The First Man Page 17
But the Kabyle shepherd who, on his mountain that the sun has scaled and eroded, watches the storks go by while dreaming of the North from which they came after a long voyage—he may dream all day long, in the evening he still goes back to the dish of mastic leaves, to the family in long robes, to the wretched hut where he has his roots. In the same way, while Jacques might be intoxicated with the foreign potions of bourgeois (?) tradition, he remained devoted to the one who was most like him, and that was Pierre. Every morning at quarter after six (except Sunday and Thursday), Jacques would go down the stairs of his building four at a time, running in the mugginess of the hot season or the violent rain of winter that made his short cape swell up like a sponge; then at the fountain he would turn in to Pierre's street, and, still on the run, climb the two stories to knock softly at the door. Pierre's mother, a handsome woman with an ample build, would open the door that led directly to the sparsely furnished dining room. At the other end of the dining room a door on either side led to a bedroom. One was Pierre's, which he shared with his mother, the other was his two uncles', rough railroad men who smiled a lot and said little. As you entered the dining room, to the right was a room without air or light that served as both kitchen and bathroom. Pierre was chronically late. He would be sitting at the table with its oilcloth cover, the kerosene lamp lit if it was winter, holding a big brown bowl of glazed clay in both hands, and trying to swallow the scorching coffee
his mother had just poured him without burning himself. "Blow on it," she would say. He blew on it, he sucked it in and smacked his lips, and Jacques shifted his weight from foot to foot while he watched him.a When Pierre had finished, he still had to go to the candlelit kitchen, where, at the zinc sink, a glass of water awaited him and, lying across it, a toothbrush spread with a thick ribbon of a special kind of toothpaste, for he suffered from pyorrhea. He slipped on his short cape, his cap, and his satchel, and, all rigged out, gave his teeth a long and vigorous brushing, then spat loudly in the sink. The pharmaceutical odor of the toothpaste mingled with the smell of the coffee. Jacques, a bit disgusted and at the same time impatient, would let that be known, and it was not unusual for this to result in one of those sulks that are the cement of a friendship. Then they would go down the stairs to the street in silence and walk unsmiling to the trolley stop. But other times they would chase each other, laughing, or while running they would pass one of the satchels back and forth like a rugby ball. At the stop they waited, watching for the red trolley to see with which of two or three motor-men they were going to ride.
For they always scorned the two trailer cars and climbed up into the motorcar to work their way to the front, with difficulty, since the trolley was packed with workers going downtown and their satchels hindered their progress. At the front, they took advantage of each
a. schoolboy's cap.
departing passenger to press closer to the motorman's iron and glass cab and the high narrow controller, on the flat top of which a gearshift handle moved around a circle with a big steel notch to mark neutral, three other marks for the forward gears, and a fifth for reverse. Only the motormen had the right to work the gearshift, and they enjoyed the prestige of demigods in the eyes of the children, who were forbidden by a sign overhead to speak to them. They wore an almost military uniform, with a cap with molded leather visor, except the Arab drivers, who wore a tarboosh. The children told them apart by their appearance. There was the "nice little young one," who looked like a leading man and had thin shoulders; the "brown bear," a big sturdy Arab with thick features who always stared straight ahead; the "friend of the animals," an old Italian with clear eyes in a drab face, all bent over his gearshift, who owed his nickname to the fact that he once almost stopped his trolley to avoid hitting an absentminded dog and another time to avoid a dog that was nonchalantly relieving himself between the rails; and "Zorro," a tall fellow with the face and small moustache of Douglas Fairbanks.a The friend of the animals was dear to the children's hearts. But they ardently admired the brown bear; imperturbable, solidly fixed on his legs, he would drive his noisy vehicle at top speed, holding the wooden handle firmly in his enormous left hand and pushing it into third gear as soon as traffic permitted, his right hand
a. The cord and the bell.
