I’m fascinated by athletes, their capacity to see something all the way through, to surpass themselves, to redefine their limits.
There’s a whole ritual around big, televised athletics championships: the results table, the look in the eye of the athlete making a supreme effort, victory and close-up on the gold medal.
I feel nostalgic for the male comradery I used to share with Big Baba in front of the television set.
I can still see the face of Noureddine Morceli winning the 1500m final at the Olympic Games in Atlanta.
Big Baba wept that day. I swear. I’m sure I saw him crying, even if he claimed otherwise; flat denial, accompanied by loud sniffing.
‘Have you taken leave of your senses? This is sinusitis!’
‘Yeeeesss! Yeeeesss! Morceliiiiiii! Morceliiii!’ screamed the Algerian commentator, who had no scruples about crying. ‘Olympic gold for Algeria!!!! In three minutes and thirty-five point seven five seconds!’
The Moroccan, Hicham El Guerrouj, had been hotly tipped. He was in the leading pack when the poor man fell catastrophically on the final lap. They showed the scene in slow-motion several times on Canal Algeria. As well as the 198 close-up on El Guerrouj collapsing in tears.
I’ll never forget that moment. Noureddine Morceli looking incredulous as he caught his breath, the Algerian national anthem ringing out around the stadium, Big Baba’s ‘sinusitis,’ and the flag that billowed on both their shoulders, the one in Atlanta and the other in our living room in Nice.
Dounia suggested we rent a car on our arrival at the airport.
With Europcar, you rent a lot more than a car.
So what does that mean, apart from the keys and a full tank?
‘All I’ve got left is a three-door Twingo,’ explained the rental assistant. ‘Will that do?’
‘I leave that to your better judgement!’ said Dounia.
Wow! I reckoned it was the first time I’d heard someone say the words ‘I leave that to your better judgement!’ in real life.
It was only a ten-kilometre drive to the hospital.
Dounia drove nervously, clinging to the steering wheel with her bony hands, so the car jolted, and the back of my head kept banging against the headrest.
‘I haven’t driven in yonks! I always take taxis in Paris!’
As we turned the bend on a road overlooking the city, we glimpsed the Mediterranean.
I thought about Mehdi Mazouani and reflected that growing up beside the sea is a stroke of luck.
I pictured my mother busily preparing a gargantuan dinner. The table would be heaving with food by now, including the following as a minimum spread: matlou flatbreads, avocado milkshakes, grilled peppers, salad, fried aubergines, lamb tajine with prunes and almonds, spit-roasted saffron chicken and sautéed potatoes.
‘You’ve eaten nothing, my son!’ Maman would complain, 199 after watching me stuff my face to the point of clogging my arteries. ‘What’s the matter? Are you sick? Perhaps you’re running a fever?’
Mina would have cleaned the house like a fanatic, disinfecting the toilets and mopping everywhere in sight. The smell of bleach and lemon-scented Saint-Marc all-surface cleaner would tickle my nostrils as I crossed the threshold.
The children would have grown, and they’d jump all over me shouting: ‘Tonton! Tonton! You’re back!’
I’d feel emotional as I glanced at our certificates framed with pride by Big Baba on the living room wall.
I’ve missed home.
Dounia would be on her own in her small Niçois apartment, chain-smoking on the balcony, filling her empty belly with smoke while checking her e-mails and waiting on the phonecall from Tartois, who’d be busy with his cronies in the National Assembly.
‘I feel like I’m hallucinating,’ Dounia remarked, as we walked into the neuro rehab unit, ‘and my knees have gone all wobbly.’
Big Baba had his back to us. He was facing the window and watching the day’s first drops of rain. He had always loved the rain and used to go outside into his garden just to breathe in the smell of damp earth, every time it rained.
The shutters were half-closed, and we could just make out that his roommate was an elderly Indian gentleman who sat stock-still, staring at us.
Big Baba’s shoulders looked hunched in his hospital gown, and his temples seemed to have turned even whiter.
Dounia put both hands to her mouth, as if to stifle a cry; her eyes brimmed with tears, reminding me of a river after 200 an unexpected flood.
‘Papa!’ I called out.
He turned around, slowly, and his wheelchair squeaked on the green linoleum floor. I went over to kiss him on his cheeks and forehead.
‘How are you, my boy?!’ he asked softly.
Then, pointing to a leaflet on his bedside table, he added: ‘I was waiting for you to read that to me in a journalist’s voice…’
Hiding behind me, Dounia put her hand on his shoulder. She was trembling all over and her cheeks were covered in the salt from her tears, like a sadness archived inside her for more than ten years.
It took a few seconds before Big Baba finally recognised her. His expression was one of joy and incomprehension, just like Noureddine Morceli in 1996, at the finishing line.
His face puckered and he began to cry, putting aside his emotional reserve, releasing his innermost feelings and breaking with his own commandment: Men Don’t Cry. His brow was furrowed as he wept into his daughter’s chest, his face against her breastbone. Sickness, death and the solemnity of life make us temporarily forget our old resentments.
A few minutes later, Big Baba was staring obsessively at his neighbour’s bedside table, as he pointed out a small statue to us.
‘Tell him to remove it! I want him to remove it!’
The elderly Indian gentleman began to scowl and shout as he grabbed his statue and clutched it to his chest.
‘Is Ganesh! Not touch! Is Ganesh!’
‘Just wait for him to doze off,’ Big Baba told Dounia. ‘I’m going to take that cursed statue of his and I’m going to smash it against the wall!’ 201
‘Don’t work yourself up, Papa. Perhaps he needs it…’ Dounia murmured, stroking his wrist.
Big Baba shook his head.
‘What does he need a statue for, eh? His elephant will stop the angels from visiting my room! That’s why he’s keeping his eyes wide open, and he’s burst all his blood vessels as a result, just look at him! He hasn’t dared sleep in two days because he knows I’m going to smash that stupid statue of his!’
The Indian gentleman’s eyes bulged as he continued to cradle his Ganesh close to his heart.
‘Haaaaaaaaa! Is Ganesh! Is Ganesh! Not touch!’ he insisted, while bobbling his head from right to left with uncanny regularity. Shades of the parents of young Murugan Urvashi a few days earlier.
The commotion had rallied the entire care team.
‘Well, good afternoon, everybody…’ said a young nurse who had entered the room and was standing, hand on hip. ‘Goodness me! What seems to be the matter, Monsieur Chennoun?!’
‘He started it! The Hindu! He’s the one who started it!’
‘Excuse me! Our friend has a name, doesn’t he? Monsieur Ishana may not speak much French, but he understands it perfectly well!’
The elderly Indian gentleman’s eyes bulged further on hearing his name.
‘I don’t want to know his name! I’m not in the least bit interested in his name!’
‘Why are you arguing like this?! We thought you’d enjoy having a roommate, making a new friend!’
‘I don’t need a friend!’
The Indian gentleman kissed his statue of Ganesh while watching my father, his eyes injected with blood. 202
‘Did you see that, Mourad? Eh? You saw that! He did it on purpose! Devil’s accomplice! He’s provoking me! You wait until I start walking again! I’ll skin you alive!’
Big Baba was like a child.
‘I didn’t realise it had come to this!’ Dounia confided in me. She looked overwhelmed but happy to see Big Baba again.
‘Ah, here you are! You’ve returned! I can die in peace!’
Dounia stroked Big Baba’s lifeless arm, unable to offer a reply except to whisper: ‘I’m sorry, Papa…’