Sirocco Page 8

  Weekly lunches were more predictable. Either Papa was out of town for work, or he needed to get back to work right away after eating, except in the full of summer. Then everyone had to take a siesta to avoid the blaze of early afternoon sun.

  In the evening, while waiting for dinner, Mireille, Zizou, and I drew chalk lines on the corridor’s tile floor and played hopscotch under the spare light hanging from the ceiling.

  We took turns hopping on one leg, pushing ahead an old shoe-polish can filled with sand—from Earth to Heaven and back to Earth again.

  “Ma, when do we eat?”

  “As soon as Papa comes home.”

  We hop-scotched. Pépé mended one thing or another in his workshop downstairs. The boys played Lego or Cowboys and Indians. Maman kept the food warm and knitted—the nervous click, click of her needles, static to the music, news, or games on the kitchen radio.

  “Ma, can we eat?”

  “Can you wait a little longer, ma fille?”

  Mimi held her stomach with a tragic look. “Not too much longer, Ma.”

  After the nine o’clock news, Maman wrapped her knitting in a towel. “Allez, les filles, it’s time to set the table. Riri, tell Pépé we are eating.”

  When Pépé joined us at the kitchen table, the soup steamed in our bowls. I hated soup. Soup in winter. Soup in summer. Every single night, dinner started with soup. No respite. I hated soup.

  I think Pépé must have felt as I did about Ma’s soups because he often splashed red wine in his. Judging by the resulting color, we could not imagine how he could eat such revolting stuff.

  One evening, he noticed each of us staring as he poured wine into his bowl. “Don’t sneer at what you don’t know.” He rolled his shoulder. “Bring your spoons over.”

  He filled each of our spoons with soup and rotated his shoulder again, asking, “What do you think?”

  Standing behind him, Zizou rolled her eyes.

  Mireille said, “I like it, Pépé. Can I have more?”

  Riri made gagging faces.

  Yves said, “Yak. It tastes just like it looks.”

  Pépé half-turned to him, his eyes magnified by the thick lenses of his glasses. “What does it look like?”

  “Vomit.”

  I lied, “Well, it’s not too bad.”

  Pépé moved his lips in a silent monologue then scanned our faces. “At least now you have an opinion based on personal experience. It’s called empirical evidence.”

  La Soupe au Chien

  Remembering Pépé’s “empirical evidence,” I was glad to return to tonight’s fare, even though it was what, behind our hands, we called, “La soupe au chien.”

  This “Soup for the dog” consisted of stale leftover bread soaked in a large pot of boiling water in which Maman combined salt, olive oil, and garlic cloves.

  “Garlic has medicinal properties. It is good for you,” she said.

  The resulting mush was her brainchild and intended, originally, to provide sustenance for Bellone, the wild and crazy German shepherd bitch tied up in our backyard.

  It had not taken a great leap of imagination for Maman to conclude, later, that if la soupe was good enough for le chien, it had to be good enough for les canards. We children thought this hurdle entertaining until she decided that if la soupe was good enough for the ducks, it had to be good enough for les enfants. Meaning us.

  After serving us this concoction for a while and seeing that our palates were a tad more discerning than the yard’s tenants, she adjusted her recipe, adding TWO bouillon cubes and, for good measure, ONE more garlic clove.

  It was fair to say that, in rare moments of munificence, Maman replaced the good old bread with a handful of angel hair pasta. This she crushed between her hands with an enthusiasm that made us shudder, for we knew the end result would be overcooked and slapped on our plates like globs of glue.

  With no right of appeal, we ingested the solid soup with theatrical distaste and mused about the yet unnamed Sunday when we would have one of the ducks for dinner, a hint to which Maman would reply, “They have to be fattened first.”

  Glancing around the table and seeing how skinny we were, we sighed, thinking that these ducks would not see a pot just yet.

  The Poultry Yard

  But there was more to our farmyard than just quacking, waddling, slimy-water wading ducks. Lots more, if one counts run-of-the-mill nothing-to-the-eye bland chickens or, in contrast, the rooster—ah, the rooster! What a magnificent full-of-himself strutting-hennizer, aging Don Juan-in-plumage. Always running after one hen or another, pecking heads, if nothing else—a real Guy.

