Belkacem Meghzouchene Sophia in the White City
SOPHIA IN THE WHITE CITY
-Novel-
BELKACEM MEGHZOUCHENE
1 Belkacem Meghzouchene Sophia in the White City
CHAPTER 1
The Philips 160’s alarm clock on the night table went off at six a.m. Ramice reached lazily, eyes and lips gummy, to the mobile phone’s Oriental ring tone to cut it short. The warmth of his single-bed had always been spoiled by his accustomed time of awakening since he had hired this three-roomed-plus-kitchen apartment in a nine-storey building. He shifted from the right- side position of sleep to the back one, pillowing his two hands, staring at the dimly lit chalky ceiling. He realized how little he had slept. The last night’s final touches to the October week- four issue of his recently launched Hebdo-Sciences made him burn the midnight candle and he had thus turned in five hours ago. Ramice finally resolved to jump out of bed. He switched on the light, and then went out of the bedchamber with his green slippers to ease himself. By six-thirty he had washed himself, combed his black short hair, put on his classic pants and dark- cyan shirt and brown leather shoes. He made himself white
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coffee and sipped it with yesterday’s crescent roll he would buy from Votre Boulangerie, located down the opposite building. The stillness of this apartment began to bother him as the days went by. It had been six months since he had moved in. At first, he had apprehension to live in this eastern suburb of Algiers. Rumors had it that outskirts of Algiers were formidable sanctuaries of burglars, drug-dealers, unscrupulous goons, rapists, and the likes; a far cry from people leading a life of Riley in the highly-policed, luxurious residences of the heights of Algiers. After the washing-up, Ramice headed back to the sleeping- room to tidy up his bed so meticulously that it reminded him of the military service’s eighteen months he had gone through, when discipline implied such ritual things. A good reflex, he thought. He pushed the two pale blue curtains of the living-room’s wide window apart to let feeble light seeping into from the outside. Cacophony of building up noises started to break the silence of post-dawn; as per usual, kids on the verge of joining schools and grown-ups their work nests. It was Sunday, a day of work in Algeria. Thursday and Friday stand for the country’s week-end, as a matter of fact. From Saturday through to Wednesday, Algerians who work should, in theory, clock in at eight a.m. and clock off at sixteen for some or seventeen for the others. Ramice got used to abiding by this range of hours and days of work even though he worked for his own business: an editor-in- chief of French-language weekly science on-line magazine, Hebdo-Sciences. Besides, Ramice had been running a cybercafé, established part by the sweat of his brow and part following a bank credit allotted in the realms of state’s financial aids chipped in to unemployed, newly graduated youth. But the hard truth was that one must have gone through the teeth and fangs of awful bureaucratic meanders to make things struck. Connections mattered too much. A vitality in Algeria. And Ramice was not an exception to eke out his own living. Damn it.
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He gazed at his wrist-watch.: seven-twenty; time to go out for work. He donned his leather black jacket, tucked in the brown book bag all his stuff: diskettes, CDs, printouts, wallet, mobile phone, agenda, and copies of previous Hebdo-Sciences issues. A last glance at the wall-hooked rectangular mirror recalled him of his two-day beard. Not a worrisome aspect for Ramice. He picked up the keys, put out the light, checked city gas was closed, and then came from his fourth-floor apartment down out of the building. The stairway was sombre, for pinhead adaptors, lamps and switches, had been disembowelled and purloined by, without any doubt, loots of this same building. Damn it. As to the elevator, its outcome dated back as far as the Big Bang era. Algerians would rather sweat by taking the stairs than appreciating modern convenience. A chill waft of air hit Ramice’s face. He zipped his jacket. Along the way to the makeshift bus stop, he greeted the few people he had so far made acquaintance with; mainly residents of the same building as his. Fish bootleggers had already squatted the sidewalks, along with ambulatory sellers of vegetables and spices. And, of course, vendors of bananas. There were times, when this yellow- skinned fruit was as far away from Algerians as exoplanets were. All of sudden, at the turn of the twenty-first century, ships of bananas sailed into Algiers Port. And bananas’ peels had ever since been pervading every inch of territory! Sarcastically speaking, the more Algerians ate bananas, the more slippery their paths would to be! Ramice, after waiting five minutes, felt relieved when he saw the Isuzu bus pulling in by the dozens of impatient, moody passengers. They all got in, stacked like sardines in the aisle, because the twenty-two seats had all been occupied. The bus conductor, a lanky man of thirty, fought his way to get paid by the passengers aboard.
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The bus inched toward the terminus, due to the morning snarl- up before eight; anyway, everybody got accustomed to these tortures of days of work. Ramice pushed back to the rear door as he would go down in the next bus spot: Cinq-Maisons. The bus pulled up, the engine all roaring, people went out, and others in. Then the bus drove off for another struggle of traffic jam. A trail of emitted smoke blurred the cars behind. Ramice, bag held by his right hand, wormed himself onto the core of Cinq-Maisons, where his business was set up in the ground floor of a six-storey building. He arrived at eight-fifteen, as usual. “Good morning, sir,” said Nabil, who had opened the cybercafé before his boss showed up. Actually, the 25-year-old Nabil lived just in the neighborhoods of Cinq-Maisons: Tamares. “Have you connected the PCs to Internet?” Ramice asked. “Not yet, sir. It’ll be operating within a few minutes.” The woman in charge of Desktop Publishing (DTP) and his three aides must have been caught in traffic jam, Ramice thought. He seated himself by his two-computer, glossy desk. Ramice powered the two PCs. Meanwhile, he emptied his bag on the already crammed desk: a pail of pens; a pile of national newspapers in Arabic and French; some issues of Scientific American, Science & Vie, Science, Nature, La Recherche, Jeune Afrique, to name a few; letterheads; a 2006 calendar; an ink eraser, a date marker and a stamp pad. Ramice was flipping through the pages of Nature as the other four members crowded in his office. The four exchanged handshakes with Ramice. “Sit down, please,” Ramice said, all smiling. Ramice’s bureau was separated from the room that contained the twenty Internet-fed PCs with a thin wall of glass. From where he was, he could see the customers coming in and out.
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Nabil, a tall man with short brown hair, had been ascribed the task of holding this side business of Ramice since he had launched his science journal, aiming at generalizing the cutting- edge scientific breakthroughs and developments to the rank and the file. “Nasreen,” Ramice addressing her as she was charged of DTP and web-design of the e-magazine, “you’ll have a lot of work today to make sure this week’s web issue come out at the latest by tomorrow. ” “I know that. All the articles Samir, Adel and Linda handed me out in diskettes have undergone DTP. It remains to treat your week’s editorial, and the latest news all of you could have assembled,” head-scarfed Nasreen responded. Stacking his forearms on the desk, Ramice said, “As for the editorial in question, I finished it off the last night.” “I’ll process it, then,” Nasreen said. “And you, Samir?” Ramice asked. “All’s right for the ARCHEOLOGY & ANTHROPOLOGY section. Latest news have been edited and they’re in the DTP stage,” Samir pointed out. Adel was caressing his thin black moustache, as Ramice spoke to him. “The PHYSICS & ASTRONOMY & CHEMISTRY topics,” Adel explained, “were updated yesterday, and Nasreen fulfilled the linked DTP as well.” Ramice seemed satisfied with the work done by his collaborators to a high degree. Linda, also, told Ramice that the LIFE SCIENCES & MEDICINE section was ready to be published on-line. Nasreen was tickled pink this morning, Ramice noticed. Perhaps, one man had asked for her hand in marriage, ending therefore her 27-year single-hood, he conjectured.
