Yasmina Khadra - The Angels Die

Gino had found a job at a printing works in Rue de Tlemcen. He no longer bore me a grudge for the incident at the garage. ‘I wasn’t planning to work there for the rest of my life anyway,’ he admitted. On the evenings when a neighbour volunteered to keep his mother company, Gino took me to cafés-concerts to hear musicians and singers. My uncle’s partner the Mozabite, who was a lyric writer in his spare time, used to say: Music is the proof that we are capable of continuing to love despite everything, of sharing the same emotion, of being ourselves a wonderful, healthy emotion, as beautiful as a dream emerging in the dead of night … What is an angel without his harp but a sad, naked demon, and what would paradise be for him but an exile full of boredom? Gino was absolutely of the same opinion. He loved music. Unlike me. I only liked the Kabyle songs my mother hummed while going about her household chores, but, going around with Gino, I was starting to discover new worlds. Before him, I didn’t know anything about films or different kinds of music. Gradually, my senses had opened to other people’s joys, and I wanted more.

A good-natured rivalry forced the musicians to excel. From Medina Jedida to the Casbah by way of the Derb, the singers warded off ill fortune just by clearing their throats. For my part, I started showing Gino what my own people could do. I took him to a Moorish café down a dead-end street in Sidi Blel, frequented by those in the know. There was a highly experienced violinist, a lute player, a derbouka, and a singer with vocal cords as solid as ropes. Gino fell in love with the group. He promised me that one day he would write a book about the music of the different neighbourhoods of Oran.

Times were hard, especially for the people of my community. My people could still cling to the flotsam, but they weren’t allowed on board the ship. The greater the poverty, though, the less the people of Oran gave in to it. Anger and humiliation might have been rife in the streets, but the wounds healed by themselves whenever the sound of the mandolin replaced the cacophony of men. In any case, we had no choice: either we listened to music or we gave in to our frustrations. These cafés were warm, welcoming places where the poor could find some respite and even, for a few hours, imagine that they were privileged. They sat on rickety chairs, their fezzes or tarbooshes tilted ostentatiously over their temples, some in suits, others in fine traditional robes. The better off among them smoked nargileh and sipped mint tea while on a makeshift stage legendary tenors took turns, men nourished by their native soil. By taking refuge in the music, I was leaving my furies behind. It was my way of hearing the sound of another bell, of feeling lucky for as long as the singing lasted, of drowning my sorrows in the sorrows of the lyric writers. It was only a brief reprieve, but for a lost soul like me it was almost a moment of grace.

Whenever Gino took his leave of me, I didn’t dare go back home immediately. I would continue to wander the dark alleys until morning, the songs still echoing in my head. In order to be left in peace, I told my family that I was a nightwatchman.

It was a Friday.

My mother had come home later than usual, tottering with exhaustion. I asked her what was wrong.

‘She made me brush her hair three times in a row,’ she sighed, throwing her veil into a corner. ‘I think she’s losing her mind.’

My mother was talking about Madame Ramoun.

‘She’s been raving since midday,’ she went on once she had quenched her thirst. ‘I didn’t know if I should listen to her or finish the housework. The poor woman’s not acting normally. She kept reciting something in a language which wasn’t Spanish, French, Arabic or Kabyle. I think she’s possessed.’

‘It must have been Italian,’ I said. ‘Did she fire you?’

My mother told me to let her catch her breath. She lay down on a sheepskin rug and slid her arm under her head as a pillow. ‘She’s asking for you, my son. She wants to see you. She won’t take no for an answer.’

I went to get a box of Pernot biscuits, which Gino’s mother was particularly fond of, and proceeded to Boulevard Mascara.

The door wasn’t locked.

I called to my friend and he came out onto the balcony and signalled to me to come up. I didn’t like the darkness on the stairs. A vague sense of foreboding clutched at my heart.

Gino was sitting on his mother’s bed with a defeated look on his face. Madame Ramoun lay spread over the mattress, gasping for air, a Bible on her chest. She slowly turned her head towards me. Her eyes lit up when she recognised me. She gave me a sad smile and motioned to me to come closer. Gino gave up his seat for me and stood by his mother’s bedside. I sat down on the edge of the bed, with a pang in my heart.

‘I was waiting just for you, Turambo. I can’t move my arm. Put your hand on mine, please. I have to talk to you.’

Whenever I saw her, I felt just as sorry for her. To have to lie down day and night, every day and every night, year in, year out, to depend on other people even for your most private needs: nobody deserved such indignity. Madame Ramoun was nothing but a crucified soul beneath a heap of wild flesh, like an unhappy saint trapped in her own contrition, and I could see no rhyme or reason to her suffering.

‘I love you like my son, Turambo. You’re more than a friend to Gino, more than a brother. From the first time I saw you, I knew you were the twin my son never had. Gino is a good person. He never harms anyone, and we live in unforgiving times. You’re younger than him, but I see you as older. And that reassures me. I want you to take care of Gino.’

‘Mother, please,’ Gino said.

‘Why do you say that, Madame Ramoun?’

‘Because I’m going. And I want to go in peace. I have nothing on my conscience, but I’m leaving an orphan behind me. I want to be sure he’ll be in good hands.’

‘Is she sick?’ I asked Gino.

‘She’s rambling. She’s been like this since midday. I called the doctor; he said there’s nothing wrong. I don’t understand why she thinks she’s dying. I’ve been trying to reason with her, but she won’t listen to me.’

‘There are things a doctor doesn’t see,’ his mother said. ‘Things only those who are going feel. My feet are freezing and the cold is spreading to the rest of my body.’

‘No, Mother, you’re imagining things.’

‘Put your hand on mine again, Turambo, and swear to me that you’ll take care of my son.’

Gino signalled to me to agree.

I swallowed, my throat tight with emotion.

‘Will you take care of him as you take care of yourself?’

‘Yes, Madame Ramoun.’

‘I don’t want anything to come between you, not money, not women, not your careers, not temptation.’

‘Nothing will come between us.’

‘I’ll be looking down on you, Turambo.’

‘I’ll look after Gino and won’t let any serpents come between us.’

‘Do you promise?’

‘I swear.’

She turned to Gino and said to him in Italian, ‘Fetch me your father.’

‘Mother …’

‘Please, Gino.’

Gino went to his room and came back with a framed photograph of a turbaned infantryman smiling at the camera and puffing at a cigarette. He was young, handsome, fine-featured and dark-skinned. The photograph had turned yellow in places and had scratches which, fortunately, had spared the soldier’s face.

‘Was he an Arab?’ I asked Gino.

‘He was my father, that’s all,’ he replied, irritated by my stupid question.

He placed the photograph on the chair next to the bedside table, so that his mother had it facing her. Madame Ramoun gazed for a long time at her husband’s picture. She smiled, sighed, smiled again, and raised her eyebrows in an expression of tenderness while a thousand memories flashed before her eyes. Everything in her was asking for forgiveness. She’d had enough of being confined to her sarcophagus of flesh. Without her faith, she would doubtless have put an end to her life ages ago, but there was that fear of the Last Judgement, that horrible deadline that raises its finger to warn you against yourself, that keeps you in purgatory while promising you hell if you try to get out of it. I had often asked myself what I would do in her position; not once had I come up with an answer. I had simply watched the poor woman sink into the quicksand of her body, like someone watching the misery of the world making a spectacle of itself on every street corner. There was nothing else to do.