MEHDI CHAREF
Majid takes off his shoes and heads straight down the corridor to his room. His is a large family, and his brothers and sisters are round the front-room table arguing over their homework. His mother—Malika—is a solidly-built Algerian woman. As she stands in the kitchen, she sees her son sneaking down the corridor.
‘Majid!’
Without turning round he goes straight into his room. ‘Yeah?’
‘Go and get your father.’
‘In a minute!’
Malika bangs her pan down on the draining-board and shouts:
‘Straight away!’
He puts the Sex Pistols on the record player and plays God Save the Queen at full blast. Punk rock. That way he doesn’t have to listen to his mother. He lies back on the bed, hands behind his head, and shuts his eyes to listen to the music. But his mum isn’t giving up so easily:
‘Did you hear what I said?’
She speaks lousy French, with a weird accent, and gesticulates like an Italian. Majid raises his eyes to the ceiling, with the air of a man just returned from a hard day’s work, and in a voice of tired irritation he replies:
‘Lay off, ma, I’m whacked!’
Since she only half understands what he’s saying, she goes off the deep end. She loses her temper, and her African origins get the upper hand. She starts ranting at him in Arabic.
She comes up to the end of the bed and shakes him, but he doesn’t budge. She dries her hands on the apron which is forever about her waist, switches off the stereo, tucks back the tuft of greying hair that hangs across her forehead, and begins abusing her son with all the French insults she can muster—‘Layabout . . . Hooligan . . . Oaf . . .’ and suchlike, all in her weird pronunciation. Majid pretends he doesn’t understand. He answers coolly, just to irritate her:
‘What’d you say? I didn’t understand a word.’
By now his mother is beside herself. ‘Didn’t understand, didn’t understand . . . Oh, God . . . !’ and she slaps her thighs.
She tries to grab him by the ear, but he ducks out of range. Finally he admits defeat and gets off the bed, scratching his head.
His mother follows him:
‘Yes. Layabout! Hooligan!’
While she continues ranting at him and calling him every name under the sun, he puts the Sex Pistols back in their sleeve and gives a long-suffering sigh.
Then Malika informs her son, in Arabic, that she’s going to see the Algerian consul. ‘They’ll come and get you, and you’ll have to do your military service. That way you’ll learn about your country . . . and you’ll learn the language . . . that’ll make a man of you. You say you won’t do your military service like all your friends have to, but if you don’t you’ll never get your papers, and me neither. You’ll lose your citizenship, and you’ll never be able to go to Algeria because you’ll end up in prison. That’s where you’ll end up. No country, no roots, no nothing. You’ll be finished.’
Majid understands the occasional phrase here and there, and his reply is subdued, because whatever he says is bound to hurt her.
‘I never asked to come here. If you hadn’t decided to come to France, I wouldn’t be “finished”, would I, eh? So leave me alone, will you?’
She continues haranguing him, unleashing all the bitterness that is locked in her heart. It’s not unusual for her to end up crying.
Someone knocks at the front door.
‘Who is it?’ she shouts, still furious.
She leaves the room and Majid flops down on the bed, reflecting that for a long time he’s been neither French nor Arab. He’s the son of immigrants—caught between two cultures, two histories, two languages, and two colours of skin. He’s neither black nor white. He has to invent his own roots, create his own reference points. For the moment, he’s waiting . . . waiting . . . He doesn’t want to have to think about it . . .
(TRANSLATED FROM THE FRENCH BY ED EMERY)