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“Well, I’m glad that everybody did perfect work to move forward our fledgling magazine,” Ramice ended his morning’s meeting as saying.
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Nasreen chose an Internet-connected computer and plunged into her assigned piece of work pertaining to the DTP that she now got used to handling for this fourth issue of Hebdo-Sciences. The white-complexioned visage of Nasreen lively translated her not-to-be-ignored high spirits she had displayed this morning, diametrical to the frame of mind she had been dragging since 10 November 2002’s Bab al-Wad floods that bereaved her father at the age of 51. “Things OK, Nasreen?” Ramice said, as he drew near her. “Yes. You can say that. In a couple of hours the issue will be ready to be put on the web,” she assured him with a soft voice. Ramice hesitated, then he tempted to ask. “You look happier this morn. How come? ” The abruptness of his question took her abreast, for rarely did he dare bring up such personal queries. She turned scarlet as a plump tomato.“I got engaged. The wedding’s scheduled for next summer,” she informed him, redness still ran from her right ear to left ear and her gaze down on the keyboard as a manifestation of feminine shyness. “You’ll be invited, naturally.” “Thanks. That’s really kinda you. My congratulations in advance. Hope you merry life and many children! ” Nasreen could not choke her tears back. She surely remembered her drowned father, Ramice thought. “Take it easy, Nasreen,” he consoled her as saying. Then added, “In case you need anything, I’ll do my best to help you unburden your problems.”
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“Sure,” she said, in a word. “Well, I’ll be in my desk. Should you finish the job, warn me, please,” he said, before moving back to his glass-in bureau. Ramice slouched down on his upholstered armchair. From the vitreous fence, he could cast the eyes on his working four- member staff. Moreover, he saw Internet clients surfing through the magic World Wide Web. Now, he was checking his electronic mails in Gmail. A message attracted his attention. A message from Germany.Signed: Sophia. A woman living in Berlin he had known by FORUM DEUTSCH. Ramice was a mad of foreign languages; a polyglot. It had been ten months since he and Sophia had known each other by this forum. The body of the message he read made him a bit upset and emotional. Things were going to change. Fundamentally.
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The night set about folding out its dusky veil on Algiers as the sun sank down beyond the sea horizon. The glimmering lights of buildings, houses, lampposts and cars, challenged hopelessly the darkness of night. Ramice was still behind his computer, writing and reading and clicking and double clicking. And yawning. Nabil managed to deal with nocturnal Internet surfers who rushed in by scores after day work or study, predominantly youngsters who, short of unyielding visas, would look up and down the Internet chatting portals in hope of a winning bargain. And the opportunity most people used to call bargain was, in so many words, making acquaintance of overseas women as men were interestingly concerned. In the wake of US 9/11 attacks, Paris and Madrid and London blowups, consulates had cracked down on visa procedures. A stumbling block for Algerians having the hots for magnetic North Hemisphere. And as Algeria was licking its wounds of still-daggering terrorism, Algerians’
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image abroad could not be kept apart from all the blood they might spill on the Western World’s stereotyped and freewheeling way of life. Gossips went that Algerian hombres welcomed all women in a thinkable arranged wedlock: viragos, maenads, B-girls, vampers, debs, grass widows, dominatrix, jezebels, shemales, dykes, and even gravidas. The color of the skin as well as the age did not matter as long as the coveted women lived in Europe or the Americas. Those stratagems had well gone places for the first waves of abroad-dreaming Algerian men. Afterwards, things got really uphill in a world of escalating global terror. And the situation in which Ramice found himself was somehow anticlockwise. Sophia was arriving tomorrow, Monday. She would join her father, representing Wissen Verlag, the book house for which he worked, at the Algiers International Bookfair, set to kick off the day of her arrival. In her e-mail, she had asked Ramice to pick her up at the airport as her father would be all busy with toil of taking care of the German stand he was heading and publicizing. Ramice had been denied a stand by the organizers of the book show for unconvincing reasons, if any. He would, he bitterly thought, miss a factual prospect to promulgate his nascent on- line weekly science magazine. And more essentially, Ramice would let slip out from hands his long-sought objective of drumming up the quintessential funds to go into a printed edition of Hebdo-Sciences. Damn it, he thought again. He could never forget the man who had taken pains to bring him around of the rationale of rebuffing Hebdo-Sciences’ bid to have even a tiny, neglectful space. Next time, we’ll do our best to meet your demand. I’m really sorry, sir. If you had booked earlier― Ramice stopped recalling the harsh and dubious arguments. A one sandwich short of a picnic bureaucrat, Ramice thought. To book earlier? What’s for? Ramice could not help suggesting the meaning of that. He was well aware what all that jazz meant: to book earlier supposed to bribe at the earliest.
