Kiffe Kiffe Tomorrow

by Faïza Guène

  "It's really very good..."(She puckered her lips like she was sucking on a lemon.) "But it is ... um ... very sweet ... I really have to pay attention to my figure ... and you know what they say ... once they're married, women tend to let themselves go..."

  She started into a fit of giggling with her brittle, tinkling laugh, eyes closed and hand close to her mouth, Marilyn Monroe style. Who does she think she is? She needs to get over herself, she's only been married a month, this freak.

  Mom, she didn't give a shit. She just giggled along with her. It seems to me that all this, it doesn't get to her one bit. I watched her talking, sitting with the next Miss France, and I thought that's how I'd like to be. Mme DuGizmo knocked Mom's appearance, her faucet, and her mint tea, and still she didn't give a damn. She just kept on giggling and talking with her.

  She even told her about the strike and the situation over at the Formula 1. With that, Mme DuThingamjig put on this very grave face and suggested Mom sign up for a literacy course at this adult-learning center in Bondy. She'd learn how to read and write and at the same time she'd get help finding a new job. Mom wouldn't have to pay anything. The course is run by the Livry-Gargan city hall.

  Before leaving, she looked at me while she was digging around in her "Looey Vweeton" bag, and then went:

  "I've got something for you."

  She said it in that high-pitched voice of hers, dragging out each syllable of the sentence, making her seem even more retarded. I felt eight months old and like she was announcing to me that she was going to change my diaper now or give me a little pot of artichokes to slurp.

  Turns out, she gave me a reading coupon so I can get free books. I feel like I'm going backward with all these people treating me like a welfare junkie. Go to hell, all of you.

  ***

  When she closed the door, I thought we were all done for the evening, but then the phone rang. It was Aunt Zohra in a panic because the police showed up at her place at six in the morning to arrest Youssef. They broke the door down, kicked him out of bed, turned the whole house upside down, and took him to the station. Aunt Zohra couldn't stop crying, not on the telephone at least. She told Mom that he's mixed up in drug dealing and some business with stolen cars. I'm pretty sure she thought it was her fault because she hadn't been taking close enough care of her son. By the end of the conversation, Mom couldn't stop crying either.

  I guess right now Youssef's being interrogated in a stuffy gray office. Me, I know that Youssef's one of the good guys. It's not fair. When Mom hung up, we talked a bit but there are times when even words aren't enough. So we just stared out the window and that said it all. Outside, it was gray like the color of our building's concrete and it was drizzling in very fine drops, as if God were spitting on all of us.

  For the past several nights I've had the same dream, one of those crazy heavy dreams you remember perfectly when you wake up and that you can describe to someone down to the last detail.

  I was opening the window and I had the sun coming down on my face full force. I couldn't even get my eyes open. I put my legs through the window just until I was sitting on the edge, then, with one strong push, I took flight. I kept going higher and higher, I saw the apartment towers getting farther away and growing smaller and smaller. I flapped my wings, uh, make that my arms, and then, because I was trying so hard to keep gaining height, I went truly smack-bash into this wall on my right and it gave me a massive bruise. That's what woke me up and I have to say it was kind of hard coming back to reality like that.

  I told Mme Burlaud my dream. She kept looking at me, blinking her eyes, and said:

  "Yes, of course, absolutely ... It's like the episode with the atlas..."

  Right. She calls it an episode, straight out. For all I know, Mme Burlaud isn't really a shrink. Maybe she works in TV and all the bullshit I tell her feeds into her sitcom. Burlaud, I bet that's a pseudonym, and her real name's something in the style of Laurence Bouchard. She's part of the scriptwriting team working for AB Productions. That's got to be it ... Maybe the concept is already being made into a series, it will be a smash hit and get broadcast all over the world. It will even be dubbed into Japanese. And me? I don't hold any rights. I'll just be one of the millions of fans, faceless and fucked over, like all the rest.

  The Atlas Episode, I don't even know why I told her about that. I don't know why I tell her any of the other stuff either ... This was a day when I was bored out of my mind. I went to the junk room to find the atlas I got as a prize at the end of fifth grade.

