And I would object:
“We’re not the only ones with a child in this neighbourhood! Why doesn’t he give to all the familes with children?”
“Look, it’s because we live right opposite his bazaar! And anyway, I’ve seen him giving sweets and bananas to other children …”
* * *
Since then, whenever I’ve walked into his shop on my way back from Jip’s, the Arab on the corner gets excited, he holds onto my pack of Pelforts so he can talk to me for longer. He shows me his till, complains that money isn’t worth what it used to be in the days of the new franc and the old franc. He curses the big supermarkets for killing off small businesses. He talks to me about his family who stayed behind in his country, about the house he’s building over there, about the competition in our neighbourhood with the Pakistanis and the Chinese who aren’t cutting him any slack:
“Business isn’t what it used to be when I came to this country. Now there are more shopkeepers than customers! That’s globalisation for you: Chinese and Pakistanis at the end of every street, what can I say? I swear, my African brother, these Chinese and Pakistanis, they buy up everything! They’ve got money that turns up from their countries via the sewers of Paris! Did you hear they’re setting up shop in that country of yours too, all the way over there? In your opinion what on earth are they going to do in the heart of darkness now that slavery has been abolished and the colonisers have either packed up their bags or else been driven out by the natives, eh? Our new settlers are the Chinese and Pakistanis that you can see in our streets. They are crafty, they say they are different from our former masters and that we all come from developing countries, that we are all the third world, and they pretend to build us palaces of the people so that our parliamentarians can sit in session in leather armchairs with air conditioning and a fountain in the courtyard, is this what is going to put bread on the table for the ordinary people, eh, my African brother? A settler is a settler even if he builds you a great big palace of the people! Now listen, I’m going to explain to you how the Chinese and the Pakistanis arrived in France and settled here by using the antelope tactic: first, they scattered in great numbers, then they gently started to get themselves established, without making any noise, whereas you Blacks and us Arabs when we arrive somewhere the first offence we commit is trouble with the neighbours! The Chinese and the Pakistanis? Those people are crafty! You don’t see them on the eight o’clock news burning cars, they don’t go out on strike with the other immigrants, they smile at everybody. And that smile is key to their business. If all the illegals in this country smiled I don’t think we’d ever see them catching charter flights home, they’d travel back business class with Air France. I swear, my African brother!”
I’m champing at the bit as I listen to him. But he hasn’t finished yet.
He’s off again, with even more energy than before:
“We woke up one morning as we were opening our shops to find that the Chinese and the Pakistanis were there already and they’d bought everything without taking out a single loan because these people have their own banks. But when I ask for a loan here, it’s a whole to-do. The banker as good as wants to see my bicycle licence and ask whether I eat with my fingers or a fork! And the result is: my sort of business hardly exists in the neighbourhood any more. We are the last Mohicans. No more Arab on the corner, it’s over! Even my small business here, well, I’ve had enough, it will end up in the hands of the Chinese and the Pakistanis. But we are the kind of people who sacrifice ourselves for others. There’s no denying the fact that we’re a public service. When I sell my merchandise, I don’t see the colour of my customers’ skin. I sell to the poor, and I sell to the rich, I sell to the handicapped, I sell to the Blacks, I sell to the Arabs, I sell to all the races that exist down here below because whatever race we may be, we all have red blood …”
He falls silent. I can almost see the tears in his eyes. He turns away from me as if to hide them.
And then he straightens himself up, he stares at me and off he goes again:
“My African brother, this is a serious situation, we all need to help each other out here. This country wouldn’t exist if it weren’t for us, do you get my gist, eh? We have always been there each time France was at war even though we could have stayed at home. But have the Pakistanis and the Chinese helped France? Have they shed their blood for this country? The day when we Arabs on the corner aren’t here any more, this country will lose everything, and I mean everything. France will lose her Arabs on the corner! Are you getting my gist? And you Blacks too, my African brothers, be vigilant, because after us, it will be your turn! They say there are too many people working on the black market, have you heard that? So if you all leave this country, it’s true there won’t be any more Blacks, but there won’t be any work either. Enough is enough, I say. They shout at us on the telly, on the radio and in the newspapers, but are we the ones digging the hole in the social? We still have one thing, my African brother, and that is the African Union, this is the only way we will build the African Unity of the Enlightened Guide, Muammar Gaddafi!”
He says all that while holding onto my pack of Pelforts. I cough to let him know I’ve got to go home now, and he starts up again:
“Wait, hold on a minute, my African brother, I have something very important to tell you because this world is falling apart before our very eyes, and we’re doing nothing about it. And I’m not even talking about the hole in the social that’s as big as you like, I’m just talking about what I can see before me, in this street, in front of your building. I’m sixty-three and a half years old, I grew up with the strictest respect for my parents, but also for strangers, and I’m proud of that. Respect forms the basis of society, are you still getting my gist, my African brother? Do you know what France’s great problem is? Well, I’m going to tell you what the real problem is for France. Don’t listen to what they say on the telly, it’s just meant to confuse us. France’s problem lies elsewhere, it is deep, it is in the morals. Even the unemployment is not it, even the hole in the social is not it, France’s problem it is RESPECT! It is a legacy, a very important legacy, RESPECT. But the youth of today, what do they do, eh? Well let me tell you, they break everything! They think that they are smarter than their parents! So they talk when their parents are talking. They bring their girlfriends or boyfriends home with them to go jiggy-jiggy in their bedrooms when in my day we hid in the sewers for that. And they do that thing in full view of their family. They don’t even go to school any more, they don’t read even the Koran any more, are you getting my gist? I ask you! And as for the girls? It is complete mayhem, and their parents are guilty for letting them wear mini-skirts, jeans with holes on the butts, red thongs and dragon tattoos, as well as T-shirts with their breasts for all to see! How are the rascals not supposed to rape them, eh? It’s not the rapists’ fault, it’s the girls displaying their merchandise who are to blame. When you go walking with a bone in the street, the dogs in the neighbourhood will chase after it, I swear to you! But when you put that bone in the bottom of your basket, the neighbourhood dogs don’t know about the bone, and that is the end of the matter. Now, I realise that dogs can also smell there’s a bone hidden somewhere, because, don’t believe it, my African brother, French dogs aren’t as stupid as you’d think, they’ve also got a very strong nose like the African dogs. But me, I’ve never seen a dog of any nationality whatsoever opening the bag of a normal woman to take out a bone hidden in there. And when I see these weird girls passing by in front of my shop — and some of them even come here to provoke me — I think to myself the world is going to the dogs, big time, I swear, my African brother. And whose fault is all this? Can you answer me that, eh? IT’S THE FAULT OF THE WEST! Do you call it civilisation, what we’re seeing in this country? Do you call it development, what we’re seeing in this country? I’d rather my country remained under-developed until the end of time, provided it doesn’t follow this path, you do get my gist, don’t you …?”