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It was seven p.m. Ramice felt a bit pooped. Linda, Nasreen, Samir and Adel, had all gone home by seventeen-thirty. Ramice decided to call it a day, and logged off the two PCs with which he had been working. He was greatly content with the painstaking job Nasreen had done about the new issued Hebdo- Sciences. The fourth one, in fact. He took up his bag, slipped his jacket on, and asked Nabil if all was right. “It was a good day, sir,” Nabil said, signs of tiredness clearly manifested by his dozy, bleary brow eyes. “By the way, tomorrow I’m not coming till the afternoon. Personal mission. Tell the others to call me if necessary,” Ramice said. “Sure.” “In a couple of days, I’ll get another person on the job for helping you by nights.” “You’re the chief, sir.” “You’ll feel better, Nabil. I promise you.” “Thanks, sir.” “What’s more, get my true greetings through to your family.” “I’ll do, sir. That’s kinda you. I always say to my parents you’re a too-generous and affable man. ” “I recognize your efficiency, Nabil.” Nabil was wreathed in smiles as he heard Ramice’s gentle compliments. “Goodbye, Nabil. Take care of yourself. Don’t hesitate to close if you feel wearied. Okay? ” “I get it, sir. ” A bleak see-breeze blasted Ramice’s silhouette as he opened one side of the aluminium-framed glassy door. The October last days’ beginning shivers foretold the frostiness of closing in on winter. Nonetheless, the perils of persistent, awe-inspiring
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terrorism dwarfed the bites of weather, Ramice, as all Algerians, thought. Ramice knew that at this time of night, both corporate and public transport was scarce, if not vanished. He was thus compelled, as usual, to settle with a hole-and-corner taxi. A better fluid nocturnal car traffic got him out if balmy Cinq- Maisons bound for his quarters in just twenty minutes. The white-smoke 504 pulled up at the makeshift parking lot in front of the nine-storey-high building where he had his rental apartment. Ramice went down, and slammed shut the door beside the thirtysomething hush-hush cabby. He paid him by extending his arm above the half-down window. The car backed up, rear tires shrieking, turned left before being engulfed by darkness as the car’s front yellowish lights combed the potholed blacktop ahead of its way. Ramice bought two crescent rolls at Votre Boulangerie. Over the six months, he had naturally and sociably palled up with Saïd, the quinquagenarian baker of the quarter. Particularly, Ramice appreciated the good flavoutsomeness of cakes and bread Saïd had made during past Ramadan, which had ended a week before. Ramice and Saïd wished each other good night, then he stepped out of the bakery and went dining in a contiguous restaurant. He ate for that evening hot dish of lentils and a well- roasted chunk of chicken’s leg. Twenty-seven minutes later, he paid the check and left satiated as ever. The stairs leading up to his apartment zigzagged in utter mobster-caused obscurity. Ramice worked his way up the fourth floor like a blind, his left palm pawing along the ascending rusty banisters as he put together his counting capabilities about floors and his mobile phone’s faint bluish screen light. Someday, he would fly off the handle if things were to carry on to the worst. Lightless buildings’ stairs and corridors were the acme of offense to Thomas Alva Edison, Ramice thought, woebegone for the shabbiness of Algerian buildings. Ramice put down both bag and package bearing Votre Boulangerie between his
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fatigued feet, then fumbled about for his keys he found at last in the left interior jacket pocket. With the thirty-second-lasting hazy light of mobile phone he guided the key to its keyhole. Once he set a foot in, he locked up the door at up and down. He realized that he had omitted to put out the lobby’s lamp in the morning. He entered in the living-room, the first door at right to this apartment’s doorway, switched on the light, put the bag on the low round table, already crowded with appurtenances of his magazine business, before heading for the kitchen at the far end opposite to the entrance of the apartment. He put the wrapped crescent rolls on the plugged-off microwave oven. He opened the fridge and took out one orange as a dessert, peeled it off in a jiffy, then gorged it mouth-wateringly, feeling invigorated, his legs no longer jelly. In the living-room, Ramice zapped from one channel to another. It was nine-ten of the night. The same shocking images were being aired on news channels: Irak suicide bombings escalating ferociously as ever; Palestinian Issue and Israeli’s daily and nightly violations; Darfur dilemma; global warming woes; obstreperous Globalization; bird flu H5N1 virus spreading in four directions; shortage of drinkable water here and floods there; never-ending car accidents; species on the brink of extinction. The list was longer, if not unending, but, in a nutshell, the days seemed carbon copies of each others. Desolate twenty-first century (or third millenary) world; devoid of humanity, of altruism, of tolerance, and consequently, of orbicular peace. Ramice switched to the state-run TV to catch a running hoopla about tomorrow’s Algiers International Bookfair. That brought him back to the coming of Sophia. Yes, tomorrow at ten a.m. as she had told him by e-mail. Incredible! he thought. While his fellow men strived to go abroad and got arranged marriages in order to settle there legally in Europe or the Americas as ‘husbands’ of permanently resident wives, Ramice saw the inverse scenario taking stage for him. Was really what he hoped for? Whishy-washy. He ran his fingers through his hair as he
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chewed again Sophia’s message. What intrigued him most was her promise of a gleeful surprise, making him wondering perfunctorily. Were really left any mirthful surprises at the age of thirty? Outside, an absolute quiet reigned over this eastern outskirt of Algiers, as the wall clock of the living-room indicated ten-thirty of that slithering dome of night. Far-off scattered stars flickered while the crescent of the moon gave munificently the green light to skimpy clouds to wrap it up here and there. A celestial lovemaking? The night lethargy was in sharp contrast to the last Ramadan’s enraptured and lively nights which were keeping on till the small hours. During the nineties, every falling night connoted with incubus. Nights would reluctantly enshroud thousands of anonymous, defenseless, betrayed, killed innocent citizens, without any distinction of age and sex. Villages and hamlets: in heaps. Commoners: galore. Townspeople: countless. Natives: by scores. Foreigners: too many. John Q. Public: all were slaughtered, beheaded, dismembered, eviscerated, raped, shot down like fowl or game, and even cremated. The tombs are still fresh. And the memory, likewise. Ramice bore in his mind and soul and skin all those ignominious horrors of nineties. Algeria had been embargoed by the international community. Algerians, the buggers, let them die out for good. What hell would they do else than croaking and agonizing and moaning. NGOs? Algerians took them for UFOs, for they had been all the way of Algeria’s massacres rubbing salt in the wounds of widows and orphans by choreographing the ‘ who kills whom?’ Ramice, who witnessed all what had been afflicting his marooned country, could not hold tears back. The torrential prangs of near past overwhelmed him. Hurt him. Tsunamied him. ‘Let the well (or mass grave) with its lid,’ as the Arabic saying goes, he sorrowfully thought.
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The day breathed its twenty-third hour. Ramice stopped the boring telly programs, as his yawns were insinuating him he had better hit the sack. Early to bed, early to rise. To catch the worm? He visited the toilet for the last time, then pyjamaed himself, before sliding under top embroidered pink sheet above which was laid a dark-slate-blue blanket. Lights out, dreams in. Tomorrow another day of Sophia…
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Chapter 2
The sun’s disk drenched with its profuse pails of rays on Algiers Bay, and the seawater gleamed vividly as if an immense sheet of aluminium were rolled out over its wavering surface. It’s only five miles from Houari Boumediene International Airport to the bayfront Hilton Hotel as the crow flies; however, it elapsed almost an hour before Ramice and Sophia drove up in a yellow taxi. Traffic jam had, as always, crippled the tempo of the four tires, and the hack-driver, in his mid-forties, nearly burst a vessel as his German Mercedes ironically seemed along the itinerary no more than an advancing metallic, weighty tortoise.
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Ramice and Sophia sat on rear brown-leathered seats. He pulled down the window as the taxi’s engine jumped into life, away from the raucous airport. “I hope you’ll enjoy your fortnight,” Ramice said in German. The man behind the wheel frowned as the words were all Greek to him. “Under the auspices of your guide, Ramice,” Sophia replied, her blue eyes getting at the same time a load of the buildings, lampposts and people, which were moving backwards with respect to the taxi. Ramice switched to English and said, “It’s a great honor to hang around with you, Sophia.” The annoyed cabman believed to have heard that melody of a language somewhere, but to his disgust could not yet get a wind of the conversation breathing behind his thick, hairy neck. Hell, he muttered to his wheel desperately. Albeit the taximan had been shuffling between the airport and clients’ destinations for over nine years, he had not learned a rudiment of a foreign language; even French, let alone English or German or Esperanto. Roundabouts were an unbearable stalling spots. The cabman gestured nervously at the cars that cut in in a slapdash fashion. “Today’s roads kill more than terrorism,” he broke in, in a dialectal Arabic of Algiers. “Because driving licenses are being issued like candies. Bribes do the trick, you see. And drivers roll like hell, mistaking their elderly-bought cars for a flying TGV! ” Ramice explained, in local vernacular, not without a sarcastic accent that made the driver think he might be one of those lackadaisical chauffeurs. Meanwhile, Ramice translated to Sophia the subject brought up by the cabman, combining German and English. Ramice had command of mainly scientific German, and he needed to bone up on his German of conversation. The coming of Sophia would make things better, he thought agreeably.
