist of all time — now a state residence where the overlords of the regime live corralled in close quarters guarded by four watchtowers. The stories you hear about the place would have police around the world on alert, but to giddy little girls, it’s like the Big Brother house, they flock there in droves. Disaster dogs their every step but all they can think of are the dances, the parties, the surprises. The grand hotels are run by pros, placed there by the Organisation, but with her supercilious air, Chérifa could pass for a first-class vestal virgin. The old men scouting for prey from their comfortable armchairs would pay a lot of money just to nibble her earlobe. The hypnotic way they smile at cute girls and pretty boys would put a rattlesnake to sleep. A childlike Lolita sets the old pigs grunting. I despise them.

‘Hey, Lamia! Hey, wait up!’

I recognise that voice. It’s Mourad, a colleague from the hospital, the crackpot on our wing. Working with cancer patients drove him round the bend. He’s probably the only man I know who doesn’t dream of emigrating. Not that he lacks the capability or the courage, he just hasn’t got the energy any more. I’m very fond of Mourad. There was a time when he would try to chat me up, but he’s come to terms with it now. His liver is shot, he’s overweight, he drinks like a fish — a real Romeo. But he’s a sensitive soul, he’s philosophical when he’s in his cups and he wouldn’t kill a fly. I’m guessing no woman has ever looked twice at the poor man and now his liver is about to explode. At first, I thought he drank to reinforce his air of blithe indifference. Time was, he constantly undermined the young interns and laughed at the brown-noses. But he has evolved, these days he subverts authority by encouraging the go-getting doctors to work like dogs. On the day the director hired me on a whim and set me to work, Mourad sidled up and, having looked me up and down and found my belly button, he said: ‘Listen, kid, you’re cute and all, but I’ll save that for later, right now I just want to let you know what you’re letting yourself in for. This place is like the maquis , there are mines and booby traps everywhere. If you need any advice, come find me, but be discreet. In the meantime, think about this: less diligence makes for fewer problems.’

And he sauntered off, his hands in his pockets. A comedian. Men are contemptible, they see a woman wanting to do things properly as a problem.

That day, I opened up to him, about Chérifa, her whims, her disappearing acts, my helplessness, my shame. He immediately understood. There are facts, which can be viewed as a logical progression, but there are also feelings and what lies, repressed, in the deepest depths of the human heart. To put it bluntly, I feared the worst. He spent a long moment biting his lip and then finally he said:

‘You’re obviously fond of the girl! Why on earth did you throw her out? Oh well, I suppose women are never straightforward, or if they are something is up. You’re not going to find her by searching around the Martyrs’ Memorial or the palaces or the Club des Pins, that’s where the high-class girls hang out, it requires special dispensation from the Organisation. I’m not sure about La Grande Poste, the girls there work for crooks and gangsters and the takings are pretty slim. But this girl is pregnant, and that’s bound to influence how she thinks. A fish swims towards the sea, not towards the gutter. You’d be better off checking the bus stations or the women’s halls of residence at the university. If she headed for a station, then she’s planning to move to another city, so you might as well give up hope because rural Algeria is the arse-end of the universe. If she went to the university, then obviously she’s looking for help, she’s assuming that in situations like hers women support each other… well, you know what I mean, she’ll be looking for a place to stay and a little female sympathy.’

‘I can easily do the bus stations, there aren’t many, but I don’t see how I can check the halls of residence. How many are there? I can hardly knock on the door of every room and say: is Chérifa here?’

‘You don’t need to, you just get a message to one girl and you wait. Talk to any of the female students and you’ll have your answer within twenty-four hours. At university, girls are cut off from the outside world, they’re a closed network. Surely you remember what it was like when you were at college — though in our day, the segregation was more of a revolutionary nature, you could hold your meeting, propose your motions. These days, that’s all over, everyone is insane and no one messes with religion. Try not to terrify the poor things, they all have something to hide, some idea, some dream, some secret crush, some little foible, sometimes even a plan to commit suicide…’

‘The easiest thing would be to wait. I’m sure she’ll come back, she’s got nowhere to go.’

‘That’s up to you, but you know as well as I do where hope leads around here.’

These words struck a chord. I don’t know a single Algerian who doesn’t blithely talk about hope a hundred times a day. Not a single one. I can’t help but wonder what the word means.

I stopped by Hussein-Dey station before I went home. Have to start somewhere, I thought, and at least it’s on the way. The place was teeming. The world and his wife were there. The suburban commuters, the season-ticket holders who travel in battalions, silent, grey-black, half-dead, rucksacks slung over their shoulders, staring at the ground. Every morning they are swallowed up by crumbling factories from the socialist era and every evening they are spewed out after eight hours of being pointlessly ground down. They look like they’ve wandered out of a gulag and are just waiting for the siren to call them back.