By the time Hacine reached L’Usine to pick up his father, people had already been drinking for a couple of hours. He parked at a good distance and walked the rest of the way. He very quickly understood what was happening. From fifty yards away he could see disheveled men staggering in the street, talking. The tables set up for the occasion were now littered with empty cans and plates, with brown circles that looked like constellations on the white paper tablecloths, and plastic tumblers rolling in the gutters. Women’s laughter rang out. Inside, voices joined in the opening bars of “Les lacs de Connamara” pam papam, papppam! and then trailed off, replaced by a busy, cheerful hubbub.
Before making his way inside, Hacine thought he’d better take a look first. The place was jammed and lively, reeking of beer, tobacco, and bodies heated by alcohol and promiscuity. He entered as if into a sauna, looking for a face, and was promptly caught in the whirl and deafened by the noise. It was odd to see these red-faced women in their Sunday best, and men in shirtsleeves with loosened ties sprawled on chairs, telling each other funny stories or talking about politics, about Bernard Tapie and Balladur. Overexcited children were racing between the tables, and from time to time a mother would nab one and give the kid a good shake. This was no place to be running around like that. But the game very quickly resumed. People had long since quit drinking coffee, and pitchers of cold beer glowed on the tables. The waitresses, as shiny as seals, endlessly cruised the room, topping up glasses and emptying William Lawson ashtrays the size of dessert plates. Behind the bar, Cathy stood anchored to her beer taps. They had already had to change the barrel. She was earning six months’ receipts in a day. Speakers were playing Polnareff’s “Holidays” on the Nostalgie station in the background. In another place, a man was resting six feet under. Here, his nephew had stood up several times to propose a toast in his memory but was now asleep in a corner, his head resting on his bare arms. Underfoot, Hacine could feel the resistance of the floor sticky with beer.
“Hacine!”
His father wound up spotting him first, and waved from a table on the left in the back, near the door to the pool room behind the bar. Hacine joined him. The Arabs had all gathered together, of course. They hadn’t drunk as much as other people but were in a very good mood just the same. Hacine recognized several of them, neighbors. He said hello.
“Is this your son?” asked one, a bald man with a lined face and a gleaming, caramel-colored pate.
“Yes. Sit down for a moment.”
“I’d rather we took off now,” Hacine answered.
“Sit down, I am telling you. Come on.”
Hacine gave in, and ordered a Coke. He felt ill at ease among these men, who’d all been born over there and were full of naïve ideas. They had worked like animals, yet wound up stuck off in their little corner: welcome, but not all that welcome.
Hacine never discussed this with his friends, but it was a thorn in their side just the same. The boys had all grown up fearing their fathers, men who didn’t fool around. Yet they couldn’t really take seriously what their fathers said. The men mostly misunderstood the real rules of French society. They spoke the language badly. They laid down precepts that were out of date. So their sons were caught between the respect they owed their fathers and a certain understandable contempt.
Besides, what had these fathers, who had tried to escape poverty, really done? They all owned color TVs and cars, they had roofs over their heads, and their children went to school. But in spite of those things, satisfactions, and accomplishments, no one could say they had succeeded. No material comfort seemed able to erase their initial poverty. Was it due to professional vexations, being given grunt work, being marginalized, or just the word “immigrant,” which summed them up wherever they went? Or was it the fate of being stateless, which they couldn’t admit to themselves? These fathers, hung suspended between two languages and two shores, were badly paid, disrespected, uprooted, and had no heritage to pass on. From this their children, and especially their sons, developed an abiding feeling of disappointment. So to do well in school, succeed, have a career, and play the game became almost impossible for them. In a country that treated their families like a minor footnote to society, the least honest effort looked like an act of collaboration.
That said, Hacine also had plenty of former classmates who were getting technical diplomas, majoring in sociology and mechanical engineering, earning business certificates, even studying medicine. In the final analysis, it was hard to sort out the impacts of circumstances, personal laziness, and general oppression. He himself tended to favor explanations that let him off the hook and justified the liberties he took with the law.
Hacine finished his Coke. It was nearly seven o’clock. All this was dragging on. He didn’t like this place, didn’t like these people, didn’t like the atmosphere. Besides, he had to see Eliott a little later to explain how things would go down from now on. He was at the start of a delicate period. He had to prime the pump. He thought he could probably get at least four thousand francs for the kilo he’d brought back. With that, he would launch the business. When you bought directly from the grower, right at the farm, you could buy a kilo for twelve hundred francs. He knew good middlemen, but he wasn’t kidding himself: He would have to pay five to six thousand francs. With a twenty-thousand-franc investment, he was sure to get three or four kilos, which he could retail for twenty thousand francs each. Then the business would be up and running. Hacine would drive the first trips himself, but planned to turn that lousy job over to other people as soon as possible. He wasn’t one of those knuckleheads who kept racing across Europe for the excitement, pedal to the metal, even after they’d become millionaires. He would concentrate on tasks with significant value added: negotiating prices, stocking raw material, organizing logistics, and managing teams in the field. He had gone over his calculations a hundred times. The graphs followed a lovely exponential curve. The more money came in, the more he would move to the background. The mediocre prestige of being a big shot no longer interested him. On the other hand, he still had that gnawing hunger to be rich. It was no longer a matter of success or comfort. He needed the money to avenge himself, to wipe away the spittle.