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As a blue-uniformed traffic policeman came into view, the taximan hurried to cross around his chest the safety belt. He did it by the skin of his teeth, allegorically and literally. To be caught without it, would mean withdrawal of his driving license plus fines. Sophia looked dazzled. The policeman was now hundreds of yards behind. The shrewd driver removed the belt, victoriously. Sophia again, dumbfound, could not believe this Tom-and- Jerry manners of the quadragenarian man. “I don’t know what car-makers thought about when they wired vehicles with this awful stuff? Did they really theorize that belts would save a heavily banged, smashed car or a car rolling down and down till kissing the vales’ bottoms? ” the taxidriver ranted. This time Ramice refrained from translating the gobbledygook arguments to Sophia. “Say, Sophia— I’ve to confess you that I didn’t expect you cruising in Algeria,” Ramice addressed her, ignoring the driver’s boredom. “Dad rang me up and told me to come in spend some days in sunny and beautiful Algeria.” “And your work?” “Die Wissenschaft der Welt’s head said yes to my leave bid. Besides, the section of life sciences of the journal I’m assigned to could be fed by Internet from Algeria, couldn’t it? ” “Of course, you can. My Internet space is at your service. ” “Oh, that’s kind of you, Ramice.” “We’re colleagues, aren’t we?” “Natürlich.” “Birds of a feather…” Ramice began. “…flock together!” Sophia completed. “If they haven’t H5N1,” Ramice burst out laughing.
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Sophia shared his laugh, as well. The cabby got an earful of their peal of laughter on his back, discomfort swarming up from his twitching feet, ricocheted by the drumming of his fingers on the wheel. The rumble of motors was thwacking into eardrums. Sounding pollution, as environmentalists used to describe it. Sophia conspicuously clapped eyes on the range of garbage mountains, parading in respect to the wheeling-on taxi. Pollution of Algiers air made the unhealthy picture chock-a-block. And deplorable, Ramice thought pathetically. “Tell me, Sophia— what’s your first impression upon landing in?” he asked her, feeling a jot of cosy treat the fact of being close to her blondeness. “Well, to tell you the truth, it’s redolent of the visit I’d paid to nearby Tunisia for two years now.” “To Europeans, the Maghreb is all the same; geographically, historically, culturally, and politically. Due perhaps to the fact that they just visit it for a short period of time. If they were to stay longer, differences would emerge clear-cut as to Algeria, Tunisia, Morocco, Mauritania and Libya. ” Ramice commented on Sophia’s beforehand notion. “You may be right. It does add up for me. ” “The reality is somehow convoluted. Every North African country has its own History, experience, distress and way of life. Much as Western European countries’ beneath and underlying divergences, as you’re surely aware of. ” “Yes, Ramice. Every country of our Europe has its particularity, though merged in the European Union. Germany remains Germany. France remains France. Spain remains Spain. Italy remains Italy. UK remains UK. And so forth for the other state-members. What I mean when resembling Algeria to Tunisia is, that both the two countries are like two peas in a pod, I dare caricature it that way from a standpoint of tourist. I
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perfectly know that your country had put up with unrelenting terrorism. ” “And it’s going on. Do you know, the international community holds on to the cynical belief that terrorism ceased as long as just soldiers are dropping dead. Some mongrels and no-hopers beyond the Mediterranean and the Atlantic would turn a blind eye to last decade’s hecatombs of innocent Algerians. They would jibber along the way of butcheries. Daily butcheries. Until 9/11 blasted their burlesque faces out of calculated hibernation of sense of right and wrong. They realized that terrorism wasn’t Algeria-only matter. Global terror is the vocabulary they now use…” His eyes on the brink of flooding down his cheeks. Sophia consoled Ramice as she patted his left shoulder. “I’m really sorry for what happened to your country, Ramice.” Ramice and Sophia were so absorbed in the discussion that they did not realize that the taxi had pulled up over dozens of seconds earlier. “Here we are, sir,” the taximan said with a sigh of relief after the infernal traffic jam. And his ill-ease for missing the sense of talk which had been breezing behind him disappeared as payment was due in few moments. Dough, dough, dough. The cabdriver went down first, leaving his door half-opened, hasted to open the door from Sophia’s side. She thanked him with a grin as she stepped down out of her country-made car. My God, the taxi owner thought, when Sophia stood taller than his stoutness. Typically German, he thought again. Cutting his weird thoughts, he went around to the trunk to snatch out the German woman’s two suitcases. They are heavy. What do they contain? Stones of late Berlin Wall? he snickered to himself. Ramice made due payment and said thanks to the driver of the Mercedes. “Have a good day, man. And be careful when you drive! ”
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The cabman beheld for the last time the foreign lady, then installed himself behind the wheel and drove off, wishing driving Sophia alone back to the airport… It was midday when they burst in the Hilton Hotel. “Good morning, madam, sir,” the receptionist bade them a hearty welcome. “Well, my friend is from Germany. Just in,” Ramice paused to let it sink in, then continued and said, “Her father had checked in at this hotel a week earlier. He takes part at the bookfair, you see. If you can help.” “What’s his name, please?” the desk clerk asked. “Gerd Weize,” Sophia answered. The receptionist searched for the name. “Oh, yes. Gerd Weize. He booked two rooms. One he’s been occupying it, and the other’s empty. Your passport, Miss Weize. Thanks. ” “Sure.” She held it out to him. He read for himself. “Sophia Weize. Journalist. 31 years old…Okay, all’s right. Fill in this registration form, please. ” The clerk gave her the number of the room and handed her the key, called on the servant to help Miss Weize find her way to the room. And in her luggage, as well. Ramice felt relieved that his guest encountered no hurdles to check in at Hilton Hotel. “Well, Sophia, I’m glad things are A OK for you.” “I’m grateful to you, my dear friend.” “I just did my duty,” he said, out of modesty. “You told me you’ve been living in a rental apartment not far from here.” “Actually, it’s thirty minutes by car if the road is reasonably motored.” “How can I get through to you, my friend?”
