He said, ‘How are you?’
To my amazement, he added, ‘I’ve been waiting for your call,’ and, after inserting a bit of silence between one statement and the next, ‘It’s nice that your call came at night.’
I hadn’t said anything yet, and he was talking to me as though he could see me through a kind of sensory overlap. His voice collapsed the distance between one sense and another, repunctuating sentences, repunctuating dreams.
I recognized him from the ellipses in his speech. I recognized him and loved him with his sultry new telephone voice.
Then I said the first thing that came to my mind: ‘I love your voice.’
‘And I love your silence,’ he replied.
‘Should I take that to mean that you don’t like me to talk?’
‘Rather, it means that I like to hear whatever I want to hear from you, not what you’re saying.’
‘But I haven’t said anything yet.’
‘So much the better. Did you know that the reason animals don’t lie is that they can’t talk? Human beings are the only species with the capacity for hypocrisy, since they’re the only species that can speak. In other words, humans are actors by nature.’
‘How can you say a thing like that?’
‘I can say it because I know what life is like, and because I know what you’re like.’
‘And what do you know about me?’
‘I know enough to beware of you, and enough to be in love with you.’
‘Should I beware of you, too?’
‘Rather, you should beware of love, and you should love me.’
‘I do love you.’
‘Really?’
‘. . .’
‘Notice that you’ve started to withdraw into silence. Nice words spoil fast. That’s why they can’t be said any old which way!’
I didn’t know how to go on talking to him, since everything I said was bound to collide with that sharp wit of his, and with his one-of-a-kind way of looking at things.
But I did say, ‘I want to learn your philosophy of life.’
‘Me, teach you my philosophy of life?’ He chuckled. ‘You’re asking the impossible! All I can give you is the broad outlines. We can’t learn life from others. We have to learn it through our bruises and scratches, and from all the parts of us that stay on the ground after we’ve fallen and got back up again.’
‘Is that what always happens?’
‘Of course. You’re going to learn how to let go of a part of yourself with every new trial. With everything you go through, you have to leave somebody or something behind. We come into life like people who are moving house. We’re loaded down with furniture and stuff – our ideals and big dreams – and we’re surrounded by family and friends. But as time goes on, we lose things and we leave people behind until all we have left in the end are the things we consider most important for the simple reason that we’ve lost the things that were more important than they were!’
The things he was saying gave me an idea of how I might get him to talk about himself.
‘So what have you left behind?’ I asked.
When he didn’t say anything for a long time, I remembered that this was how he responded to questions that weren’t worth answering, so I corrected myself.
‘I mean, what’s most important to you now?’
‘You,’ he replied in an absent sort of voice.
His reply took me by surprise.
I expected him to add, ‘And what’s most important to you?’ But instead he went on, ‘I’m waiting for the illusions around you to die. Maybe then I’ll become the most important thing to you, if not by merit, then by coincidence!’
‘I don’t need any more disappointments in order to love you,’ I interrupted. ‘You’re all I’ve got.’
‘That’s not true. You’ve got your writing; that is, the illusion of superiority. So we’ll never be equals until our story is written not by you, but by life!’
‘Have you come back to poke fun at me, then?’
‘No, I’ve come back to love you. I’ve missed you like mad all this time, and I don’t understand why our story has to be so complicated. You know? If we were illiterate, we’d be happy with our love. The illiterate man knows what he wants from a woman, and the illiterate woman knows what she expects from a man. As for us, we’ve been lured into the game of words, so we’re hard on love in honour of literature. Imagine: If we were a couple of illiterate folks, I would have told you right up front, “I want you,” and that would have been that. But instead, here we are talking on the telephone past midnight, not to love each other, but to make sense of our love.’
‘Let’s be a couple of illiterate folks, then!’
‘We couldn’t do it. Ignorance is a luxury we can’t afford any more.’
‘What do we do, then?’
‘Let’s just be a man and a woman, plain and simple. Let’s be together by the logic of love, not by the logic of literature. It wouldn’t do for us to come out of the darkness of ink just to end up in the darkness of the night. I want our love to see the light of day. I want to see you, touch you, tell you things that don’t require either of us to say a word.’
‘But I don’t know where we could meet.’
‘There are lots of nice cafés and restaurants in your area. We could meet there.’
‘But all my neighbours are officers, and they know my husband. I wouldn’t dare risk meeting you around here.’
After a pause, he said, ‘If you’d like, we could meet at my house. But I live an hour’s drive from you. Would that suit you?’
‘Give me a day or so to think. I’ll manage it.’
Then, as if I’d just remembered something, I added, ‘But before that, I want to know who you are.’
As if the matter were of no importance, he said, ‘Love me without questions. After all, love doesn’t have any logical answers.’
‘How do you expect me to visit a man whose name I don’t even know?’
‘You’ll know everything when the time is right.’
‘I’m no good at waiting.’
‘That’s a shame, since things acquire their value from our having to wait for them.