  The dainty little guinea hens, graceful white dots adorning black robes, paraded long, denuded necks encircled with a ring of delicate duvet—the pullet version of Toulouse Lautrec’s “Woman with a Black Feather Boa.”

  The pigeons held a much more exalted position within the yard’s population, as evidenced by the placement of their dovecote, high above the rabbit hutches. Every morning, Pépé pushed open a trapdoor in the enclosure’s chicken wire roof and freed them to feed among the neighboring fields. “Free ranging gives them a richer taste,” he said, rolling his shoulders.

  “But, Pépé, why do they come back to our yard every night, when it’s like going to jail?”

  He stretched his neck one way, then the other. “Because, when they hear my little bell, they know they’ll have my special pâté to eat.”

  Then, there were the rabbits, harbored in spacious cement compartments lined up along the back wall, like low-budget row houses. A wood-framed picture window of chicken wire held secure each one-room cubicle. Off-the-floor wooden slats isolated the residents from the cold cement and provided spaces between slats for the droppings to fall beneath.

  Each rabbit had its personal booth, that is, until the does were in season, at which time, Pépé unlatched the doors to the hutches and, grabbing the bucks by the scruff of their necks, removed them from their bachelor pads and paired them with the does.

  In charge of cleaning the rabbit hutches, filling their water bowls, and feeding them, Zizou was fiercely dedicated to her furry lapins. Personally, I found them kind of stupid—crouching inside their hutch, long ears immobile, and vacuous eyes staring. Even cows looked at passing trains with more interest and warmth.

  The rabbits’ only moving parts were their twitching noses and mouths that constantly munched, whether eating or not. Pépé said they needed to grind their teeth nonstop to keep the incisors from growing out of their mouths. They did this teeth-grinding thing even in the throes of passion.

  During mating season, when Pépé joined the does and bucks in unholy matrimony, Zizou and I watched, mesmerized, as a male straddled a female’s back. He squeezed her sides with his forelegs, bit the skin at the back of her neck to steady himself, and pumped quickly four or five times before falling flat on his side as suddenly as if shot dead.

  Meanwhile the doe munched on air, nose twitching, eyes staring at nothing. We always waited for the buck’s abrupt fall, finding it as funny as one of the jerking silent movie characters at the Sunday parish cinema.

  The products of such hasty encounters were, of course, des petits lapins. Hideous as skinless rats at birth, the little rabbits became cuddly and precious in the fullness of their baby coats, soft as mimosa blooms.

  Then we’d sit at the back of the house on Pépé’s workshop stoop where Zizou, with proprietary magnanimity, allowed me to hold them, tenderly passing them from her lap onto mine. She named each according to its markings and coloring and followed its daily maturing till adulthood and doomsday, when Pépé selected a rabbit as the main ingredient for his Lapin Chasseur dish.

  “Not this one Pépé, please, Pépé, not this one,” Zizou pleaded, and down the line of eligible lapins they went. Running out of patience, Pépé gathered a pair of long ears at random and before he had time to whack the beast on the back of its neck with the side of his free hand, Zizou was running away, sobbing. She never
ate a meat dish whose name started with the letter “L.” However, she had no such scruples with any of the other letters of the alphabet, including the letter “O” for oie.

  Ah, the goose! Long-necked and virginal-white as a swan—and just as mean—waddling, and slimy-water loving as a duck. Definitely the by-product of some unsupervised tea for two, between an eye-roving quack and a love-starved Lady swan, under the curved nave of Noah’s Ark—anything can happen in times of turmoil. Have I mentioned “Fattening?” Don’t worry, girl, you’ll be centerpiece at Christmas dinner.

  Chapter Ten

  The Day before Christmas at Yvette’s

  Constantine, December 24, 1957

  While the goose was being dressed at my home in Sidi Mabrouk, I spent the day before Christmas at the apartment of Tonton Gilles and Tata Yvette in Constantine.

  Tata Yvette sat by her sewing machine, putting the last touches on the pink silk rose that would be the lampshade’s crowning glory.