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Ramice produced a pen from his jacket’s left front pocket and asked the eavesdropping receptionist for a strip of paper. “Here is my mobile phone number,” he said to Sophia as he handed her the written number. “You’ve my e-mail, as well. You can call me whenever you like. Just don’t hesitate, Sophia. ” “I’m confident in you. I’m sure my staying will be quite pretty with your comely company. ” “I’ll do my best to make your days merry, profitable and memorable.” “Prima!” “Tomorrow if you want, I’ll show you my cybercafé, holding at the same time as my modest office of Hebdo-Sciences I’ve launched. And I’ll introduce you my four-member staff. ” “Great! Is it far from the hotel? ” “No. It’s just in the vicinity of this area. ” “Okay.” She kissed him on the forehead. “Pass auf dich auf!” “Abgemacht!” Ramice promised her. Sophia went up to her room, following the steps of the factotum who carried her luggage. Ramice thanked the desk clerk and walked out of the hotel, his heart palpitating above normal cadence. Was it Sophia effect? His stomach croaked; time to take a lunch. He would be better off if shared with the blonde beauty he had chaperoned from the airport to the Hilton Hotel. Forget about it, at least for a while, Ramice thought.
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Gerd Weize knocked on the door eight times. Sophia put aside the fuchsia sheet with which she had covered herself, then rose from bed and walked somnolently toward the room’s doorway. She unlocked the door with her right hand, the left one being rubbing simultaneously her glued eyes.
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“May I disturb you?” he jested. “Dad!” Sophia cried ecstatically as she jumped to hug her father. “I so miss you, Sophia.” “Me, too, dear dad.” The hug lasted two minutes before their slipping into the room. “What’s time?” Sophia wondered. “7:45 p.m.” “Oh, my God! I slept too much. Since lunchtime. The flight made me a bit fagged. ” “And your Algerian friend?” “He was really courteous and welcoming with me.” “Indeed. Kind of him picking you up at the airport. I wanna really meet him and say him Danke. ” Gerd Weize was blue-eyed (like his daughter; hereditary background?), sandy-haired, tall and sinewy. He was 53 years old, but seemed to have ten years less. He was neatly clad: a ritzy, royal-blue suit and a red tie over an albescent Italian shirt. Sophia sat herself on the edge of the King bed, whereas her father sank in the pale-brown nearby settee. “How’s business, dad?” “Good. Today the bookfair was inaugurated. You know, it’s just a stone’s throw away from this hotel. Up there,” he said, chin-pointing toward the fair’s location with his chin. “Poor old Ramice! He told me he was in the throes of getting a piddling of a badly situated stand with an eye to advertising his trail-blazing electronic weekly scientific magazine in Algeria. Bureaucratic organizers replied him that his electronic publication wasn’t bookfair’s business. ” And Gerd Weize to say, “Third World’s most crying entanglements is bureaucracy innovative people must face up to.”
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Sophia crossed her legs. “You know, dad I found no difference between Ramice I’d known by Internet and the Ramice I’ve seen today. His keen talk about Algeria underscores his love to his homeland. He isn’t the sort of guys who would endanger their lives to cross the Mediterranean Sea and live therefore underground in Europe. ” “It’s nice to see South Hemisphere’s people working their countries so complacently. Otherwise these countries would be emptied of their brains. ” He stood up and walked toward the wide window having a garden view. He doubled up and he put hands on the windowsill. “How’s Clotilde?” Sophia clammed up for a moment. “To tell you the truth, mamma’s unwell,” she broke out, heavy-hearted. Her eyes drowned in tears Gerd Weize turned back, then came up to her and said, “I feel for you and Clotilde.” He took out his pocket-hankie and dabbed her streaming eyes, as he wrapped his right arm around her shoulders. “Divorce with your mamma was the big mistake I’ve ever made in my life.” He paused. “Dress and let’s go down for dinner,” he said. The night was now settled outside.
23 Belkacem Meghzouchene Sophia in the White City
CHAPTER 3
Ramice’s rummage through the website of his magazine was stopped short by the increasing Bolly tune of his mobile phone. He gripped it to make out that the featured number bore the dial of Algiers: 021. He clinched with his right thumb on the key on which was drawn the green phone to be in communication with the calling person. “Hello. Who’s speaking? ” Ramice asked. A female voice replied. “I’m Sophia.” “Oh, Guten Morgen, Sophia.” “I’m calling you from the hotel. And as my father is busy as a bee with the bookfair, I wonder if I can meet you. ” Ramice gleamed. “Of course. No sweat. ” “I’d like to drop in on your work place, if you mind to, naturally.” “Oh, my dear Sophia! You’re welcome. Aren’t you, after all, my guest? I’ll come pick you up in circa forty minutes. Wait me at the hotel’s entrance. Okay? ” “Right. I’m waiting for you, Ramice. ” “Sure.” “See you.” “Bis bald, Sophia.” The line went voiceless.
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It was ten in the morning. The Maritime Pines, where the bookfair was being held, was aswarm with visitors. The folks rushing in made one think of the Algerians’ propensity and eagerness to books and reading. But the plain reality was otherwise. The wide tarred aisle stretching from the entrance down on toward the blocks of exhibition were bordered with high pine trees from both sides, hence its name. Naturally, only God does know how many pines had been cut down to let concrete take over horrifically. The moving human waves looked like some those tremendous marches that had been seen in Algiers before the government decided to ban them in the wake of 14 June 2001 rally that mobilized hundreds of thousands of Algerians excoriating that year’s ‘Black Spring.’ Ramice showed up at the nearby Hilton Hotel’s entrance ahead of time; seven minutes earlier, to be precise. Not that the traffic jam was more lenient at this time of day. He simply reached the hotel by foot, for his cybercafé was in the environs. He had waded through shortcuts that furrow Cinq-Maisons. Even though some beads of sweat dribbled down from his forehead in that quite simmering last day of October, he felt cool and calm and collected the fact that he gave laggard busses a wide berth. To overcome the paltry malodor of his sudor, Ramice produced from his pants pocket a miniature, flat- bottomed flask of Givenchy perfume and applied some drops on his cheeks and neck and armpits. For that day he had an azuline sleeved shirt on. The above dome of sky attired the very same color. Eleven minutes later, Sophia put up an appearance. She was blue-jeaned and salmon-decolletéed. A stunner blonde, bozos and geezers would murmur. As she walked closer, Ramice straightened himself and cleared his throat. “Morning, Sophia,” he extended his right hand, but Sophia preferred to embrace him. He was a bit embarrassed, albeit sooner he felt a cute sensation as her bosom squeezed his shirted chest.
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“Thanks for your coming.” She now withdrew from him to look at his face. “Have you recovered from the flight? Slept well? ” “Oh, very. Like a log. I was up at nine. ” “As to me, I always wake up at six. ” “Don’t you find it too early? ” “No. I’m used to. ” “Back in Germany, I sleep in just on Sundays. ” Ramice switch to part science, part philosophy. “Do you imagine that eight hours of sleep out of 24 hours signifies that one-third of man’s life flies by in the realms of bed. Appalling, no? ” “Recent scientific finds concluded that a timely good sleep boosts our intelligence. ” “Balanced nourishment, too, helps enhance our IQ. Furthermore, genetics has been tracking down genes of smartness, you know. ” Sophia got herself more involved in the subject. “I’ve been covering genetic updates for Die Wissenschaft der Welt, and I can assure you that after the decipherment of the human genome, hot debates were sparkled among scientists. You know plausibility of the genes of race, of cleverness, of sexual orientation, of alcoholism, and, fancy what, of poverty. By virtue of all these controversial issues, ethics popped up to tell the gist of beneficial things from perilous drifts. ” “Eugenics was born, too, unfortunately. ” “Yes. And historically, as my Germany is concerned, such beliefs had brought about a great deal of damage, triggering WW II by the Nazis. ” Realizing that they had chatted enough about scientific ups and downs, Ramice and Sophia quit the forecourt of the honeycomb-looking façade of Hilton Hotel and toddled along their way up to the overlooking fair’s location.