‘And by this criterion,’ he went on, ‘you’re the most desirable woman of all, since you’re the one I’ve waited for the longest. I’ve waited a lifetime for you. So you could manage to wait for a few days or weeks. Let the illusion last a little longer.’
I don’t remember what he said after that. We suddenly found ourselves in a word-induced state of passion which he prolonged to the maximum by the mere force of his desire to be nothing but an illiterate man who wants a woman!
I woke up the next morning in a state of sweet infatuation; that is, until the news broadcast ruined my mood, at which point I decided to call my husband to find out what was happening in Constantine. I picked up the receiver only to discover that the phone was dead, which worried me even more. So I headed over to the house next door to see if I could use the neighbours’ phone.
I got a cool reception from the lady who came to the door, and the disdainful way she looked me over totally unnerved me. At first I interpreted her look as due to the fact that I’d come in house clothes rather than being dressed properly for a visit.
Still standing outside, since she hadn’t invited me in, I began explaining that I lived in the villa next door to hers and that my telephone was out of order. Before I could finish, she interrupted me cattily, ‘So, you’re the new neighbour. Well, every day’s a party around here!’
Thinking that she might have mistaken me for somebody else, I said, ‘I live in villa No. 68 to your right. I’ve only been here a week.’
‘Most women around here only stay for a night or two!’ she retorted sarcastically.
I froze, as though her words had slapped me across the face. I mustered the courage to say, ‘I’m the general’s wife. I only came to ask you why the phone wasn’t working, since I haven’t been able to contact my husband
in Constantine. I have no idea what was going on in this house before I got here.’
Visibly flustered, the woman suddenly opened the door and apologetically invited me in. My unkempt appearance must have led her to believe that I was one of the various fleeting visitors to the house, and she obviously regretted the things she’d said. Fumbling for words, she tried to convince me that she’d thought I was staying in some other villa. She also explained that since most of the villas in the neighbourhood stood empty for most of the year, some people had taken to bringing their lovers and girlfriends to their summer houses, which irritated her because she lived there all year round.
I assured her that I understood completely. Then, apologizing for the disturbance, I said a polite goodbye. However, she kept insisting that I call my husband from her house, saying there was no need to trouble him over the matter of the telephone since her husband could contact the relevant authorities and get it fixed right away.
When I got back to the house I didn’t tell Farida what the neighbour had said. I kept the insult to myself. Besides, what would she have said if I’d told her? She was sure to believe deep down that her brother was entitled to behave however he liked, not just because he was a man, but because he was a man of state.
Oddly, I didn’t feel jealous. What I felt was more like nausea than anything else. I didn’t want to think about the women who’d taken turns occupying the bed I’d been sleeping in, and I didn’t bother to put features to their faces.
What they looked like didn’t matter to me, though I imagined them to be the floozy, naughty-looking sort. They might have been plastic blondes. That was the type my husband usually went for. Maybe all men did, for that matter, which I could understand.
What I couldn’t understand was why my husband had married a dark-skinned woman if fair-skinned women were his preference. And why had he taken a second wife if the only thing that satisfied him was the snacks he picked up while he was out?
I thought of a friend of mine whose husband was enamoured of blondes. It got on her nerves to hear people whispering things like, ‘We saw your husband with a blonde the other day!’ So the poor thing went and bleached her hair, not in hopes of seducing him or getting him back, but just so that it would seem to people from a distance that he was with her – as though the only thing that mattered was keeping up appearances!
In any case, the worst punishment I suffered that day wasn’t what I heard the neighbour lady say, but, rather, not being able to hear that man’s voice.
The next morning I was wakened by the voice of my husband, who’d called to tell me that the phone lines were working again. His voice jolted me out of the previous night’s nightmares, but without putting any sweet dreams in their place.
Dreams had another voice. I’d called that voice a nameless ‘him’, who was nothing but the four letters that make up the word ‘love’ with a question mark at the end. He was nothing but four letters and six digits. However, they weren’t the six digits that made up his telephone number. Rather, they were the six digits on the lottery ticket I was using to gamble on my fate.
‘I’ve missed hearing from you. Why didn’t you call yesterday?’
‘The phone was out of order.’
‘Have you figured out where you want us to meet?’
‘Yes. If it’s all right with you, I’ll visit you at home this afternoon.’
‘You’re the only thing on my schedule,’ he said after a slight pause. ‘You can come whenever you like. But . . .’
‘But what?’
‘The situation doesn’t look safe today.’
I reassured him, saying, ‘It couldn’t be any worse than it’s been in Constantine.’
‘I don’t think you know how bad it really is, then.’
‘What’s going on?’ I asked, my curiosity piqued.
‘Last night the capital’s squares turned into huge bedrooms. The Islamists spread out everywhere, and didn’t get up till this morning to shout slogans and threats and recite loud prayers.’
‘When did this all start?’
‘Yesterday. Busloads of them, both men and women, rolled in.’
‘Women, too?’ I asked, incredulous.
‘They came in minibuses with the curtains drawn. All you could see was copies of the Qur’an being raised outside the windows.’
