by Faïza Guène
So, meanwhile, everybody's taking off and I'm staying in the neighborhood to watch the projects like a guard dog waiting for everyone else to come back from vacation all tan. Even Nabil's disappeared. Maybe he left too, gone to Tunisia with his parents.
Anyway, since school's over, he won't be coming over to help me do my homework or write my papers. Actually, I'm done with papers for the rest of my life, except for on things like blowouts and curlers. Oh yeah, I didn't tell you: At school, they can't let me repeat the year because there aren't enough spots for everybody. And that "everybody" includes me. So they found me a place at the last minute at this technical school not so far from home, where I'll go for a hairdressing certificate. Hamoudi was crazy pissed off when I told him. He told me he was going to pay them a visit and complain, contact the school board, go off on the administration, and other stuff like that ... He said they don't have the right to decide for me. I told him I didn't know what to do anyway, seeing as nobody's ever given me any career counseling. And plus, who knows, I might love hairdressing ... It's true, giving perms to very old ladies who have three hairs on their skull and who pay a fortune to keep up their hair, I'm gonna like it, I can feel it...
There's a girl in the neighborhood who did hairdressing school. She doesn't have enough money to open her own salon but she still wants to be her own boss, so she does hair at home. It works pretty well. When there's a wedding in the neighborhood, everyone calls her. The girls get blowouts, have major work done on their hair, where it's pulled and yanked extra tight so it looks naturally straight. But at the party, after one or two dances, they start sweating and a few curly wisps start to give them away...
Speaking of weddings, there's one happening soon. It's Aziz, our famous businessman from the Sidi Mohamed Market, the stingiest grocer on earth. I'm a little sick he's getting married, because that means it's over for Mom...
Rachida, our neighbor who's also the worst gossip I know, told us Aziz is going to marry a girl from Morocco. I'm starting to see why there're so many single women here. If all these men are getting into import-export ... It's a shame our weddings aren't like in the States where the priest says that famous line: "If anyone here objects to this union, let them speak now or forever hold their peace." And, there's always some supercourageous guy who dares to interrupt the ceremony because he's been secretly in love with the bride for eight years. So he tells her, and with tears in her eyes, she says she feels the same way. The husband's a good loser—even if he's kind of pissed—and shakes the hand of the supercourageous guy and says: "No hard feelings, old pal!" Then he lends him the tux he rented for a fortune just for the occasion and the gutsy guy marries the girl in place of the good-loser-groom.
Mom could do the same thing at Aziz's wedding. She could tell Aziz he's the most romantic guy in the neighborhood and she's had strong feelings for him for years despite his bald head and his grubby nails. I have got to stop thinking in movies. I know she'd never do that. Plus, the whole neighborhood's going to be at Aziz's wedding and if Mom did that, it'd be too shameful. We call it hchouma. Anyway, it's not even for sure that he's inviting us. He's given us so much credit we've never paid back. And no one ever invites us anywhere. Ages after a party people come to see Mom to say they're sorry they forgot about her. No big deal. Mom and me don't give a shit about being part of the jet set.
Sunday morning, Mom and me, we went to a rummage sale. She was hoping to find some shoes because in her left shoe there's a small hole up by her toe and when it rains or she walks on the grass in the morning her toes get soaked.
We were walking in the aisles between the stands when I heard these girls behind us:
"Check out that girl, dressed even worse than her old lady ... It's like when they were rummaging for stuff to sell they found her too!"
"Yeah, right. For them a rummage sale is like the Galeries Lafayette..."
They lost it laughing. Little mean snickers, all stifled and shit. I looked at Mom. Apparently, she didn't hear a thing. She was concentrating on this old 45 sleeve of Michel Sardou. In the photo, he still had this big head of shag hair. It's like they repatriated all the hairdressers in the eighties, hid them in a cave, and then they only started reappearing at the beginning of the nineties.