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Pine trees stood aloft, lined, and abutting on every pathway and wide concrete stair. Green spaces were relaxing to contemplate, for concrete in anarchically growing Algiers had been worming along and across at the expense of green, agriculture-prone areas, ebbing and waning alarmingly. And there was a chink of light to cramp the creeping damage, as more and more Chinese builders and shinglers flooded in. A wisecrack went that Algerians had Chinese erect for them buildings just by offering these Asians herds of vagrant dogs and cats as chow. At the frenetic pace of construction, these pets would go extinct as cause of Chinese bizarre culinary wont. As Sophia and Ramice made their way through one of the crowdy ways outside the exhibition blocks, queer eyes, shooting out from every direction, combed the elegantly ambling-on German eyeful. Her dainty light body-espousing raiment should not pass unnoticed. “Don’t be astonished, Sophia. Algerians are the world’s most curious people vis-à-vis foreigners. Above and beyond, they’ve got bags of frustration about women, ” Ramice told Sophia, walking at his left side. The fountain came now into view. The rising water refreshed the neighborhood at one hundred yards round. The sun was hammering down sizzling rays. An atypical hot day for this October. Was it a nefarious consequence of global warming which shifted seasons, solsticially and dramatically? Smiling and screaming tots were wading in the round basin of the fountain, as if they were in their granddads’ Jacuzzis. To immortalize their progeny’s splash, parents did not hem and haw for filming them with camera-fit mobile phones. “Tell me, Ramice what are we going to do now? Going to your cybercafé? ” “Yes. But first, I’ll show you one of Algiers’ reputable chicken roasts. It’s just ten minutes by bus. ” “You’ve already whetted my appetite, my friend. ” “Let’s go out of this infernal fair! ” Ramice said.
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“You bear them a grudge for their turning-down your stand bid? ” Sophia guessed. Ramice breathed out his wrath. “How else behavioring with them? When I see the bookfair teeming with oiled exhibitors, I go spare. ” Sophia held his hand in hers. “Take it easy, Ramice. Next time you’ll surely make up for this setback. ” “I’m feeling the scum of this country. ” “Don’t be so fatalist, Ramice. I’m here with you to see you all jolly; full of optimism, as you were used to be by e-mails all along our acquaintance. ” “Adorable coincidence, I’d remember. I met you by DEUTSCH FORUM, and we’re in the science scribble. ” “A fascinating, good surprise-ridden world we live in despite wars. ” They walked on up to the exit. The people’s merged cacophony faded out, and the vehicles’ engines grew noisier and more boring. By the fair’s chief entrance, the traffic chaos was beyond comment. The policemen whistled breathlessly, to impose a minimum of order. The dusty sidewalks were scourged by bootleggers. Corporate transport poured in unending waves of humans. Are all booklovers? The trolley sent forth a cocktail of stenches. Sophia and Ramice stood face to face, closely, nearly parallel to the rear filthy door. Passengers aboard this metallic ghoul were feasting their eyes on the statuesque German blonde. Ramice could overhear overlapping snickering voices. Luckily, he thought, Sophia did not understand their barbs. For the meantime, Ramice enjoyed the fragrant cologne water Sophia had used. An island of scent hemmed in by ocean of mephitis…
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“Cinq-Maisons. First halt,” the bus conductor shouted as he craned his neck out from his small glassed-in one-seat cabin. Or wreck. “We get out, here,” Ramice told Sophia. “Gut.” The rear door swung open. Sophia and Ramice got down, leaving the passengers yakking on and on and on. “Here we are, Sophia. That’s Cinq-Maisons, the capital of roasted and grilled chicken! ” “I can smell it, indeed.” They walked a few yards away from where they descended the bus, then entered the air-conditioned familial King Roaster. The waiter welcomed them, and led them to a retired wooden table of two. A glassy tight-mouthed pot, containing two in- water roses, was embellishing fragrantly the middle of the white-napkined table. A soft music was bathing the spacious room. The red-liveried server went to fetch the menus for them. Sophia unslung her handbag to sling it on the top of her chair. “It’s very nice in here.” “I knew it’d please you.” Ramice paused, as the server came over their table with two menus. “Thanks.” The waiter said amiably before disappearing, “When you’ll have made your choice, just call on me.” Sophia held the menu written in French. She did not understand it. She had just command of German and English and a bit of Dutch. “French is the first foreign language in Algeria,” Ramice explained her. “A heritage of France’s 132-year colonialism.” “A huge span of time.” Sophia commented.
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“By the way, tomorrow is the first of November. Revolution’s anniversary. It gunned in 1954; ended on 5th of July, 1962. Claimed lives of one million and a half. ” “World War II was the deadliest, though. Germany alone lost 6 million of souls. ” “At least, in Europe, sovereign nations had clashed with each others. Us, we had been colonized. It’s a bit different, I think. ” Sophia to reply, “Whatsoever, war is war. With its oodles of victims and orphans and widows and devastation and shame. I hate wars. ” Ramice switched to philosophy. “And I begin to have doubts about the rubbish pretentiousness that we, humans, are at the zenith of life kingdom, just by virtue of our intelligence.” “That because human cleverness was sexed up along History to wage wars. Redundant wars. ” Feeling that they dealt enough of the subject, they grilled it. More clients walked in. Ramice waved to the waiter who hurried up. “Yes, sir.” “Well, that’ll be a roasted chicken, hors d’oeuvre, orange juice, please.” The server grinned, then paced away. A moment later, they were served their ordered lunch. “That sounds delicious,” Sophia foresaw. “You’ll eat your fingers!” “Really?” “Have a tang at it, and you’ll find it by yourself.”
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“Good afternoon, sir,” Nabil greeted Ramice, a bit vexed by the unpredicted presence of the gorgeous woman beside his chief.
