But though that grave lies open, Algeria is still alive. May it heal its wounds and find happiness once again.
Fifty years ago, several explosions disturbed the dreamers’ slumber. No one knew what the outcome of those events would be. There was a war. I was excluded from the country. I wholeheartedly hope for the Algerians that not another of their citizens finds himself in the position of having to set off a bomb in his own country. And if it happens, as it happened not so long ago, I ask that we do not condemn that man’s children. Not the children. Never again.
* On July 3, 1962, Algeria obtained its independence from France after a bloody, eight-year-long war. However, Algerians celebrate Independence Day on July 5, to coincide with the French invasion on the same day in 1830.
* Ahmed Ben Bella was the first president of Algeria (1963–1965).
Four
But at thirteen, I know nothing of that and keep reading. Reading all the while asking, “What am I doing here? Someone tell me what I’m doing here?” Every day, I leave my bedroom and go to one of the French villagers’ homes. I do little but sleep at my own house. I have breakfast there in the morning and I eat my other meals at school. At night, I retreat to my corner. I read. I read all the time. My sister bangs on the door, she bangs nonstop. I learn the trick. I stop speaking. Except when I’m in the street, alone or with others. In houses, but not my own. I go see a friend and we make sausage casings with her mother. I go to Madeleine’s home. There it’s hair curlers. I open the plastic netting, slide on the spring, fold the edges, hand it to her, and she pushes in the bottlebrush. When the table starts to overflow, we make packets. Six per pouch. We staple them. “Den” is printed on the labels. The name of the nearby factory. “Take a butter cookie, sweetheart,” she tells me. Outside, in her garden, I attentively follow her around. Like her, I take a hat. “Hand me the rake, sweetheart.” Kneeling, I pull out the weeds. She tires quickly and sits down against a wall. I hold her hand. Tall, old, silent, and alone. I want to live with her. I lie down in her field, nose under a poppy flower. I stay under the poppy’s softness, I resemble it. A fragile birth for a life too short.
Inside, we count the bags and I ask her, “What was it like here before?”
She tells me about my house, once owned by her former masters whom she watched over as a servant. She tells me, “They had horses, carts, and a car. The foreman would gather the brushes and pay the female workers. That’s the way it used to be. Now I take my cartons in myself. It’s impossible to get by without a car.”
She has no husband and no children. She lives in her kitchen and sleeps in a very rudimentary room. The living room holds the residue of her history, invaded by furniture that belonged to the widow, the former owner. She shows me the pieces placed in storage under white sheets. I see gold decorations adorning beautiful wood. Beds, armoires, dressers. The drawers are overflowing with linens and in one spot, she’s gathered together vases, pots, candleholders, and mirrors.
“After her husband died, she left to go live with her daughter in town. The house was too big. At the end, they were using only the bedroom. The rest was closed up. It was too cold. He was a hard man. Very hard,” she says. “But his wife was kind, kind and gentle.”
“And the boys from the village?”
“Many of them died during the war.”
“And you, Madeleine, which one did you love?”
She doesn’t answer me. She often smiles at my questions, holding herself with dignity like the well-mannered young lady she still wants to be. There was only one war. The First, the sole, the exceptional, the one that killed all the town’s sons. The other war, the second, was purposely shelved. Too much cowardice hidden there. The first conflict was so violent and so terrible that nobody wanted another one. During the Second, the mothers were the first to protest the conflict, allowing the Germans to carry out their occupation. The soldiers stayed for a time, in a stucco castle at the base of the Mount. We don’t know if the local girls took their revenge. Who knows if there was even a single act of resistance? Contempt for Fritz in order to avenge one’s only lover—if only in daydreams—killed in battle.
“Madeleine, how old were you in 1914?”
She doesn’t answer me.
Her last name is scattered across the monument to the casualties of both wars.
“Madeleine, how old were you in 1914?”
Her father, her brothers, her uncles. All dead.
“Madeleine?”
“It wasn’t like this before. We all respected one another.”
A need for her missing masters or the desire for a past that would erase so many sacrifices made in an era when you waited for the return of the living. The boys lucky at dodging bombs, survivors of horrors, who supported with a look, a sadness, the ones to whom nobody came home. They cried alongside those resigned to accepting the death of their brothers. Madeleine, to whom nobody came home.
Before, we all respected one another.
Respect for the dead. Working far longer than the age required, your home making up for a small pension, the garden constantly cultivated until the end, let them keep their “before, we all respected one another.” Heavy secrets are nestled in these people’s minds. Respect for the dead and nowhere else to go. They’re careful not to stoke quarrels, stifling desires beneath mumbles, they see each other every day and every day the same. They say hello, they’re still there, making do, otherwise they would be too alone, walking behind the casket of the last to die, lamenting the secrets buried underground.
They tell me, “Words have power, little girl.” I learn that lesson here in this village. And in order to end this sad period of a restrained existence, I have to play the role of everyone’s “little girl.” I don’t share any of my secrets with them, but I fear that a romance with one of the village boys would feed their whisperings. For my own peace of mind, and that of our families, I refuse to entertain the thought.
Outings with the girls are much like a ritual. We hide from the villagers constantly spying on us. Several of us go to gather milk from the farm. Once the Madous are gone, we go to one farther away. We hurry on the way there so we can meet up with some boys seated on their scooters, who have come from the neighboring town. We talk. Not more than twenty minutes, beyond that it becomes suspicious. We trade idiocies, fill the silence with nothings, and one day, to avoid being unmasked, I mirror the other girls. I quickly kiss on the lips a handsome young man who’s liked me for a long time, then add a “see you tomorrow.” The walk home among girlfriends is gleeful. We talk, we laugh, and I conclude with, “No, definitely not, I don’t like him.” I rein myself in. I protect myself from the unhappiness curbing my every enthusiasm like a dead shadow. Then the prospect of a wasted life I had hoped to see crumble comes back. Return to my readings at the dinner table as if to better keep my feet on the ground. A struggle against a father who doesn’t want to go easy on me. A dignified combat he cannot deny me.