Every morning, Mama entrusted me to my grandma. I nicknamed her Cochise when I was a teenager, in homage to the famous Indian chief.
So, Grandma.
She was the supreme chief of the family. She ruled with an iron hand, like an Apache warrior over his scattered troops. Nearly blind as she was, Grandma Cochise stood straight and still behind a veil invisible to others. She was a tall, robust woman with delicate features, but shrunken by age. She could hear, taste and smell better than anyone. Her forehead was devastated by wrinkles, her face more creased than the skin of a chameleon. As soon as she heard my thin voice, she would furrow her brow. She had a keen nose like a sheep dog’s and sniffed me out before recognizing me. All she had to do then was stretch out her arms and grab me by the skin of my neck like a cat with her kitten. She would effortlessly pull me back onto her lap. And there was only one thing I could do: settle myself against her and calm down. I had to stay put, without moving, without shedding a single tear. But it was impossible. I was born with moist red eyes. I would quickly break down. And the sanction would fall, implacably, upon my shoulders.
Every sniffle was followed by a dark, threatening look. Every tear by a reprimand. Then strokes of the cane on my skull, my collarbone, my elbows, my toes. She could make me howl in pain with one sharp blow. I would sob and sob until I smothered. The days went by, back then, and they all seemed the same. I would hold my breath. I’d launch out my mind like a lasso and finally collapse from sheer exhaustion in the middle of the morning, asleep at last. Grandma’s eyes would settle on the rare passers-by whose steps she had perceived well before 9they reached us. These men and women never failed to greet the matron, who would nod her head after each greeting.
The passerby: ‘How’s the little boy doing?’
Her: ‘Allah the Most Merciful is watching over him, we have no complaints today.’
The passerby: ‘And what about your old bones?’
Her: ‘If they creak, it’s because they’re alive.’
The passerby: ‘By all the angels in Heaven, you’ll sure bury us all, won’t you?’
Her: ‘I’m counting on it.’
The bowl of millet I hadn’t touched would still lie around for a bit. Fifteen minutes later it made a small neighbourhood boy or girl happy. Grandma, solicited by this one or that one, wasn’t scolding me for once. It must have been close to ten when the bustle of the neighbourhood went up a notch. Mama was returning from the market. She’d take a stool, drag it over to the old lady to give her news of a convalescent relative, deliver a message from the local imam, or complain about the rising price of meat. Grandma would listen. Nothing seemed to faze her.
I didn’t get so much as a glance from my mother. Huddled at the feet of Grandma Cochise, I was shaking with fever. I resented this mother who kept her distance from my little, stunted body on the mat. I tried to calm down to prove that Grandma was right, and to upset Mama more. I’d watch the people idling in the street from a unique vantage point. I had an unobstructed view of a remarkable landscape: the hardened toenails of my grandmother.