Yasmina Khadra - What the day owes the nigth

‘No, Arabs are not lazy, but we take the time to live life to the full; it is something Europeans don’t understand. To them, time is money. To us, time has no price. We can be happy simply taking the time to share a glass of mint tea, whereas nothing in the world is enough to make them happy. That is the difference between us, son.’

I never spoke to Maurice again, and I no longer feared him.

Then came a day when one of my dreams – for I was learning to dream now – was shattered.

I had walked Lucette to her aunt’s house in Choupot, some distance north of where we lived, and was heading home. It was an October morning. The sun hung in the sky as big as a pumpkin, autumn was plucking the last tatters from the trees, while the wind whipped armfuls of the dead leaves into eddies. On a wide boulevard where Lucette and I liked to stare in the shop windows, there was a bar. I don’t remember the sign that hung over the door, but I still remember the drunks who frequented the place – angry, foul-mouthed men given to brawling. The police often had to restore the peace with truncheons. That afternoon as I was walking past, a fight broke out. I heard shouting and swearing and tables crashing, then I watched as a furious barman grabbed a beggar by the collar and the seat of his pants and threw him down the steps. The poor fellow landed at my feet like a bale of hay. He was dead drunk.

‘Don’t let me see your face round here again, you lousy bastard,’ the barman threatened from the top of the steps. ‘We don’t want the likes of you here.’

He stepped inside and reappeared with a pair of old slippers.

‘Here! Take your slippers. You’ll need to run if I set eyes on you again.’

The tramp tried to duck, but a slipper hit him on the head. He lay in front of me, splayed across the pavement, and not knowing whether to walk round him or cross the road, I stood rooted to the spot.

Face down on the ground, his turban unravelled, the tramp panted and gasped as he tried to get to his feet, but he was too drunk. After a couple of attempts he managed to sit up. He groped around for his slippers, put them on, then picked up his turban and would it crudely round his head.

The stench from him was terrible; I think he had wet himself.

Swaying as he sat, one hand pressed against the ground to steady himself, he looked round for his walking stick. Seeing it lying in the gutter, he crawled over to get it. Suddenly he became aware of my presence and froze. As he looked up at me, his face contorted.

It was my father.

My father . . . a man who had the power to move mountains with his bare hands, who could conquer all uncertainties, who could wring the neck of fate itself . . . was lying at my feet, dressed in filthy, stinking rags, his face swollen, his lips flecked with spittle, his blue eyes as pained as the bruises on his face. A wreck, a ruin, a tragedy.

He looked at me as though I had returned from the dead. His puffy eyes misted over and his face crumpled like old paper.

‘Younes?’ he said.

It was not a cry, but something between an exclamation and a sob.

I was dumbstruck.

Still staring at me, the strain showing in his face, he struggled to get to his feet. Leaning on his walking stick, he managed to haul himself upright, careful not to let out a groan, but his knees buckled and he fell back into the gutter. And as he fell, it was as though all the promises he had ever made, all my dreams and aspirations, were whipped away by a harsh gust of the sirocco. I was shocked. I wanted to lean down, to put my arm around his shoulders and help him to his feet. I wanted him to take my hand, to allow me to support him. I wanted so many things, but still my eyes refused to believe what they saw and my limbs refused to obey my commands. I loved my father too much to see him like this, sprawled at my feet in rags and tatters, his finger-nails black, his nostrils flaring . . .

In a last spasm of pride, my father took a deep breath and, leaning on his walking stick and drawing on his last reserves of dignity, hauled himself upright again. He swayed, stumbled backwards and collided with a wall. Though his legs threatened to give out under him, he marshalled every ounce of strength in his struggle to stay standing. He looked like an old nag ready for the knacker’s yard. Then, carefully putting one foot before the other, shoulder still pressed to the wall, he stumbled away. As he went, he tried to step away from the wall, to show me he could walk unaided. In his piteous battle with himself I saw everything that was brave and grotesque about suffering. He was too drunk to walk far, and after a short distance he stopped, gasping for breath. He turned to see if I had gone, but I was still standing where he had left me, as helpless as he was. At that moment he gave me a look that was to haunt me for the rest of my life – a look of such despair that it choked the life out of a noble father’s promises to his son. It was a look such as a man can give only once in his lifetime, since after it there is nothing. Seeing it, I realised that those eyes, which had fascinated and terrified me, which had watched over me, warned me, loved and pitied me, would never look upon me again.

‘How long has he been like this?’ the doctor asked, slipping his stethoscope back into his case.

‘He seemed fine when he came home at lunchtime,’ Germaine said. ‘Then when we sat down to eat, he took a few bites then ran to the bathroom to be sick.’

The doctor was a strapping, big-boned man with a pale, thin face. The coal-black suit he wore made him look like a marabout. He fastened the straps of his briefcase as he stared at me.

‘I don’t know what’s wrong with him,’ he confessed. ‘He has no fever, he’s not sweating and he doesn’t seem to be cold.’

My uncle, who was standing next to Germaine at the foot of my bed, said nothing. He had followed the examination carefully, glancing worriedly at the doctor from time to time. The doctor had looked in my mouth, shone a small torch in my eyes, run his fingers over my ears, listened to my breathing. As he straightened up, he looked circumspect.

‘I’ll give him something for the nausea,’ he said. ‘You need to keep him in bed for the rest of the day. These things usually settle down by themselves – it’s probably something he ate. If he’s not better by tomorrow, give me a call.’

After the doctor left, Germaine stayed with me. She was worried.

‘Did you eat something while you were out?’

‘No.’

‘Have you got a pain in your stomach?’

‘No.’

‘What’s the matter, then?’

I didn’t know what the matter was. I felt as though I was falling apart. Whenever I lifted my head I felt dizzy, my insides felt twisted and tangled, my soul felt numb . . .

When I woke up, it was dark and there was no sound from the street outside. My room was lit by the glow of the full moon and a gentle breeze tugged at the trees. I knew it had to be late, since usually the neighbours did not go to bed until they’d counted every star. I had a bitter taste in my mouth, and my throat was burning. I pushed off the blankets and got up. My legs were shaking. I went over to the window and stood, my nose pressed to the glass, watching every shadow, hoping that in each of them I might see my father.

Germaine found me standing there, freezing cold, the window misted with my breath. She put me back to bed and whispered to me, but I could not understand what she was saying. Her face would melt to become my mother’s face and then my father’s, then my stomach would clench and I would feel sick.

I don’t know how many days I spent in this state, but when at last I was well enough to go back to school, Lucette told me I had changed. She said I was not the same person. Something inside me had broken.