A Country for Dying

by Abdellah Taïa

  Others have pockets filled with money. We are here to take it from them. That’s how it works. Some of them have houses in the countryside or near the sea. Where they send madame and the children. And they rush over to see me. I am ready. Prêt. Prête. Always. And nice and clean. Always. Even when I end up working the streets deep in Clichy, I never go out without my baby wipes. After each session, I clean myself properly, as one should, of their filth, of their perpetually denied frustrations. During the day, they revel in overblown language to describe the freedom they enjoy. And at night they come and hide with me and my Brazilian girlfriends. Do you understand it? You don’t have anything to say about it? This market isn’t your specialty. I know. What good does it do them, having all these laws, if it doesn’t stop them from reproducing the same world, beautiful on the outside, and in reality so repressed. I would like to believe that their Joan of Arc really fought for freedom, and that their ancestors invented the rights of man. In 1789. But at the end of the day, what do we find here, in Paris, at the heart of the heart of France? The extremely inhibited bourgeoisie, too proud of their culture and always quite satisfied with themselves. Little tribes here, there, everywhere, that remind me of some of the people I knew in Algeria. The two sides, same difference. They think they’re living in real freedom when they’re only submitting to stronger forces, smarter minds.

  Do you want the names of those French tribes? Louis Vuitton. Hermès. Dior. Chanel. The Louvre. The École normale supérieure, where those idiots Jean-Jacques and Pierre teach. The Panthéon, where they love to go bow down before their Greats. And then they dare to tell us that they’re against slavery, that God doesn’t exist, or whatever other bullshit.

  Fine. I’ll stop there. I’m acting like them. I’m overanalyzing. I’m citing names. References. I’m starting to get theoretical. That’s not me, all of that. Let’s get back to my cock. That’s better.

  Zahira. Zahira. I want a first name like yours. It sounds so good, Zahira. You are a zahra, my dear. A little flower. You are a zhira. A little breeze that smells like zhar. The orange blossom. You are the heart. Madness. Blood. That which brings happiness. And I know what I’m talking about. I know them all, here, your colleagues. Your sisters, as you call them sometimes. But only sometimes. You’re not like them. The other girls gave up. You, in the end, didn’t. You still believe that something will happen soon. Your eyes have turned sad. But your soul still awaits a miracle.

  You will be saved, Zahira. I always tell you that. I know you only half believe me. You’re wrong.

  The three-year procedure is over. I followed all of Dr. Johansson’s instructions. I answered all the questions from the psychologists, psychiatrists, and gynecologists. I followed all their instructions to the letter.

  Tomorrow, I’m cutting off my cock. And in the operating room, right before I surrender to the hands of the anesthetist, I will think only of you. I will not think of my mother. Nor of my father. Nor of those three men whom I loved purely. I will conjure you up before my eyes. I will renounce my manhood, my masculinity, using you as inspiration. Your body and its curves. Your scent that sets senses on fire. Your way of walking as if you were very slowly climbing a staircase. Your eyes that you never lower. Ever. You are not afraid. You fight. But you are always polite. Classy. I want to wake up as a woman with the same look I see in your eyes. Fixed. Sometimes hard, sometimes insolent. Always elegant. Where did you learn to use your eyes like that? Was it passed down to you by your father? By your big brother?

  No, it’s just you, that sad look, which somehow doesn’t bring others down.

  I want the same. The same. Is that okay with you? I know it’s okay, my friend. My sister, possessed like me.

  You have to pick me out a first name like yours. With a Z. And an h. And an a. The music that I hear in “Zahira,” I want something like that.

  What do you think? ZouZou, like the actress Soad Hosny in the Egyptian film Watch Out for ZouZou? Zineb, like your father’s sister who disappeared somewhere a long time ago and who so fascinates me? Zahia, like your aunt who is alive and well? Zohra? Zhira? Zahra? Zannouba?

  You have seven names to choose from. Which one suits me best? Which one will help me be more like you? Tell me. Tell me. The last one? Tell me . . .”

  “Zannouba. I like that name for you. Zannouba. Zannouba . . .”

