Some Dream for Fools

by Faïza Guène

  At first I listen to them and participate. Then when they start talking about love, I tune out. While the chicks are trading impressions of their pampered Valentines, I notice a young couple to my right. They're well dressed and smell like perfume. The guy has a little bit of gel in his hair and the girl, she has a little eyeliner under her eyes. They're in a state of osmosis, it's impossible to describe it. It hits me that they love each other, they stare into each other's eyes all the way to the back of their retinas, and seeing them like that, I'd bet they could do it for hours. They touch each other a little, discreetly, they smile at each other. Then he starts kissing her neck and the girl wriggles around like a chicken, it looks like it makes her feel good. The guy plunges into her gorgeous bosom with the air of an orphaned baboon. You would think you were watching an animal documentary.

  I was in love once too, but not in public, not like that, at least I don't think so or maybe I don't remember it anymore. That already seems like so long ago...

  Right now I see couples everywhere. They come out especially when it starts to get nice outside. They go to the parks, the cafés, the movie theaters, and they go on like everything's normal, these places crawling with people in love. Who act as if nothing exists outside of themselves.

  In such a state, there's such a tiny part of your lucidity left that a person could do pretty much anything. From my perch and by my count, I'd say we lose at least half of our intellectual capacity, maybe even more.

  It's true that if you are stupid in love then you are truly stupid in your grief for a love ... You spend your time blubbering, you cry until you destroy every last inch of your Kleenex, and then you begin to lose weight, burning some incredible number of calories.

  It's wild that sadness is an efficient diet, but it works ten times better than any of these miracle recipes for "How to Lose Weight Before Summer" that stuff all the magazines.

  At times like this your people worry like crazy and never stop asking if things are going better—and not just how things are going, like before.

  You multiply your consumption of coffee, cigarettes, alcohol, and eventually drugs ... You take up listening to sad songs and watching weepy films. You need to talk often and find yourself with phone bills ten pages long. Most of all you think only about one thing. At work you're reprimanded almost to the point of being laid off, and it's strange but you'd almost like it to happen. At home, you break dishes, and often enough you unintentionally fuck up the nicest piece in the cupboard, a gift from the family. In front of the mirror you have trouble confronting the tear-puffed face that you've never seen so ugly. And when you're obligated to make some effort, it's all you can do to put a little lipstick on without brimming over completely. At a time like this, you're at the end of your rope, and you can only find the strength to say bluntly to your chatty neighbor who has been breaking your balls since forever, really, that you honestly don't give a shit about her stories of the sick uncle in Brittany or the heat cycles of her cat that are so spectacular even the vet can't do much.

  You don't give one shit about this or the rest either.

  And then, one merciful morning, you notice that there it is, the load is lighter, you feel better, you sleep through the night, you go out during the day and give yourself the courage to move on.

  A little while later, you happen to run into the relevant party in the street. And on this day exactly, you happen to look straight-out awful, and I'm talking about the kind of ugliness that you suffer just once a year. And there you go, that's the day you run into him.

  It always happens like that. Nothing like every other way you've imagined this moment, the movie of your meeting that you projected in your head hundreds of times and remade over and over to infinity, running back through without forgetting a single detail. No scenario can possibly resemble this catastrophic reality. You are dressed like a sack, you have dark circles that reach all the way to your cheeks and a haircut fit for an '80s TV series. There you have it, validated theory as true as "the other line always moves faster" or "whatever your neighbor ordered smells better." There it is, no other solution but to run, to avoid him at any cost while pleading with the heavens that he saw nothing.

  Me, in order to avoid ever being in that situation, I had myself vaccinated. I swore to myself that in the future I wouldn't trust nice guys, the ones who hold the door open, pay the check, and listen to you when you talk; because all of this is inevitably hiding something. A guy like that, I dodge him like the plague, he'll always be the one who leaves you in the worst state, who crushes your heart and your Kleenex.

  He says that he loves you, then shows you the photo of his wife surrounded by kids that he keeps in a special place in his wallet in the middle of all his credit cards.

  He says that you're the woman in his life, then brutally leaves you because you're supposedly too good for him. You don't understand a thing until the day when you see him walking around the complex with his ex—well, you're the ex now.

  He thinks you're beautiful, intelligent, sweet, and funny, and borrows money from you often—but when you love someone, you stop keeping count. Then one morning, like every other morning, you call him to tell him that you love him but, surprise, the cold, cynical voice of the lady phone operator answers. She lets you know that the number is no longer in service, you will never hear from or speak to him again.

  Or then he comes to pick you up at the entrance of your building in his metallic-gray Ford Focus, opens the door for you, asks you if you had a good day, and compliments you on your outfit. You, you feel beautiful, you look at him lovingly and tell him that you're good when you're with him. When you get out of the car he adjusts his balls and burps. You find this repulsive but too bad, you like him too much—you kiffe him. Then he uses the remote car lock, passing it over his shoulder, beep beep. You think this is super—high class, he's glamorous and you like that, and long story short, you love him. He announces that he's taking you out to a restaurant—see, that doesn't happen often. Since you're a Sunday-afternoon made-for-TV-movie addict, you think that he's going to ask you to marry him. But in the middle of your diet salad, he explains that he's met someone else, that she's a really nice chick and that he's going to head off to Grenoble with her. He's packing his bags next week so would you be a sweet girl and bring him back the drill he loaned you and all his Barry White CDs? And while we're at it, can we split the check?

