Solea Read Free Page B

Vieux-Port and along the Corniche—the most direct route to Les Goudes, where I lived—I’d turned onto the narrow Rue Curiol, at the end of the Canebière. The Bar des Maraîchers was right at the top of the street, near Place Jean Jaurès.
    It felt good to be in Hassan’s bar. There were no barriers of age, sex, color or class among the regulars there. We were all friends. You could be sure no one who came there for a
pastis
voted for the National Front, or ever had. Not even once, unlike some people I knew. Everyone in this bar knew why they were from Marseilles and not somewhere else, why they lived in Marseilles and not somewhere else. Friendship hung in the air, along with the fumes of anise. We only had to exchange glances to know we were all the children of exiles. There was something reassuring about that. We had nothing to lose, because we’d already lost everything.
    When I came in, Léo Ferré was singing:
    Â 
    I sense the arrival
    of trains full of Brownings,
    Berettas and black flowers
    And florists preparing bloodbaths
    For the news on color TV . . .
    Â 
    I’d had a
pastis
at the bar, and Hassan had refilled it, as usual. After that, I’d lost count of how many
pastis
I had. At one point, maybe when I was on my fourth, Hassan had leaned towards me.
    â€œDon’t you think working class people are a bit clumsy?”
    It wasn’t a question. It was just an observation. A statement. Hassan wasn’t the talkative type. But he liked to come out with little phrases like that to whoever was at the bar. Like a maxim to be pondered.
    â€œWhat am I supposed to say to that?” I’d replied.
    â€œNothing. There’s nothing to say. We do what we can. That’s all. Come on, finish your drink.”
    The bar had gradually filled up, sending the temperature several degrees higher. Some people went outside to drink, but it wasn’t much better there. Night had fallen, but there still wasn’t a hint of coolness. The mugginess was overwhelming.
    Â 
    I’d gone out on the sidewalk to talk with Didier Perez. He’d come in to Hassan’s and as soon as he saw me had come straight up to me.
    â€œJust the man I wanted to see.”
    â€œYou’re in luck. I was planning to go fishing.”
    â€œShall we go outside?”
    It was Hassan who’d introduced me to Perez one night. Perez was a painter. Fascinated by the magic of signs. We were the same age. His parents, originally from Almeria, had emigrated to Algeria after Franco’s victory. That’s where he was born. When Algeria became independent, none of the family had to think about what their nationality was. They would be Algerians.
    Perez had left Algiers in 1993. A teacher at the School of Fine Arts, he was also one of the leaders of the Federation of Algerian Artists, Intellectuals and Scientists. When the death threats became more specific, his friends advised him to go away for a while. He’d been in Marseilles barely a week when he learned that the principal and his son had been murdered inside the school. He decided to stay in Marseilles, with his wife and children.
    The thing that had immediately drawn me to him was his passion for the Tuareg. I didn’t know the desert, but I knew the sea. To me, they were the same. We’d talked a lot about that. About the earth and the sea, the dust and the stars. One evening, he gave me a delicately moulded ring.
    â€œIt’s from over there. The combination of points and lines is called the
Khaten
. It tells you what’s going to happen to those you love who’ve gone away, and also what’s going to happen to you in the future.” Perez had placed the ring in the palm of my hand.
    â€œI think I’d rather not know.”
    He had laughed. “Don’t worry, Fabio. You have to know how to read the signs. The
Khat al R’mel
. Whatever it is, it’s not going to happen in a hurry! But if