vigilant on the big brake wheel to the right of the gearbox, ready to give the wheel a few vigorous turns while he moved his gearshift to neutral, and then the motorcar would skid heavily on the rails. It was with the brown bear that, on curves or switches, the trolley pole attached with a spiral spring to the roof of the motorcar was most likely to leave the electric wire overhead, which it was fitted to by a small wheel with a hollow rim, and then stand straight up with a great racket of vibrating wires and flying sparks. The conductor would jump down from the motorcar, seize the long trolley-catcher wire, attached to the end of the pole that was automatically unrolled from a cast-iron box at the back of the vehicle, and, pulling with all his strength to overcome the resistance of the steel spring, would bring the trolley pole back and, letting it up slowly, try to insert the wire once more into the hollow rim of the wheel, all in the midst of flaring sparks. Leaning out of the motorcar, or, if it was winter, with their noses pressed against the windows, the children followed the action, and when it was crowned with success, they would announce it in a stage whisper to inform the motorman without committing the infraction of speaking directly to him. But the brown bear was unmoved: he waited, according to regulation, until the conductor gave him the departure signal by pulling on the cord that hung at the back of the motorcar and activated a bell at the front. He would then set the trolley in motion again, without further precaution. Clustered together in front, the children would watch the metallic tracks race past under and over them, on a rainy or sparkling morning,
rejoicing when the trolley, going full speed, would pass a horse-drawn cart or for a time would keep pace with a wheezing automobile. At each stop the trolley would unload part of its cargo of Arab and French workmen, take on a clientele that got better dressed the closer they were to downtown, then start off again at the clang of the bell and so would travel from one end to the other of the arc along which the city lay, until the moment when they suddenly emerged at the port before the immense space of the bay that stretched out to the big blue mountains at the end of the horizon. Three stops more and it was the end of the line, the place du Gouvernement, where the children got off. This square, bordered on three sides by trees and buildings with arcades, opened out to the white mosque and, beyond it, the expanse of the port. In its center stood the statue of the Duke of Orleans on a prancing horse, all verdigris under the dazzling sky; but in bad weather the bronze turned black and dripped rainwater (and they told the inevitable story that the sculptor committed suicide, having forgotten to put a curb chain on the harness), while from the horse's tail water trickled endlessly into the little garden protected by the railing that framed the monument. The rest of the square was surfaced with small shiny paving stones, which the children, jumping off the trolley, would fling themselves across, in long skids, toward the rue Bab-Azoun that brought them to the lycée in five minutes.
Bab-Azoun was a narrow street made still more narrow by the arcades on both sides that stood on enormous square pillars, leaving just enough room for the
trolley tracks, used by another company, that connected this area to the higher districts of the city. On hot days the thick blue sky lay over the street like a steaming lid, and the shade was cool under the arcades. On rainy days the whole street was nothing but a deep trench of wet shiny stone. Under the arcades were rows of shops: wholesale textile dealers, their facades painted in dark colors, piles of light-colored cloth glowing softly in the shade; groceries that smelled of clove and coffee; small shops where Arab tradesmen sold pastries dripping with oil and honey; dark deep-set cafes where the coffeemak-ers were percolating at that time of day (whereas in the evening, lit up by glaring lamps, they were full of noise and voices, a crowd of men trampling
the sawdust on the floor, pushing up to the bar where there were glasses of opalescent liquid and little saucersful of lupines, anchovies, cut-up celery, olives, fries, and peanuts); and, finally, bazaars for tourists where they sold hideous Eastern glass trinkets, displayed in windows framed by postcards in rotating racks, and Moorish scarves in garish colors.
One of these bazaars, in the middle of the arcades, was run by a fat man who was always sitting behind his windows, in the shade or under an electric light; he was huge and pale, with bulging eyes, like those creatures you find by lifting stones or in old tree trunks, and, above all, he was absolutely bald. Because of this feature the lycée students nicknamed him "the flies' skating rink" and "the mosquitoes' bicycle racetrack," and they would claim that when the insects traveled across the bare surface of that skull, they would miss the turn and
be unable to keep their balance. Often in the evening the children would dash by his shop like a flight of starlings, shouting the unfortunate man's nicknames and imitating the flies' supposed skids with a sound of "zzzzz." The fat shopkeeper cursed them; once or twice he was presumptuous enough to try to chase them, but had to give it up. Then all at once he remained silent before the volley of shouts and scoffing, and for several evenings he let the children grow bolder, until they came right up and yelled in his face. And suddenly, one evening, some young Arabs, paid by the shopkeeper, emerged from behind the pillars where they had been hiding and set out in pursuit of the children. That evening Jacques and Pierre escaped punishment only because of their exceptional speed. Jacques took a single blow on the back of his head, then, once recovered from his surprise, was able to outrun his adversary. But two or three of their schoolmates took a severe beating. The students plotted to sack the shop and physically destroy its owner, but the fact is they never acted on their dark plans; they stopped persecuting their victim, and they adopted the habit of passing by angelically on the other side of the street.
