I had to put both hands over his mouth to muzzle him, because words like that were capable of starting a riot in our neighbourhoods. Sid bit me to break free and continued blaspheming at the top of his voice, while passers-by looked at him menacingly. I really thought we were going to be lynched on the spot.
I pushed him up against a wall and said, ‘Find a job and get on the right path in life.’
‘You think I haven’t tried? The last time, I applied to a wholesaler. You know how that son of a bitch greeted me? Do you have the slightest idea how that fat, red-faced pig greeted me? He made the sign of the cross! He made the sign of the cross like an old woman who sees a black cat run across her path at night! Can you imagine, Turambo? Before I’d even come into his shop, he made the sign of the cross. And when I offered my services, he dismissed them with a wave of his hand and told me I was lucky not to have chains on my feet and a bone through my nose. Can you imagine? I told him I was the son of an imam and a child of my country. He laughed and said, “What does your black father know how to do apart from knocking up your mother and wiping the arses of his masters’ dogs?” He added he had no maids to marry off and no dogs in his house. He was proud of his words. The find of the century! Where does he know my father from, eh? My father would have dropped dead on the spot if he’d heard that, he was so pious and had such respect for my mother. You see, Turambo? We aren’t worth anything these days. They insult us and then they’re surprised that we’re hurt, as if we didn’t have the right to an ounce of pride. Rather than put up with insults like that, I prefer to keep my distance. There’s nothing for me, Turambo. Not on earth and not in heaven. So I take what belongs to other people.’
‘Some of our people have succeeded. Doctors, lawyers, businessmen …’
‘Oh, my God, why don’t you take off your blinkers, boy? Look at the masses begging around you. Your heroes aren’t even allowed to be citizens. This is our country, the land of our ancestors, and we’re treated like foreigners, like slaves from the savannahs. You can’t even go to a beach without them sticking a notice in your face telling you Arabs aren’t allowed. I saw a kaïd revered in his tribe called a lousy Arab by a mere white ticket seller. You have to think about these things, Turambo. The facts are there in front of you. You might try to disguise them, but the truth shines through … I refuse to be nothing but suffering. An Arab doesn’t work, he gets fucked up the arse, and I don’t have an arse that’s big enough. Since nobody’s handing me anything on a plate, I grab a good time for myself where I can. Hunger and deprivation have instilled this philosophy in me: live life as it comes, and if it doesn’t come, go looking for it!’
I had the feeling I was dealing with a pyromaniac.
Sid had chosen a path that wasn’t mine. He scared me. One evening, he actually dressed up as a girl (he had put on a haïk) and slipped into a hammam to ogle the naked women. After getting his fill of that, he started running round the building, looking for a virgin to lay in the laundry room. It was pure madness. He could have been killed in a stairwell. In Medina Jedida, you could get yourself killed for even minor sins. But Sid Roho refused to calm down. The air of the city had gone to his head like a blast of opium, except that he never sobered up. He saw everything from the point of view of his ‘exploits’, thus putting the theft of a piece of fruit and the honour of races on the same level. His morbid self-confidence blinded him to the point where the closer he came to disaster, the more he clamoured for it. He drank where he shouldn’t, which was an offence according to Muslim custom, stole in full view and full knowledge of everyone, and dared to go hunting for women in neighbourhoods where they didn’t take kindly to strangers. He was bitter and suicidal, and was constantly putting himself in danger. I wondered if Rachida, her cousin and the wholesaler were merely excuses he’d made up, big stones he’d tied to his feet so as to sink as deep as possible and never come up again. He seemed comfortable in his descent into hell, as if he felt a wicked pleasure in taking revenge on himself and bringing about his own misfortune. Obviously, he had plenty of reasons to behave the way he did, but what is a reason if not, sometimes, a wrong that suits us?
Not wanting to be a witness to his eventual lynching, certain that sooner or later he’d fall into his own trap, I started declining his ‘invitations’ and saw him less often.
It didn’t take him long to notice.
One morning, he waylaid me near the girls’ school. I’d have bet anything that he wasn’t there by chance.
‘Well, well, Turambo!’ he said, pretending to be surprised. ‘I was just thinking about you.’
‘I have an appointment with the boss of a warehouse. He’s going to give me a trial. Gino is already there to introduce me.’
‘Mind if I walk with you?’
‘As long as you don’t slow me down. I’m late.’
We hurried to Place de la Synagogue. Sid Roho was looking at me out of the corner of his eye. My pace and my silence were bothering him.
Just outside a haberdasher’s on Place Hoche, he stopped me with his hand. ‘Are you upset with me about something, Turambo?’
‘Why do you ask me that?’
‘You’ve been doing your best to avoid me for weeks now.’
‘You’re imagining things,’ I lied. ‘I’ve been looking for work, that’s all.’
‘That’s no reason. We’re friends, aren’t we?’
‘You’ll always be my friend, Sid. But I have a family and I’m ashamed to be sponging off them. I’m nearly twenty-two, don’t you see?’
‘I see.’
‘I’m late.’
He nodded and took his hand off my shoulder.
Under the statue of the general, a blind man was playing a barrel organ. His music made my friend’s distress seem somehow irreversible.
A little further on, again bothered by my silence, Sid said, ‘I’m sure you’re upset with me, Turambo. I want to know why.’
I looked him straight in the eye. He seemed disconcerted. ‘You want the truth, Sid? You’re really not with it these days.’
‘I’ve always been like this.’
‘Precisely. You don’t seem to realise.’
‘Realise what?’
‘That it’s time for you to settle down.’
‘Why work when you can help yourself, Turambo? I have everything I need. I just have to reach out my hand.’
‘Someone will cut it off in the end.’
‘I’ll get an artificial one.’
‘I see you have an answer for everything.’
‘You just have to ask.’
‘My mother says that when we have an answer for everything, we might as well die.’
‘My father said more or less the same thing, except that he died without finding an answer for anything.’
‘Apparently, I’m wasting my breath. You won’t listen. I really have to meet Gino now.’
‘Gino, Gino … What’s so interesting about this Gino? The bastard isn’t even funny, and he blushes when he accidentally looks at a whore’s arse.’
‘Gino’s a good person.’
‘That doesn’t stop him being a bore.’
‘Drop it, Sid. A friend doesn’t have to act like an idiot to earn the right to be considered a friend.’
‘You think that’s why I’m acting like an idiot?’
‘I didn’t say that. Gino has helped me a lot. Friends like him are a rare commodity and I want to keep him.’
‘Hey, I’m not setting you against him!’
‘I don’t doubt that for a second, Sid, not for a single second. Nobody could set me against Gino.’
He stopped dead.
I went on my way, without turning round. I was far from suspecting that this would be the last time I saw him.