  I've cried plenty for guys. I often regret it after the fact when I think about how they are all assholes—and I mean all of them—and that none of them is worth a single one of my tears. At the same time, I cry for just about anything. I'm even capable of crying in front of fool TV shows like where the child finds her mother or the unemployed guy finds a job, that stuff melts me.

  The day Auntie Mariatou went into labor not only was I the only white girl in the clinic waiting room, but I was also the only person who cried. The others looked at me sideways, wondering if I was there for the same thing as them. It's like I'm making up for all those years when my eyes were stingy with the tears.

  When Mama died I didn't cry. I think I didn't understand what was happening, simple as that.

  It was the wedding day for Fat Djamila, a distant cousin who lived in a neighboring village. Mama was in charge of sewing all the outfits for her trousseau. I can still see myself squatted down nearby observing. I could spend hours watching her work, she fascinated me. With her thin, delicate fingers she embroidered the Algerian jacket with gold thread, following precisely and carefully the curves of the design, never going outside the lines, never having to start over. During some long months, she created the seven traditional outfits for a bride. This was no small task: it took plenty of fabric and beads, because the bride in question weighed more than two hundred pounds.

  I remember those long afternoons when the village women would talk about nothing but the grand event. Zineb and Samira in particular, the cooks who were always making fun of Djamila, couldn't do anything but jaw on about
it.

  "You'll see, the day of the wedding, it's going to rain the whole day. You know what they say: if a girl opens her lunch box in the kitchen to snack before mealtime, hiding from her mother, it brings unhappiness and it rains on her wedding day. She had to have done that a bunch of times, you know, since she's fatter than the Belbachirs" cows."

  "Yeah, it's true, I wonder if she's going to fit into the dresses that Sakina has killed herself to make..."

  And then they cackled like chickens. I thought it was kind of nasty on their part and wondered how they could dare to make fun of Djamila so viciously and open their venomous mouths without a second thought when those mouths held only a few rotten teeth. Mama let loose on them and told them that they were just two smug, jealous, bitter old biddies and that God would punish them for saying things like that. In the middle of the yard she yelled: "One morning, you're going to wake up without your tongues, inchallah."

  I wanted to go to that party so badly I would have done anything. I was only eleven and I begged Mama to take me. But she refused, with no chance for negotiation. I even proposed that I sort her ribbons and all the fabric scraps, clean the barn, milk the cow every morning, go to Aïcha the witch to get back some wool, but there was nothing I could do, I had to take care of my little brother who was still just an infant and also she wouldn't be able to sit with me because she would be too busy dressing the bride. The thing that worried her most, though, was the long trip to the village. "These days the roads aren't safe, the whole country is infested with fake roadblocks, and I don't want something to happen to you."

  And nothing could happen to her? I could sense that the climate was tense. I remember that you couldn't listen to music too loudly, especially love songs, and that certain words weren't supposed to be spoken outside of your house. People were afraid all the time, the curtains were taken down from windows and replaced with wire mesh. Uncle Khaled didn't want anyone to step foot outside of our house, not even to buy our kerentita ingredients—from then on the traveling vendor no longer came by our house anyway.

  The date of the wedding arrived and death struck savagely. It came as a crew, setting its heart on this little village in which, at least once for one evening, joy had reigned. It was a true massacre, no more youyous—no more cries of joy, only cries. They killed everyone, even the children, even some babies as small as Foued. And it was not the only village that was razed. So then no one would really celebrate marriages anymore, the people were traumatized by these images of mutilated bodies and blood-drenched baby bottles. I remember having this dream where the dresses that my dear little mama had constructed with so much care were splattered with blood. It was Mama who chose to call me Ahlème. My name means "dream" in Arabic. Mama's dream was to see me have my turn parading in the seven traditional bridal outfits one day. I've never set foot in Algeria again, I don't know whether it's out of fear or something else. I hope that I'll have the strength to return one day, to feel anew the earth of the bled, the warmth of the people, and to forget the scent of blood.

  Luck Aside

  The Boss is taking a siesta, me, I'm dreaming of a better life, and students are protesting in the streets of Paris. The local precinct calls the apartment for someone to come get Foued. My little brother hanging with the blueboys, that gave me a shock. At his age if I'd had a simple RATP ticket The Boss would have had an epileptic fit and beaten me enough so that I wouldn't forget it; he taught us to respect authority. Well, he tried anyway.

  It has always surprised me, this strange gratitude that The Boss and the other men his age have for their new country. They keep their heads down, pay their rent on time, keep their records clean, not five minutes of unemployment in forty years of work, and after that, they take off their hats, smile, and say: "Merci, France!"