"We chickened out," Jacques said bitterly.
"After all," Pierre answered, "we were in the wrong."
"We were in the wrong and we were afraid of being beaten up."
Later on, he would remember that incident when he came (truly) to understand that men pretend to abide
by what is right and never yield except to force.a Halfway up the rue Bab-Azoun the street widened and on one side the arcade gave way to the church of Sainte-Victoire. This little church occupied the site of a vanished mosque. A kind of offertory (?), always full of flowers, had been carved in its whitewashed facade. Flower sellers had set up on the open sidewalk and were already displaying their wares by the time the children passed by; they offered enormous bunches of iris, carnations, roses, or anemones, according to the season, set in tall tin cans, the rims always rusted by the water that was always being sprinkled on the flowers. On the same side of the street there was also a little shop selling Arab fritters; it was really a nook that would hardly hold three men. A fireplace had been dug out at one side of this nook. Its sides were lined with blue-and-white earthenware, and a huge basin of boiling oil was bubbling on its surface. A strange person sat cross-legged in front of the fireplace. He wore Arab pantaloons, his chest was half naked during the summer and in the heat of the day; on other days he wore a European jacket closed at the top of the lapel with a safety pin; and with his shaved head, thin face, and toothless mouth he looked like a Gandhi without glasses. With a red enamel skimmer in his hand, he watched over the cooking of the fritters browning in the oil. When a fritter was ready—that is, when the outside was golden while
a. himself like the rest.
the very fine dough inside had become both translucent and crisp (like a transparent fried potato)—he would carefully reach under the fritter with his ladle and lift it deftly out of the oil, drain it over the basin by shaking the ladle three or four times, then put it in front of him in a glassed-in stand with several perforated shelves on which already prepared fritters were lined up, on one side the long honey fritters, on the other, flat and round, the plain fritters.a Pierre and Jacques were mad about these pastries, and on those rare occasions when one or the other had a bit of money, they took a moment to stop and get a plain fritter on a piece of paper immediately made transparent by the oil, or the long fritter that the seller before giving it to them had dipped in a nearby jar, alongside the stove, full of dark honey speckled with fritter crumbs. The children would take these splendid things and bite into them as they ran to the lycée, head and shoulders bent over to avoid dirtying their clothes.
The departure of the swallows took place each year, soon after the opening of school, in front of the church of Sainte-Victoire. Electrical wires and even high-power lines, used at one time to drive the trolleys, now abandoned but never taken down, stretched over the street where it had been widened. The swallowsb usually flew over the waterfront boulevards, on the square in front of the lycée, or in the sky over the poor neigh-
a. Zlabias, Makroud.
b. See the sparrows of Algeria mentioned by Grenier.
borhoods, sometimes picking with piercing cries at a ficus fruit, some floating garbage, or fresh manure; but at the first cold weather—only relatively cold since there was never a frost; still you could feel it after the enormous weight of the hot months—the swallows would appear one by one in the corridor of rue Bab-Azoun, flying low toward a trolley, then abruptly veering up to disappear in the sky over the houses. Suddenly one morning they appeared by the thousands on all the lines over the little square at Sainte-Victoire, on top of the houses, squeezed in next to each other, nodding their heads over their little black-and-white necks, shaking their tails and moving their feet a bit to make room for a newcomer, covering the sidewalk with their tiny ashlike droppings, all together making what was a single constant chirp, punctuated with brief cackles, a continuing confidential dialogue that had been going on above the street all morning, and would get gradually louder and become almost deafening by evening, when the children were running to the homeward-bound trolleys; then the chirp would stop suddenly, on an invisible command, and thousands of sleeping birds would bow their little heads and their black-and-white tails. For two or three days, coming from every corner of the Sahel, and sometimes even farther, they would arrive in feathery little bands, trying to find room between the first arrivals, and, little by little, they would settle on all the cornices along the street on both sides of the main place of assembly, the sound of their wings beating and their chirping over the passersby growing louder and louder until it became deafening. And then one morn-
ing, just as abruptly, the street was empty. In the night, just before dawn, the birds had left all together for the South. For the children that was when winter began, well before its date, since they had never known a summer without the shriek of the swallows in the still warm sky of evening.
