Men Don't Cry

by Faïza Guène

  ‘Grammar might come in handy for you too, Rihanna!’ I ventured.

  It started up again, scattered laughter around the room, clinging to everything: walls, ceiling, blackboard. Acnepocked belly laughs.

  ‘Right, that’s enough!’ I said. Then I cleared my throat and tried again, even louder: ‘That’s enough!’

  But they didn’t stop.

  That’s when I realised dangling a carrot wasn’t going to work. And humour wasn’t the solution either. This was all-out war and my job was to become an armoured vehicle, a tank on auto-pilot. I didn’t have a choice, it was imperative. If tanks alone survive in war zones, it’s because they’re solid and they’re bombproof.

  After a brief lull, I asked my students to fill out their ‘About Me’ sheets, which would provide a little more information: parental occupations, siblings, hobbies.

  I thought fondly back to Madame Mocca, my History and Geography teacher, who was close to retirement age when I started at secondary school. She was the proprietor of the establishment. You could tell from the way she had personalised her classroom. There were green plants dotted about and she had pinned photos of her grandchildren to the wall, as well as the inevitable relief maps of France.

  We were chez-Madame Mocca, and, chez-Madame Mocca, she was the law. She was old and so slight that we were scared she might break a bone with each step she took. But it was a false impression of frailty. You could hear a pin drop in her lessons. Everything ran like clockwork. Madame Mocca was a rare kind of tank, embodying natural authority in all its splendour.

  At parents’ evening, she had remarked to Big Baba, who was wearing his suit with the Bic biros clipped to his jacket pocket: ‘If I only had Mourads in my class, everything would be perfect.’

  Big Baba had grinned from ear to ear. We could see all his fillings as a token of how proud he was.

  ‘Sir? If our parents aint working, isn’t it we put benefits?’ asked a student at the back, who hadn’t bothered to take off her coat before raising her hand.

  I collected the ‘About Me’ sheets slowly, stringing things out, like an Italian football team leading in extra time.

  Another student, who was leaning on the radiator, asked permission to speak.

  ‘Sir? Is it true you sell weed?’

  ‘I beg your pardon?!’

  ‘Word is, you’re dealin’ – that’s what a Year 9 told us this morning.’

  Dozens of pairs of eyes were staring at me now, hanging on my answer as if I were about to utter words of prophesy.

  ‘So what kind of rumour is this?’

  ‘He said there’s a teacher, yeah, and we all know teachers aint zillionaires, but this one, he said, he’s driving a C-class Merc.’

  ‘So, in your view, if a teacher drives a nice car it automatically means they’re selling drugs?’

  ‘Nah, but you’re Arab innit?’

  Bad idea, borrowing Miloud’s car. Very bad idea.

  ‘Would anyone like to tell us what a cliché is?’

  The responses came quick as a flash:

  ‘A cliché? Isn’t that like a photo?’

  ‘Cliché-sous-Bois? That’s where my aunt lives!’

  So I spent my first lesson explaining that clichés often reflect prejudices or snap judgements.

  ‘Is it like when people say gingers smell?’ asked Sylvestre, a short redhead in the front row.

  ‘Absolutely, Sylvestre!’

  ‘But that’s not a cliché, sir,’ piped up a voice from the southern border of the classroom, ‘it’s the truth. Carrot tops do smell – of wee!’

  Everyone burst out laughing again.

  ‘Shhhhhhh!’ I hushed them, remembering my colleague Gérard, whose classroom was next door.

  The bell rang. Everyone stood up at once. Proper little soldiers. Out they trooped, in tight formation. One, two, one, two, march. A few checked their mobiles, which wrong-footed me. A smartphone in Year 7? I’d never felt so prehistoric.

  Next up was what teachers call a ‘window’. A free hour between two lessons. Time to revive my spirits.

  A student returned shyly to the classroom.

  ‘Sorry, sir. I left my Ventolin on the table, and if I have an asthma attack I might die, that’s what my mum said.’

  ‘Right, come on in, then.’

  Dodging between the desks, she picked up her inhaler and stuffed it into a pocket.

  ‘Sir, is this your first time as a teacher?

  ‘What did you say your name was?’

