Sirocco Page 2

  The somber radio voice droned on. “In a broadcast from Cairo, the FLN called on Algerian Muslims to unite in a national fight for ‘the restoration of the Algerian state, sovereign, democratic, and social, within the framework of the principles of Islam.’ It is the opinion, in some circles, that the assassinations of pro-French Muslim dignitaries and innocent young French teachers might be the spark that will set off an all-out conflict.”

  Tonton Antoine turned off the radio. In the dumbfounded hush, sparks crackled as a burning log shifted inside the cast-iron cook stove.

  I didn’t understand why and how Les Événements had taken such a serious turn, but the grim expression steeling the adults’ faces turned my guts into rubber pipes.

  We barely touched the evening meal and, after conferring over coffee, the men determined that we would return home if no more attacks took place before morning.

  I went to bed rebelling against the FLN, my parents, Tonton and Tata, even Pépé and Mémé who had all decided we must go home. It wasn’t fair. Now I’d have to wait one more year before waking up to the rusty call of the rooster. One more year before stretching lazily under the gleaming white bedspread and listening to the rhythmic thunk of the water pump. It wasn’t fair.

  Early the next day, when the stars still stitched the velvet sky and the rooster had yet to smooth its feathers, we got ready to leave. The men loaded the car, little Yves slept in Maman’s arms, and Mémé embraced each of us, time and again. “Be careful on the road, now, d’accord? Call Madame Sanchez at the post office, here, and let us know you have arrived, d’accord?” She stuffed a piece of paper in Maman’s pocket. “Here is the post office number, d’accord?”

  While Mémé patted our cheeks in the dark yard, the yellow rectangle of light spilling from the doorway cast anguished shadows across her chiseled face. She looked so old and fragile, my heart ached at the thought I might never be able to hug her again and I was no longer mad at her.

  After scores of hugs, kisses, and tears, foodstuffs were jammed into the car—a ham, compliments of a late resident hog, a plucked duck, fresh eggs and vegetables. The very best was the checkered cloth tied around a bunch of Mémé’s cookies, confectioned from the cream she skimmed off the top of boiled fresh milk.

  Thirty minutes later, we were approaching Saint Arnaud’s boundary when Papa said, “Pay close attention to what I am going to say.” He threw his cigarette out the window. “If we are ambushed, you must scrunch down in the car. I’ll slow down as if to stop, then accelerate and try to force the car through. Once we have passed through and they are no longer in sight, I’ll stop the car and Nanna and Zizou will run in opposite directions.”

  I exchanged a quick frown with Zizou before catching Papa’s stern glance in the rearview mirror. Each one of his words struck my chest like hurled rocks. “You will hide quickly, flat on your stomach. Your mother and I will drive on to draw anyone who pursues us away from you. You will not scream. You will not cry. You will not move. If they find one of you, you must say your parents drove on, leaving you behind to hide. No matter what the other sees or hears, she must not leave her hideout. If she does, instead of one, they’ll kill both of you—”

  Mireille’s gasp caused our father to pause before he carried on. “Stay hidden throughout the night and do not show yourselves, even to each other, until you see a military vehicle on the road. Do you understand?”

  Zizou and I shared anxious glances. She batted her eyelashes. “Oui, Papa,” we said in concert.

  I caressed Riri’s blond curls as he slept in my arms. “What about Riri, Yves, and Mireille, Papa?”

  “They’ll remain in the car with us.”

  Maman’s smile was pinched as she turned around. “Do exactly as Papa says and you will be all right.” Then she leaned over baby Yves sleeping on her lap and pulled two handguns from the glove compartment, placed one under her thigh and the other on the seat between herself and Papa.

  For miles, we saw little traffic. But for the grating shift of gears up and down the mountain road, an ominous silence had settled among us, giving free rein to my anxiety. In the gray predawn light, the scenery was a blur of shadows briefly aroused by our car’s headlights—shadows, I feared, of armed men waiting in ambush. I pressed sleeping Riri tighter against my thumping heart.

