You Changed My Life Read Free Page A

The garden was as big as all the stadiums in Africa put together. Scattered throughout the alleys and on the lawns were tens of petrified men staring at us from on top of
their pedestals. They all wore coats and had long, curly hair. I wondered how long they’d been there. Then I went back to my business. With no wind, my boat might get stuck in the middle of the fountain. So I had to convince the other sailors to assemble and launch a fleet so as to create a current and free my vessel. Sometimes Belkacem ended up rolling up his pant legs.
    When the weather was really nice, Amina made a picnic and we went to eat on the lawn of the Champs-de-Mars. In the afternoon, the parents laid on blankets. The kids quickly formed groups and started a game of ball. I didn’t have enough vocabulary at first and so went unnoticed. I was very nice and well behaved. No different, in appearances, from the little French kids in velvet shorts and suspenders. In the evening, just like them, we went home completely worn out. But no one refused to let my brother and me watch the celebrated Sunday night movie. Westerns kept us awake more easily than the others, but we didn’t make it to the end very often. Belkacem carried us to our bed one after the other. For love and devotion, you don’t need instructions.

    In Algiers, my father went to work wearing cotton slacks and a suit jacket. He wore a short-sleeved button-down shirt and tie and polished his leather shoes every night. I guessed that he must have had an intellectual job that didn’t get him dirty, but I didn’t know which one and I didn’t ask: I truly didn’t care what he did. In Paris, my father put on a blue jumpsuit, and a heavy cap on his bald head, every morning. As an electrician, he never experienced unemployment. There was always work, he was often tired, he didn’t complain—he joined the daily
grind. In both Algiers and Paris, my mother stayed at home to take care of the cooking, the cleaning and, theoretically, the children. But having never set foot in a typical French household, Amina was at a loss to imitate anyone at all. So she opted for doing what they do in her native country: she made us delicious meals and left the door wide open. I didn’t ask for permission to go outside, and she wouldn’t have thought of demanding any explanations. With Arabs, unsupervised freedom is granted without restrictions.

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    There’s a statue in my new neighborhood. The same exact one as in New York—I saw it on television. Okay, so maybe it’s a little smaller, but anyway I’m six, I’m tiny, so to me it’s enormous. It’s a woman, standing, wearing only a sheet, she’s lifting a flame to the sky and she’s got a strange crown of thorns on her head. I now live in project housing in the XVth district. No more cramped apartment in old, boring central Paris—we’re now citizens of Beaugrenelle, a brand-new district bristling with high-rises just like in America! The Sellou family has acquired a first-floor apartment in a seven-story building with no elevator, made of that red brick they call pierre de Paris . Life here is like in any other project in Saint-Denis, Montfermeil, or Créteil. Except we have a view of the Eiffel Tower. And by the way, I consider myself to be from the suburbs.
    At the base of the tower, they built us an enormous shopping center with everything you need inside—you just have to
go down and serve yourself. I don’t think I can say it enough: everyone bends over backward to make my life easier.

    At the checkout in Prisunic, just within the reach of my little hand, are little plastic bags. And just next to that are shelves stuffed with all kinds of things and candies. I love the Pez candy dispensers, a kind of lighter topped with a plastic head: you push on the lever, the square piece of sugar comes up, and all you have to do is slide it onto your tongue. I quickly get