  ‘Asma Zerdad. But everyone teases me about it.’

  ‘Why? Asma’s a pretty name.’

  ‘They still tease me, though. It’s because I’m asthmatic.’

  ‘I see.’

  ‘But I don’t care. They’re stupid. Is this your first time, sir, because the new teachers, well, none of them stay. I mean, they always leave at the end of the year. Or that’s what my big sister says.’

  ‘Is she a student here, your sister?’

  ‘Yeah, she’s in Year 9. She’s called Sarah.’

  ‘Well, here’s hoping everything goes to plan and I can stay.’

  ‘Insha’Allah, sir. Good luck. I’d better go, I’ll be late.’

  Her schoolbag was so wide she could barely squeeze through the door, and then Asma was gone. A little girl whose mother probably still brushed her hair (the brightly coloured scrunchies in the long plait she wore to one side were a giveaway). She reminded me of my sister Mina, when she was younger.

  Prior to my first day, I’d been worrying about the verdict of the inspector who, at the end of my teacher-training year, would randomly decide whether I deserved to qualify or not.

  Now, my only question was whether or not I’d make it through ’til the end of the school year.

  Following a succession of Year 7s, all exhibiting varying degrees of restlessness or enthusiasm, the morning was finally over.

  I began to create a character for myself: Vladimir, a man with no pity or remorse, raised in the tundra by a pack of wolves.

  The teachers had their own area in the cafeteria. A sort of bunker, arrived by braving hordes of starving teenagers and crossing a fanfare of clinking knives and forks.

  All those emotions had made me hungry, and I piled my tray with a meal fit for a pregnant woman at full term. Potato, I insisted on plenty of potato, I wanted heaps of the stuff. I had a plate filled with enough starch to last me through war.

  I headed for Hélène, seeking out her vanilla scent and compassionate smile as my antidote. The seat next to her was taken by Gérard. Elbows bolted to the table, he was chewing on his spaghetti bolognaise and smearing it all over his moustache.

  He shot me one of his sardonic looks.

  ‘Still alive?’

  ‘Yes, as you can see.’

  ‘They were running riot with you, hey? You do realise I’m in the next door classroom and I can hear everything?’

  Yes, you blockhead with the disgusting salt-and-pepper hair, I do realise! was the answer I wanted to give.

  ‘Sure, they’re upbeat students. I like it that way, it keeps things lively!’

  ‘Lively? Ha-ha!’

  He carried on slurping his spaghetti.

  Gérard was assuming the role of the threatened elder, keen to outsmart me. Let him mock me all he liked, he had yet to meet Vladimir, my steely double, who would have opted for raw bear meat at the cafeteria.

  Hélène smiled and raised a cherry tomato to her mouth, pointing to the empty chair opposite Gérard. ‘Have a seat there, Mourad!’

  She looks nice with her hair down, I thought as I slid my tray onto the table.

  There was also a new face, a young guy in his thirties with an unruly lock of hair that he kept blowing out of the way. This was something I could only do in my dreams, but, given the texture of my hair, I’d shaved off those dreams with a pair of clippers.

  ‘Hi, I’m Wilfried,’ he said, holding out his hand. ‘I’m the long-term supply teacher.’

  �
�Pleased to meet you, Wilfried.’

  ‘First day not proving too painful?’

  ‘Could be worse,’ I ventured, remembering the expression ‘glass half-full’.

  ‘So what does long-term supply teaching involve?’

  Wilfried smiled and performed that trick again with his slick lock of hair.

  ‘It’s means I’m of no-fixed-abode in the education system. I’ve been here for a year and a half now, filling in for the librarian. It’s the first time I’ve stayed so long in one place.’

  ‘What happened to the librarian?’ I asked, shovelling down the potatoes.

  Hélène and Gérard exchanged a knowing look.

  Wilfried smirked and cut up his steak carefully.

  ‘You’re sure you want to know?’

  ‘Why? Am I not meant to?’

  ‘She got it in the face with a fire extinguisher – big gash above the eyes. You can still see the bloodstain on the learning resources centre carpet. Nothing life-threatening, but she’s been deeply traumatised.’

  ‘You don’t say…?!’

