Men Don't Cry

by Faïza Guène

  They looked like they were yelling their slogans fit to bust. But deep down, they were probably thinking: ‘Here I am, on the frontline, wearing my bright red Dior lipstick. With these killer lips, who says I won’t make the front page of Le Nouvel Obs on Monday? Yaaaas!’

  The anonymous demonstrators at the back were clinging with pained dignity to their placards, and the noble struggle.

  One of the collective’s most fervent detractors, a man they regularly took to court for defamation, had a blog called: Shut The Fuck Up, For Everyone’s Sake!

  They were always rallying in the name of sisterhood and the bigger cause, but their campaigns felt as phoney to me as Daniel with-the-hairy-wrists wearing ski glasses on a summer’s day. The way I saw it, SOS! took advantage of other women’s suffering, promoting an image of ‘victimhood’ to suit their headline-grabbing purposes.

  My sister was becoming a symbol. She contributed with increasing regularity to public debates. Whenever she expressed her view on any topic, she did so with breathtaking confidence and poise. The little Arab councillor from the provinces was fast becoming the darling of the Paris elite.

  Ahead of earning votes for her future political mandate, she was notching up Air France air miles on all those gas-guzzling Paris-Nice return flights.

  Dounia’s appeal lies in symbolizing what the Republic does best: producing accidental success stories.

  People can’t get enough of this model of excellence: ‘There you go, if you work hard enough, anything’s possible!’ It gives them licence to say, ‘Easy as one-two-three.’ Which makes it seem like everyone else is a waste of space, a bunch of layabouts lacking any ambition to succeed in life.

  A fulfilling career?

  No thanks. I’d prefer to spend my days buying scratch cards and hanging out at the local betting shop.

  A job in a rapidly expanding business?

  Not my kind of thing. I’ll just complain about my six years of higher education, so people will think I didn’t get hired because I was ‘overqualified’.

  All those lowlifes sponging off the benefits system, lounging about with no sense of shame. It’s an outrage!

  Politicians, hey? Still, what larks they enjoy in the corridors of power!

  Dounia’s public image serves these kinds of arguments. I don’t know if she’s conscious of this. I’d like to have put the question to her, but the switchboard operator just went ‘Aha!

  I’d watched several YouTube clips featuring my sister. There were some fairly offensive comments posted about Dounia. One that I’d spotted called her a ‘corrupt, sell-out, token Arab’.

  On my way out, I still kept hoping my sister would change her mind. I sensed someone’s eyes drilling into my back and when I turned around I saw the citrus-scented operator shooting me an acidic look. I was convinced that she’d been instructed to inform Dounia as soon as I left the premises. I surrendered.

  Out on the boulevard, the police were stopping cars. They signalled for me to pull over, which never happened with Big Baba’s Renault 11 turbo.

  An officer with a double chin approached; he looked for all the world like a pelican wearing glasses. He asked to see the vehicle registration documents, as well as my driving licence. ‘What on earth’s a youngster like him doing with a car like this?’ he must have been thinking, as he scrutinised the car’s yellowed registration certificate.

  When I pulled down the sunshield to remove the logbook, a small envelope fell out and landed in my lap. Inside was a photo.

  Aziz’s Farm

  It was a Polaroid that dated back a good 20 years and reminded me of a line from Proust: ‘The memory of a particular image is but regret for a particular moment.’

  The photo had been taken in front of the house belonging to Uncle Aziz, a farmer in Western Algeria and one of Big Baba’s relatives. We used to love going over there. It meant escaping the hustle and bustle of Algiers and experiencing first-hand a hostile kind of nature.

  Walking barefoot over the feverish midday ground and scraping the soles of our feet on tiny stones. Catching locusts only to release them again because we didn’t know what else to do. Black cockroaches like leather, their bodies so long that Mina made up a name for them: limousine cockroaches.

