The First Man

  derly flesh while he stared at the big blue veins and old-age spots that marred his grandmother's feet. "Go on," she would say. "A benidor." She went to sleep very quickly, while the child, his eyes open, followed the comings and goings of the tireless flies.

  Yes, he had hated that for years; and even later, as a grown man, and until he had been gravely ill, he could not bring himself to stretch out after lunch during the hot season. If he happened nonetheless to fall asleep, he would awaken nauseous and ill at ease. Only recently, since he had been suffering from insomnia, could he sleep for half an hour during the day and awaken fresh and alert. A benidor. . .

  The wind must have dropped, flattened by the sun. The ship had stopped its gentle rolling and now seemed to be proceeding in a straight line, the engines at full speed, the propeller boring directly through the depths of the water, and the sound of the pistons so steady that it could no longer be distinguished from the soft ceaseless murmur of the sunlight on the sea. Jacques was half asleep, and he was filled with a kind of happy anxiety at the prospect of returning to Algiers and the small poor home in the old neighborhood. So it was every time he left Paris for Africa, his heart swelling with a secret exultation, with the satisfaction of one who has made good his escape and is laughing at the thought of the look on the guards' faces. Just as, each time he returned to Paris, whether by road or by train, his heart would sink when he arrived, without quite knowing how, at those first houses of the outskirts, lacking any frontier of trees or water and which, like an ill-fated cancer, reached out its

  ganglions of poverty and ugliness to absorb this foreign body and take him to the center of the city, where a splendid stage set would sometimes make him forget the forest of concrete and steel that imprisoned him day and night and invaded even his insomnia. But he had escaped, he could breathe, on the giant back of the sea he was breathing in waves, rocked by the great sun, at last he could sleep and he could come back to the childhood from which he had never recovered, to the secret of the light, of the warm poverty that had enabled him to survive and to overcome everything. That fragmented reflection on the copper of the porthole, now almost motionless, came from the same sun that pressed with all its weight on the shutters of the dark room where the grandmother was sleeping and plunged a very slender sword into the darkness through the one opening that a sprung knot had left in the butt-strap of the shutters. The flies were missing, it was not they who were peopling and nourishing his reverie; there are no flies at sea, and besides they were dead, those flies the child had loved because they were noisy, the only living beings in that world chloroformed by the heat, and all the men and animals were lying inert on their flanks—except himself, it's true; he was turning over on the bed in the narrow space left to him between the wall and his grandmother, and he wanted also to live, and it seemed to him that the time for sleep was being subtracted from his time for living and playing. His playmates were waiting for him, that was certain, in rue Prevost-Paradol, with its small gardens that in the evening smelled of damp from their watering and of the honeysuckle that

  grew everywhere, whether or not it was watered. As soon as his grandmother awakened, he would dash out, down to the rue de Lyon, still deserted under its ficus trees, run as far as the fountain at the corner of Prevost-Paradol, quickly turn the cast-iron crank at the top of the fountain, putting his head under the faucet to receive the gushing stream that would fill his nostrils and his ears, run down the open neck of his shirt to his belly and down his legs under his shorts to his sandals. Then, happily feeling the water foam between his feet and the leather of the soles, he would run breathlessly to join Pierrea and the others who were sitting at the hall entrance of the only two-story house on the street, sharpening the cigar-shaped piece of wood they would soon be using to play canette vinga1 with the blue wooden racquet.

  As soon as they were all there, they went off, scraping the racquet along the rusty garden fences in front of the houses, which made enough noise to awaken the neighborhood and make the cats jump out of their sleep under the dusty wisteria. They ran, crossing the street, trying to catch each other, already covered with sweat, but always in the same direction, toward the "green field" not far from their school, four or five blocks away. But there was an obligatory stop at what was

  a. His friend Pierre was also the son of a war widow, who worked in the post office.

  1. See the author's explanation below.

  known as the waterspout, an enormous round fountain on two levels in a rather large square, where the water never ran, but the basin, long since clogged up, would on occasion be filled to the brim by the country's torrential rains. Then the water, covered with old moss, melon rinds, orange peels, and all sorts of refuse, would stagnate until the sun sucked it up or the municipal authorities roused themselves and decided to pump it out, and a filthy dry cracking sludge remained for a long time at the bottom of the basin, waiting till the sun, pursuing its efforts, reduced it to dust and the wind or the brooms of the street sweepers blew it onto the shiny leaves of the ficus that surrounded the square. In summer, at any rate, the basin was dry, and its broad edge of shiny dark stone, made slippery by thousands of hands and trouser bottoms, was available to Jacques, Pierre, and the others to play at jousting, swiveling in their seats until the inevitable fall hurled them into the shallow basin that smelled of urine and sun.

