Chaos of the Senses (22 page)

I'd been drawn back into the same vortex of joy, fear, trepidation, hope, and uncertainty.

Why did this man always have to come back just when I'd stopped waiting for him? And why did his arrival always coincide with major political events? Why hadn't he given me some forewarning if he had been planning to come back from France? Why did he want to know exactly where I was calling from? And why was it that I always seemed to be drawn towards him by a raging stream of desire that sent me down towering waterfalls of madness? Carrying me along from one gasp to another, his love drew me on to destinations unknown.

Something lovely was happening to me on this particular morning. It was like waking up after a winter sleep, lazily pulling back the curtains with the curiosity of someone who wants to know what's happened in the world since the last time she was awake, only to find love reading a newspaper on a chair in her back yard and waiting for her!

There was nothing between us but a wet windowpane and a season. But wherever you are, you're bound to wake up to a love that has nothing to do with the seasons.

The rain wasn't going to keep me from leaving the house, since on this particular morning I had my own private weather forecast to respond to. Within half an hour I had put on my clothes and was ready to go out.

My mother was surprised to see me at an hour when I would usually still be in bed. However, she proceeded to make the most of my visit – which she could find no explanation for other than the fact that I was bored and that I missed her – by sitting me down with a cup of coffee and treating me to a litany of her health problems and other woes.

I listened to her with all the patience I could muster. As she spoke, I came up with a quick fix for her problems that was
tailor-made for me: for the two of us to go to the capital for a little holiday!

Of course my mother took to the idea right away. In addition to the fact that there were all sorts of friends and relations she could visit while she was there, it would give her the chance to have me all to herself under one roof for several days. This was what my mother referred to as ‘a change of atmosphere'.

The adventure I had just proposed had an energizing effect on my mother, who went to the kitchen and made me lunch in honour of my surprise visit and our impromptu journey.

As for me, I headed nervously for the telephone with a joyful anticipation to dial the same number I had dialled from home.

As calmly as it had before, the voice came, ‘How are you?'

‘Only now can I say that I'm all right,' I said dreamily.

‘So how were you before?'

‘I felt as though my whole life was a vacuum.'

‘Beware of vacuums. They make people wicked. Like they say, “The empty mind is Satan's workshop.” '

‘Well, the times we're living in are wicked anyway.'

‘Things might get better. We just have to trust.'

‘You yourself once said that you didn't trust anything any more. Do you remember? You said that the day we met at the newspaper stand.'

‘Yes, I remember. But there's a certain man I trust, and because he's come back, my confidence in Fate has been restored.'

‘Did you come back on his account, or . . . ?'

I fell silent, wanting to give him the chance to make some sort of romantic confession.

Ignoring my hint, he said, ‘Yes, I did.'

‘So, what about me?'

He sank into another silence.

‘The day we met at the newsstand, you advised me not to read any newspapers, and I haven't read one since. If I hadn't happened to leaf through a newspaper this morning, I wouldn't have known you were here. How could you have come back without telling me?'

‘But I did tell you. Do you really think you came across that newspaper by accident? Nothing ever happens by accident. There are things that we want so badly that they actually happen, and when we look back on them, it seems as though we had planned them out in one way or another.'

‘But you seem so cold towards me, as though you haven't missed me!'

‘Actually,' he replied sardonically, ‘I've missed you with a passion, but . . .'

‘But what?'

‘But your home phone is under surveillance. In fact, this one might be under surveillance also. Avoid calling me from home. I would prefer you to come to the capital. That would be better.'

‘I will,' I said confidently.

Then, before hanging up the receiver, I added, ‘Of course.'

* * *

If women, like the peoples of the world, truly desire life for themselves, then Fate is bound to let them have their way even if the one who appears to be controlling their destinies is a high-ranking officer or a petty dictator in the form of a husband.

Speaking of husbands, I still don't know how I managed to persuade mine to let me travel to the capital for a holiday on the beach in the dead of winter.

How could he have failed to be suspicious of such a request?

It makes me think of a sarcastic quip I once heard to the effect that, ‘There are two types of idiots: the ones who suspect everything, and the ones who don't suspect anything.'

My husband, a good military man who has enough professional savvy always to be on guard, started out his married life with me by spying, making inquiries, and being suspicious of everything.

When he came up with a lack of evidence, he gave me a surprising amount of freedom. At the very least, it gave him enough time to do the things he needed to do, confident that the stars on his uniform would keep me under his thumb.

In this particular case he was probably too busy with political developments to go spying on my womanly preoccupations, which had thus far given him no reason for concern, and in relation to which I had nothing to hide. My problem now was with other people who, instead of eavesdropping on terrorists, spent their time eavesdropping on lovers' phone conversations.

A mere hour on an aeroplane, and I was hundreds of kilometres away from my shackles, back in the same house I'd come to four months earlier with Farida. I called it the ‘dream house', because it was a place where everything became possible, just as in one's dreams.

As soon as I arrived and put things around me in some semblance of order, I rushed to the telephone. The voice was warm this time, assuring me that I wasn't dreaming.

‘You finally got here! If you only knew how much I've missed you! I'll be seeing you tomorrow, right?'

Just a few words and a question, and the whole world seemed brighter. There were bigger questions as well, of course, but I
had no time to answer them. I was too busy being infatuated to distraction. The infatuation also robbed me of sleep.

A certain saying of Baudelaire kept me awake: ‘Everyone worthy of the name human has a yellow adder crouching on his chest that says, “No,” whenever he says, “I want.”'

