Ahmed, Fatima.
Fatima is peeling potatoes and onions into a big bowl.
FATIMA. So now everyone in Sarges-les-Corneilles calls him the philosopher. A sort of doctor. What if I ask you a little question about the philosophy of peeling? Are you going to tell me to consult Ahmed as the doctor of all potatoes that almighty Lord Allah brings to fruition in the dry earth, thanks be to him? I’ve seen this philosopher stark naked in the wooden bathtub, and he didn’t look like a philosopher or a doctor, as Heaven is my witness, especially when he had the measles and he could have been the doctor of tomatoes, this charming louse of an oldest son beneath his poultice of pustules, thanks be to God for giving him back to me with clear skin one fine morning. And please don’t tell me that a “philosopher” has what it takes to fill the bag with potatoes and onions for all the days that God has made, and there are many of them, because we others, we mothers and daughters, we see days all in a row, while boys only see one day, the one that’s passing, which is fine with them, seeing as how they do nothing nowadays but flex their biceps and zoom around on their motor scooters going nowhere, talking that big talk like it’s nobody’s business. What a shame that when his father was alive he was off to the factory while it was still dark and tiptoeing out so as not to wake up the rotten little philosopher who was busy sucking his philosophical thumb so as to forget that he’d philosophically pissed in his bed. And my husband, may God protect him, who at the end of a day on the factory floor only said what was absolutely necessary and not a word more, while his son is the biggest rotten chatterbox in the whole neighborhood and everywhere else to boot. And I, Fatima, accustomed to being the wife of one who holds his tongue and isn’t afraid of hard work, now I’m stuck being the mother of philosophy’s endless yakking, which as far as I can tell is nothing but a useless trick for taking anyone and everyone for a hayride. So that everybody around here, big and little, is complaining. Monsieur Rhubarb, who, I must say, looks like an underbaked pie; and Madame Pompestan, our politics lady from around here, and it’s a shame to see women amusing themselves by politicking, with a purple suit that looks like it was custom-made by the flea market; and that good citizen Moustache, a nightmare, let’s face it, of a little boss who’d shoot Arabs full of lead if he had the balls for it, which he doesn’t; and even pretty Fenda, who if she were less black and had her papers more in order I’d be happy for him to tie the knot with, ’cause around her the philosopher Ahmed reminds me of a hummingbird in heat; and even that little Camille who’s basically a lazy slugabed, and who’s definitely not the kind of girl to tie the knot with, ’cause with her the casserole would stay empty, and, living with a swizzle stick like that, my darling son would end up in no time doing the philosophy of the skeleton; they all complain at the top of their lungs about Ahmed’s philosophy, which from what I hear has brought them the reward of being ridiculous, like a bunch of chickens running around with their heads cut off. The world as it is is so dissatisfied with the world that I think a philosopher, a cunning and foxy chatterbox like my dear son, can only find a place to live in it by driving every single authority, male and female, up the wall.
AHMED (entering). Hello, Mother.
FATIMA. Ah! The philosopher! Come over here so I can have a look at your face. What has your philosophy done for the poor world that works itself to the bone no matter whether it’s working or unemployed, which are becoming hard to tell apart?
AHMED. Mother! Dearest Mother! As soon as I walk through your door, there’s no more philosophy. The family is impervious to philosophy. Or else philosophy abhors the family. I’ve brought you a chicken.
He produces the fowl from his coat.
FATIMA. You couldn’t have plucked it? That’s men for you! They’d bring you an ostrich, and the poor mother would have to call all of her daughters to have them come help pluck the gigantic beast until the holy nightfall that Allah has made, while the whole housing project is filling up with enough ostrich feathers to make down comforters for a whole barrack! Maybe, according to philosophy, chicken feathers fall off all by themselves, as long as they’re autumn chickens, like trees?
AHMED. Philosophers have caused something quite different from ostrich feathers to fall.
FATIMA. What, for example? What can your devilish philosophy really make fall, except for Messieurs Rhubarb and Moustache into the hole of the toilet, so that one day they’ll get together with Madame Pompestan and set up a tribunal in Sarges-les-Corneilles to judge and execute you?
AHMED. The philosophers have caused the curtain of appearances to fall, dear Mother.
FATIMA. And what was there to see, behind this curtain? What hoodlums always see behind all curtains: a scandalously undressed woman, may God condemn her!
AHMED. Not at all! I’ve already told you that nothing familial, conjugal, or libidinal interests philosophy. Behind the curtain, they saw that there was another curtain.
FATIMA. How convenient for never seeing the plain light of day! Your philosophers are a bunch of shady good-for-nothings. And you, you’d be better off worrying about having a family. You’ve explained to me very nicely that that’s the permanent cure for philosophy, and then you wouldn’t have every male and female authority in town chasing after you.
AHMED. Dear Mother! I’m thinking about it seriously. I do believe I’m going to give up philosophy to start a big family, with a really solid series of offshoots of my greatness. The difficulty of any family is that you need a wife. Only the familial authority of the wife, sustained by the subsequent authority of the mother, wipes out philosophy once and for all. What would you say about Fenda?
FATIMA. I was just thinking about her. If I were your father with the true authority to arrange in silence …
AHMED. Mother, mother … You know very well that Mustafa, my honorable and magnificently silent proletarian of a father, had only the ornaments of omnipotence. As far as family affairs were concerned, you were always in charge of everything without his even noticing. Speak frankly to your son Ahmed.
FATIMA. I find her too black, too flirty, and too philosophical in her way.
AHMED. And what do you think of Camille?
FATIMA. I’ve chewed that one over too. She’ll drive you crazy, seeing as how her way of behaving is to show off her assets to beat the band, and besides she has the nerve to smoke in front of everyone. And besides besides, I’d rather her name were Aïcha or Djamila.
AHMED. You see how hard a family is for a philosopher.
FATIMA. Philosophy! Philosophy! Pluck the chicken, Ahmed of my joy and my long-lasting fatigue! Take it as an exercise against philosophy.
AHMED. Horrors! In existence the family is the chicken. Philosophy is nothing but the feather …