Hacine figured he could eventually get a big slice of the pie between Reims and Brussels, Verdun and Luxembourg. There was competition, but he wasn’t worried. As he had with little Kader, he would do whatever it took. All that was left was to whip the local labor force into line. For starters, he had a little money and no scruples. But the first months would be critical. Like old-time merchants in Bordeaux, Bristol, and Amsterdam who bet everything on a first ship, he knew that a single storm could doom all his hopes. That risk so stressed him that he ground his teeth while he slept. He would wake up with a sore jaw, wondering what had happened. He and Eliott drew up lists: babysitters, lookouts, sellers, managers. The people he had to convince, the people he had to mess up. Make a couple of examples. It would work. His stomach hurt, and he’d had diarrhea for days. He felt emotionally dead, or nearly so.
He leaned over and spoke into his father’s ear:
“We ought to go.”
“Yes, yes. Just a minute.”
The old man was enjoying himself. Hacine had time to go take a piss. When he stood up, he saw Hélène.
At first, it didn’t quite register. She was a middle-aged woman with thick hair falling to her shoulders. She reminded him of someone, but who? They looked at each other for a second. Hacine racked his brains. In Heillange, you were always running into the same people. Then the boy sitting next to her stood up. He was very young but quite husky, with a drooping left eyelid. Hacine jumped out of his chair.
“Where are you going like that?” asked his father.
“I’ll be right back.”
For her part, Hélène immediately recognized the tall, brown young man, as spindly as an insect, who had just stood up. He held her gaze for a moment and gave a polite nod. His dark eyes were disturbingly unreadable. His face was absolutely blank. Hélène had drunk quite a few beers and her head was spinning a little. Patrick was talking to his neighbor. Around her, she saw only red faces and open mouths, all that racket and smoke, the women fanning themselves with the yellow pamphlet handed out in church. Anthony had gotten to his feet and she had to move her chair to let him by.
“I’ll be right back,” he said in turn.
Anthony headed for the men’s room nearby. The young brown man crossed the room and followed him in. The door to the toilet closed behind them. My god, thought Hélène, suddenly frozen.
“Patrick.”
She grabbed him by the arm, but he couldn’t hear her. Especially since he was talking about soccer. For the last several minutes she’d been hearing a chorus of foreign names: Baggio, Bebetto. Dunga, Aldaïr.
“Patrick!” she repeated.
Now she was pleading with him.
The men’s room at L’Usine looked like a hallway. Anthony went to stand at the only urinal and relieved himself, tracing loops and curlicues on the porcelain. He had drunk five beers, and pissed on and on. Behind him was a stall with a door that didn’t close well, and next to him a tiny washbasin with a bar of soap on a metal rod. To dry your hands, you did the best you could, which usually meant wiping them on your pants. Daylight entered through a barred window. That was it. Anthony began to whistle lightheartedly. He was a little loaded and feeling especially glad that things between his parents were going so well. After months of hatred and insults, their politeness was already a wonderful improvement. And his father was sticking to his pledge, even in a bar. Anthony felt an unusual burst of optimism. Then the door opened.
“Hello,” said Hacine.
Anthony quickly buttoned his fly, feeling some wetness dribble along his thigh. The walls suddenly seemed very close, and the smell of ammonia, unbearable. He looked around. Aside from the barred window, there was no way out. He felt fourteen years old again.
“How are you?” asked Hacine.
He took the time to close the door and push the little bolt home, though it was already almost torn off. He was standing a few yards from Anthony and looked very calm, impassive, and brown.
“What d’you want?” asked Anthony.
“What do you think?”
Anthony honestly didn’t have the slightest idea. That was all so long ago. Behind the door was the world, and his father. He could hear the low hum of conversations, the clink of glasses. He tugged at his shirt, which was sticking to his back, and decided to leave.
“Where are you going?”
“Let me by.”
Hacine pushed him back with the flat of his hand. It was a languid gesture, and it made an unsettling impression, the way a spiderweb feels on your face. Anthony could feel anger rising in his cheeks. He was still stewing over the humiliation of the other day with Romain. He thought about his father again, just outside the door.
“Leave me the fuck alone.”