So those two bitches who said that right behind our backs, I didn't even turn around to eat them alive or cut their nostrils into teeny bits. No, I made like nothing had happened, like I hadn't heard. I took Mom by the arm. I squeezed it because I was still feeling full of hate and then I felt tears welling up in my eyes and my nose was stinging. I really wanted to cry, but I was trying to keep my cool. I forced myself, because I didn't want to tell Mom the whole story. She'd have felt like it was her fault. And, anyway, she was checking out these bunches of vegetable peelers for one euro, so I didn't want to disturb her. At times like that, I would like to be stronger, to have a protective shell to keep me safe all my life. Then nothing could ever hurt me.
***
The whole neighborhood went to Aziz's wedding. They held it in this big reception room in Livry-Gargan with a real orchestra from Fez that came over just for this occasion. Aziz hired two négafas, married women in charge of organizing the party: decorations, clothes, makeup, the bride's jewelry, food, all that kind of stuff. It was a big grand wedding all right. Aziz really put on a show. Anyway, that's what I heard, because, in the end, we weren't invited.
We don't see that social worker Mme DuDoodad anymore because she's on maternity leave. She said she'll be back after her baby's born. It annoyed me when she said that, because it sounded like: "No matter what, in a year you'll still be poor, you'll still need me." Worse, while we're waiting for her to come back, we're stuck with this shady replacement. She's always got her eyes half shut behind these massive bottle-bottom glasses with chunky pink frames. Plus, she talks very slowly in this scary voice, the kind of voice you can imagine saying: "I am Death! Follow me, it's your time!" But, fine, I'm not so bothered by all that. Don't give a shit, to be perfectly honest. The thing that gets me is that with her, I feel like Mom and me, we're just random numbers in her file. She does her job like an automaton. She could be a robot programmed to do this. I'm sure that if you scratched the skin on her back, if you really broke past the epidermis, you'd find an aluminium coating, some screws, and a serial number. I'm calling her Cyborg Services.
This week I'm not going to watch Sarah because her mom's on vacation and the two of them are going to Toulouse to Lila's sister's house. It's hard being separated from people who matter to you...
I'm thinking of Aunt Zohra and Youssef and some other people too...
Speaking of Aunt Zohra, she found the courage to tell her old crazy husband the whole story. Things got violent between them when he found out and the old wacko hit Aunt Zohra. He stopped after a minute because he'd had enough, his arms hurt too much, and he had heart palpitations. So he sat down and asked her for a glass of water to calm him. She went to get him his drink and that's how the whole thing ended...
She told us everything. Every day she prays to God for her husband to go back to where he came from. And to think that only a little while ago, Mom was praying for that other man to come back.
These days I can see she's not so lost in her thoughts. She looks better. She's beginning to read a few words and she's so proud that she can write her first name without any mistakes. At first, she used to write S backward, like little kids do. It's true that from time to time I can see she's still anxious, like when she sits watching the turned-off TV. But it happens less often now. And also she's active and free to do anything she wants now while before that was definitely not the case. When Dad lived with us, there was no question about her working even though we were seriously broke. Because for Dad women weren't made for working in the outside world.
By the way, yesterday Hamoudi told me he'd found a job. He stumbled on this ad in that free paper Paris Boum Boum. This stereo-, video-, and computer-equipment rental company was looking for someo
ne to do security. He called up right away, had an interview, and, bam, he was hired. Fine, he says it's kind of a pain because it's at night, but he's happy he's found real work, and it's better that way. He said he also feels like he's been hired to act like their guard dog, but he doesn't give a shit...
It makes me think of some of those houses in the Rousseau development where they put a sign up with a photo of a massive, supermenacing Doberman and a bubble that says BEWARE OF THE DOG!, while everyone knows that in the house is a toy poodle named Gramps who gets panic attacks from children and flies.