  I often wonder how The Boss, who considers his pride a vital organ, could lower his head all these years without losing it completely. I'm not about to wake him up to tell him that his only son is down at the five-o, it's not worth it, I let him rest. I watch him sleep and he looks old and tired to me. My poor Boss seems worn out, bled out from having waltzed with his partner the jackhammer without relief, played out from having led this tumultuous tango with "Franssa" for nearly forty years. He doesn't so much as hold a bitter taste in his mouth for all this, but just all this nonsense in his head...

  Why does Foued have to hand me such a complicated mess? Recently he promised to calm down, to make a little effort at school; he knows perfectly well that he can't fuck around, I thought he understood but, as Auntie Mariatou says, "Just because the snake is still doesn't mean it's a branch."

  And now because of this little pissant I'm going to have to set foot in uniform central and that gives me some serious rage.

  At the station entrance I run into a familiar face that I had already seen once in an office full of strangers. It's Tonislav, the hot guy with the old leather jacket. Right as I'm heading straight for him, I see him, frowning. I grab his arm as we're passing and, anxious, he jumps.

  "You scared me, pretty girl. How's it going?"

  "Okay, thanks! And you, Tonislav, things are good?"

  "Me, I'm always good. What are you doing here?"

  "I have to go find my little brother, he must have been doing some bullshit."

  "Ouch! Don't be too hard on him—"

  "Yeah, yeah, we'll see soon enough ... Anyway, I'm so happy to see you—what luck to run into you here!"

  "Luck? I'll teach you one thing today: luck doesn't exist—it's for fools."

  "Is that right—just for fools?"

  "Yeah, but maybe you'd like it if we saw each other not by chance..."

  He raises an eyebrow and looks at me without blinking. It gets me laughing—him too. His big blue eyes squint and two sweet little dimples write themselves into his cheeks while I see, for the first time, a gold tooth appear that draws attention to itself and mocks all the others. He got to me, this guy. I have to admit he's attractive. I give him my phone number and he slides it, all proud, in his beat-up leather pocket. He's right, I would like to see him again, all luck aside.

  I speak to a chubby, perverted cop who looks at my chest like it's my eyes. He reminds me of that zouk singer Franky Vincent, with his thin mustache and his even more lewd attitude. He asks me to be patient and points to the right at a coffee machine, signaling that I'm definitely going to wait longer than five minutes. I could have really used a little shot of espresso but the machine is broken—that would have been too easy. I pace, I turn the other direction, my heels make an unpleasant noise when they hit the tiles. It echoes everywhere and drives me nuts. I end up sitting down. I think about Tonislav and get myself dreaming of love in the middle of a police station lobby.

  A crowd of people parades past me. There's a woman who came to lodge a complaint against her boss. In a loud voice she says it was sexual harassment because he put his damn hands on her ass and said: "Bitch! Get me a coffee. Bitch! Make me a copy." It was then that I realized there's a real fucking lack of privacy in a police precinct. Even if you're just waiting for a piece of paper, you hear everyone's stories.

  And then I see my brother's friends the brothers Villovitch, handcuffed with a band of smug jakes, and I get that this was a family affair. My brother was arrested for a stinky plan that, as far as I know, he was entirely capable of organizing it, because Foued's real problem is that he's no follower.

  Franky shoots me little languorous looks from time to time. I've been waiting well over an hour. I decide to ask him again when it will be possible for me to collect my brother, and then, all cheeky, he confesses with no remorse that he had forgotten why I was there. So after he gives me directions I hurry toward a door and don't bother to guess whether his hungry eyes are following my ass. I'm trying to keep my cool at the max but God knows that it's not easy. There Foued sits, on a bench in a little office that's way too bright. Seeing me walk into the room, he doesn't dare meet my gaze, preferring to lower his eyes. He's ashamed and
he should be. My brother is handcuffed to a radiator against the wall and it hurts me like these guys in blue can't even imagine. Starsky and Hutch take me out of the office to run over the story, a big mix-up among the kids at Insurrection, between Foued and his associates and some guys from Yuri Gagarin, the projects next door. According to the cops it was all part of some amateur scam. My little brother and his accomplices resold a bunch of DVDs for one of the guys next door, someone a little older, but they didn't give back the right amount because the other guy didn't want to pay them enough, or some bullshit like that, a dirty trick by some kids who don't understand anything about anything. Then Navarro the TV detective and his whole crew searched Foued's bomber jacket and found a tear-gas bomb, a shard of glass, and a big steak knife. I could have told them that myself—I turned the whole kitchen upside down looking for that knife.

  That said, the idiot squad is right, it could have turned out really badly. One of the kids is in the hospital; according to my brother he has a broken nose and his mouth is super swollen. You'd think he'd been injected with collagen or something.

  The little shit in question, I don't let loose on him at all. It isn't that I don't want to—at this precise instant I would like to make a bow tie out of his body. But I can't bring myself to react. I'm too overwhelmed. I gave all of myself to this little Foufou, who used to watch cartoons and drink hot chocolate with me before school, so I don't even have the strength to bend him in half, the little jerk.

  I hope that The Boss is still sleeping when we get back.