  ‘Extended sick leave…you see where I’m coming from…’

  ‘Stop it! You’ll frighten him!’ Hélène remonstrated. I love dusting down the verb ‘to remonstrate’. Not that I often get the chance.

  ‘Don’t worry about me, I’m fine.’

  ‘Trouble is, she really was a piece of work…!’

  ‘Nobody deserves to be hit with a fire extinguisher,’ added Gérard, with a spurt of tomato sauce. ‘Nobody.’

  ‘Sure, but she pushed her luck.… Anyway, it’s not like Wilfried has any worries in that department, all the girls are head-over-heels in love with him. He’s a catch!’

  ‘You’re exaggerating, Hélène!’

  ‘No I’m not! They’re all crazy for you!’

  ‘Rubbish! He he he. Stop it, you’ll make me blush! Right, I’m off to find some dessert!’

  Wilfried covered his embarrassment by standing up and loping aimably towards the dessert section.

  ‘What those girls don’t realise,’ added Gérard, unable to resist as he mopped up the remains of his sauce with some bread, ‘is that, however crazy they are for him, he’ll always be the ‘craziest girl’ of all!’

  He guffawed and his moustache quivered like a row of sardines.

  Hélène’s disapproving expression made her look extra cute.

  ‘Keep your homophobic jokes to yourself, Gérard.’

  I reckon I’d have figured out sooner or later that the L-T-S teacher was a bit G-A-Y.

  ‘So tell me, new-kid-on-the-block,’ said Gérard, standing up, ‘what’s your union status?’

  ‘Because,’ said Hélène, raising one eyebrow irresistibly, ‘Gérard is the union rep around here…’

  ‘So if you decide to join up, kiddo, come and see me. We’re CGT at Gustave Courbert.’

  Would that be CGT, as in the General Workers’ Union? Or CGT as in Cretin with Grey Tufts?

  Gérard the salt-and-pepper union rep, with his bolognese-spattered moustache, suddenly started talking more softly.

  ‘You haven’t given me an answer about Thursday evening, Hélène…’

  ‘Thursday evening? What’s happening on Thursday evening?’

  ‘Hey, come on, it’s the preview of my friend’s photography exhibition, remember, at the mairie de Montreuil…’

  ‘Oh yeah, of course… Look, I don’t know yet, Gérard, I’ll keep you posted. I’ve got no idea what I’m doing on Thursday evening, it’s a long way off…’

  ‘A long way off? It’s in three days’ time…’

  ‘I’ll let you know, okay?’

  The union rep recused himself, wiping his moustache with the back of his hand. Thwarted and revolting.

  ‘Between you and me, Mourad, Gérard’s a bit heavy-going. He doesn’t mean any harm, but he’s heavy-duty.’

  You don’t say? I didn’t say.

  Gérard had lost his first match. I experienced a rush of pleasure, heightened by the warm spuds I was wolfing down.

  Wilfried, the long-term supply teacher, was on his way back to our table when he noticed our salt-and-pepper rep stomping out of the canteen.

  ‘So what’s up with Gérard? Why’s he in a huff?’

  At least Wilfried could distinguish between ‘normal’ Gérard and Gérard ‘in a huff’.

  Because I couldn’t see any difference.

  The Big Bare Truth

  I was the one who suggested Miloud buy flowers, because I thought Liliane would appreciate the gesture.

  ‘But I don’t know the first thing about flowers!’ Miloud admitted.

  In the end, we opted for an arrangement at €39.90. Top of the range.

  ‘So much dough for something that’ll fade tomorrow! Tfi’ch!’

  Now Miloud was playing at being thrifty.

  Liliane’s face was still in bandages.

  ‘Oooohhhhnoooomiiiiihouuuuuuuyooooooooo-

  caaaaaaaaaseeeeeeemeeeeeeeeeliiiiiiiithhhaaaaaa!’ she said, when we turned up in her room. She waved her arms in slow motion, like a tortoise on its back, and hid her face.

  If I listened carefully, I thought I could just make out the words: Oh no! My Miloud! You can’t see me like this!

  ‘You look like an Egyptian mummy!’ Miloud burst out laughing.

  There was a knock at the bedroom door.

