Yasmina Khadra - The Angels Die

‘I’m going to work for myself.’

Mekki gave a brief, dry laugh, a kind of irritable hiccup. ‘For yourself? Are you planning to start a business? With what, may I ask? With your fingers up your nose?’

‘I’m going to be a shoeshine boy.’

Mekki staggered as if the sky had fallen on his head. He frowned to make sure he had heard correctly, then, his face ashen and his nostrils dilated with anger, he grabbed me by the throat and pushed me up against the wall with the clear intention of seeing me disappear through it.

‘A shoeshine boy? Nobody in our family has ever kissed the feet of a master. Our houses may be nothing but ruins, our fields may have been confiscated, but we still have our honour. When are you going to get that into your head, you mangy dog?’

I pushed him away angrily. ‘Don’t insult me.’

‘Is there a worse insult than lowering yourself to polish the shoes of your fellow men?’

‘It’s a living, like any other. And I don’t want you ever to raise your hand to me again. You’re not my father.’

‘I’d tear your heart out with my bare hands if I was your father. And since I’m the one who gives the orders here, I forbid you to dishonour the name of our family. A shoeshine boy! That’s all we need. What’ll you do when your brush is worn out — shine shoes with your tongue?’

I didn’t know any more whether to laugh or cry. Mekki dared to talk to me about honour and abstract, solemn duties while I sniffed shame with every breath of air. Was he blind or stupid? Didn’t he understand that I was as determined as he was to flee this backwater of canvas and zinc, where people kept their rotten luck like an ember still smouldering beneath the ashes and refusing to die? Didn’t he understand that I had just become aware of a reality other than the one I’d always thought was our lot, that at the very moment I was confronting him I was becoming someone else, that it was Sunday, a Sunday unlike any other, no longer just the day of the Lord and Roumis, but a crucial day that would stand out for me and that there are some dates that matter more than others, in which you are born again? I didn’t yet have the words to express these things, but I felt them deep inside. It was a strange feeling, nagging and confused, like the one you feel when you have a name on the tip of your tongue and you just can’t find it. And I was determined to find it.

Sid Roho advanced me the money to buy a box, brushes and polish, and I set off in search of shoes to shine. I soon realised that I wasn’t the only one who’d had that idea. I needed to negotiate according to the current rules, because competition was tough and supply was limited. The Arab kids who did the same job as me were quick with their fists and didn’t hold back once they’d got the intruder on the ground. But I held firm and defended my territory.

What mattered to me was to make as much money as possible to allow Mekki to find us a house in stone on a real street, in a real neighbourhood with street lighting that came on at night and shops with window displays. I wanted to see high society pass beneath my window, take a moment’s rest on a public bench and — why not? — believe that I was a man of my time, capable of making the most of it. To do that, I had to earn the right to dream and the right to hope. I didn’t deceive myself that I would ever achieve the same status as a Roumi: it wasn’t my territory; but it wasn’t unreasonable for a poor boy to find another way, another destiny, and, with a bit of luck, to escape once and for all those disaster areas where songs echoed like curses, and where tomorrows were inspired by yesterdays as dark as night. I had seen a few Arabs who’d apparently done well for themselves. They wore neat suits and there wasn’t the slightest stain on their fezzes. They walked among Roumis without tripping up and lived in whitewashed houses with doors that could be locked and shutters at the windows — the kind of houses I dreamt about. And that had given me confidence.

I’d get to the main square of Sidi Bel Abbès early in the morning, my box slung over my shoulder and my brush openly displayed, watching out for someone clicking his fingers or nodding his head, at which point I’d throw myself at their shoes and not let go of them until I could see my reflection in the leather. The kicks in the side that I received taught me the tricks of the trade; the customers’ anger made me more skilful; I took care not to go beyond the shoe itself, the one great sin of the profession, and when they threw me a coin, I’d catch it and pocket it, already imagining myself on my balcony waving to friends in the street.

Alas, there weren’t that many customers. There were days when I returned home empty-handed, with nothing in my belly. Not all Europeans were eager for my services: many wore shoes as worn-out as mine. That didn’t discourage me. I prowled endlessly around the cafés, the church, the town hall — and the brothel, because, according to Sid Roho, some boys about to lose their virginity were anxious to look presentable for their sexual baptism. My box seemed to grow heavier every day, but didn’t slow me down. Years later, I could still feel the straps of that box digging into the back of my neck and the slap an outraged client gave me. I clearly remember that particular man, who almost lynched me because of an unfortunate mark on his sock. Huge, his face crimson with sun, he wore a colonial helmet, a spotlessly white suit and a fob watch on his waistcoat. He was coming out of the barber’s when he hailed me. As I set to work putting a shine back in his shoes, he began ogling a girl who was hanging out washing on a balcony. I don’t know how my brush slipped. The man almost fainted when he saw his soiled sock. His big, bear-like hand came down on my cheek with such violence that I saw the night stars appear in broad daylight. It didn’t put me off. Blows were part of life; they were the price of perseverance, the price I had to pay in order to believe and to dream. And I believed and dreamt so much, my head was almost bursting. I told myself that what was allowed to some was allowed to all, and that although there might be people who gave up, there was no reason for me to do so. According to an old saying, the man who hopes is worth more than the man who waits, and the man who waits is less to be pitied than the man who gives up. My ambition was as great as my hunger and as raw as my nakedness. I wanted one day to wear nice clean clothes and braces over my shirt, to soap my body until it vanished beneath the suds, to comb my hair and live it up on the streets … Between customers, I would sit on the pavement and imagine myself coming out of a pastry shop arms laden with cakes, or leaving a butcher’s with thick slabs of meat in a nice parcel, or sitting on a bench, smoking my cigarette like that gentleman over there studying his newspaper. When a bus passed, I saw myself inside it, just behind the driver, watching his every move because — who knows? — I too might find myself behind a wheel one day. When a young couple came along arm in arm, I would feel a frail, tender hand taking me by the waist … I would hear Sid Roho’s grandfather whisper to me, ‘What’s difficult is not necessarily impossible … What’s difficult is not necessarily impossible … not necessarily impossible … possible, possible, possible,’ and I would nod with conviction as if the old man was right there in front of me.

Dreams are a poor man’s guardian, and his destruction. They take us by the hand, walk us through a thousand promises, then leave us whenever they want. Dreams are clever; dreams understand psychology: they accept our feelings just as we take an inveterate liar at his word, but when we entrust our hearts and minds to them, they give us the slip just when things are going badly, and we find ourselves with a void in our head and a hole in our chest — all we have left is eyes to weep.