Yasmina Khadra - The Angels Die

‘What did your grandfather do?’

‘He made children. One after the other … Well,’ he added, making a large circle with his arm, ‘do you believe me now? Sidi Bel Abbès is magical, isn’t it?’

‘I can’t believe there are so many wonderful houses in a single place.’

‘And you haven’t seen what they’re like inside. The people all have their own rooms, separated by corridors. Their lamps don’t use wicks. They have lots of mirrors, and prints in gold frames. And carpets on the floor so they don’t hurt their feet. And they have beds. Not straw mattresses, not mats, but iron beds with springs that cradle them to sleep. And sometimes pianos. These people don’t have to go to the well to fetch water. Water comes to them in pipes. They have it in the room where they cook and in the room where they relieve themselves. While we have to look in every direction before we pull our trousers down behind a bush, they just have to kick open the toilet door. And you know what? Apparently, they read the newspaper while they’re doing their important business.’

‘I saw some of these things on the Xaviers’ farm, except that for water they had a pump in the yard.’

‘Not the same thing at all. You’re in the city, my poor Turambo. Here, the streets and squares have names and the doors have numbers. In these houses, you don’t live, you take it easy. You’re the luckiest of lucky devils and the gods eat out of your hands. And that’s not all. Tomorrow is Sunday, when high society throngs the square after mass. Sometimes there are bands playing in the open air, and the women powder their noses to make themselves more beautiful than their daughters.’

‘Will we come back tomorrow?’

‘You can’t learn everything in a day.’

And he hurried off to offer his services to a fashionably dressed man.

By the time I got back to Graba, my head was filled with stars. I was so obsessed by Sidi Bel Abbès I didn’t sleep a wink. I recalled the extraordinary neighbourhoods and the refined people who walked in them as if they had nothing else to do. In the morning, I ran and woke Sid Roho, eager to go back to the city and draw from its sun the light that was lacking in my life. We found a few shoes to shine, then went to a park and watched the young lovers whispering sweet nothings to each other on the benches. We quite forgot that we were hungry.

Sid Roho taught me how to rub the shoes to get the dust off, then how to polish them without getting the laces dirty and, finally, how to go over them with a cloth to make the leather shine. At the end of the day, he entrusted two pairs of shoes to me that were difficult at first, but which I managed to clean acceptably. Then he went and sat on a low wall to rest for a while and left me to get on with it by myself.

‘Well?’ he asked when he returned.

‘I’ve no complaints.’

‘That’s you set up, then. Now give everything back to me,’ he said, seeing a policeman approach. ‘I need to make some real money today.’

The policeman immediately stuck out his foot, raising the hem of his trouser leg so as not to get it dirty. Sid Roho displayed his skills with unusual dexterity, as if the uniform inspired a particular enthusiasm in him. At the end, the policeman grunted with satisfaction and went on his way without putting his hand in his pocket.

‘He didn’t pay you.’

‘He doesn’t have to, I suppose,’ Sid Roho said, putting his equipment back in the box. ‘Only, he’s made a big mistake.’

When we were some distance away, he took a whistle from his pocket.

‘That copper thought he could get away with anything,’ he said, excited. ‘Well, so do I, my friend. I pinched that stingy bastard’s whistle.’

‘How did you do that?’

‘The ways of the Lord are unfathomable.’

He was really impressive.

That evening, we didn’t go straight back to Graba. Sid Roho was determined to show me the extent of his daring. When night had fallen on the city, he took me to a neighbourhood lit by gas lamps. No sooner did he start blowing the whistle than other whistles sounded in the surrounding area and we saw two policemen run past. Sid Roho was doubled up with laughter, his hand pressed to his mouth. ‘I’m going to drive them crazy all night long, those uniformed skinflints who won’t pay a penniless shoeshine boy.’ Thinking the alarm had been raised, the policemen inspected the area thoroughly before withdrawing. Sid Roho took me to another neighbourhood and repeated the performance. Again, other whistles answered him. Again, we had a good laugh and moved on to a different area. The poor cops sped past us, holding their kepis down with one hand while clutching their truncheons with the other, bumping into each other as they turned corners, yelling orders at each other, running back the way they had come, before finally, panting, driven to distraction by the fact that they couldn’t understand what was going on, they went morosely back to their station. Huddled in the shadows, Sid Roho and I laughed until we cried, our feet pedalling in the air, our throats tight with the effort to keep as quiet as possible. This practical joke of ours gave us goose pimples, it was so wonderful and at the same time so scary. A few streets further on, Sid Roho took out his whistle once more and started all over again. The poor policemen emerged from the darkness, looked around like disorientated spaniels, and set off again on their wild goose chase. One of them, out of breath, wheezing like a dying animal, came close to our hiding place and threw up. It was an amazing sight, which almost made me throw up too. I was laughing so much I could barely stay upright and had to beg Sid Roho to give it a rest. Towards midnight, absolutely delighted by our prank, we got back to Graba to enjoy a well-earned sleep.

In the morning, the ghetto was like a punch in the face.

Now that I had seen Sidi Bel Abbès, I didn’t want to see anything else.

In Graba, there were no shop windows, no bandstands, no esplanades lined with verdant hedges, no dance halls. There was only the stench that gnawed at our eyes and throat; the shacks blackened with use and overgrown with weeds; the dogs trailing their colonies of fleas from one end of the shanty town to the other, so skinny you could have played the zither on their ribs; the beggars huddled in their own shadows and the bare-bottomed brats running in all directions like mad things.

I could no longer bear this hell that fried our brains and dried our veins without leaving us a drop for our tears. One moonless night, I vowed, I would set fire to it and watch the flames destroy these dishevelled slums that wanted me to believe they were my graveyard and I was a ghost.

‘What’s the matter?’ Mekki asked, catching me talking to myself on the doorstep of our shack.

‘I want us to leave here.’

‘On what? A flying carpet? We can’t afford it. Why don’t you get back to the hammam instead of talking nonsense?’

‘The owner fired me.’

He almost choked. ‘When was this?’

‘A week ago.’

‘Why didn’t you say anything?’

‘You get angry about a lot less.’

‘What did you do this time?’

‘It wasn’t my fault.’

‘Whose was it — mine? If you can’t even hold down a job, how do you plan to leave here? You should follow Nora’s example. She works so hard, she’s almost worn her fingers to the bone. And she doesn’t complain. And what about your mother? And your aunt? As for me, I’ve forgotten what having a rest means, while you don’t seem to care that we have no money.’

‘I couldn’t force him to keep me.’

‘He’s a reasonable man. But you just do whatever comes into your head, if you still have one, that is. I’m fed up with you being under my feet.’