5
MY CHILDREN ARE Mourad, Rachid, Jamila, Othmane, Rekya, and the marvellous Nabile, who is actually the son of my sister, who entrusted him to me in the hope he might get into a school for retarded children. Nabile is my favorite. He was born with a problem, and I believe he has transformed this problem into something wonderful. I’m told he’s a “Mongolian,” whatever that means, but I know he’s an astonishing boy. He throws himself into my arms, hugs me tightly, and says “iluvyoo.” My children never tell me that. I don’t say it either, actually — that’s not the sort of thing the family says at home. Once a secretary at the factory handed me back a form that wasn’t properly filled out, so I said, But he filled it out; I’m sure he’s right. And she said, Who’s he? My youngest daughter! The woman was shocked, but how can I explain, that’s how it is with us. We don’t talk about our daughters or their mother, it’s a question of respect, but the secretary didn’t get it. I’ve never complimented my girls; it isn’t done, to say, You are beautiful, my daughter. No, that we don’t do.
My children have Arab features and gestures, but they claim they are “assimilated,” a word I’ve never understood. One day Rachid showed me a card and said, With this, I vote. I’m French and European too. So I said, Hold on: you already waited more than a year and a half to get your papers; you’re not going to start the same nonsense so you can call yourself European! Don’t forget where you come from, where your parents come from; it’s important: wherever you go, always remember that your native land is written on your face, and it’s there whether you like it or not. Me, I never had any doubt about my country; you kids today, you don’t know what country you’re from, and yes, you say you’ve been Frenchified, but I think you’re the only ones who believe that — you think the police treat you like a 100 per cent Frenchman? True, if you go to court the judge will say you’re French, he has to, but he considers you a foreigner, or else a bastard. It’s as if LaFrance had a bushel of babies with someone from someplace else and then forgot to declare them; what I mean is recognise them. It’s very strange, but in any case nothing is going to be easy for you! When we arrived, there were already immigrants, from Italy, Spain, Portugal, and they gave us more or less the fish eye. Actually, they weren’t really immigrants like before, their countries were all going to join Europe and we, we got left at the station, I mean on the sidewalk. It was all right for us to be here, but we had to be discreet, not talk or move around too much. Then one day — I hadn’t been here long — the Algerians, who were fighting for their independence, decided to demonstrate in the streets of Paris. I wasn’t there, but I know that lots of rooms rented by Algerians were left empty after the demonstration. Their tenants were dead. We whispered about it and were afraid because the police were constantly lurking around the projects.*
Don’t ever forget where you come from, my son. Tell me: is it true that you call yourself Richard? Richard Ben Abdallah! It doesn’t go together, you’ve fiddled with the first name, but the family name betrays you: Ben Abdallah, “son of the worshiper of Allah”! That’s silly! What did you do? Changed that name too? Ah, I see: you got rid of the servant part and kept just the Ben. Now people might take you for a Jew, that’s it, you want to erase your roots and find yourself a spot, a little corner among the French, the Jews preferably, and tell me, is it working? Is it easier for you to find a job? You did that to get into a nightclub? He didn’t answer me, ran off. Richard! To think I had a fine sheep slaughtered on the day he was baptised! Rachid is more beautiful than Richard, but what can I do? I’m lucky he didn’t erase his father completely like Abdel Malek, our neighbour’s son, who left with an American family and sent no news for ten years until the day he turned up back home, calling himself Mike Adley and speaking Berber with a foreign accent. He was ridiculous and didn’t even know that his mother was dead. He saw his father, gave him some dollars, and then said good-bye, like some tourist, before vanishing again. Adley! Mike Adley!
What is it they find so attractive in these modern countries? Perhaps it’s our way of life that puts them off. They don’t like us anymore. We’re no longer cool; we’re behind the times. They feel ashamed of us. I have never in my life committed an offence, never lied or cheated or stolen. I have always been upright, openhearted, with nothing to hide. I worked so my family would lack nothing, I always gave them presents, vacations, I was an honest father, too honest. My children don’t want to be like me. That’s the problem. But do I want to be like me?
I locked myself in the bathroom and stared in the mirror for a long while. I saw someone else, old before his time, a face marked by hard work and many years. What have I done with my life? I worked every day, and I slept the rest of the time to recover from work. It’s a life the same colour as my grey overalls. I never wondered whether my life might have had other colours. When I’m back in Morocco, I don’t ask myself all these questions. There I’m in tune with nature even when it’s yellow with drought. I’m at home. This feeling has no equal anywhere in the world. How can I put it? It’s feeling safe even when storms and lightning threaten, even when there’s not enough sugar and water. That’s it: here in Yvelines I have never felt at home in our home. It’s no one’s fault, that’s how it is. I’m not accusing LaFrance or Morocco or Jean or Jacques or Marcel or the king or the queen, no: I am not at home where I live. Perhaps my children don’t ask themselves that question, so much the better, but that means … that I came here so I wouldn’t feel at home and they would. But where is it, their home? I’ve never travelled outside LaFrance; the auto plant committee organises trips to Italy, Spain, and communist countries, but I’ve never wanted to leave my children to spend a few days discovering other cities, I’ve never felt the need. Maybe I should have travelled. I don’t know what it’s like to be foreign, a tourist in a foreign country; I haven’t the time to do things like that.
Fortunately, Nabile is here. Nabile, a gift from God, a light in my life. Like me, he doesn’t read well and writes with difficulty, but there’s something enchanting about him. He’s an angel. When he enters a room, he can spot right away those people who make faces or won’t accept his condition. He ignores them. He’s incapable of having negative feelings. To me, he has been more than a son: a compass, a guide, sunshine in my grey life, a smile that wipes away a world of woe. I like to go out with him to a restaurant. He loves to dress up and have fun. It’s for him that I put on a tie. He insists on that. Without him, I think my life would have been even more difficult and dispiriting. I thank God for sending him to us. When he goes back home to the village, he talks constantly to his parents, telling them about his life with words that no one understands, but he knows that, so he expresses himself with gestures, and then he gets them laughing. He’s a clown, a comedian, he’s a real actor, by the way, he loves putting on a show, doing magic tricks, acrobatics, and he’s so limber and inventive that everyone’s astonished. I believe that if he’d stayed in the village he’d be a vegetable today, drooling, with no zest for life. Back home we don’t do a thing for such children, just leave them to nature, like animals; no one hurts them, but no one takes care of them, either. In LaFrance he’s been to school, played sports, learned music; he’s happy.