  With her help, I had stretched white organza with pink dots on an octagonal wire frame and lined it with blue silk as a Christmas present for Maman’s parlor lamp. Uncle Gilles, Aunt Yvette, their one-year-old baby, Jean Pierre, and I would soon drive from their apartment in town to my house, ten kilometers away.

  Dimmed by snow clouds, the mid-afternoon shed a cold light through the voile curtains of the sewing room. The radio played quiet Christmas music. From the kitchen came the rattle of bottles of champagne Tonton Gilles lined up in cardboard boxes. Jean Pierre napped in his room.

  Yvette put a finishing knot on the rose while I held the shade above her lamp to see how it would look lit from the inside. Delighted with its prettiness, I fished for compliments like a nine-year-old instead of a mature girl of thirteen. “Yvette, don’t you think it looks pretty?”

  “Of course. It is beautiful. You did a wonderful job.”

  “Do you think Maman will like it?”

  She brought the rose to her lips and cut the thread with her teeth, “Ma fille, with your mother, one never knows.”

  “Oui, but don’t you think this is the most beautiful thing she has ever had in the house? Don’t you think she will be VERY happy?”

  She handed me the rose. “I should hope so.”

  Keeping the shade at arm’s length, I held the stem between forefinger and thumb, positioning the rose here and there against it, tilting my head from side to side, lips pouting, eyes appraising. Finally satisfied, I asked, “Yvette, how do you like this?”

  “Try a little lower.”

  I moved the rose.

  “Très bien, ma fille.”

  I sat down, placed the shade on top of my knees, and began to attach the silky bloom. Yvette gathered the evening dress the Mayor’s wife would pick up in half an hour. She arranged it delicately over her lap for last-minute touches and hummed softly along with the Christmas carols.

  In this peaceful moment, I looked up from my work and observed her. The heels of her red-slippered feet rested on the highest rung of her chair, keeping her lap and the dress close to her hands. She had slender, tapered fingers crowned with long, almond-shaped nails. They glistened in shades of muted pinks as her right hand held the dress and the left pushed the needle through the fabric with swift, concise, and oh-such-neat stitches.

  The lamp at her side shed a golden aura around her pert, attentive face, highlighting the auburn curls recently freed from the rollers that lay in a heap on a nearby chair. The flowered blue and cream robe she wore gaped slightly at the top, exposing a white touch of lacy slip. Her serene features and no-nonsense affection warmed me to my toes. I wanted to hold onto the moment, but Tonton Gilles came into the room rubbing his hands together as if washing them.

  With a broad smile that stretched his trim moustache, he chanted, “How are we doing, my little chickadees?”

  Yvette kept her eyes on her moving needle. “We are almost done. Have you finished packing the car?”

  “Yes, the presents, the stuffed dates, the oreillettes, and Jean Pierre’s bed and bag have been there for a while. I just put the champagne in the trunk. When do you think you’ll be ready to go?”

  Yvette got up, held the long dress by its shoulders, shook it, examined it closely, and put it on a hanger she hooked to the top of the half-open closet door. “As soon as Madame Fayet picks up her dress.”

  Tonton approached her, planted a big smacking full-mouthed kiss on her lips and, with a loving slap on her derrière, left the room, singing, “Are we going to have a smashing Christmas or what?” Then he returned, his laughing brown eyes sending coded signals to his wife. “Do you want to take a shower with me, Vivette?”

  She gave a faint smile. “I already had my bath. All I need to do is get Jean-Pierre ready and get dressed. Please, let him sleep until I can take care of him.”

  Always the tease, Tonton wiggled the stump of his right index finger under my nose and left, dancing a cha cha cha on his way to the bathroom.

  Yvette glanced at the big clock ticking on the wall. “Gilles is really looking forward to spending Christmas with his sister. Let’s hope your father will behave, for once,” she said, and rose to her feet to get ready.

  She was nearing the door of the sewing room when a tremendous explosion shook the building and echoed outside like a runaway roll of thunder. Fine dust came down from the ceiling. We searched each other’s eyes, holding our breaths. I thought, Too powerful for a grenade. It has to be a bomb—God knows how many people are hurt.

  Yvette cried, “Jean Pierre!” We both flew to his bedroom.