  A junk room's like an attic, but a little smaller, generally in the hallway. It's for all the crap you never need.

  Basically, I opened my atlas at the planisphere, that place where the whole world fits on a single page. I was having sort of a rough time, so I drew an escape route on the map. It was the route I was going to take one day, going through all of the most beautiful places in the world. Yeah, OK, so I drew the route in pencil because Mom would have let loose on me if she'd seen me scribbling in pen all over a new book. But, anyway, I did draw this perfect route once, even if I'm still at the departure point and the departure point is Livry-Gargan.

  Anyhow, I don't know if Mom would be OK with me splitting like that. There wouldn't be anyone around to record The Young and the Restless for her. And nobody to go and pick up Sarah from the center. And Lila, she'd be screwed having to find another babysitter. It reminds me that there are some people who need me, after all, and that makes me feel sort of good.

  Because, sometimes, I just really would like to be someone else, somewhere else, and maybe in a whole different time. Often, I imagine I'm part of the Ingalls family from The Little House on the Prairie.

  Here's the way it works:

  Dad, Mom, kids, dog that doesn't bite, barn, and ribbons in your hair for going to church on Sunday mornings. You know, happiness ... The story, it all takes place in this pre-1900 period atmosphere, with oil lamps, the arrival of the railroad, prehistoric clothes, and other old stuff like that ... The thing I like about the Ingalls family is that as soon as some big drama starts up, they make the sign of the cross, have a good little crying session, and by the next episode everybody's forgotten all about it ... It's pure movie magic.

  It's too embarrassing because I think the characters in that series are better dressed than me. Even though they live in this shitty microvillage and their dad's some fat farmer. Take the hoodie I'm wearing right now, not even the Salvation Army would want it. Once, I was wearing this lavender sweatshirt with stars and something written in English on it. My mom, she bought it in a secondhand store that smelled like lots of old musty stuff. She paid only one euro for it. She was all proud. I didn't want to upset her, so I wore it to school but, I don't know, I had a bad feeling about it, the sweatshirt seemed shady. It was. The fat bitches at school, that crew of bad dye-jobs, all made up with their padded bras and stacked heels, they never let me hear the end of it. The thing written in English on the sweatshirt, it meant "sweet dreams." That piece-of-shit lavender sweatshirt was actually a pajama top. I knew that I should have paid more attention in Miss Baker's fifth-grade English lessons.

  Coming out of school, I ran into Hamoudi. He offered me a ride, said he'd drop me off in our neighborhood. I was so proud I kind of flaunted it, so all those jerks could see me leaving with Antonio Banderas's double from Zorro, except a bit more scarred. But nobody saw it. No big deal.

  All things considered, it suits him wearing cologne and being clean-shaven. You get to see the scar on his chin better. Gives him that tormented-soul look, rebel with a heart of gold, that kind of thing ... Like the heroes in the movies. The day I asked him how he got it, he said he couldn't remember. Basically, he didn't want to tell me. Hamoudi can be so annoying sometimes, when he plays Mr. Mystery Man.

  I noticed it wasn't the same car he had last week. Hamoudi's always changing cars. Either he's got a car-dealer buddy who's in love with him, or he's working some shady stuff, in which case I can't ask him any que
stions. That's how it is, between Hamoudi and me. He wants to protect me, doesn't want me mixed up in his affairs, so the deal is I curb my curiosity.

  When I got into the car, I just said hello without even looking at him, even though I could see he was staring at me. He didn't start the engine and I could feel him still looking at me. It was stressing me out.

  After a while, he turned my face toward him, smiled at me, and said:

  "Don't worry! You'll always be my favorite!"

  And then he started giggling. Even though part of me wanted to keep being mad, I started laughing with him, because what he said, it took a load off me. Hamoudi was talking about that Karine girl I saw him with at the street party, with her Frisbee face and high heels. Maybe he thought I was jealous or something ... Whatever. Anyway, she doesn't go with anything about him, she's blond and wears mauve. See that relationship working? Me neither.