  Then, still running, through the heat and the dust that covered their feet and their sandals with a single gray layer, they dashed on to the green field. It was a vacant lot behind a cooperage, where among rusted hoops and old rotting barrel bottoms bunches of anemic grass sprouted between patches of chalky tuff. There amidst loud cries they would draw a circle in the tuff. One of them would take up a position in the circle, racquet in hand, and the others would take turns hurling the wooden cigar into the circle. If the cigar landed in the circle, the thrower took the racquet, and then he de-

  fended the circle. The more skillful among thema would hit the cigar on the fly and drive it far away. In that case they had the right to go where it had landed, make the cigar jump in the air by hitting its end with the edge of the racquet, then drive it still farther, and so on until either they missed their swing or the others caught it on the fly, and they hurried back again to defend the circle from the cigar hurled quickly and expertly by the opponent. This poor man's tennis, which had a few more complex rules, would take up the whole afternoon. Pierre was the best player. He was thinner than Jacques, and smaller, almost frail; his hair was as much blond as brown hanging down to his eyebrows beneath which his blue eyes were direct and vulnerable, a bit hurt, astonished; though clumsy in his manner, in action he was sure and accurate. As for Jacques, he would make impossible parries and miss routine backhands. Because of the former, and the successes that caused his comrades to admire him, he thought he was the best player and often bragged about it. In fact, Pierre beat him all the time and never said a word. But after the game he would straighten up to his full height and smile to himself while he listened to the others.b

  When either the weather or their mood did not lend itself to running around the streets and vacant lots, they would first gather in the hall of Jacques's house. From

  a. put the skillful defender in the singular.

  b. The green field was where the donnades took place. [Fights between boys that followed a strict ritual. See pp. 153—54—Trans.]

  there they went out the back door and down into a small yard enclosed on three sides by the walls of houses. On the fourth side a big orange tree stretched its branches over a garden wall; when it was in flower, its scent rose alongside the wretched houses, drifting through the hall or down a small stone stairs to the yard. Along one side and half of another a small L-shaped building housed the Spanish barber whose shop was on the street, and an Arab householda where on some evenings the wife would be roasting coffee in the yard. On the third side, the tenants kept hens up in high dilapidated coops made of wood and wire screening. Finally, on the
fourth side, the black maws of the building's cellars gaped on either side of the stairs: caverns without exit or lighting, cut into the earth itself, without any partitions, sweating with humidity, reached by four steps covered with green mold, where the tenants piled at random their surplus possessions, that is, almost nothing: old sacks were rotting there, scraps of chests, rusty old washbasins with holes in them, things you find lying around vacant lots that even the poorest have no use for. It was there, in one of those cellars, that the children would gather. Jean and Joseph, the two sons of the Spanish barber, were in the habit of playing there. Since it was at the door to their hovel, the cellar was their own territory. Joseph, plump and mischievous, was always laughing and would give away everything he had. The short and thin

  a. Omar is the son of this couple—the father is a city street sweeper.

  Jean was forever picking up even the smallest nail or screw that he found, and he was particularly stingy with his marbles and with the apricot pits that were necessary for one of their favorite games.a You could not imagine more opposite types than these inseparable brothers. With Pierre, Jacques, and Max, the last of the accomplices, they would plunge into the humid stinking cellar. They would take torn sacks that were rotting on the ground and, after ridding them of the gray cockroaches with jointed shells that they called guinea pigs, they would stretch them over rusty iron uprights. And under this vile tent, in their own place at last (when none of them had ever had a room or even a bed he could call his own), they would light a little fire that, confined in that damp air, would die out in smoke and drive them out of their den until they covered it over with some damp earth they had scraped up from the yard itself. Then they would share, not without an argument from little Jean, the big mint-flavored caramels, the dried and salted peanuts and chick-peas, the salted lupine seeds called "tramousses," and the barley sugar that came in loud colors, sold by the Arabs who displayed their wares in front of the nearby movie theatre on a fly-besieged stand made by mounting a plain wooden box on rollers. On days when it rained heavily, the excess water would

  a. You put one pit on top of a tripod of three other pits. Someone tries to knock this structure down by throwing another pit at it from a given distance. If he succeeds, he picks up the four pits. If he misses, his pit belongs to the owner of the pile.

  run off the saturated yard and flood the cellars, and the children, standing on old boxes, would play Robinson Crusoe far from the open sky and the sea breezes, triumphant in their kingdom of poverty.a

  But the best* days were those in summer when, under one pretext or another, the boys managed by a clever lie to escape the siesta. Then, since they never had money for the trolley, they would walk the long way to the experimental garden, through a succession of the neighborhood's yellow-and-gray streets, crossing the district of the stables, the big coachhouses belonging to businesses or individuals who supplied the regions of the interior with their horse-drawn trucks, then passing alongside big sliding doors behind which they heard the horses stamping, the sudden snorts that would make the animals' lips smack, the sound of the metal chains used as halters hitting against the wood of the manger, while the boys breathed with delight the odors of manure, of straw, and of sweat that came from these forbidden places that Jacques would still be dreaming about while he went to sleep. They lingered in front of an open stable where the horses were being groomed, heavyset big-hoofed animals that came from France; they were beaten down by the heat and the flies, and their eyes were those of exiles. Then, chased away by the teamsters, the children ran on to the huge garden where the rarest of species were raised. There, on the broad walk

  a. Galoufa. * biggest.