  “Why that one? It’s missing an h. Answer me!”

  “By becoming a woman tomorrow, you will be a bit more like me. But you will not be me. It’s pointless to delude yourself. I don’t want for you to catch even a little bit of my curse.”

  “You, Zahira, cursed?”

  “Yes, that’s what I am. That’s what I see.”

  “You’re wrong. A thousand times wrong. And you should change your mind-set. Maybe the others, the blind and unjust world, fling their insipid, nasty curses at you. Maybe. Trust me, none of it reaches you. You are far above them. Above everything.”

  “You see me with too much love, Zannouba.”

  “Zannouba! Thank you. Thank you. Thank you for already calling me by this new name. Real at last. Real through you, thanks to you. That’s how I see it: a miracle and a curse at the same time. Okay, okay. In any event, I don’t care. I want to be you, Zahira. I will be Zannouba through you. I already am. You have just confirmed it for me. You have baptized me. Thank you. From the bottom of my heart. Thank you for us all. Don’t say anything. Don’t answer anything. There is nothing more to say. Let me touch you. Take my head. Blow on my head. Shall we close our eyes? Go on! Go on! Did you do it? I did. I see nothing. I’ll take some of your baraka . . . Open your eyes now, Zahira. Have some more tea and a small cake . . . Listen, Zahira, listen to me talk. I am Zannouba. This is the beginning of it all. Of all the stories of my life. The night that can never end. Words to invent. Identities to unveil . . . Are you still with me? Listen . . . Listen to me speak like Scheherazade. I’m turning back time. I’m going back to the beginning. Listen . . . Listen closely, Zahira . . .”

  the temptation of the lipstick

  They were all over me. A little eight-year-old boy. Happy. Seven sisters, all for me. They loved me. Took care of me. From head to toe. Several hands touched me. Cleaned me. Pampered me. Massaged me. Coated me with oils and cheap perfumes. I let them do as they pleased every time, without ever closing my eyes. Hands, overexcited and joyous, mixed, mingled, fought over my little body.

  It happened quietly in the beginning. Nothing heavy. We were preparing the event. We were concentrating. We were on the green rug, in the guest room.

  Winter or summer, it was always the same ritual. My sisters seemed to obey inaudible orders they alone could understand.

  They had to sacrifice me. They knew what to do. How to transform me. All enter into me, become me, turn me into the link with the heavens.

  We hid for the ceremony. We locked the front door to the house. We made sure our mother was off to the souk. There was no one. Only my sisters and me.

  I was happy without shame: a dream. I am the only boy on earth. I am the only girl on earth.

  That’s what happened: the Event. Transform. Be reborn. Return to the source. I didn’t question it.

  7 girls + 1 boy = 8 girls.

  1 brother + 7 sisters = 8 sisters.

  The rule of numbers. It’s logic.

  I witnessed my own transformation. It wasn’t magic. It was real.

  My sisters supplied everything. Our mother’s green caftan. Our aunt Batoule’s yellow scarf. The blue babouches belonging to Saâdia, our eldest sister.

  Three colors: green for the body, yellow around the head, and feet in blue.

  Radiant, that little army prepared to carry out the large-scale operation.

  The face. Very simple. Three hardly noticeable touches. Kohl on the eyes. Deep red lipstick on the lips. And a bit of powder on the cheeks.

  The sisters stepped back
. At a bit of a distance, seated, they formed a complete circle around the light.

  They were waiting.

  It was my turn.

  I stood up.

  I offered myself up to the gaze of one sister after another. I greeted them softly, lovingly. Recognizing myself in each of them.

  7. Magic number. Odd. I am the 8 that completes it. And extends it towards the 9. I am at the same time the 8 and the 9.

  Incubated by the free and benevolent gazes of my sisters, I fly, I surpass the limits of this world. And I extend my arm. One after another, they plant a kiss on my hand.

  I was a little boy. Now I am a little girl. King and queen.

  I come back down to earth.

  One of my sisters lets out a youyou. Then a second. And a third. It heightens our joy. Our shining eyes will shatter with happiness.

