Yasmina Khadra - The Angels Die

She tried to raise her hand to my face, but her arm remained stuck in the mass of flesh. ‘You look like a good boy, Turambo.’

I said nothing. I was still in a state of shock.

‘Your mother takes care of me like a sister … Gino has told me a lot about you. I think the two of you are going to get along well. Come closer still, right next to me.’

Gino noticed my growing unease and came to my rescue, grabbing me by the wrist. ‘I’m taking him to my room, Mother. I have things to show him.’

‘Povero figlio, ha solo stracci addosso. Devi sicuramente avere degli abiti che non indossi più, Gino. Daglieli.’

‘That’s what I was planning to do, Mother.’

Gino led me to his room. There was a bed that could be taken apart, a table with a chair in a corner, a little wardrobe that was falling to pieces, and that was all. The walls were peeling and there were greenish stains on the cracked ceiling crossed by beams. It was a sad room, with a broken window looking out onto the façade of a repulsively ugly building.

‘What language does your mother speak?’ I asked Gino.

‘Italian.’

‘Is that a Berber language?’

‘No. Italy’s a country on the other side of the sea, not far from France.’

‘Aren’t you Algerian?’

‘Oh, yes. My father was born here. So were his parents. His ancestors had been here for centuries. My mother’s from Florence. She met my father on a liner. They got married and my mother followed him here. She speaks Arabic and French, but when she and I are together we speak Italian. So that I don’t lose the language of my uncles, you know? Italians are very proud of their origins. They’re quite temperamental.’

What he was trying to explain was beyond me. All I knew of the world was what everyday life and its vileness showed me. When I was small, standing on a rock in the hills above Turambo, I’d thought the horizon was a precipice, that the earth stopped at its feet, and that there was nothing beyond it.

Gino opened the wardrobe and took a packet of photographs from a drawer. He selected one to show me. The photograph, taken on a terrace overlooking the sea, showed a woman laughing, her siren-like body held snugly in a pretty bathing suit. She was as beautiful as the actresses you saw on posters outside cinemas.

‘Who is she?’

Gino gave a sullen pout. His eyes glistened as he pointed over his shoulder with his thumb. ‘The lady rising like dough in the next room.’

‘I don’t believe it.’

‘I swear to you it’s my mother in the photograph. She used to turn heads in the street. She was offered a part in a film, but my father didn’t want an actress in his house. He said you never know when an actress is being sincere and when she’s acting. A real macho man, my father, from what I’ve been told. He left us to fight in the war in Europe. I don’t remember him very well. He died in the trenches, gassed. My mother went mad when she found out. She even had to be committed. When she recovered her senses, she started putting on weight. She hasn’t stopped since. She’s been prescribed all kinds of treatments, but neither the hospital doctors nor the Arab healers have been able to control her obesity.’

I took the photograph from his hands to get a better look at it. ‘How beautiful she was!’

‘She still is. Did you see her face? It’s like an angel’s. It’s the only part of her body that’s been spared. As if to save her soul.’

‘To save her soul?’

‘I’m sorry, I don’t know why I’m talking this way. When I see what’s become of her, I say all sorts of nonsense. She can’t even sit up any more. She weighs as much as a cow on the scales. And a cow doesn’t need anybody to help it relieve itself.’

‘Don’t talk like that about your mother.’

‘I don’t blame her. But I can’t help it, it makes me bitter. My mother’s a generous woman. She’s never harmed anybody. She gives her money away and expects nothing in return. People have often robbed her, but not once has she held it against them. She’s even turned a blind eye when she’s caught them red-handed. It isn’t fair, that’s all. I don’t think she deserves to end up like this.’

He took the photograph from me and put it away in a cardboard box.

He wiped his forehead with the back of his hand and looked at me warily. Then he cleared his throat to summon up courage and said, ‘I have a few shirts, one or two sweaters, and a pair of trousers I don’t wear any more. Would you be offended if I gave them to you? I’d be very happy to. I don’t want you to take it badly. I’d really like it if you said yes.’

There was a mixture of sadness and fear in his eyes. He was awaiting my reaction as if it were a verdict.

‘My bottom is almost showing through the seat of my trousers,’ I said.

He gave a little laugh and, relieved, started rummaging through the shelves, throwing me a quick glance to make sure I wasn’t offended.

Later, several years later, I asked him why he’d been so defensive when he was only trying to help a friend. Gino replied that it was because Arabs were sensitive and had a sense of honour so excessive they would be suspicious even of a good deed.

Returning home that day, proud of my bundle of almost new clothes, I surprised Mekki and my mother talking about my father. They fell silent when they saw me come in. Their faces were twisted with anger. My mother seemed on the point of imploding. Her face was trembling with indignation and there were tears in her eyes. I asked what was going on. Mekki told me it was none of my business and shut the door of his room in my face. I listened carefully, hoping to catch a few scraps of their conversation, but neither my uncle nor my mother carried on speaking. I shrugged my shoulders and went to the other room to try on the clothes Gino had given me.

Mekki joined me a few moments later, his cheek twitching.

‘Has my father been found dead?’ I asked.

‘After all these years?’ he retorted, annoyed at my naivety, then changed the subject. ‘You have to find a job. Rokaya’s sick. She needs care. Your mother and I don’t earn enough.’

‘I look for one every day.’

‘But you don’t knock on the right doors. I don’t want to see you hanging around the streets any more.’

*

I set off again in search of a livelihood, but didn’t change my habits; I didn’t know where the right doors were. In any case, whether I turned up before or after they had employed someone, it was always the same old story: either the job was already taken or I didn’t look suitable.

I was sitting on a low wall, longing for a piece of the goat’s cheese wrapped in vine leaves that a child was trying to sell to passers-by, when a boy approached me. He must have been about fifteen or sixteen. He was tall for his age and quite thin; his glasses made him look like one of those educated boys who were good at picking up girls outside school. He was wearing a check shirt and smart, neatly ironed trousers. His brown hair was cut short at the sides and his hands were spotlessly clean.

‘Don’t you live opposite the artillery barracks?’ he said.

‘Yes.’

‘I live quite near to you. My name’s Pierre.’ He didn’t hold out his hand. ‘I heard you asking about a job at the warehouse earlier. I can arrange it. I have contacts. Neighbours should stick together, don’t you think?’

‘Sure.’

‘It isn’t easy to sway an employer these days. You don’t have any experience and of course you don’t have any education. If you let me recommend you for jobs, you can start earning your living tomorrow.’

‘All right then.’

‘What about this then: I find you work and whatever you make we split fifty-fifty. How does that sound?’