  that led past a great vista of pools and flowers to the sea, they were under the suspicious eyes of the guards, and they affected the manner of casual, worldly strollers. But at the first transverse path, they would head toward the eastern part of the garden, through rows of enormous mangroves so dense that in their shade it seemed almost night, then past the big rubber treesa where you could not tell the drooping branches from their multiple roots, which grew from the first branches to reach the ground; and still farther, to the real objective of their expedition, the big palms that bore at their tops tightly packed bunches of round orange fruits that they called "cocoses." Once there, they first had to reconnoiter in all directions to make sure no guards were nearby. Then began the search for ammunition—that is, stones. When they had all returned with their pockets full, they took turns firing stones at the bunches of fruit swaying gently in the sky above all the other trees. Each stone that struck home knocked down a few fruits, which belonged to the winning marksman. The others had to wait till he had picked up his loot before they fired in their turn. Jacques, who had a good arm, equaled Pierre at this game. But they both shared their booty with those who were less successful. The worst among them at this game was Max, who wore glasses and had poor eyesight. He was squat and solidly built, and the boys had respected him ever since the day they saw him fight. The others, and especially Jacques, who could not con-

  a. give the name of the trees.

  trol his violent temper, were in the habit during their frequent street fights of hurling themselves at the adversary in an attempt to inflict as much pain as quickly as possible, even at the risk of being hit hard in return. But when Max, whose name sounded German, was called a dirty Hun by the butcher's fat son, nicknamed "Gigot," he calmly removed his glasses, which he entrusted to Joseph, took up the boxer's stance they had seen pictured in the newspapers, and invited the other boy to repeat his insult. Then, not seeming to raise a sweat, he dodged each attack by Gigot, hit him several times without being even touched in return, and finally, the supreme glory, he gave Gigot a black eye. Since that day, Max's popularity in the little group had been assured. Now, with their hands and pockets sticky with fruit, they hurried out of the garden toward the sea, and once they were outside the boundary, they ate the cocoses stacked on their dirty handkerchiefs, chewing delightedly on fibrous berries that were nauseatingly sweet and rich, yet as light and savory as victory. Then they scurried off to the beach.

  To get there they had to cross what was called the sheep's trail, because in fact flocks of sheep often traveled it to or from the Maison-Carree market, east of Algiers. Actually it was a lateral road that divided the sea from the city spread out on its hills like the arc of an amphitheatre. Between the road and the sea lay factories, brickyards, and a gasworks separated by stretches of sand covered with patches of clay or lime dust where scraps of iron and wood were turning white. You crossed this barren land to reach the Sablettes beach. Its

  sand was somewhat dirty, and the water in the first waves was not always clear. To the right, the public baths offered cabins, and its hall, a big wooden box on pilings, was available for dancing on holidays. Every day, during the season, a french-fries peddler would start up his stove. Seldom did the little group have even the price of a single paper cornet of fried potatoes. If by chance one of them had the required coin,a he would buy his twist, march solemnly to the beach, followed respectfully by the retinue of his comrades, and, in the shade of an old derelict barge by the sea, he would set his feet in the sand and drop to a sitting position while holding his twist vertical in one hand and covered with the other, to make sure he did not lose a single one of the crusty fries. The custom was that he would then give his comrades one fry apiece, and they would reverently savor the single tidbit, hot and smelling of strong oil, that he permitted them. They would watch while the favored boy gravely relished the remaining fries one by one. There were always crumbs left at the bottom of the paper twist, which they would implore the glutted owner to share. Most of the time, unless it was Jean, he would unfold the oily paper, spread out the potato crumbs, and authorize them to take a single crumb each. All it took then was an eenie, meenie, minie, moe to decide who would go first and thus get the biggest crumb. When their feast was over, both pleasure and frustration immediately forgotten, they wou
ld race under the harsh

  a. 2 sous

  sun toward the western end of the beach, until they came to a half-destroyed masonry structure that must have been the foundation for a now vanished bungalow, behind which they could undress. In a few seconds they were naked, a moment later in the water, swimming with clumsy vigor, shouting,a drooling and spitting, daring each other to dive or vying as to who could stay underwater the longest. The sea was gentle and warm, the sun fell lightly on their soaked heads, and the glory of the light filled their young bodies with a joy that made them cry out incessantly. They reigned over life and over the sea, and, like nobles certain that their riches were limitless, they heedlessly consumed the most gorgeous of this world's offerings.

  They forgot the time as they ran back and forth between beach and sea, drying the salt water that made them sticky while they were on the sand, then in the water washing off the sand that clothed them in gray. They ran on and on, and the swifts with their quick cries were beginning to fly lower over the factories and the beach. The sky, emptied of the hot haze of the day, became clearer, then turned greenish, the light slackened, and on the other side of the bay, till now enveloped in a sort of fog, the sweep of houses and the city became more distinct. It was still day, but already lamps were being lit in preparation for Africa's brief twilight. Pierre was usually the first to sound the alarm: "It's