  Uncle Aziz took us to harvest Barbary figs, with the help of a bamboo pole whose tip was cut in three to make a pincer that hooked the fruit. We used to collect them by the bucketful. But no matter how careful we were, by the end of the day, our hands were always covered in prickles, which Mama Latifa, Aziz’s wife, would pull out using her teeth. Her method was rustic but efficient. She would spit the prickles into a small dish.

  The house was surrounded by the huge cactus plants that produced these Barbary figs. We called them ‘barbed wire figs’.

  High up in the mountains the moon was very white, round and full. We could almost touch it. As for the stars, I’d never counted as many in Nice. In the West, far from Algiers, they glowed as far as the eye could see.

  After the summer downpours, we would go snail collecting and, at the end of the afternoon, the women would busy themselves with cooking inside the mechta. The aroma of grilled almonds filled the traditional stone house. Mama Latifa baked rye bread while I crouched down next to her, watching her knead the dough. She had been born with half a finger missing, and her husband would often tease her on the subject: ‘If I’d known you were half a finger down when I married you, I’d have knocked 2000 dinars off your bride price!’

  On Aziz’s farm, the boys ran through the fields pushing an old bicycle wheel with a branch; they built tiny windmills using the coloured plastic from powdered milk pouches; they climbed trees and whistled at stray dogs. The little girls wore ribbons in their hair, or brightly coloured headscarves with their thick brown plaits sticking out. I remember the partially sighted old man who used to take his daily siesta in the shade of an almond tree, his bony body lying on an empty wheat sack, his face protected by the large hood of his djellaba. He must be long dead now.

  There were rabbits, crammed into cages. As well as oxen, sheep, goats and a few sad mules tethered to the tree trunks.

  I recognised the spot instantly because we would often visit it with my family, but when this photo was taken, I was just a chubby-cheeked baby in Big Baba’s arms. My two sisters were dressed in identical matching outfits.

  My mother used to treat them as if they were twins, despite their age gap. Sometimes, Dounia would try to differentiate herself by unpicking her lace collar or tearing the ribbons off her dress. My mother flew into a rage as soon as she noticed, her high-pitched voice bouncing off the ceiling and crashing down on Dounia’s head like a pétanque ball. Every sentence began with: ‘Look at your sister, she’s not…’

  One day, down by the oued where a trickle of water still ran, Dounia had caught an enormous toad. For no reason, she threw it at Mina who was juggling walnuts in the courtyard. By way of punishment, Dounia had come in for a rare hiding, and we nicknamed her alSahira: ‘the witch’. My mother kept her apart from Mina for several days and sent her to bed without any supper for several nights.

  ‘She’s so jealous, she’ll end up doing something really bad to Mina!’ people remarked of my big sister.

  One year, the whole family was in Algiers for the engagement party that was being held in honour of my mother’s youngest sister, Asma. The women in the room wore flashy outfits and jewels, they laughed loudly and fanned themselves with paper plates. Every summer there was one particular style of dress or fabric in fashion, and, for reasons that escape me, the fabric would be named after a television series or character.

  That year it was Dynasty, the following summer it was the turn of Knots Landing. I can even remember a fabric named Boudiaf, after an assassinated Algerian president. It’s each to their own, when it comes to repurposing world events.

  My aunt Asma sat in the middle of the room, on a chair that was covered in golden cloth and wrapped with a big ribbon. On either side of her stood tw
o little girls in almond-green satin dresses. Following tradition, each had to hold a tall candle while the henna circle was applied to the palms of the bride-to-be, and they were under strict instructions not to let their candle go out; this was a task of the utmost importance, to be undertaken with great solemnity.

  Everyone was busy admiring the little girls, who had been dressed so elegantly in beautiful clothes bought in France (made in China, of course, but who was telling?)

  My sisters looked like two dolls.

  In all the bustle of the party, nobody noticed Dounia setting fire to Mina’s hair with her engagement candle. Not long after, Asma’s mother-in-law said, ‘I can smell bouzelouf!’

  Bouzelouf is sheep’s head roasted over the fire until all the wool is scorched; then you scrape off the wool with a knife, before boiling up the meat and stewing it with chickpeas. My favourite part was the brain. I used to think it made you clever, until the day one of my cousins said, ‘If you eat sheep’s brain, you’ll become as stupid as a sheep. And when you go back to France, they’ll put you in prison for leaving a trail of millions of little black droppings behind you wherever you go!’