Monday, at Mme Burlaud's, it wasn't at all like normal. Right away when I got there, she told me to make myself comfortable and then she went out of the office saying: "I'll be right back!" like for the commercial breaks of variety shows. She didn't come back until twenty minutes later ... and I noticed she smelled like alcohol. Real strong. Well, that really was nothing ... During the session, I didn't have much to say so at one point she crossed her short little legs and went: "Maybe you've got a funny story to tell me?" At that moment I noticed she was wearing garters. I looked back and forth between her face and her garters and thought that this wasn't bad for a joke. Then she asked me thousands of questions about Mom, nosy stuff about her love life and everything ... I told her she didn't have one anymore since he left. Mme Burlaud, she wanted to know if I could see Mom making a new life with another man. Yeah, I can see that. To tell you the truth, I'm planning it...
I watched a show about singles and new ways to meet people. There's this thing called speed dating. That means something is really fast. I know because at Speed Burger, you order your hamburger and it's ready in two minutes, plus it's 100 percent halal. Basically, these speed dates, they're like arranged meetings. For seven minutes you sit facing somebody you don't know. Just long enough to say: "I don't like your face" or "Do you still live with your mom?" Only I can't see Mom in a place like that. I don't really believe she'll get together with someone again. I was saying it just because I'd like her to, that's all.
Unless someone came directly to the house to ask for her hand in marriage. Trouble is that now, she's hardly ever home, apart from this month because her training stops during summer vacation. I'm going to stick up her office hours on the door like at the doctor's, with our requirements listed.
Alcoholics, old men, cowards need not apply.
Thank you in advance.
Preferably: Hard worker, cultured, witty, charming,
good teeth, stamp collector, and lover of canned,
peeled tomatoes.
Yeah, OK, I was kind of overly harsh with the old men part, but definitely no alcoholics. I never again want to have to wait outside Constantinois, the bar in the town square, so some man can finish knocking it back and I can take him home because he doesn't remember the way when he's drunk. Or prostituting my pride at the Sidi Mohamed Market buying cases of beer during Ramadan and lugging the empty bottles down to the recycling bins afterward. When the bottles smashed inside the bins, it made so much noise that everybody in our building knew how many bottles Dad had downed. With all the glass that was recycled thanks to him, he could have earned a merit of honor medal or become a mascot for the Green Party. I'd have given anything to trade my father for Tony Danza in Who's the Boss? but he was already taken. I don't think it's even possible now, with nothing to trade.
Hamoudi was really liking that job. And he was beginning to like living by the law. But they fired him because things were disappearing from the warehouse. At least six thousand euros worth of material and it was Hamoudi who got the blame. Not even his parents believed him when he denied it. They're convinced he's a good-for-nothing and keep telling him so.
Anyway, I believed him. "I don't give a shit, I'm clean, I've got nothing to be sorry for, I did a good job, and I didn't fall asleep once. Only thing they can hold against me is this filthy face..." He pointed to himself, eyes wide open. I didn't dare tell him he was handsome. I was scared he'd think something. Hamoudi, he's got really dark brown hair, clear enough skin, and big hazel eyes ... A real Mediterranean man. He says that's why they unfairly accused him. I don't know if he's paranoid but, in any case, they had no right to accuse him without proof. That's no good.
Life is really full of disappointments. Coming home from the market this morning, I overheard two girls and a guy talking on the bus. The girls were twins, or nearly. They were dressed the same, had the same hairstyle, and they talked the same.
The guy was really little and he had his mouth open all the time. On the plus side, thank God, he didn't say anything. He just listened. The girls were chewing gum and blowing bubbles at the end of nearly every sentence.
"You know The Pretender?"
"Yeah sure!" (Bubble.)
"Do you watch it every day?" (Bubble.)
"Yeah!"
"You know the main character?"
"Right!" (Bubble.)
"His name is Jarod..." (Bubble.)
"Yeah! And he's seriously hot!"
"Well, I heard he's a homo!" (Bubble.)
"Serious? That's crazy! How do you know?" (Bubble.)