  Actually, it's good for him he's met this girl. At the least, something's going on in his life. With me, it's just kif-kif tomorrow. Same shit, different day.

  When Hamoudi dropped me off at our building, Aziz, the neighborhood grocer, was waving at me big time. Seeing him reminded me that maybe we need someone else at home. A man who wouldn't run off to the other side of the Mediterranean or split with a peroxide blond in high heels. But except for Aziz, who seems a little bit in love with Mom, I don't really see who it could be...

  Aziz, he's gotta be around fifty. He's short, practically bald, always has dirty nails, and spends his time trying to dislodge stuff from his teeth with the tip of his tongue. At the Sidi Mohamed Market, there's a lot of stuff past its expiration date and he makes you pay more if you take a soda from the little fridge at the back instead of the front counter. He even used to sell bread, until one day a customer found a cockroach in a baguette and called the health inspector. On Eid, Aziz gives Mom a bag full of groceries, and when we need it, he gives us credit, which we can't always repay. Sometimes he grumbles on in his villager accent: "Ooh la la! If you iz tiking creedeet after creedeet, you will never geet out to the othur side of the river!" He's a riot, Aziz. Whenever you go to pay, he always has a joke to tell you.

  "Ze teacher ask Toto: At two euro a bottle how much is twelve bottles of wine?' And ze little boy he say what? He say: 'Three days, Miss...'"

  And every time, he practically pisses himself from laughing so much. Even if he's a first-rate hustler, Aziz is nice. I bet lots of people like him around here. At least if Mom married him, we'd never need anything again. Yeah, OK, so he's not the boss of some swanky department store chain like Tati, but you never know, a few years from now there might be Sidi Mohamed Markets in New York and Moscow...

  Mom's finally split from that skank stinky motel where she flushed the toilet after rich folks, all to be paid three times zero. M. Winner didn't even give her the back pay she was owed, made out like it was because of the strike, and all that ... It's illegal, I just know it. Anyway, without Mom, M. Winner's motel's heading straight for bankruptcy. She's really got a way with making beds, kind of gentle but strong at the same time, in the end there isn't a single wrinkle on the sheet, better than the army. Me, personally, I'm very happy she's not working at the Formula i in Bagnolet anymore. Nothing there to miss. Not the hours, not the pay, and not that rat-head of a boss, M. Winner.

  ***

  It's actually thanks to city social services. I say "actually" because it's not easy to admit that this Mme DuDoohickey, the Barbie-doll social worker, helped Mom find her alternating training. Alternating, that means you're juggling two different things. Like when you mix sweet and savory or husband and lover. Mom, she's going to do a literacy course. They're going to teach her to read and write in the language of my country, this country. With a teacher, a blackboard, notebooks with big lines, and even homework. I'm going to help her with it if she wants.

  Me, I'm thinking lousy Nabil comes in handy when I'm totally lost in chemistry and he explains the exercises Mme Benbarchiche gives us to do. This time it's the isotopes. But with her Tunisian accent, it comes out sounding like "eezeetopes," almost like that rock group of old bearded guys with their sunglasses...

  It's funny because Mom's totally dreading this course. She never went to school, so she's flipping. Getting up at five o'clock in the morning to work in some cheapskate motel and wreck her health, sure, she doesn't give a shit. But now this, for her, it's no joke. In this training they also teach about job-search methods. With that, I'm hoping she'll find some supercool gig. She'll get paid while she's in training and she won't finish late at night, she's done at practically the same time as me. So now, I'll see her a lot more and it'll make it harder for me to forget so often that I even have a mother at all.

  She's starting in just two weeks and it's freaking cool because in the meantime, at noon when I come home from school, I get to eat something other than canned tuna.

  The thing Mom really likes watching on TV in the evenings is the weather. Especially when it's that newscaster with brown hair, the one who tried out for La Cage aux Folles but wasn't cast because he went too over the top ... So there he was, talking about this huge cyclone in the Caribbean, this crazy thing getting ready to do serious damage. This hurricane, they called it Franky. Mom said she thinks this Western obsession with giving names to natural disasters is totally stupid. I like the times when Mom and me get a chance to have deep and interesting discussions.