  I stopped eating brain on the spot.

  My mother grabbed the candle off Dounia in a fit of rage. Meanwhile, some of the younger women put out the flames in Mina’s singed clump of hair. My younger sister was sobbing and scarlet.

  The bride remained as stony-faced as all the brides I’ve ever seen in Algeria. A few women were whispering amongst themselves, ‘Those immigrant children have been so badly brought up!’

  Outside in the courtyard, Dounia came in for a proper hiding, one so severe that she wet herself. My mother was letting her have it, because of the shame, I guess. The sound of plastic sandals against my sister’s skin rang out along the corridor.

  A few minutes later, a strange-looking Dounia returned to the main room and started dancing again, as if nothing had happened. Except that her legs were streaming with urine. A hunchbacked old woman dragged her outside by the puff-sleeve of her pretty princess dress, which was now displaying wet patches. ‘Go and wash yourself, then change your clothes!’ she instructed Dounia. ‘You’re a disgrace!’

  It was with a heavy heart that my mother had to cut Mina’s hair. For months after that episode, my sister wore a hideous bob, short on the neck, with her dry frizzy curls rising up to the sky.

  After Dounia’s big departure, my mother gave up hiding her heartbreak, and took instead to saying, ‘In any case, she’s crazy! I can’t believe she came out of my womb! Do you remember, Mina? She tried to burn you alive at your Aunt Asma’s wedding!’ Or, ‘I knew I could never trust a girl who threw a toad in her own sister’s face!’

  I tucked the photo into my jacket pocket and drove home in the Renault 11 Turbo, thinking: ‘It’s crazy how the same memory must be so different for each person’.

  Leaving

  I had gone to pay Big Baba one last visit before leaving for Paris. His stroke had shaken him so badly, I wasn’t even sure if he remembered about my new job. When I mentioned it, he just nodded and pouted with his lower lip.

  As I paced the corridors of the neuro rehab unit in search of a doctor, my trainers squeaking on the freshly-polished floor, I found myself wondering once again: ‘Is there a lecture given to medical students by an eminent professor on The Art of Avoiding Patients’ Families?’

  Because they seem pretty skilled at it.

  I eventually tracked down Doctor ‘Catch-Me-If-You-Can’ and we talked as we walked.

  ‘Look, with your dad, we’re aiming to maximise his potential. We want the best of what’s achievable, but we can only speculate.’

  I was struck by his turn of phrase: We Can Only Speculate. It sounded like the title of a future Goncourt-prize-winning novel.

  ‘You have to understand that, at his age, the chances of regaining full independence are slim. It’s unlikely that he’ll recover the same physical abilities as before. What matters is that he’s making progress, in small but encouraging ways.’

  The only word I held onto was ‘encouraging’.

  I knew I wouldn’t be back before November. In the meantime, Big Baba had given me some advice.

  ‘Eat properly. Say your prayers. Don’t make too many friends. One or two is enough. And telephone your mother.’

  He had offered the same advice, almost word for word, after finally agreeing to let me go on a school skiing trip to the Alps, aged 11. In the end my parents had no choice, thanks to the insistence of my teacher, Monsieur Mounier.

  ‘Madame Chennoun, if Mourad doesn’t come with us, he’ll be the only Year 6 student left in Nice! He’ll spend three weeks kicking his heels with the Year 5s. When we get back, it’ll be even worse. His classmates will enjoy talking about an experience they’ve shared without him. He’ll feel left out!’

  ‘Let me tell you something, Monsieur-the-teacher, everybody feels left out at some point in life. It’s got to start one day. This will be character-building for him.’

  ‘If you’re worried about the safety aspect, I quite understand. I’m the father of three children myself, but we can’t keep them at home for the rest of their lives. They have to learn to grow up and spread their wings. I give you my word that the team will keep a close eye on everything.’

