I was determined not to go anywhere near them.
I slogged away in the basement while they were hard at work upstairs, and that was fine by me.
My work consisted of clearing the tables, emptying the chamber pots, washing the dishes, taking out the dustbins and holding my tongue — because strange things went on in that place. It wasn’t just girls in distress who were picked up in doorways, dying of hunger, and brought to the brotheclass="underline" there were boys too.
At first, I didn’t pay any attention to what went on in slow motion in the damp and the dark. While the staff were busy assessing the vulnerability of the fools they were about to fleece, I would shut myself away in the basement among the bowls and the wine racks to avoid seeing anything. I was isolated and ignored, and I was starting to get bored repeating the same actions and tramping the same stretch of floor. Even Babaye only appeared occasionally. He must have hidden in a cupboard like a jinn, only emerging when his master blew the whistle. Then, little by little, I started to realise just how far into the mire Pierre had got me. That café wasn’t for me. I wanted only one thing: to take my wages, get out of that part of the city as quickly as possible and never see it again. Toto pointed out that a contract was a contract, even if nothing had been signed; I would only get what was due to me at the end of the month. So, in addition to the two weeks’ trial, I had to endure four more weeks, holding my breath, rinsing the glasses and turning a blind eye to the horrors around me.
One night, a dishevelled sailor came down to my hideout. He was holding a bottle of red wine in his hand and swaying all over the place. He was in tears. ‘I could walk on water and no priest would notice,’ he moaned to himself. ‘I could spend my life doing good and nobody would take me seriously. Because nobody ever takes me seriously. “If you went to sea, you’d find it had run dry” — that was what my saintly mother, who I loved so much, said to me once.’ When he saw me bent over the glasses in a corner, he tumbled down the few steps that separated us and, still swaying, took a wad of banknotes from his pocket and stuffed them under my sweater. ‘Fat Bertha, who claims the wart under her nose is a beauty spot, turned it down. She told me she didn’t want my money, I might as well wipe my arse with it … Can you imagine? Even when you earn money by the sweat of your brow, you can’t get laid these days … Do you want it? Well, I’m giving it to you. Gladly. I don’t want it any more. I have bundles of it at home. I make mattresses with it. You need it. It’s written all over your face. You must have a sick relative. Think of my money as a gift from heaven. I’m a good Christian, I am. I may not be taken seriously, but I’m a generous person.’ He fiddled with his flies and tried to stroke my cheek …
Miraculously, Babaye emerged from his cupboard and threw the drunk out.
6
Mekki looked reluctantly at the money the sailor at the café had given me. He wouldn’t even touch it. We were in his room. He had just finished his prayers when I held out the banknotes.
‘Where did you get this?’ he said, refraining from holding his nose.
‘I earned it.’
‘You mean you won it gambling?’
‘I worked for it.’
‘Even a bellboy at the Bastrana Casino wouldn’t earn as much as this.’
‘Do I ask you how you make your money?’
‘You’re perfectly entitled to know. The Mozabite keeps our accounts and you can check them. Not a penny that’s haram comes into this house. And now you hand me a wad of paper money from somewhere or other and ask me to believe you have a rich man’s salary. I won’t take your money. It doesn’t smell right.’
Disappointed, I grudgingly put the notes back in my pocket.
I was about to go to my mat to sleep when Mekki said, ‘Not so fast. You’re not sleeping here until you tell me what trouble you’re in.’
‘I wash dishes in a café.’
‘Not a luxury hotel? That’s the only place you can make that kind of money, and even then it’s not the right season.’
I shrugged my shoulders and walked out.
Mekki followed me out into the street and ordered me to explain myself. I hurried on, deaf to his summons, then, relieved I could no longer hear him grunting behind me, I slowed down. I was furious. I was working hard and I would have liked a little respect. It wasn’t fair.
After wandering around the alleys, cursing everything and kicking stones, I slept in the open air, on a bench in a park, the haunt of tramps risking the uncertainties of the night. It struck me that they and I were all practising the same self-denial.
It didn’t take Mekki long to solve the mystery. He must have followed me. A week later, I got home to find the family council on a war footing. There was Rokaya, confined to her bed, Nora, sitting apart but in agreement, and my mother and Mekki glaring at me. They were waiting stiffly for me in the main room, nostrils trembling with indignation.
‘You bring shame on our family, both the living and the dead,’ Mekki decreed, his switch firmly clasped in his hand. ‘First you choose to polish boots and, now, you wash dishes in a brothel. Well, if you have so little self-respect, I’m going to treat you like a dog until you learn to honour our absent ones.’
He raised his switch and brought it down on my shoulder. The pain made me see red. I didn’t care if he was the head of the family, I grabbed my uncle by the throat and pushed him up against the wall, while my mother looked on aghast.
‘You dare to raise your hand to me?’ my uncle thundered, stunned by this sacrilege.
‘I’m not a dog and you’re not my father.’
‘Your father? You talk to me about your father? He’s the one feeding you, is he? He’s the one sweating blood for this family? That wretch, your father? All right, let’s talk about your father while we’re about it!’
‘Mekki!’ my mother implored him.
‘He has to know,’ he retorted, his mouth glistening with flecks of foam. ‘Come on, you little brat, come with me. I’m going to show you what filth your pride is based on, my poor, vain, idiot nephew.’
He seized me by the neck and pushed me outside.
I followed him, curious to discover what lay behind his insinuations. The streets were baking in the sun. The air smelt of drains and overheated asphalt. Mekki kept walking straight ahead, bad-temperedly. He was inwardly seething with rage. I hurried behind him. We crossed Medina Jedida in the crushing heat, pushed our way through the crowds in the market, which no weather, however unbearable, ever seemed to discourage, came out on the avenue that led to Porte de Valmy and the grazing park before stopping outside the Jewish cemetery.
Mekki gave me a spiteful grin, pointed to the open gate leading to the rows of graves and motioned me with his head to precede him. ‘After you, as the Roumis say,’ he said with a cruel gleam in his eyes.
I had never seen my uncle, that twenty-year-old sage who had always been so pious, in such a state of contempt or so pleased at the harm he was about to inflict on me — I’d guessed that he hadn’t brought me here to remind me of my duties, but to punish me in such a way that the consequences would stay with me until the end of my days.