I spent the entire night trying to kill that adder. As dawn drew near, I realized that this adder's ‘No' has seven heads, and that whenever you kill one of them, another one appears, thrusting this or that warning or negative imperative in your face. Nevertheless, I dozed off munching on the apple of forbidden desire while those seven heads looked on.

I had a date with ‘Yes', and everything inside me was in agreement on that fact. Good morning to ‘Yes'! Good morning to love! Contrary to custom, the entire universe had woken up beautiful, and I couldn't help but wonder who had told it my news.

It was as if all the songs being played on the radio that morning knew what had happened to me, and in my mind I saw visions of tree-lined streets that led into my heart, pavement cafés on a winter's day awaiting their lovers' arrival, and unmade beds awaiting their consummation in the cities of ‘yes'.

The previous evening's ‘maybe' had been followed the next morning with a resounding ‘yes', and all of its ‘nos' had been swallowed up in the morning light.

Given the battle I'd fought with my yellow adder, I felt as though I'd spent the night sailing a stormy winter sea. Then my morning was booby-trapped by my mother's questions and projects. However, I managed to foil all her plans for joint outings and embarked instead on a private, and much preferred, venture of my own.

The car set off with me at noon down the same road it had travelled on the way to my first love tryst. It seemed longer this time despite the driver's speed, the light traffic, and the absence of checkpoints.

Reassured to see that the streets had gone back to normal, being empty now of demonstrators and bearded men, placards and shouted slogans, I got out at Emir Abdelkader Square and went the rest of the way on foot.

One number, two numbers, one building, two buildings, and I had arrived. Propelled forward by longing and a racing heart, I ascended the four flights of stairs with a burglar's haste and a lover's breathless enthusiasm.

A door opened at the first knock and closed behind me. It was a door that separated me from the city of ‘no' and ushered me into the world of ‘yes'.

There I was awaited by a nameless man who, his eyes fixed upon me, folded me in his arms, and a kiss behind the door that had been closed upon my joyous exhilaration pinned me between two worlds.

As I caught my breath he asked me, ‘Did you have trouble getting here this time?'

I said, ‘The hardest thing every time is getting through that door!'

After a pause, I continued, ‘Both on the way in and on the way out!'

‘So,' he quipped, ‘just stay here!'

I flung myself, exhausted, on to the sofa and said, ‘Take me hostage. Would that be possible?'

‘All of us are hostages,' he returned sardonically.

‘Whose hostages?' I wanted to know.

I had expected him to say, ‘Hostages of love.' Instead he said, ‘Hostages of the homeland.'

‘Please,' I said a bit irritably, ‘spare me the politics! I didn't come here to talk about the homeland. You have no idea what a risk I take to come here, just to experience a moment of love.'

‘But there isn't any love outside of politics. Haven't you figured that out yet?'

I didn't reply because I didn't understand, nor did I want to understand, why politics had to be a third party to every human relationship. Whatever the reason, the fact was that politics slept in the same bed with both spouses and lovers. It ate breakfast with us in the morning, and all of our other meals, too, for that matter. It accompanied us on our visits to our relatives, both the living and the dead.

It would reach the cities of our dreams before we got there ourselves, and when we finally arrived, it would share a seat with us. On one occasion it would send someone near and dear to us into exile, and on another, bring back to us someone we loved.

‘Maybe you're right,' I said. ‘In the end it was politics that brought you back.

‘Fortunately for love,' I continued.

‘And what if that weren't the case?'

‘I don't believe you came back on my account.'

‘I didn't say I'd come back on your account. Let's just say that I came back so that we could go on writing the novel together. Isn't that what you care about?'

‘I guess so. But I don't see why it would matter so much to you.'

‘Of course it matters to me!' He laughed. ‘I don't want to miss my own ending. And I want it to be a nice one.'

‘Really?'

‘Of course. Endings are important in books, just as they are in life.'

‘Do you know what matters to me the most right now? What matters to me is to know who you are. That's all I care about. Ever since the day I saw your picture in the newspaper, I've been buying one every day. I look at all the pictures, and I read all the interviews with members of the National Council. I know everything about everybody. I read their statements on every topic under the sun. But I haven't read anything relating to you. Why is that?'

‘Well,' he said cynically, ‘they shine on account of the things they say, whereas I shine on account of my silence!'

‘But whose side are you on? What party do you belong to?'

‘The real question isn't: What party do you belong to? but rather, which one have you defected from?'

Seeing that I had no choice but to turn questions on their heads the way he always did, I asked, ‘So which ones have you defected from?'

After a pause, as though the question had taken him by surprise, he said, ‘I have more than one answer to a question like that. Let's say I've defected from my dreams. I, Madame, am the final witness to the Arab decline. I've spent my whole life observing disappointment and failure. I've sat and watched my dreams sink over the horizon, one homeland after another. I've seen it happen in my own homeland as well. So do you understand now why it matters so much to me not to miss my own ending in the story? You want to know the secret behind my silence. Before Boudiaf came back, I was empty. I had no dreams left. All my dreams were behind me.'

‘And what about me?'

‘You?'

‘Where do I fit in?'

‘You fit in exactly where you are right now.'

‘Meaning . . . ?'

‘Meaning, on paper. My dreams with you, just like your projects with me, take up no more than a single page, although that page might be the size of a bed. That's our destiny.'

This man was so skilled with words that he could bypass all your questions without giving you a single answer. Or he could give you the answer to a question you hadn't expected him to answer on that particular day, since it wasn't the one you had asked him.

Here he was answering a question that had preoccupied me in the beginning. In fact, it was the question that had led to this story's being written. The question had to do with why this man had retreated into silence and reduced language to nothing but the words ‘inevitably', ‘definitely', ‘of course', and ‘always', as though all of life could be reduced to these.