You Changed My Life Read Free

our apartment, which doubled as my parents’ bedroom since we arrived, my brother and I took up all the space, two princes in bell-bottoms and high-collared shirts. On the black-and-white TV screen, a little puny bald guy shook with anger because he couldn’t catch Fantômas. In another show, he danced on the rue des Rosiers dressed up as a rabbi. I had absolutely no idea what a rabbi was or what the irony of his situation was, but I still loved the show. The two adults watched their new children laughing in loud spurts. That
made them much happier than Louis de Funès’s gags and funny faces did. Back in that same time, Jean-Paul Belmondo was running across rooftops in a white suit. He thought he was “ Le magnifique ”—I thought he was nuts. I much preferred Sean Connery in his gray turtleneck. At least his hair never got messed up—he’d pull amazing gadgets from his pockets that got him out of every sticky situation and with exemplary discretion. James Bond was true class. Spread out on the Oriental couch, I savored each and every moment without worrying about the next one and never thinking about the past. Life was as easy as 1-2-3.

    In Paris, as in Algiers, my name has stayed the same: Abdel Yamine. In Arabic, the root abd means “to revere” and el means “the.” Revere the Yamine. I nibbled on dates, and Amina picked up the pits.

2
    Giving children to a brother or sister who doesn’t have any was—and still is—common practice in African cultures, whether they’re black or North African. In those families, you’re born to a father and mother, of course, but you easily become the child of the entire family, and the family is big. When you decide to give away a son or daughter, you don’t really ask yourself whether or not they’ll suffer. For the child and adult alike, changing parents is supposed to be something that is simple, natural. There’s nothing to discuss, no reason to whine. African people cut the umbilical cord earlier than Europeans do. As soon as we learn to walk, we dive into the unknown and go see what’s happening elsewhere. We don’t waste time hiding in our mothers’ skirts. And if she says so, we adopt another kid.
    There must have been two or three undershirts included in the package, but the instructions on how to educate us weren’t included. How do you raise kids, talk to them? What
do you let them do and what do you forbid them to do? Belkacem and Amina had no idea. So they tried to imitate other Parisian families. What did those people do on a Sunday afternoon back in the seventies, just like they do today? They go walking in the Tuileries gardens. So at the age of five, I walked across the Pont des Arts to hang on to the sides of a murky fountain. A few carp struggled miserably in that two-foot deep swamp—I’d see them come to the surface, open their mouths to suck in some air, and then go right back in for another trip around their bathtub. We rented a little wooden sailboat that I pushed toward the center with a pole. Carried by the current, and provided the wind was blowing in the right direction, the boat could reach the other side of the fountain in just ten seconds. I took off in the direction of the estimated destination, maneuvered the ship’s bow, and launched the sailboat again with gusto. From time to time, I looked up and marveled. A gigantic stone arch towered over the garden entrance.
    â€œWhat is that thing, papa?”
    â€œUh . . . a very old door.”
    A door that served no purpose since there was no wall or anything on either side of it. Beyond the garden, I could see enormous buildings.
    â€œPapa, what is that?”
    â€œThe Louvre, son.”
    The Louvre . . . that’s as much information as I got. I figured you obviously had to be very rich to live in a house so vast and beautiful with such large windows and statues hanging from its façade.