My enthusiasm waning a bit, I asked, ‘Are these things happening near you?’
‘Of course,’ he said. ‘I live on Larbi Ben M’hidi Street. It branches off Emir Abdelkader Square, which is where they’re holding the vigil.’
‘I know that street!’ I interrupted.
For a moment I was about to give up on my crazy adventure. But I was so frustrated that as far as I was concerned, not being able to see him was the worst thing that could possibly happen to me.
I thought he’d be surprised when I said to him, ‘I’ll come by way of the Central Post Office. Just give me the address.’
But, with an excitement that made me happy, he said, ‘That’s what I expected you to decide. It’s just like you!’
Then he added, ‘Do you understand now why I love you?’
‘No,’ I said jokingly. ‘You’ll have to explain it to me when I get there!’
* * *
At long, long last three o’clock rolled around.
You took so long to get here, love, why are you rushing me now?
At breakneck speed, the driver took me halfway to my heart’s desire. I would then have to go the rest of the way alone, frightened and on foot. As I made my way down the pavement, I dodged the glances of drivers who made it their profession to spy on others, and of passersby who had nothing better to do than mind other people’s business. On the other hand, who would be perceptive enough to recognize the footsteps of a woman on her way to or from a rendezvous with love?
Unlike those who have time to squander, love is an impatient teacher that brooks no nonsense. It teaches you everything at once. Whatever it shows you, it shows you its opposite through the same experience. And by instructing you in how to be yourself and somebody else simultaneously, it makes you into a first-rate actor.
I crossed Emir Abdelkader Square with a steady gait, walking along in my cloak and long headscarf as though I’d been wearing them all my life.
I felt safe in the midst of the crowds of men that surrounded me with their bizarre get-ups and hostile faces. Shouting and chanting religious and political slogans, they were too preoccupied with their otherworldly concerns to pay any attention to my worldly ones.
I would have liked to avoid the square, but I had no choice but to pass through it, since all the streets that led to my destination were so busy that if I’d come by way of any of them, I would have been at least an hour late for my appointment.
I couldn’t remember ever having passed through this square without being taken aback at the minuscule dimensions of Emir Abdelkader’s statue. The sight of it had always given me a bad case of nerves. This time, too, hurried as I was, I couldn’t help but notice it as it stood there engulfed by a sea of people, above which it rose by a mere metre or two. The statue was so short that some people had climbed on top of it without difficulty and draped it with green and black flags.
It kills me to see the gargantuan statues that adorn Arab capitals in honour of rulers who’ve given their peoples nothing but blood and destruction, while this man – who gave us a reason to be proud of our history by founding an Algerian state that dazzled France itself, and who wouldn’t have demanded that we bring his remains back from Syria or that we erect a statue of him in a square that, large as it is, will always be dwarfed by his greatness – has nothing but a puny little statue to his name.
(It’s a strange time indeed, when values are turned on their heads and people make statues for their leaders in celebration of their crimes rather than their greatness!) No wonder, then, that for twenty-five years Emir Abdelkader had been registering his displeasure at being among us by standing with his back turned to
the Liberation Front Party headquarters and his face to the sea, a fact that had become the stuff of many a political joke among residents of the capital.
There was a time when we Algerians had been masters of irony. So how had we lost our sense of humour? Where had we got these expressionless faces, these hostile temperaments and these strange fashions that had never suited us?
How had we become strangers to ourselves and each other? We were alienated to the point of being afraid of each other, taking precautions lest others look at us askance, and terrified every time we heard footsteps behind us.
As I walked through the square, hidden safely inside clothes that I’d borrowed from Farida and that weren’t the least bit like me, fear prompted me alternately to speed up and slow down. I found myself living back and forth between two people, one of whom was practised in seduction, the other in piety. One time I went to meet this man wearing a skin-tight black dress, and the next, a loose cloak and a headscarf that left nothing but my face showing. In short, I was being occupied in turns by two different women, both of whom were me.
Because we tend to think and act in keeping with what we put on and take off, I passed through the crowd in a kind of vague collusion. In fact, I might have joined in their excited shouting if I hadn’t been so engrossed in looking for the building where that man was waiting for me. Meanwhile, I kept wondering: Why is he always alongside of politics? Why does he come back according to history’s timing? And why is it that, when I relate to him, my joy is constantly on guard against sorrow?
As I walked warily past the Milk Bar Café, I suddenly remembered Djamila Bouhired. It’s said that one day during the revolution, she came to this café dressed in European clothing and ordered something. Before leaving, she put her bag under the table. It turned out that the bag was filled with explosives, and when they went off, the resulting blast rocked all of France, which, after having demanded that Algerian women remove their hijabs, discovered that European dress might be used to conceal a freedom-fighter!
And here I was, forty years later, Djamila Bouhired’s legitimate heir, passing the same café disguised in the garb of piety, since women had discovered that this very garb might conceal a lover whose body is set to explode with passion.
Chaos of the Senses Page 12