  ‘Cooooooo-iiiiiiii,’ said Liliane.

  Stone the crows! I thought, as soon as the doctor entered. What an enormous head!

  As well as being endowed with a broad forehead, the back of this man’s skull was super bulbous. As in, fresh brains coming to the boil and about to spill over.

  When I was a boy, I used to think the size of your head was in direct proportion to how clever you were. I often heard people say of me: ‘He’s got a head on him!’ And I would picture how, factoring in time and books and all those years of study, my cranium would swell up like a balloon on the verge of exploding.

  ‘Hello! I’m Doctor El Koubi!’ said the man, shaking us by the hand and proceeding to make a few unfunny jokes. Medical humour. His geometric smile, which was almost triangular, could have modelled an explanation of Pythagorus’ theorem. It made him look untrustworthy. Like a liar.

  Doctor El Koubi told us how Liliane’s procedure had gone, tossing words like elasticitity, epidermis and muscle tone into the air, before juggling them, but he soon realised we weren’t interested. I kept thinking back to that video, the one featuring a mad meat-carver of a Spanish surgeon with Stevie Wonder playing in the background.

  ‘Good, right, well, I think the time has come to remove your bandages, all right… good… all right…’

  He punctuated everything with good, all right, good, all right… together with his isoceles triangle smile. Liliane waved her hands in the air and kept on muttering into her bandages, tilting her head to one side: ‘Haaaheeeheeennnnnndeeehhhaaaaahheeemeeeennnn!’

  Full disclosure, this time I struggled to translate her.

  ‘Now, the appearance may be rather shocking at first,’ said Doctor El Koubi, erring on the side of caution as he snipped delicately at Liliane’s bandages. ‘You’ll recall that we had a little chat about this…? It will all change, of course, but it’s always a bit swollen to begin with, and there’s likely to be some bruising …’

  Given all the warnings, we were expecting to see the Elephant Man.

  What appeared was Liliane’s face: the same, but stretched tight, and covered in bruises.

  I asked Doctor El Koubi Mega-Head if people ever reclaimed their removed skin. After all, those pieces belonged to them. The skin from your face, belly and bum is personal, right? If I’d been a surgeon, I’d have deemed a request like that perfectly reasonable. What people did with those pieces of skin was their own business, even if it involved sprinkling them into their chorba.

  El Koubi gave me a peculiar look and shook his head. As if I’d just weirded him out with my question. As if it was weirder than spend
ing your days breaking noses, sucking fat off hips and stuffing rubber inserts into boobs.

  I asked him because my mother had been adamant about keeping my foreskin.

  I was four or five. Which is too old to be circumcised, by the way. It’s not right to be able to recall a moment like that. It was the start of the Nineties. The month of August in the swelter of Algiers. There was a small crowd thronging around me. I was wearing a strange outfit and my mother kept bursting into tears every time I caught her eye.

  Our neighbour, Hadhoum the tobacco chewer, had kissed me on both cheeks and slid a blue note into my tunic, which Big Baba didn’t waste any time in collecting.

  ‘Give that to me, my son,’ he whispered, ‘I’ll go and buy you some ice-cream…’

  As the women prepared the meal, the pressure cooker hissed in the kitchen.

  ‘What are they doing?’ asked my grandmother. ‘It’s nearly time for noon prayers! They’ll be late for Dhuhr!’

  And then she frowned, the way she always did when she was vexed, distorting the green tatoo on her face.

  ‘The sheikh’s coming for several boys in the neighbourhood,’ said Hind, one of my aunts, whose cheeks were streaming with tears because of the onions she was chopping. ‘He’s doing them all on the same day, it takes time…’

  It was foreskin carnage in Algiers that day.

  The old sheikh, clad in white, was patrolling the streets of Bab el Oued, armed with his pair of scissors to settle scores with all the little boys’ willies in the Algerian capital.

  Dounia came out onto the balcony to find me.

  ‘They’re going to cut if off. They’re going to cut it off!’ she declared, creased up with laughter.

  I had no idea what she was talking about, but she seemed thrilled.

  ‘Will he feel any pain?’ asked Mina, anxiously. ‘Will he bleed a lot?’

  Cut it off? Bleed a lot?