  After what seemed like forever, the sunglow cleared the crest of the Aurès Mountains and the rugged terrain about us revealed familiar shapes. Solid, hard rocks, oleander bushes, and clumps of prickly pears—not the crouching terrorists they first appeared to be. I relaxed against my seat with a sigh of relief and gazed at the moving landscape. Here and there, the smoke of early cooking fires rose in light gray ribbons against the dark brown of the land, and the acrid smell of burning cow dung rode the air. Saliva filled my mouth as I imagined the kessra, the unleavened Arab flat breads, blistering on the cannouns grids, reminding me I was hungry.

  Riri stirred and shoved his thumb into his mouth then resettled in my arms with avid sucking sounds. My sisters and baby brother slept while Pa drove and Ma kept watch. Feeling safer now, I settled in my seat and gazed at the mountaintops with an almost religious reverence. Yellows, oranges, and golds streaked the sky above their towering crags in a show so majestic I felt tinier than the tiniest grain of desert sand. Tears of awe filled my eyes.

  As the sun rose in blinding glory, we cleared a sharp bend and spotted, far ahead, parked trucks and a barricade across the road. My bowels turned to mush and, for a second, I thought I would wet myself. I squeezed Riri’s small body closer to mine. One hand on the wheel, Papa picked up the gun at his side and put it on his lap. “Get down.”

  Fully awake now, the four of us huddled on the car floor. Stuck underneath me, little Riri squirmed, trying to push me off him, whimpering. I felt the car stop. Papa said to Maman, “Can you tell who they are?”

  I turned my head sideways and saw Maman lean forward in her seat and squint. “I can’t tell, chéri.”

  Papa put the car in reverse. Maman said, “Wait, Riri. Look, a Jeep is coming our way. It’s the military. Oui, it’s the military, chéri.”

  Papa stopped the car. “Get back into your seats.”

  I returned to my place at the window, behind Papa, and smacked a merry kiss on Riri’s round cheeks. The Jeep drew up beside us while soldiers pointed a mounted machine gun in our direction.

  One soldier jumped out and approached the car with caution. He saluted Papa and asked for identification. Noticing the guns on our parents’ laps, he put his hand to the holster at his hip. “What are these weapons doing here, sir?”

  Papa smirked. “What do you think officer? Would you believe: to defend my family?”

  The officer bent on his knees and studied each of us. “You won’t need these weapons while we are around, sir. Put them away. We are forming a convoy to escort travelers along the road to Constantine.”

  He pointed at the roadside behind a truck full of soldiers. “Pull over there on the shoulder until more cars arrive. Please, remain in your vehicle.”

  By the time a long line of cars interspersed with military trucks and Jeeps took the road, Maman had untied Mémé’s cookie checkered cloth and Riri was laughing. But, even as I bit into the sweet treat, I couldn’t repress a vague, creepy feeling that our lives had changed forever.

  Chapter Two

  House in Sidi Mabrouk. The balcony on the right is Nanna’s room.

  Home, Sweet Home

  Sidi Mabrouk, November 2, 1954

  Back at the house that evening, we enjoyed a late bowl of onion soup with bread and butter and the warm feeling of being home safe. Zizou wiped a breadcrumb off her lip. “Are we going to school the day after tomorrow, Pa?”

  I cocked my head. Why not?

  Papa’s soupspoon hovered above his bowl. “Is the day after tomorrow a school day?”

  “Oui.”

  “Alors, why ask a stupid question?”

  “Because of what’s been happening, with peopl
e killed and things.”

  “If you break your arm, are you still going to school?”

  A cynical smile tugged the corner of my mouth. Sure she would. Pa would make us go to school even if we had one arm and two broken legs.

  “I think so,” Zizou said. “My friend Viviane broke her leg and she went to school.”

  “Et alors?”

  Zizou sighed heavily. “I guess we’ll go to school the day after tomorrow.”

  Mireille asked, “Me too, Papa?”

  “Why not you?”

  “Because I am little and I have un souffle au coeur?”

  Zizou and I rolled our eyes at each other. Mireille often used her heart murmur to get away with things.

  Zizou cut in, “Do you think you are special because he was going to let you stay in the car? Save the poor little girl with a souffle au coeur and dump us at the side of the road?”

  Maman was horrified, “Ma Zize!”

