Ghizlane wasn’t so happy, because she’d suddenly been excluded from our circle. She’d still come to make couscous for us and then go back to Mi-Lalla’s. That hurt, but I didn’t show it. Sometimes I’d go to see her in Douar Scouila. She said I’d changed, and reproached me for neglecting my parents, which was very bad, since my mother was unhappy. I had trouble explaining to her how I felt. I simply replied that God was great and He’d make everything all right in the end. She said that God had nothing to do with it, that parents were sacred, even bad ones. Mi-Lalla claimed that paradise lay beneath mothers’ feet, that to get there, you had to kneel down and kiss the soles of those feet every morning. Ghizlane told me my beard made my face look hard and it didn’t suit me at all. I promised her I’d shave it off. It wasn’t compulsory anyway; I’d only grown it to look like Zaid. We all tried to copy the emir. She complained about her brother, who was hassling her to cover her hair. I didn’t agree with him, even though it wouldn’t detract from her beauty. I said I’d have a word with him, that there was no point falling out over something so small. Her beautiful hair definitely didn’t deserve to be imprisoned by a bit of cloth and I didn’t see what was so provocative about it. I asked Zaid about it one evening in the garage, after prayers. He replied that a woman who sought to tempt men did not deserve respect, because temptation is Satan’s province. That this was an ancestral value that evil minds sought to deny. He added that, in order to preserve our identity, we must follow the path trodden by the Prophet Muhammad, peace and salvation be upon Him. That dissuaded me from taking it any further. I felt that a woman’s eyes were far more alluring than her hair, anyway; but if I’d said so, he’d have advocated the burka. At least with a veil you could cheat a bit, depending how you wore it. And, on the whole, some of the colored scarves weren’t so bad. So in the end I asked Fuad to leave his sister alone; it was simpler.
Weeks and months went by with us living on top of each other in this way. Everything was regulated, measured, weighed. I more or less gave up the bike repairs, since our evenings at the garage went on later and later. We learned the Koran by heart. It wasn’t that hard. Abu Zoubeir would analyze its innumerable aspects. He’d launch into passionate explanations and commentaries. The life of the Prophet was now an open book. Our hearts quivered to the rhythm of his conquests, which God planned in advance. We knew that the battle the crusaders and the Jews were waging against us was insidious. And sometimes completely blatant. Jihad was our only salvation. God demanded it of us. It was written, in black and white, in the book of books.
13
THE OUBAIDA BROTHERS were unrivaled mechanics, capable of dismantling and rebuilding any device known to man. They’d repair just about anything they were presented with: radios, TVs, satellite dishes, hair dryers, watches, computers. And for free. Which is another way of saying there was always a line at the door of the Internet café they’d opened at the entrance to the slum. In Sidi Moumen, faulty appliances were legion. As well as stuff you might salvage at the dump, the gadgets from Asia, which were alluring but cheap, were constantly breaking. The two men never turned down a job. At Hamid’s request, they hired Fuad, who was tired of his paltry sweet sales outside the school. He became a security guard at their café, a position created just for him, since there was no chance anyone round there would dream of stealing from them, they were so popular. Had elections not stopped at the slum walls (because people no longer believed in them), the Oubaida brothers would have won hands down and been elected presidents for life in Sidi Moumen, as they would in any self-respecting Arab country. At last, Fuad had a weekly salary and it changed his life. He bought himself a bicycle, which I fixed up to look brand-new, attaching a rearview mirror, a two-tone bell, and an old mudguard that had been lying around the shack. Ghizlane was overjoyed, she kissed my brother’s hands every time she ran into him.
Khalil the shoeshine found a job too, with a friend of Emir Zaid’s, at a printing press in the city. It was cushy work; he didn’t have to deal with café waiters, loutish racketeers, or police batons. He was entitled to leave the workshop at prayer times and, best of all, he could eat with the staff. In his wildest dreams he could never have imagined that. Three hearty meals a day! And he was the greedy type. He not only ate his share, but pounced on the leftovers on his fellow workers’ trays too. He’d mop their plates clean with bread rolls and drain all the glasses of Coca-Cola to the last drop. As for Nabil and me, we gave up bike repairs for good and became Abu Zoubeir’s messengers. We were glad to serve the master; many of the others envied us our closeness to him. We did all the cleaning at the garage and Nabil made the tea.
All the families of garage regulars were given a basket of food every day, but Yemma still found grounds to complain about how rarely we visited. One day I brought her a sheep, as the holiday was approaching. She burst into tears, not from joy at the sight of the struggling ram with its big horns, but from emotion at my presence. Seeing me all clean and handsome in my white robe, my beard cut Afghan-style, she took me for Hamid. She was angry with herself for this and sobbed some more. And she cried more than ever when my brother arrived halfway through the afternoon. Yemma spoke less and less and cried over nothing. Old people weep easily because they’re more conscious of time passing. They become emotional over the smallest thing.
Now that I’m up here, unraveling my past like a ball of wool, full of knots, I think she must have foreseen the fatal outcome of our adventure. Yet she had no idea of the mess we’d gotten ourselves into. Maybe it was that sixth sense Mi-Lalla used to talk about. In any case, that day she shut herself up in the kitchen to make the tea and stayed there longer than usual. She didn’t want to cause us any pain. Hamid and I promised to come and slaughter the sheep ourselves and she smiled. It was so good to see her smile. Said was happy to see us, since he could bore us witless with his rants on politics. Iraq, Afghanistan, Chechnya, Rwanda: you name it, he was onto it. With a sprinkling of earthquakes, deadly epidemics, and tsunamis for good measure. I refused to meet Hamid’s eye so as not to burst out laughing. Father was constantly sneezing, snorting his cheap snuff. He offered me some for the first time, a sign that he now saw me as an adult. I accepted, even though I didn’t like it. And we sneezed together. Like brothers. Seeing my nose smeared with powder and my bloodshot eyes, Hamid erupted into booming laughter, like in the old days. It had been an age since I’d heard him laugh. So I laughed too. And then we all laughed. It was laughter from the belly and the heart, the laughter of people who’d been starved of laughter; the reason for it scarcely mattered, it felt unbelievably good. And it went on and intensified until it turned into nervous laughter. Yemma started crying again. In fact, we couldn’t tell anymore if they were tears of joy or sadness; she was laughing and crying at the same time. And then we all were. We cried and laughed until we could cry and laugh no more. It was good laughter, family laughter. My father was squawking like a bird and I thought he was going to choke. Said was beaming and kept punching the cushion. He said we should all get together more often to have a laugh, even if the international situation wasn’t favorable. And Hamid was off again, laughing his legendary laugh.