  My transformation continues. I start to sing.

  My sisters sing, too. Our voices mix together marvelously.

  I dance. As a girl.

  I dance. As a boy.

  Our happiness is enormous. No one can take it from us. Our union is eternal. My sisters are mine, they will never marry. Laws aren’t made for us. Unanimously, we stop recognizing them. President Boumediene is no longer our president. I am the Master. The Mistress. The little god. I am convinced of it.

  When I was born they named me Aziz. “Dear one.” I am. With them. With their blessing, I become Aziza.

  Aziz. Aziza. I think both. As I continue to sing and dance, I mingle them.

  And I fall. Without hurting myself. I am a body on earth, in ecstasy. My sisters approach me. They devour me with kisses.

  I still hear them, those noisy kisses.

  They stopped when I was about thirteen years old.

  Suddenly I had to remain Aziz and only Aziz.

  My unhappiness began in that moment, when they told me that childhood had finished and it was time to wear the mask of a man. It wasn’t advice. It was an order repeated every day and every night.

  Very soon after, the sisters left one after another. They were married off. They were given to strange men who lived elsewhere, far, very far away.

  I didn’t see them again, my sisters.

  I didn’t forget them. Every morning and every night, I said their names.

  Saâdia. Hakima. Saïda. Fathia. Halima. Maryam. Nadia.

  I remained alone.

  I am alone. No joy. No magic. No innocence.

  They had shown me the path. The world destroyed it all. Brutal men stole, kidnapped my sisters. They rape them, I know, over and over. My sisters can’t say anything.

  Now my sisters have children. But I don’t want to know them. I don’t want to know anything about them anymore, about their new lives.

  The shock of our separation destroyed me. I could no longer speak, eat, relish life. Without the bodies of my sisters around me, meaning was lost, the light gone out forever.

  One night, I made the decision: to no longer exist. I would no longer be an Algerian. Nor an Arab. Nor a Muslim. Nor an African. None of it.

  I turned hard. A monster. A degenerate. No purpose, no battle to fight.

  It was obvious that I was receding from the world, but no one extended their hand to me.

  Later, many years later, I realized the true weight of my tragedy, understood what they had taken from me, into what cold hell they had forced me. I remember that day very clearly.

  It was the day the temptation to wear red lipstick came back.

  I was with a client, the last one, at the end of the night. Porte Dauphine. The routine. Beyond exhaustion. The man was doing his business in my behind. I felt nothing. I was trying to think of a song by Warda. “Khalik Hena.” “Stay Here.”

  The client’s pelvic thrusts sped up. I was losing hope. I couldn’t recall that song. But I continued to search in that bygone time, back in Algeria.

  And it came. Came back. Just a small part:

  Stay here, stay.

  What’s the point of leaving on a trip.

  You say: Only two days!

  And you leave for a year.

  What’s the point of leaving on a trip.

  I’m afraid of tomorrow

  And of what will happen

  As soon as you leave.

  You will leave us for an entire year.

  And you will leave behind a wounded love.

  As I’m very softly humming those two last words, “wounded love,” habib mjrouh, suddenly the buried past came back to the surface. It spurted up through a specific desire: the temptation to wear red on my lips. A fake Chanel lipstick, probably made in China. I needed that one and no other. I had to find it quickly, it was like a life-threatening emergency, my childhood, the joy among my sisters, me as a glorious child, through the magic of the cheap lipstick my sisters had used.

  I had just arrived in Paris. I prostituted myself dressed as a moderately savage Arab boy from over there, Algeria. The clients liked that, liked for me to smell like my home country, the savagery of the village, as they liked to say.

  The client was going to come in my ass soon. I arched my back slightly. That excited him even more. I looked at the sky searching for the sign that would appear, I was sure of it.

  The client ejaculated noisily in me. My favorite moment, one of the reasons I was in the profession. It was hot, sweet, nourishing. I felt this regular client’s sperm burrow through me, wind its way in, leave its mark everywhere.

  Thus sustained and rekindled, I had the strength, the power, to read the sign showing me where to go to buy my sisters’ lipstick, Chanel, fake and cheap.

