Boualem Sansal - Harraga

The whole thing is preposterous, the economic war is taking place elsewhere; it is waged by computers and satellites in utter silence. These people would be better off going home and comforting their families, it’s impossible to escape both poverty and the IMF. A mother would be hard pressed to spot her child in a crowd like this. And, even in high heels, Chérifa is knee high to a grasshopper; how would I spot her? While I was trying to work out how long it would take to search the premises, the train arrived, surging out of the mists of time. A thunderous rumble shook the ground and half the sky was blotted out with smoke. How had such a crowd managed to pile on to the train so quickly, cramming into carriages like sardines and perching on the running boards? Damned if I know. This whole scene, the calmness, the patience, the hands stuffed in pockets, the rucksacks on the ground, it was pure cinema. The poor — all paid-up members of the school of hard knocks — have an ability to pretend that beggars belief. They surged forward en masse and, in a split second, dozens of them manage to slip through a crack a gloved hand could barely squeeze into. In the time it took to catch my breath, I was standing on the platform alone, with the bitter feeling that I had missed the last train of the year. An old soldier in a peaked cap and with a wooden leg calmly walked over to me and said: ‘Don’t worry, madame, there’s another train at 6.37 pm, but you’ll have to elbow your way on, this is rush hour.’ He was the station master, I could take his word for it. Thank you. I rushed off. If Chérifa had gone to a station I would never see her again, she would move from one crowd to another.

What about university students? Girls at university were ferried between the halls of residence and lecture halls by bus. How many such buses weave through the streets of Algiers? I don’t know, in this ossified city things grow like mushrooms. They’re everywhere, those buses, each one full to bursting. What are they really ferrying around? I asked myself. Boys with beards and girls in chadors , the boys dare not talk, the girls dare not move and the drivers careen through the city as though obeying secret signals. There’s nothing very educational about it. In my young day, buses did not go unnoticed, or were clapped-out Russian wrecks, half-eaten with rust and smoky as a damp cigar. We would sing ‘Qassaman’, ‘The Internationale’, ‘Le Déserteur’, we would spit on the bourgeoisie and their lackeys, make drivers nearly crash by flashing them a glimpse of breast, or by pretending to take down their registration number so we could denounce them to the KGB. Times have changed.

The journey home was painful. I dragged my feet, my heart in my mouth. The neighbourhood seemed seedy and unpleasant and the house — my house — gave me a cold welcome. I needed that. And yet I loved this grey dusk, caught between sun and moon, between waning day and emerging night. Relief comes, hope is reborn, we dither on the doorstep, fumbling with keys, eager to cross the threshold. We are done with the world, we retreat to our refuge, we shed our coats. Somewhere deep within us, an internal clock or a guardian angel activates a switch and we settle down to dream like children. For the poor, this is the true meaning of happiness. We relax, we move to a gentler rhythm, we do housework and minor repairs, potter around brooding over our uncertainties, we take a bath if the water has been reconnected, make a call if the phone lines are working, settle in front of the TV if the power cut is over, laze around, read a book, do a little cooking, water the plants, sprinkle insecticide to keep ants at bay, do some knitting. Then there are the evenings when the only thing we can think to do is prop our elbows on our knees and bury our face in our hands. Life is blank, it is useless to fuss.

What was it Mourad said… a little female sympathy? How dare he say that to me! What am I, a bear, a rock, a machine? What does he really know about me? What does he really know about women? He’s a man, he knows nothing. He probably thinks there is such a thing as male sympathy. What a romantic.

Am I seeing things? There… hanging on a coat peg in the hall? It is! It’s a panther-pink pullover with flowers in blue fabric crudely sewn on the front. If it’s not mine — and I know it’s not — then it must belong to Chérifa. Snff… snff . The house smells of weapons-grade plutonium perfume. A quick tour reveals a G-string in the bath, a bead necklace on the cooker, a handkerchief under the phone, a powder compact next to the TV, a pencil in the vase, a pair of ballet pumps hanging from a nail in the corridor, a beanie hat dangling from the handle of a dresser. The girl strews her possessions in her wake, she’d have a job going undercover in a detective movie. Where can she be at this hour? If she doesn’t come back to collect her belongings, it means she’s lost. No, the little minx would do anything to reclaim her treasure, it’s all she has.

Later, under a sofa cushion, I found a little handbag, the kind of preposterous clutch bag a bride might carry, so tiny that just trying to get your keys inside could result in losing a finger. It reminded me of the story of a chimpanzee in a laboratory, putting his hand into a jar, grabbing a piece of fruit and discovering to his consternation that the narrow neck would not allow him to withdraw his fist. I’m not sure which is sadder, mocking the chimp or thinking that we’re smarter. I dared not open the clutch bag, but I opened it anyway; my house, my rules. Inventory: a pencil stub, a brush, a pin, a coin, another pin, a full-length photo of someone. Well, well, would you credit it…? A man. Thirty-five? He looks ordinary… or rather conventional, his every feature conforms to the new biology of exceptional Algerians: chubby-cheeked, pot-bellied, fat-arsed, he sports a hirsute adornment around his mouth which, depending on circumstances, is intended as a sign of moderate piety, an aid to seduction or a proof of intelligence, he is dressed like a mobster at a mafia cocktail party. It’s all so tacky, the minute these people have money in their pockets, they’re all over the place. There is a self-consciousness to the way he holds his head and a twitchy nervousness deep in his eyes. It’s an expression I know only too well, in every photo I look as though I’ve been startled by a one-eyed badger. He’s a little young to be her grandfather but too old to be a brother or a schoolfriend, although all families are dysfunctional. Obviously, the possibilities do not end there: an uncle, a cousin, a neighbour’s husband. Then again he could be a drug trafficker or a bar owner, professions that are all the rage in the new biometry. The Chérifas of this world are their preferred prey. Or he could be… as I racked my brain, I realised I knew this reprobate, I’d seen his ugly mug somewhere. A celebrity? Yes, that was it. What was he? A sportsman, a politician, a captain of industry, an artist with connections to the ministry? Whatever he was, he was some sort of bigwig.

What was the connection between the man in the photo and Chérifa’s swollen belly? It was a question I could not help but ask myself. And now I have.

It had been three days since I saw that old trout from the rue Marengo and now, bang on time — knock, knock — she shows up, all hot and flustered. And — unusually for her — she didn’t beat around the bush.

‘Oh, my dear, young people today, you simply can’t depend on them! They’re here one minute and gone the next! They’re only too happy to have us worrying and fretting over them, when all we want at our time of life is a little comfort, a little peace, but you might as well ask the town council for running water. How is it that I’ve never met this girl? The clothes she wears! What’s her name? Where’s her husband? What was she thinking, going out last night and coming home after midnight? Where did she go? And what was she doing, storming out again at dawn in such a terrible temper?’