"My sister told me she saw it on the Internet."
"Oooh, that's so screwed up. I can't believe they're saying he's gay." (Bubble.)
Not Jarod. Someone could have said James Dean, Claude François, Michael Jackson, or Christian Morin, OK. But not Jarod. When I watched that series, I could never follow the story: He was the only reason I stayed crouched in front of the TV like an ass. Because he's really too hot. Those other gay guys out there are so lucky.
Mme Burlaud is always saying that all my life I'll get deceived and I've just got to get used to it. Yeah. But that wasn't written anywhere in my contract.
It's weird, but I can't stop thinking about that lameass Nabil and I still can't understand why he did that. Why he suddenly decided to glue his fat mouth to mine. And he's got enormous lips, I was scared he'd inhale me and I'd be a prisoner inside him. Once I got out of there, all the TV channels in the world would interrupt regular programming to get my eyewitness report of my stay in Nabil the loser. And then I would write a book called Journey to the Center of Nabil. It would definitely be a bestseller.
I wonder when he's coming back. Just to know. Oh yeah, and to tell him he's got some debts to pay back—and he has acne and pisses everyone off.
Since Mom's still on vacation until next week, we decided to hang around Paris together. It was actually the first time she'd seen the Eiffel Tower even though she's been living half an hour from it for almost twenty years. Before now, she only saw it on TV, on the one o'clock news on New Year's Day, when it's all lit up from top to bottom and people are partying, dancing, kissing, and getting wasted. Anyway, she was seriously impressed.
"It must be two or three times our building, yeah?"
I told her it had to be. But our building, and the projects in general, they don't get so much tourist interest. There aren't any Japanese hordes with their cameras standing at the bottom of the towers in the neighborhood. The only ones interested in us are the parasite journalists with their nasty reports on violence in the suburbs.
Mom, she would have been happy to stay there for hours looking at it. Me, I think it's ugly, but you can't deny it makes an impression because it's powerful: the Eiffel Tower. I'd like to have gone up in the red and yellow elevators that look like ketchup and mustard, but it was too expensive. And plus, we would have had to get in line behind the Germans, the Italians, the English, and piles of other tourists who aren't scared of heights and even less scared of spending their dough. We didn't have enough money to buy a miniature Eiffel Tower either, even uglier than the original, but still it's classy to have one on top of your TV. Tourist-trap stalls are crazy expensive. Plus, what those guys sell is total crap. Later, a pigeon took a shit on my shoulder. I tried wiping it off discreetly against a statue of Gustave Eiffel, 1832–1923, but the bird shit had gone hard and wouldn't come off. In the RER, people were staring at the stain and
I felt serious hchouma. I felt kind of sick because it's the only jacket I have that doesn't look too ratty. If I wear any of the others, everybody calls me "Cosette" from Les Misérables. Anyway, I don't give a shit; whether it shows or not, I'll still be poor. Later, when my breasts are bigger and I'm a little bit more intelligent, like when I'm an adult, I'll join up with a group that helps people...
Knowing there are people who need you and you can be useful to them, it's really too cool.
One of these days, if I don't need my blood or one of my kidneys, I could donate them to the sick people who've had their names on the lists for forever. But, still, I wouldn't just do it for a clear conscience or so I could look at myself in the mirror when I'm taking off my makeup after work, but because I really wanted to do it.
Lila and Sarah are back from Toulouse and they brought me some little cakes. No doubt there's no connection between Toulouse and those cakes but it was a nice gesture I thought. Lila told me about how it went at her sister's. And then she talked a lot about herself, what her life was like before coming to the Paradise Estate, with Sarah's dad and everything...
Lila's from Algeria, like Aunt Zohra. She left her family early on to live the way she wanted, like in the novels she was reading at sixteen. She and Sarah's dad met very young and fell in love right away. Their story began like in those Sunday afternoon movies, with "I love you" every ten feet and never-ending walks on beautiful July days...