  ‘And what about that coach accident in the tunnel, back in November? Those children were only eight years old! Did you see it on the television? Dead, every single one of them! They were on their way to the mountains too, and for all I know their teacher gave his word to their parents!’

  ‘Accidents can happen anywhere, Madame Chennoun. Your son might fall over and injure himself right here, in your garden!’

  ‘Yes, well, that garden’s due for a tidy-up, isn’t it, eh, Abdelkader? My husband will get rid of all his scrap metal! It’ll be less dangerous with just the grass and flowers. And another thing, you don’t get avalanches in the back garden. I don’t want him falling into some ravine – my son’s never been skiing before!’

  ‘Like most of the children in my class…’

  ‘Back home, Monsieur-the-teacher, nobody gives a fig about snow. People don’t ski in Algeria!’

  ‘Well, Mourad is lucky enough to live in France where he can learn.’

  ‘Lucky enough to live in France? Lucky my foot, pfff!’

  The way she had said it, there were at least ten kilos of irony on the scales, and keep the change, Monsieur-the-teacher!

  Big Baba glowered at her before muttering in Arabic: ‘I’ve never known anyone so stubborn…’

  Nobody could outdo my mother when it came to repartee, but my teacher knew that he’d wear her down in the end. As for Big Baba, he was keeping quiet, busy figuring it out. A vein bulged on his forehead, a sure sign that things were simmering inside. He had put on a suit to welcome my teacher, and naturally he’d clipped his regulation Bic biros into his jacket pocket.

  He had shown my class teacher into the house with the words, ‘Yours is a noble profession, Monsieur!’

  I remember watching the scene through the curtain of the girls’ bedroom, which gave onto the living room. I was a bundle of nerves and my hands were clammy.

  ‘In any case, Mourad doesn’t want to go. He needs his routine. I know he’ll be unhappy over there in those mountains!’

  ‘What if we put the question to him directly, Madame Chennoun?’

  I clenched my fists. My nails dug so hard into my palms they left marks behind.

  Big Baba called me in and invited me to sit on a chair.

  Each time we received a guest at home, which wasn’t very often, my mother made mint tea. She arranged pretty lace doilies on the table and laid out bowls heaped with almonds, pistachios, peanuts, and savoury nibbles.

  I resisted the urge to grab a handful of them and chew noisily to avoid what was coming next.

  ‘So, Mourad, what do you think about all of this? Tell us, would you rather join the rest of your class on our trip to the mountains, or
would you prefer to stay at home and spend two weeks with Madame Bisset’s Year 5 class?’

  ‘I don’t know…’

  ‘My son, do you really want to go all that way in the cold and, who knows, you could fall and end up dead in an avalanche, or would you prefer to stay with us, and Maman will buy you that gaming console you’ve been asking for?’

  My mother had no issues with blatantly bribing her children.

  ‘I don’t know… Both.’

  ‘What do you mean, both? You can’t multiply yourself and be in two places at the same time! My son, you have to choose!’

  I looked into Big Baba’s eyes for help. He must have seen the distress in mine.

  ‘That’s enough. He’s going.’

  ‘What do you mean, he’s going?’

  ‘You heard me, he’s going, he’s a big boy now. He needs to learn to fend for himself, the teacher’s right. You won’t be by his side forever to blow on his hot milk or cut up his steak!’

  My father has always adopted a pragmatic approach. He keeps quiet, unless he’s making a pronouncement. What he said that day was a liberation for me.

  ‘Is it true, Mourad, that you want to go?’

  ‘Yes, Maman. I’d like to go.’

  I fiddled nervously with the doily to avoid looking at her.

  ‘I’m going to get a glass of water!’ she declared, leaping to her feet. ‘Quick a glass of water! My poor heart will stop!’

  A cold handshake took place between my mother and Monsieur Mounier. From then on, she considered him a child-snatcher. For several days, the face she pulled was so long it stretched half-way down the street. She felt betrayed, both by Big Baba and by me.

  A few weeks later, she burst into tears while packing my suitcase.