  Tati.

  That’s where I went the very next day, Tati in Barbès. Our version of Printemps, our Galeries Lafayette, isn’t that right, Zahira?

  Isn’t that right?

  Zahira! Zahira! Zahira! Did you fall asleep? Are you really sleeping?

  Why should I continue with my story, then?

  Sleep. You’re missing the most important part: that moment when, after I had found the lipstick, I understood that I had to return to the past, pick up where the story had left off, in Algeria, when I was thirteen.

  Leave behind my cock, my gender, men, be a woman. Be one of my sisters. With them. Far from them. Cut off all that is masculine in me to become them. Reconcile myself with the glorious little child I had once been. Listen to him. Realize his dream. His true nature. Love him again, at last.

  Tomorrow, at the end of the day, I will go to the Hôpital Saint-Louis. They will take me into the operating room at 7:30 p.m. At nine o’clock Dr. Johansson will begin the operation.

  They will cut it off of me.

  You will be with your nightly clients, Zahira.

  You will think of me. Right? You will think of me. You have to. Because I will no longer have access to anything, neither to myself nor to my body. Nor my hopes.

  Think of me. Pray for me, in your own way.

  You’re all I have left, Zahira.

  3. In the Center

  I love Paris. It’s my city. I don’t have a French passport but no one can contest this right. This belonging. Paris is my city, my kingdom, my path. This is where I always wanted to come. To flee. To grow up. To learn about the world freely. Walk without fear, anywhere. Walk. Keep walking. Become a whore. Officially. Embrace it.

  This is where I want to die. This is where I want to write my testament. I will bequeath all that I have to the caretaker’s son. They’re from a suburb of Lille. They are so poor. She has only him. He has only her.

  He’s barely nine years old. He’s named Antoine. I am in love with him.

  Antoine: little charming French bird.

  Antoine: little cherub with his little wings showing.

  Antoine: genius and magician.

  He understands everything, Ant
oine, he guessed my profession on his own. When his mother sends him to give me the mail, he looks at me, kindly. He doesn’t say a word. I crouch down. He kisses me on both cheeks, very slowly.

  His skin is like milk. I don’t need to lick it to know what it tastes like, its sweetness and its saltiness. I look at Antoine. Antoine looks at me.

  He, too, will ask me for something, later on, when he’s a bit older. I won’t refuse him anything. I will open my tender arms.

  I like his name. I like his way of setting down one foot after another. I like when I happen upon him, sometimes, sitting on the steps in the stairwell, crying. I don’t interrupt him. I let his tears stream out until there are no more. Once, only once, he told me why he was crying.

  “Rex is dead, Zahira! He’s dead!”

  “Who’s Rex, Antoine?”

  “The dog . . . my aunt’s . . . in Lille . . . He’s dead.”

  “When did he die?”

  “A month ago.”

  “And you just found out?”

  “No . . . I’ve known for a month . . .”

  I sat down next to him. He continued to cry. Then he placed his head on my leg.

  “Rex is dead.”

  I would remember that short sentence all my life.

  Antoine gave me the most beautiful thing, the rarest thing. A precious and pure memory.

  That dog Rex had been dead for several weeks already. Antoine, a little being, six years old at the time, had just understood, had just realized something. The feeling of loss. The need for a solitary corner in which to take refuge. The hope of being unburdened, consoled, loved, by someone.

  In my will, there is only him.

  There will only be him. Antoine, it’s Paris from here on out for me. Paris and life.

  I’ve lived in this city for seventeen years. I should hate it, curse it, abandon it. Go elsewhere: join my girlfriends who make a fortune in Switzerland, in Geneva and Zurich especially. They’re constantly calling me up. Apparently there aren’t enough girls over there. Moroccan women have a lot of success with Swiss men, who are always so generous with them. But money doesn’t interest me. That’s not my driving force, what compels me to spread my legs for clients. And I don’t have many of them, I’ll admit it. What does it matter. In my building there is Antoine: that’s what’s important. And two metro stops away there’s Iqbal: my Sri Lankan.