He’d rarely eaten an omelet as good as that one. It was nothing special, but he had done something out of the ordinary, so everything seemed wonderful to him. He told himself he ought to have this sort of escapade again.
And yet, as he left the bar he felt strange. He was having trouble digesting the eggs and all that butter. He thought about his wife, who was probably starting to worry; he could have phoned but didn’t know what to say to her. He was incapable of lying, of coming up with credible scenarios. He would have been ashamed to admit he’d taken off like that because he’d felt dejected and wanted to play a trick on his routine.
He took the train back in the other direction, reaching his neighbourhood forty minutes later. It was evening. Families were watching television. A few young people were hanging around here and there. One called out to him: Hey, Pops, you in the market for the real thing, some good homegrown? If you don’t use, at least give some to your kids! Just joking, you old fart!
Old fart! He’d heard that insult many times before, but never directed at him. As he walked home, head hanging, he wondered if he really looked like an old fart. What is an old fart? Must be a pathetic guy, someone who doesn’t fight back, who endures life, and the day he decides not to go through the same motions, he runs into a fresh kind of hostility. He has never found where he belongs. Outside of the painting shop at the plant, he’s in the way, he feels unwanted, and at home the routine is even more painful because of occasional small scenes with the children. Perhaps he’d rather have lived at the plant, where he was needed, where the assembly line depended on him for its smooth operation. He’d noticed behind the foreman’s desk a little corner that he’d have really liked to make his own, his home, his bed, his refuge, but he would have missed the children, even if he was beginning to get the idea that they didn’t miss him much; in any case, they kept their feelings hidden. They’d become little Europeans, looking out for themselves, pushing their parents into the background.
The guy who murdered his wife and three children but botched his own death — he must be “an old fart.” There’d been a lot about him on TV. To kill and then attempt suicide because of debts or regret over a wasted life, that was something Mohammed did not understand. Suicide was forbidden in Islam. And anyone who commits suicide is punished by God for all eternity, forced to repeat his action forever. Just imagine a guy who hangs himself: until the end of time he’ll be hanging himself, maybe not from the same tree but in houses, stores, right in the middle of a wealthy family’s living room….
Mohammed suddenly thought, Wait: will there be houses and stores in the afterlife? I know, no one has ever returned to tell us what goes on there. Kill? That’s horrible, I’d never do that! At the celebration of Eid al-Kebir, I used to refuse to cut the sheep’s throat, leaving that to my older brother or our neighbour. The sight of blood upsets me. I’ve never raised my hand to my children, always tried to restrain my temper. At the same time, I’ve indulged them too much, especially my youngest girl — so spoiled she became a terrible student. I realised this when she decided to drop out of high school. That day, I cried all alone after prayers. To me, it was more than a failure, a humiliation. I don’t like school, she told me, I’m quitting, and anyway I want to get a job. I understood then that any attempt to set her straight would be useless. I could have told her, If you only knew how I suffered from not getting to attend school, from missing out on so many things because I’m illiterate. If you had any idea what I’d give today to have knowledge, expertise, education, diplomas, but I feel like a donkey, a faithful animal going along the same road every day, doing the same things, unable to vary my routine for fear I’ll get lost, afraid of drowning in a calm sea. Oh, if you knew how alone I feel because I need someone to help me whenever I go into an administrative office, but all that, I guess it has nothing to do with you, you were born in a different time, you found life a little easier, a little less puzzling.
You children don’t like to be reminded of what we others have gone through. Remember the day when you wiped your knife on a piece of bread? I had a fit: bread isn’t a scrap of rag! I was taught to bring bread to my lips and kiss it before taking a bite or putting it away. Bread is sacred, and you, you were treating it as a thing of no importance. You didn’t understand my reaction, especially since you weren’t used to seeing me react at all. Then there was that time you turned up your nose at some bananas, pushing them away with your fingertips and saying, Don’t like them. I made the mistake of saying that when I was your age I dreamed of eating bananas and apples, and that I’d had to wait till I came to France to taste them. But that didn’t interest you or your brothers and sisters. It’s like the time your brother Mourad talked back to me when I was objecting to the people he was friends with, when he said, I hope I don’t turn out like you, oh no, not like you: you’re there and no one sees you, so excuse me, but you don’t make me want to be like you at all.
I looked at myself in the mirror for a long time, but I never figured out why my son wouldn’t want to be like me. What’s so crummy, so repulsive about me? I’m clean, I don’t hurt anyone, I do my work the best I can, I’m faithful to God and carry out my duties, and none of that shows in my face! Maybe I should turn mean, wasting the family money in bars with whores, dragging around in the streets like Atiq, that guy who lost everything, especially his mind.
Except for the youngest daughter, Rekya, each of his children had had a different reason for going away, and Mohammed’s house had slowly emptied out. Mohammed had a hard time coming to grips with this. He hadn’t noticed that they were growing up, choosing their paths, then leaving on them. Angry at himself for not having paid more attention, he took comfort in the fact that other parents were in the same boat. Then he brooded over the evil influence of a charlatan he held responsible for his empty nest, one of those old Berbers who take up sorcery, fortune-telling, and other services to plump up their bank accounts for their old age. These con artists let their beards grow, dress in traditional clothing, set themselves up in a small apartment, surround themselves with books on Islam, and burn a bit of incense. They hang calligraphed names of Allah and his prophet Mohammed on the wall next to photos of Mecca and Medina; on the floor lie prayer rugs with the image of the Kaaba. They claim to do no evil, simply to protect people from it. As a good Muslim, Mohammed detested such sorcerers. His wife and even his eldest daughter, Jamila, consulted a certain Allam, who extracted tidy sums from them in exchange for talismans to carry or hide among their belongings.
One day Jamila had been pulled aside by security agents at Orly Airport: in her purse, wrapped in tinfoil and duct tape, was a small unidentified object that the agents suspected was drugs or an ingredient for a bomb. They had active imaginations. Jamila had opened the wad to reveal a strip of brown fabric on which Allam had scribbled in Arabic a protective talisman that had unfortunately proved powerless to deflect the attention of the security staff. During the flight, his daughter had reflected on how ridiculous it was for a modern young woman like her, born in Yvelines, to be carrying in her purse — along with (among other things) a mobile phone, a bottle of perfume, some lipstick, and a PDA — a scrap of dirty material for her mental and physical safety! But a little later, when the plane encountered some frightening turbulence, Jamila couldn’t help halfway blaming the storm on the fact that the talisman had been opened and incorrectly closed. I was sure born in France, she concluded, but my genes come from the old country!