  Her face pale and hard as an ivory cameo, Yvette banged the door open. The baby was standing in his bed, squealing like a stuck piglet. He cried so hard he could not breathe and his face had turned purple. Tonton Gilles ran in, razor in hand, face covered with shaving soap. Yvette picked up the child and examined him quickly then smacked him on the back until he took a breath. I sprinted to the kitchen and ran back with a glass of sloshing water. Yvette fed it to the baby. Water dribbled along his chin and coursed down her hand to the floor. This time, she did not mind the spill on her polished wood. Tonton, who until then had stood still, took his son in his arms, cooed and tickled him and rubbed his soapy face to his, until the child laughed. Suddenly, Tonton boomed, “Son of a bitch. Le champagne.”

  His expression of horror, along with the soap on his face looked so clownish that Yvette and I burst out laughing, which did not please him at all. “Do you realize how much I paid for that champagne? Let’s hope it was not blown to smithereens.”

  Yvette took the baby from him. “Where did you leave the car?”

  “Merde. It sounded like the explosion took place in la rue Saint Jean. That’s where I parked the car. We’ll be darn lucky if we even have a car.” He wiped his face, slipped on his boots and coat, and went out the front door without his hat on.

  Meanwhile, as an accompaniment to the hard “Painpom, painpom” of police car and ambulance sirens, came, filtering through the dining room door, the faint clinking of tiny ice cubes against the walls of crystal glasses. I thought of Yvette’s beloved crystal and fine china, and glanced at her. Impervious to everything but her child, she rocked the sighing baby whose cheek rested on her shoulder, eyes feverish, a frown puckering his forehead.

  I approached the dining room door, turned the knob slowly, and gave a timid push with the tip of my fingers. Nothing came crashing down from the ceiling. I pushed more firmly with the palm of my hand. The door’s bottom gritted against the wooden floor like fingernails against blackboard. I stepped into the room. Cold air blustered through the now paneless French window and broken glass crunched under my feet. Pinned to the floor at the hemline by a heap of shattered glass, the sheer, embroidered, hole-peppered curtain billowed like the wind-filled sail of a racing Clipper ship.

  The smell of looming snow, mixed with that of dust from shaken buildings, permeated the air. In the street below, the scraping of running boots underscored anxious voices. Through the curtai
n, first snow flakes, and fading daylight, I could make out the buildings across the street—shutters destroyed, windows shattered.

  I pivoted slowly on one foot to assess the damage. There were a few scratches on the highly polished rosewood tabletop and a myriad of tiny pieces of glass embedded in the floor and the wall opposite the window. To my relief, Yvette’s wedding china, crystal, and her collection of precious objects stood untouched behind the china cabinet’s beveled glass. The voile curtain had been sturdy enough to contain most of the blown glass and long enough to ensnare it at its bottom.

  In the warm glow of the streetlights that had just flicked on, the litter of shattered glass at the foot of the curtain looked more like an open trunk full of scintillating diamonds caught inside a heavy spider web in Ali Baba’s cavern than the fallout of a terrorist blast. And the shard-poked wall transformed the darkening room into an enchanted field of fresh snow, shimmering under the glow of an oil lamp.

  However, enchanting or not, this mess needed to be picked up. I was at the hallway closet, collecting a broom, bucket, and dustpan, when the front door opened and Tonton Gilles came in. He stamped his feet on the entrance mat, looked up at Yvette and asked, “How’s Jean Pierre?”

  “He’s eating a cookie. Was anyone hurt?”

  “The bakery Bartin is leveled. A bomb was concealed outside the store. Lucky it malfunctioned and blew up after closing time. The Bartins were still in the backroom, cleaning up. They’re hurt, but were able to walk to the ambulance.”

  Yvette helped Gilles remove his coat. “They are fortunate. Today, of all days. I’ll go and see them the day after Christmas. By the way, how is your champagne?”

  “All right. The car is fine and not one bottle blew its cork.”

  As if to celebrate the welcome news, the doorbell chimed.

  Yvette hung Tonton’s coat in the closet. “It must be Madame Fayet, coming for her dress.” I grabbed my broom, dustpan and bucket and marched to the dining room. From there, I heard Yvette’s and Madame Fayet’s muttered comments as the client tried on the dress.