  Papa’s face turned ashen, his spoon splashed into his soup, and his breathless voice rattled, “Get out of my sight, little bitch.”

  Zizou stood, nudging her chair with the back of her knees, turned to leave the table, and cast an imperious look at our father. “You did want to dump us.”

  Papa sprang up, sending his chair crashing to the floor.

  Maman screamed, “Riri, NON.”

  But he had already picked up the wine bottle from the table and thrown it at Zizou, as flawlessly as an Olympic athlete throws a javelin.

  Zizou dove forward. The bottle missed her head by a hair, hit the wall flat on its side, and shattered on the tile floor as she skittered away.

  Ooh là là!

  In the midst of the appalled silence, I was stunned by my sister’s behavior, feeling first shock, then admiration, and finally envy deep in my guts. Why couldn’t I stand up to Pa as she just did? Why couldn’t I have her backbone?

  Saalima

  Two days later, my sisters and I lugged our heavy satchels up the long road to school. During class breaks, the schoolyard usually echoed with the squeals of the youngest girls, while the oldest strolled in groups of twos or threes, whispering secrets. The third set, of mixed ages, played handball, hopscotch or dodge’m games. This was my group.

  I was very good at dodge’m, but even better at la bataille de coq—cockfight. In this game, a small girl, the coq, climbed on the shoulders of a big girl, the horse. The goal of each two-person team was to force the coqs of the other teams to fall down until only one remained mounted.

  The horse initiated the skillful attacks or evasions. As tactician, she chose her teammate.

  Saalima always chose me from the girls willing to be coqs and, each time she did, a great pride expanded my chest as warm breath fills a balloon.

  Saalima, an Arab girl, was older than me. She was tall, slim, and strong-boned, and the colorful robes descending to her ankles never seemed to impede her long stride. At bataille, she took off her shoes, exposing callused feet, flicked back her long braids, and squatted. I climbed astride her shoulders and she rose, holding my ankles. Her clothing smelled of cooking fires, rancid butter, and the deep red henna that, on special occasions, dyed her hair, the palms of her hands, and soles of her feet. When the battles began, I rode on her shoulders, breathing deeply of her, knowing no fear.

  That school day following la Toussaint Rouge, the European girls gathered in small, low-voiced groups. Saalima and the other Arab girls sat on the ground, at the far end of the schoolyard.

  I went to her. “Saalima, you want to play à la bataille de coq?”

  She shook her head with a sad smile.

  Unsure of what to do next, I fingered one of her braids. “Maybe tomorrow, Saalima?”

  She looked up at the sky. “Maybe tomorrow.”

  I left her group and scanned the yard for my sisters. They were doing their own things, so I retrieved the book I had started and found my own corner. But as my eyes skidded over the words, a nameless sorrow flooded my chest—a sense that my friendship with Saalima was unraveling.

  A few weeks later, instead of her usual dress, Saalima came to school wearing the garb of the Muslim woman, meaning she had come of age. The black chador cloaked her body and white hayek hid her face. Only her eyes remained—black and polished like basalt pebbles drowning in pools of unshed tears.

  While she stripped off her coverings, I asked, “Saalima, are you going to stop coming to school?”

  She carefully folded her things. “At the end of the school year.”

  “Will you get married, then?”

  “Soon after.”

  I beamed at her. “Is your fiancé very handsome?”

  “I don’t know. I’ll meet him on my wedding day.”

  “How old is he?”

  “Sixty-five.”

  I was embarrassed to ask, but I did, “How many wives does he have?”

  Her features hardened, slowly, as water turns to ice. “I’ll be wife number three.”

  “And children, how many children do they have?”

  The school bell almost drowned out her answer. “Ten.”

  We broke away in opposite directions to join our classmates lining up in rows of two before the classroom’s doors.

  For a while, the batailles de coqs went on, but Saalima’s heart was no longer in it. To my growing distress, she and I played less and less often and then, we stopped.

  On the last day of school, Saalima shrouded herself in her chador and, without saying good-bye, passed the schoolyard’s gate and, black chimera, vanished into the crowd.

  Months later, my heart beat harder as I recognized her long, familiar stride across the street. I walked toward her and saw her big belly. “Saalima?”