  Aziz is nice and all, but in his store you've got a one-in-three chance of getting spoiled goods, so sometimes I go to Malistar, a tiny minimarket that's been around for ages even if it's changed its name tons of times. At least ten different incarnations since I've lived here: World Provisions, Better Price, Toutipri ... It's confusing, because everyone calls this place something different, depending on which name stuck with them.

  So I went to Malistar to buy some maxi pads, the generic kind, with the fluorescent orange package like the crossing-guard vests of those ladies who help kids get to school first thing in the morning. Even just the packaging is too much to bear. You really can't be sly, and afterward everyone in the neighborhood knows you've got your period. From the second I get to the checkout, just my luck, the line's as long as the Paris-Dakar race. And more like if the race went by bike because it really wasn't moving very quickly ... When my turn finally came, another stroke of luck: The packet wasn't scanning. It made this noise like a scratched 45 each time the cashier tried swiping it. The cashier, Monique, you could say she's got on her game face. She's so flat you could fax her, and if I was her, I'd have filed a suit against the hairdresser who dared to give her that cut. Monique's got this great sense of humor, which has to be from those Pierre Palmade videos she watches on Sunday afternoons. So, anyway, this damn pack of pads, Monique still couldn't scan it and she'd had enough, but instead of typing in the bar code like they do at the ATAC supermarket, she grabbed the microphone to make an announcement. Right there, my legs started shaking and beads of sweat went sliding down my forehead like I was one of those bomb-disarming experts about to cut the red wire. She yells in that deep voice of hers—she hadn't figured out there was no point shouting since that's what mics are for:

  "RAYMOND!!! How much is the twenty-four-plus-get-two-free pack of sanitary napkins, regular with absorbent padding and wings?!"

  She waits a second and starts up again:

  "Hello! Raymond! You asleep or what?"

  Then we heard this voice from hell roaring that the damn package was 2.38. The worst part, it's that I didn't even have enough to pay for it and she had to put it on credit. If I'd known, I definitely wouldn't have had my period...

  When I got back home, Mom was on the phone again with Aunt Zohra. Youssef's case is coming to court soon, so she's worried. Aunt Zohra calls Mom a lot, even late at night, because she's having trouble sleeping. They have these long conversations full of silences. I know, because Mom uses speakerphone.

  "I swear. Yasmina, my sister, you're lucky you never had a son, God is with you, yo
u have no idea..."

  "..."

  "I mean, with a daughter, it's easier! You know, I'd never seen my son cry ... Yesterday when I went to visit him, he wept in my arms, like a woman. It breaks my heart you know..."

  "May God come to your aid!"

  "I hope he hears you, my sister ... What am I going to say to the old man when he gets back from the bled? He'll be back in two months..."

  "Beg God that your son comes home quickly..."

  You could say the two of them are counting a lot on God. I hope Youssef will be free quickly. He doesn't deserve all this crap that's happening to him. Me, I don't know a thing about the law, the only references I have in this field are old episodes of Perry Mason, big-time lawyer. I even remember that there was one judge who fell asleep during the trial and people still called him "Your Honor."

  If Youssef goes to prison, I understand nothing about justice.

  He's getting sent up. They gave him a year. Aunt Zohra's disgusted with life. She's mostly scared of her crazy old husband, who gets back next month. Réda and Hamza, her two other sons, are in a freefall at school and they're always busting up with other guys their age from the neighborhood because they keep getting called bastards seeing as their dad's practically never there. For Youssef, it's the big house, and even if he was always making fun of me, he really didn't deserve to lose a year of his life in such a stupid way.

  It's like Hamoudi. After prison, he temped and did lots of shit odd jobs, each of them as much of a grind as the rest. He's never really managed to get it together since. These days, he lives off dealing and can't lead a normal life. Pensions and social security don't exist for dealers yet. But, in any case, I'd never have imagined this could happen to Youssef. If a clairvoyant told me about it a few months back, I wouldn't have believed her.