At that point Hacine’s appearance underwent a curious change. He perched on one leg like a heron, brought his other knee to his chest, raised his fists to eye level, then suddenly kicked. His foot hit Anthony in the solar plexus with a dull, flat thud. Surprised, he flew through the air and found himself sitting on his ass with the breath completely knocked out of him. The sole of Hacine’s shoe left a distinct print on his beautiful white shirt. Anthony could feel the piss-stained tiles and the rough grain of the ceramic under his hands. He couldn’t believe what had just happened. It took him a good ten seconds to get his breath back and to stand up.
“You son of a bitch,” he said.
An exchange of feints followed, until Hacine stepped back a bit and started firing a series of middle kicks at Anthony’s ribs. His shin struck with amazing speed, but the blows were mainly for show and had no impact. Hacine wasn’t heavy enough to do any real damage, and Anthony took the kicks without any trouble. Soon the boys found themselves face-to-face, breathless, ill-tempered, and ridiculous. Hacine kept his guard up, swaying from side to side with his fists raised. Anthony would’ve been happy to call it quits, and Hacine was nearly of the same opinion.
Just then, the door rattled on its hinges. Hacine took a step aside. The door handle jiggled, the bolt yielded, and Patrick came in.
“What’s this all about?”
He saw his son with his white shirt soiled, looking confused and disheveled. He turned to Hacine. Hélène had explained everything in a few words. So it was him. In Patrick’s head, the links of evidence had implacably come together: the motorcycle, the theft, the divorce.
“It’s nothing,” Anthony tried to say.
Patrick glanced at him with a look of regret. Then he turned back to the tall asshole with the duck-bill mouth and kinky hair. A sand nigger, wouldn’t you know. With that dull, empty gaze, no way to know what was going on behind it. Right away, Patrick wanted to hurt him.
“So you’re the one?” he said flatly.
“I’m the what?”
Anthony was the first to understand. His father had taken on that stone-like density, that look of stupidity and mineral solidity. Anthony wanted to say something, but Hacine spoke first:
“We’re good here. Don’t bust my balls.”
Patrick gave a kind of chuckle and threw the first punch.
It came from a long way off, from his shoulder and back, rising from his kidneys and deep in his belly. It carried ancient pains and frustrations. It was a fist heavy with misery and missed chances, a ton of misspent living. It smashed Hacine full in the face. Even Patrick was surprised by the effect it produced. A pétanque ball couldn’t have done better. Under the impact, the boy’s head snapped far back and hit the wall. He bounced off and fell to the floor on all fours. Thick blood mixed with saliva immediately started dripping from his lips between his fingers, which he had raised to his mouth. With his tongue, Hacine explored the extent of the damage. He turned his head toward Patrick and opened his shattered mouth. What Patrick saw displeased him. Hacine’s left incisor was cracked, and the other one was missing. The boy spit between this gap in his teeth. Was this little pissant defying him?
“Go stand in front of the door,” he ordered his son.
“What?”
“Do it.”
Hacine was still on his knees, bent double, able to breathe through only one nostril, which made a spitting, hurried whistle, like pipes. Tiny bone fragments pricked his tongue, and he spat again. That’s when he noticed the pattern of the floor tiles. The little white and brown squares hadn’t been laid at random. They formed an ingenious weave of curves and loops, something ample and floral. As he felt the pain rising, Hacine thought of the guy who had once kneeled there long before him, composing these delicate patterns piece by piece, just to receive footprints and piss.
“Don’t make me say it again,” said Patrick.
Anthony came out of the men’s room first. He looked ashen, and his shirt was ripped. His mother stood up.
“Anthony!”
He didn’t hear her. There was too much noise, people standing, music. He muscled his way through the crowd, using his shoulders and hands. Along the way he bumped into a guy who spilled some of his drink onto his torn shirt. The guy in question made as if to protest—“Hey there, take it easy, no need to shove”—but it was more for show than anything else. In any case, Anthony couldn’t see anything or anybody. In a rush, he went out the door and didn’t turn back.
When Patrick emerged in turn a few seconds later, he seemed surprisingly calm. He carefully closed the men’s room door behind him, then headed for the bar. There he grabbed the first drink he saw, a half-empty glass of beer, and looked around. Cathy the owner was chatting with a woman with spiky, mousy blond hair, her elbows on the bar. Thierry was hard at work pulling on the beer taps and handing glasses to customers. Around them, you caught smiles, wrinkles, details. And always, that exhausting racket. Patrick ran a hand through his hair. His temples and neck were wet. A kid, his chin resting on a table, was studying a wasp trapped in his glass of grenadine. Life flowed on, without malice, determined to destroy, day after day, always unchanging. Patrick raised the glass to his lips and downed the beer in a single gulp. A terrible peace spread through his belly, the silence of an ossuary. He gestured to the bartender and ordered another glass. The same again, but with Picon this time.