  Above the hayek, her eyes softened then shifted away as the old man who was with her shoved her forward.

  I felt both anger and sorrow as I watched them walk away, knowing I would never see her again. Oh, Saalima. If this happened to me, I’d throw myself from the Sidi Rached Bridge.

  At home, Pépé Honninger searched my face and asked, “Did something happen at school?”

  “Non, Pépé. Nothing.”

  His arched eyebrows probed. So I told him. “It’s my friend Saalima.” My eyes welled with involuntary tears. “She’s only three years older than me and they made her marry a sixty-five-year-old man and she’s going to have a baby soon and I don’t think he’s nice to her.”

  Pépé rolled his shoulders, stretched his neck in a familiar tic and said, “This is their custom, ma petite. Nothing you can do about it.” He turned his back and walked to his bedroom, returning with a chocolate bar, which he handed me without a word. He was like that. Just when I thought he was hard and unfeeling, he’d do something nice.

  The first time I remember meeting Pépé Honninger, my ma’s Papa, he bought me a zlabeiya, a deep-orange honey sweet, from the Arab baker next door. Shortly after that, I was sent to live with him in the country outside Constantine. There I learned, reluctantly, to let this stranger into my life.

  Nanna with Tonton Gilles, Route du Cimetière.

  The Tin Can

  Sidi Mabrouk, Summer, 1948

  I was four years old. Zizou and Mireille had fallen sick, so I was sent to live with Pépé Honninger and his son, Tonton Gilles, at their house in Sidi Mabrouk.

  At first, I felt lost and missed my family dreadfully, but soon, the house’s many rooms and unfamiliar furniture turned into mysteries I had to explore.

  One day, I made up my mind to find out what lay behind the closed door of the room next to the kitchen. I waited for Pépé to go to work in his garden. Using both hands, I twisted the brass doorknob and pushed. In the house’s dark silence, the door squeaked like a trapped mouse, making me jump with fright and causing me to utter a squeal of my own. After my heart stopped banging, I pushed the door an inch farther, then, with great care, peeked around the doorjamb. Large shapes loomed in the near darkness. My heart started bumping again until I recognized the shape of fu
rniture. I sneaked into the room and closed the door.

  French doors to the balcony were pushed open against the walls, and subdued sunlight filtered through the angled slats of the closed shutters. I walked over to them and rose on tiptoe to peer through the open space between two slats. Beyond the balcony and stairs’ wrought-iron banisters, I could see Pépé Honninger in the front yard, one floor below, where he kneeled, staking giant Snap Dragons. His battered straw hat looked white under the burning sun, and the kerchief around his neck dripped with water. “To keep me cool,” he explained.

  I unfastened the shutters as silently as I could and inched them open to let more light into the room.

  It was a large room with a high ceiling. I oohed and aahed with delight at the giant poppies spread over the cream wallpaper. Their orange red petals bounced glimmers of light against the mahogany furniture, coloring my hand as I reached for them. Then a small piece of furniture sitting before the French door caught my attention. I couldn’t resist the tempting long, narrow doors on each side and opened them, uncovering two vertical sets of drawers. I knew Pépé would be mad at me. “I don’t like snoopy kids,” he had warned. But I couldn’t help myself. I pulled open a drawer to have a peek. Just a tiny little peek.

  Oh là là! Was I glad I had.

  A wealth of ribbons, pieces of fabric, and bobbins of many colors spilled out, revealing an emerald tin box with pictures of cigars on top. I sat on the floor with the box on my lap and, with a tongue-pulling effort, popped the lid open. A lavish assortment of buttons burst out and clattered across the room. In a panic, hoping Pépé had not heard, I scurried on hands and knees along the tile floor—a floor cold as my frightened heart. The buttons hid amid the golds, maroons, and greens of the Italian tiles. The geometric patterns concealed them well, but in time, I managed to stuff the runaways back inside their box. With a sigh of relief, I stuffed fabrics and bobbins back into the drawer but couldn’t bear the thought of letting go of the box and its contents. It was the most beautiful thing I had ever seen in my whole life. I had to keep it. Besides, when I explained to Pépé about “finders, keepers,” I was sure he would understand. So I stuck the box under my arm.