The rue Bab-Azoun ended at a big square where the lycée, on the left, faced the barracks on the right. The steep damp streets of the Arab city began their uphill climb behind the lycée. The barracks faced away from the sea. Beyond the lycée was the Marengo gardens; beyond the barracks, the poor, half-Spanish Bab-el-Oued district. A few minutes past quarter after seven, Pierre and Jacques, having climbed the stairs at full speed, would enter with a flood of children through the concierge's small entrance next to the monumental door. They started up the main stairs, with the honor rolls posted on either side, still running at top speed, and arrived at the main floor, where the stairs to the upper floors began on the left; it was separated from the main courtyard by a glassed-in arcade. There, behind one of the main floor columns, they spotted the Rhinoceros watching for latecomers. (The Rhinoceros was a chief supervisor, a small nervous Corsican who owed his nickname to his curled moustache.) Another life began.
Pierre and Jacques had received scholarships that included half-board because of their "family situation." So they spent all day at the lycée and had their lunch in the dining hall. Classes began at eight or nine o'clock, according to t
he day, but breakfast for the boarding students was served at 7:15, and the half-boarders were
entitled to it. The families of the two children could not imagine that anyone would give up anything to which he was entitled, they who were entitled to so little; thus Jacques and Pierre were among the few half-boarders to arrive at 7:15 in the big white circular dining hall, where sleepy boarding students were already seating themselves at long zinc-covered tables, before big bowls and huge baskets with thick slices of dry bread, while the waiters swaddled in long aprons made of crude canvas, most of whom were Arab, went along the rows carrying big coffeepots with curved spouts that had once been shiny, and poured into the bowls a boiling liquid that contained more chicory than coffee. Having used their prerogative, the children could go a quarter of an hour later to the study hall, where, presided over by a monitor who was himself a boarding student, they could review their homework before classes began.
The great difference here from the neighborhood school was the number of teachers. M. Bernard knew everything and taught everything he knew in the same way. At the lycée, the teacher changed with the subject, and the method changed with the man.a Now you could compare; you had to choose, that is, between those you liked and those you did not. From this point of view a teacher in the school is more like a father: he takes over his role almost entirely; he is as inevitable and he is part of what is necessary in your life. So the question of lov-
a. M. Bernard was loved and admired. At best the fycee teacher could only be admired and you did not dare love him.
ing or not loving him does not really arise. Usually you love him because you are absolutely dependent on him But if it happens that the child likes him little or not at all, dependence and necessity remain, and that is not far from resembling love. At the lycée, on the other hand the teachers were like those uncles you are entitled to choose among. That is, you could dislike them, and so there was a certain physics teacher, who was very elegant in his attire, authoritarian and crude in his speech, whom neither Jacques nor Pierre could stomach, though they had him two or three times over the years. The literature teacher, whom the children saw more often than the others, was the one they would have been most likely to love, and in fact Jacques and Pierre clung to him in almost all those classesa without however being able to depend on him, since he knew nothing about them and since, once class was over, he went off to a different life and so did they, leaving for that distant neighborhood where there was no possibility a lycée teacher would settle, so different that they never met anyone, neither teachers nor students, on their trolley line—only red cars served the lower districts (the C.F.R.A.), while the upper sections, reputed to be more elegant, were served by a line with green cars, the T.A. Furthermore, the T.A. went right to the lycée, whereas the C.F.R.A. line ended at the place du Gouvernemenl, you [ ]1 the lycée from below. So it was that when their