The miracle of Sidi Moumen is the strange facility with which new arrivals adapt. Coming from parched fields or voracious metropolises, driven out by blind authority and the parasitical rich, they slip into the mold of resigned defeat, grow used to the filth, throw their dignity to the winds, learn to get by, to patch up their lives. As soon as they’ve made their nest, they sink into it, they go to ground, and it’s as if they’ve always been there and have never done anything but add to the surrounding poverty. They become part of the landscape, like the mountain of sewage, like the makeshift shelters, built of mud and spit, topped by satellite dishes like gigantic upturned ears. They’re here and they dream. They know the grim reaper is lurking, and that those who’ve given up dreaming will be first to go. But they are not going to die. They stick together; they support each other. Disease lies in wait, they can see it, can smell it. They defy it. Hunger may well stretch out its tentacles, gripping throats till they choke, but in Sidi Moumen it does not kill, because people share what little they have. Because they look to each other to measure their common distress. Tomorrow, it will be so-and-so’s turn. The day after, someone else’s. The wheel turns so fast. Between little and nothing lie a few crumbs, blown away by the merest breath.
The coach driver married off his two elder daughters to the first comers. Fewer mouths to feed is always a good thing. For big celebrations a ceremonial tent is erected near the pump. The ground is covered with carpets borrowed from neighbors, drapes are hung and decorated with palm leaves, dozens of lanterns are dotted around the place, and, for as long as the party lasts, the guests, all dressed up, imagine they’re living on the other side of the wall. The coach driver did not disappoint: he bled himself dry to give his daughters proper weddings, calling on Tamu each time to make a real night of it.
Khalil left school and became a shoeshine boy, working the streets, cafés, and all the bustling city squares.
Little by little, he became part of our group. He toned down his arrogance, and we became more easygoing, less aggressive. He’d often join us in the evenings at Nabil’s shack. He’d bring a bottle of Coca-Cola and some Henry’s cookies or a bit of hash, with his American tobacco and rolling papers. He’d tell us all about his fabulous days in the medina, his struggle for control of a strategic square, the tricks he’d use to deceive the café waiters, who’d chase off all interlopers: kids renting out newspapers, pedlars of contraband, pimps, pickpockets, shoeshine boys. . He’d describe to us in great detail the exquisite meals he’d treat himself to if the morning was successfuclass="underline" spicy sausage sandwich, puréed broad beans with olive oil and cumin, calves’ feet or a sheep’s head, roasted to perfection. He’d make our mouths water with all these marvels. On Fridays, he’d say, people give away couscous and whey outside their front doors. He’d been known to devour three breakfasts in a row, elbowing beggars out of the way to grab a bit of meat.
We knew he was exaggerating, but we loved hearing it anyway. He said it was a shame that slippers don’t need polishing, otherwise he’d have made a fortune! But he couldn’t complain. His father had set him a reasonable sum to bring home at the end of the day. And he managed it. And not by taking the easy way out like other boys his age: he only rarely had sex with tourists, even though it brought in the equivalent of a day’s work. No, that wasn’t his style, or only at times of extreme hardship.
And that was how, on account of a wretched broken leg, a family’s destiny had darkened. Though Khalil and I buried the hatchet, it was only years later that we spent any time together, at the garage. And that was because of Abu Zoubeir.
7
WITH BOYS LIKE Khalil the shoeshine, Nabil, the son of Tamu, Ali (or Yussef), alias Blackie, Fuad, and my brother Hamid, we made up our own little family; it was us against the world. If any of us was in trouble, the others would rise up as one to rescue him. When Fuad, for example, started sniffing glue, we waged a ruthless campaign to get him off it. But he carried on in secret. So many times I’d find him standing at his stall, completely out of it, letting little kids pinch his cakes, not pelting them with stones like he normally would. Worse, the brats were shameless enough to pick his pockets, as if he were a no-good drunk. Fuad was gone. He was traveling in his head. I could shake him all I liked, he wouldn’t respond. His eyes, wide open, were contemplating a world I had no access to. So I just picked up whatever was left of his cakes and dragged him back home. As soon as his mother opened the door, she’d explode in a torrent of threats and abuse. We’d be lucky if she let us in at all. I’d carry my friend into a room the size of a storage cupboard and put him down on a mat like a bundle. He just let me do it. Sometimes, he’d smile at me, a sign he was still alive.
When Fuad lost his father, his uncle Mbark (now the muezzin) married his mother — in order, they claimed, to save the children from an outsider’s clutches. It was an old custom, which Fuad never managed to accept, especially as it meant losing his position as head of the family. I think his addiction to glue began in reaction to this marriage — which is unnatural, whatever they say. Fuad was incapable of smoking kif or hashish like everyone else. The smallest toke would set off a coughing fit that had him doubled up on the ground. Glue suited him better; it was his only means of escape. We tried excluding him from the group for a long time, but we didn’t give up on him. Obviously, we couldn’t do without his skills on the field, but he was no longer welcome at Nabil’s. One important detaiclass="underline" he never sniffed glue on Sundays, game days, as if soccer gave him more of a high than the junk he was constantly inhaling. My brother Hamid’s hard-line stance paid off in the end; Fuad suffered greatly from the isolation. He’d reacted angrily at first, threatening to leave the Stars and play for a rival team, but in the end he gave in. It was around that time that he and his sister, Ghizlane, moved in with their grandmother in Douar Scouila. One day, in front of everyone, he gave his black, sticky handkerchief and his tubes of glue to another addict who happened to be walking past. It was over. He never touched the stuff again.