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“Hi, Nabil.” Ramice cleared his throat to introduce him the blonde lady, a way of attenuating in advance his nosiness. “Sophia Weize. A science journalist from Germany. ” “Nice to meet you, Miss. Welcome to Algeria, ” Nabil quoted the school sentences he had learned and never forgotten, as he softly grasped and shook her smooth, red-nailed right hand. “Thanks, sir. Me, too. Kinda you,” she greeted back with a sincere smile. Afterwards, Ramice led Sophia into his bureau. He invited her to take seat on a cushioned armchair. The Internet surfers present that afternoon unglued their eyes from the monitors to set them on the blonde who had walked past them. Curiosity. Always Algerians’ killing curiosity. “That’s my modest HQ, Sophia.” “I find it well organized. A placid place for working. ” Ramice, behind his desk, logged on. Sophia, cross-legged and hands resting on the desk, stared gayly at her hospitable host all keyed up for his publishing endeavor. The box of Ramice, at the extremity of the Internet space of clients, was lit by a white light nested in the high chalky ceiling. The luminosity was much more intense than that of the King Roaster where they had lunched two hours before. For a short-lived moment, a magnet had coalesced Ramice’s brown eyes with Sophia’s blue eyes. The silence that characterized the drowning of their regards hinted to a nascent romantic flame. Was it really so? Ramice had already received by e-mails photos of hers. He was so nuts about her, that he printed all the photos she had sent him in. He would every night behold the splendid Sophia till he fell asleep. And in the morning, he would find on his single bed and on the floor her color photos pell-mell. He would congregate them on the night table. The following night would repeat itself. He sometimes thought he was a bit goofy. Now, that the too-dreamed Sophia was in front of him, flesh and blood and soul, he should act with decorum.
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He connected now to the Internet, typing the URL of his e- magazine. “Come around and take a ganter at the magazine, will you?” Sophia stood up, walked around the desk to where were set his two PCs. She sat in front of the unoccupied PC, a yard from Ramice’s, then dipped into Hebdo-Sciences’ pages. “Then?” Ramice asked. “Well, it’s really well featured, illustrated, aesthetically speaking.” “Thanks to nuts-and-bolts work on DTP done by our skilled webmaster. Nasreen is her name. She’s out for the moment. ” “It has nothing to envy to our Die Wissenschaft der Welt’s website, I’d recognize.” “So far, it’s written just in French. But I’ve plans to go Arabic and English. And why not German? That’s the reason I wanna take part at the bookfair in hope of gaining necessary support to make things flourish and expand. Opinionated bureaucrats just bugged me,” Ramice explained ickily. Sophia looked at him compassionately. Lovably? “Calm down, Ramice. Things will perk up, I assure you. I’m here to help you. I’ve already talked about your business to dad, and he’s willing to help you, too. By the way, he desired to ask you for dinner at Hilton Hotel for this evening, if you’d mind to. ” Ramice brooded over the unforeseen Gerd Weize’s invitation for dinner. “Yes, I agree.” “Great!” “I’m looking forward to meeting your dad.” “Mmm. ” “To thank him for his kindness.” “He’s very tender, too. Despite he divorced with mamma, he cares for me too much. ”
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“You’re a wonderful daughter of his. He must be proud of giving birth to a smart and pretty woman. ” Sophia turned slightly red upon the compliments she heard. Ramice felt freed. The taboos were broken. The PC’s time read 17:21. He told Sophia that he had also printed all her messages, written mostly in German. He would read them by nights, a way to soothe the loneliness he felt in his apartment. Photos and printouts of hers had filled in his cold, empty, and gloom nights, albeit the apartment was fully furnished. A piece of furniture, Ramice knew, was silent, careless of booming life scampering around it. It occurred to him to have a sinking feeling that killing solitude was an omen of a lugubrious, bumpy future. He sometimes thought that he lived in an eyrie: neither old blokes could, for old time’s sake, say him hello, nor could he fly down from his forced asylum, like a wounded, castaway eagle. A retired eagle, keeping for himself. Successive disappointments wound up having an inhibitive effect on Ramice; barren years, before he snatched the bargain he was steering now. And Sophia’s presence in Algiers was pleasurably stirring his wrinkled feelings. Like a reservist soldier, his heart was called up. Had Sophia not showed up in Algiers, he would have let his heart rest and rust. Sophia listened, almost obsequiously, to Ramice’s dreary vicissitudes of his troubled past. Sometimes she nodded for an expressive consolation, or extended her arm to pat Ramice’s gesticulating hands as he threw up his past. “The time’s rife to be more optimistic, Ramice. Friends who let you down will surely one day or another gather around you, tapping your shoulder, and asking for a revampment. Time heals wounds, you know. ” “But salt is the only cheap remedy!” “Oh, Ramice. Philosophy is the side effect of time’s cure! ” “You said it! Anyway, I’d been scraping along on my own for years till I was called up. To tell you the truth, even though
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terrorism was claiming scores of uniformed mates nearly every day and everywhere, I did appreciate those days of duty. We reinvented family warmth. We stemmed from different horizons but we shared life’s sourness, sweetness, and dangers, like brothers. We were like a green-leafed tree. Every falling leaf hurt and grieved us. However, that tree stood up to defoliation with heroic courage. Once the duty accomplished, time to back home. We shed heavy tears for dead colleagues. Their blood kept the nation alive, strong and responsible. ” Sophia saw drops out of his eyes, and said, “I’m really sorry for what happened in Algeria. A hard time for all Algerians. ” “I’m sure you’re sorry.” A three-minute pause. Ramice resumed talking. “You know, Algeria was helpless, scorned, isolated. During 1990s, it was a living hell. Not an inch of this land had been free of terror. Local horror climaxed with international community’s indifference. We were advised to deal with the killers of innocent Algerians, and the roasters of toddlers, and the rapists of women, and the authors of genocides. All the movers and shakers of overseas manipulation wanted, was afghanization of Algeria to help them suck oil and sniff gas so easily in a country ruled by docile government they would back and recognize across the world. Happily, those voodooistic schemes had been foiled, thanks to the resistance Algerians opposed to havoc-wrecking terrorism. The Western World awoke on Tuesday, 11 September 2001. Ironically, they’ve solicited us to help them, by virtue of Algeria’s long counter-terrorism experience, combat global terror. They have even visualized ‘ La Bataille d’Alger’! ” Sophia to add, “It turns out that terrorism is transnational. Global terror calls for a global response. Yes, I understand Algeria’s purgatory of the last decade, but things have changed in your favor. You must be proud of your sole resistance. I’m really ashamed of European countries which had been offering shelter to Algerian masterminds of terrorism as long as it just hit
34 Belkacem Meghzouchene Sophia in the White City
in Algeria. Well, Ramice, let’s drop this sorrowful subject. Let injuries bandaged. We’re both science lovers, aren’t we?” “Yes, you’re right. I’m sorry for going too far in depicting past horrors. I suppose, you are here to discover beautiful things other than bygone prangs. ” From the word go, as Ramice and the German guest were conversing beyond the virtuous fence, Nabil did not stop peeping into the direction of the two friends. Internet clients coming up to Nabil’s desk for paying the due amount of connection time span would shake Nabil to come to himself! Furthermore, Nabil had already scoured through the web in search of intensive courses in German. Nabil, who just spoke Arabic and French, stammering some words of school days in English, might have had a serious intent to broad-jump at Goethe’s language. Ramice, seeing that it was over five p.m., logged off. He seized his bag to put in his paraphernalia. Meanwhile, Sophia parted with her chair and picked up her handbag. As Ramice and Sophia drew nearer, Nabil feigned ignoring the German female. Her perfume drifted to his nostrils, making his heart beat at high speed. Ramice gave directions, reminding Nabil that tomorrow was a blank holiday, and thus he should not open. Nabil nodded mechanically. They said each other goodbye, then the two friends went off. Nabil could not resist licking with his eyes, stealthily, the German beauty as she gave him her back when stepping out of the cybercafé.
