Harraga by Boualem Sansal

house, my rules. Inventory: a pencil stub, a brush, a pin, a coin, another pin, a full-length photo of someone. Well, well, would you credit it . . . ? A man. Thirty-five? He looks ordinary . . . or rather conventional, his every feature conforms to the new biology of exceptional Algerians: chubby-cheeked, pot-bellied, fat-arsed, he sports a hirsute adornment around his mouth which, depending on circumstances, is intended as a sign of moderate piety, an aid to seduction or a proof of intelligence, he is dressed like a mobster at a mafia cocktail party. It’s all so tacky, the minute these people have money in their pockets, they’re all over the place. There is a self-consciousness to the way he holds his head and a twitchy nervousness deep in his eyes. It’s an expression I know only too well, in every photo I look as though I’ve been startled by a one-eyed badger. He’s a little young to be her grandfather but too old to be a brother or a schoolfriend, although all families are dysfunctional. Obviously, the possibilities do not end there: an uncle, a cousin, a neighbour’s husband. Then again he could be a drug trafficker or a bar owner, professions that are all the rage in the new biometry. The Chérifas of this world are their preferred prey. Or he could be . . . as I racked my brain, I realised I knew this reprobate, I’d seen his ugly mug somewhere. A celebrity? Yes, that was it. What was he? A sportsman, a politician, a captain of industry, an artist with connections to the ministry? Whatever he was, he was some sort of bigwig.
    What was the connection between the man in the photo and Chérifa’s swollen belly? It was a question I could not help but ask myself. And now I have.
     
    It had been three days since I saw that old trout from the rue Marengo and now, bang on time  – knock, knock – she shows up, all hot and flustered. And – unusually for her – she didn’t beat around the bush.
    ‘Oh, my dear, young people today, you simply can’t depend on them! They’re here one minute and gone the next! They’re only too happy to have us worrying and fretting over them, when all we want at our time of life is a little comfort, a little peace, but you might as well ask the town council for running water. How is it that I’ve never met this girl? The clothes she wears! What’s her name? Where’s her husband? What was she thinking, going out last night and coming home after midnight? Where did she go? And what was she doing, storming out again at dawn in such a terrible temper?’
    ‘Ah, Tante Zohra, what a coincidence! I was just going to pop round to see you. I hadn’t heard from you and I was starting to worry!’
    I know how Tante Zohra’s mind works, I’ve heard it all before and I’ve learned the best thing to do is bombard her with information and bamboozle her.
    ‘Were you talking about Chérifa? Pretty little thing, don’t you think? She’s my cousin’s youngest, you know – the cousin who moved to Oran just after the War, back when the Americans were bombing the mountain villages because they thought we were hiding Nazis. Then, when they realised that we were only hiding ourselves, they came back and showered us with chocolate bars. The kids stuck to them like leeches, the Yanks adopted them as mascots and we never saw hide nor hair of them again. Up in Kabylia, we had nothing to eat but acorn flour, green olives and goat’s cheese. Oh, I nearly forgot, up in the mountains our favourite fruit was figs, we used to pick them off the trees. You can’t till the soil up in Kabylia, it’s all rocks. So, anyway, this cousin of mine is on his deathbed and, sensing that the end is near, he’s asked his youngest daughter to visit the family on his behalf. Our family is scattered to the four winds, Allah alone knows us by our lamentations. You know better than I how widely scattered the Kabyle people were, hounded from town to town when we weren’t hounded out of existence. Well,