35 Belkacem Meghzouchene Sophia in the White City
Chapter 4
After leaving the cybercafé, Ramice and Sophia went back to Maritime Pines by the same itinerary. The sun was carrying on its westering pilgrimage steadily but surely. Algiers smoothed the way to tuck up its ritual blanket of nightly quiescence. At least for this night, till midnight when salvos of rifles would echo in the dark sky of the White City, celebrating the First of November. The Algerian flag (half green, half white; at the cross of the two colors, a red crescent hems in a red star) was set everywhere, flapping high in the air under the patronage of the breeze of the sea. That sea, surviving to man’s decay, bears in the troughs of its eternal swells the weedy and brackish memory of unending waves of marine assaults, and of rapacious minds since the dawn of Med History which deplumed the White City’s snowy wings, and of profligate sailors who sodomized the chastity of arched gates of Algiers. Larids must have passed on their witnessing, if we were to decode their screams and sight and flutter. Ramice and Sophia reached Maritime Pines just in the nick of time, for the bookfair should be calling it a day in nine minutes.
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Sophia wanted to get in her father’s stand. An occasion to introduce him Ramice before tonight’s dinner. The throng thinned down late afternoon. A few lagging books aficionados were strolling the blue-carpeted aisles. Now, the horizon had bitten a half of the solar CD. Sophia and Ramice made strides. They finally got at the German stand: rows of books, two white plastic chairs beside a round table on which were laid Wissen Verlag’s prospectuses. Gerd Weize was discussing with an Algerian hostess when Sophia and her friend arrived in. He stood to greet his daughter. “Oh, my sweet Sophia.” He embraced her. “Dad, my friend, Ramice.” Gerd Weize reached for a handshake, smiling. “Glad to meet you, sir.” “Me, too, Herr Weize. Angenehm. Willkommen in Algerien. ” “It’s my first visit in Algiers.” “And surely not the last, I hope, Herr Weize.” “Sure.” He thought he had to introduce his brunette aide; brown-eyed and brown-haired, wearing a red sweater, a blue knee-cuffed caftan skirt and shoeing azurine slingbacks. “Ibtissame.” Sophia held out her hand first; Ramice, second. “Nice to meet you,” Ibtissame said, pink thin lips drawing an amusing smile accomplice with her white teeth. “Thanks, Ibtissame,” Sophia said tersely. Ramice remained baffled since he saw the hostess’ countenance. It seemed that she was not stranger to him. Or it was just a déjà-vu? Had she recognized him and for unknown reasons pretended not to? His speculative mind boiled. But he must have known her somewhere, he convinced at last himself. Ramice got a lump in his throat when he looked up at her again. His commotion was stalled by Sophia’s soft voice. “Hey, Ramice! What’s the matter with you? You look perplexed. Is anything wrong with you?”
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Ramice stammered, then cleared his gorge. “Oh, no. I’m okay. Just a bit tired,” he lied for the first time he knew Sophia. He felt sorry. “Are you sure?” “One hundred percent sure. Don’t worry, Sophia.” Ibtissame turned away, and busied herself with checking the rows of books. She felt her heart gearing up. No. Ramice was persuaded that it was she. Ibtissame? But why she had changed her name? The unexpectedness of their re- encounter after five years made both of them speechless. Five years of doldrums, of solitude, of hardhearted days which swelled into months then into years. Five damn years. Small world, Ramice thought, confused. He believed that Ibtissame’s door had been shut down for good. Now, her unanticipated presence in front of him, with a new look, made some sequences of the arcane, cobwebby past bleed through wee spaces the burdened years had inexorably routed out. Ibtissame excused herself to nip off. “Of course, Ibtissame,” Gerd Weize told her, “it’s time for you back home. Will you take a taxi?” “No. My father waits me outside with his car. See you tomorrow, Herr Weize.” She grinned not without glancing for a millisecond at Ramice, who looked a little embarrassed. Many questions bothered Ramice’s brain as the woman he had met anew walked away. What has she become? Where does she live? What does she feel when she saw him again? Ramice thought that he should be speaking with her one day or another to settle things down. And the sooner, the better. He had had his fill of incomprehensible and solitary and hapless days and nights. He ought to talk with her, he reiterated to himself. “What sorts of books do you publish, Herr Weize? If I dare asking you that way.”
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“Well, scientific books to all ages. Kids, teens, students, to name a few. And we cover all subjects, even controversial scientific theories. Our policy is publishing science without any restrictions. Only the readers do have the right to judge the goodness of our books. In addition, we publish both in German and English. ” “Very impressive! Sheer coincidence or what? The three of us are linked to science publishing! ” Sophia barged in with a stress of joke. “Hey, men! Have you forgotten that a woman exists here around?” “How can we do that, my darling daughter?” He touched her right shoulder, then she smiled back to him. “I know, dad.” Ramice withdrew to scour the rows of books. “Very interesting titles, Herr Weize,” he exclaimed, as he looked through the exhibited books. “Thanks for the compliments, sir.” “Call me just Ramice, will you?” “Fine. You, too, call me by Gerd.” The two men exchanged laugh. And Sophia was content between them. Ramice’s mind went back again to Ibtissame. The perfume she had left drifting in was haunting the rows of books, and the entire stand. If he were to play forensics agent, he would trace out all her fingerprints on the covers of these books, and would recover a fallen hair to go through DNA analysis. Ramice still detained relics of her hair that would fall off on his shirts of old for comparison’s sake! Gerd collected the stuff he would bring to the hotel. The other adjacent exhibitors had already walked out. The agents of the fair were asking the handful of visitors to go home. “We’re leaving,” Gerd told the uniformed agent as he came up to them.
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“Uh,” the agent snorted, going away with tawdry steps, whistling. From the same clade of the addleheaded guys who had vetoed him participation for this bookfair, Ramice thought rancorously. “They’re aping FBI agents!” Ramice jeered. Gerd and Sophia laughed off. “You said it!” Gerd retorted.
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Gerd Weize settled himself to dine Ramice and Sophia in the Hilton Hotel’s Tamina Restaurant. They chose the second square wooden table from the bar. Plates, forks, spoons and glasses, were set on the table when they walked in. Ramice, part polite, part spur-of-the-moment, pulled back the light green cushioned wooden chair for Sophia who sat beside Ramice and eyeball to eyeball with her father. Behind the bar, three small- sized paintings decorated the wall, below of which was planted a petite palm in a bulgy pot. The waiter, a man of 24 with a livery bearing curlicues of Hotel Hilton Alger, suggested to the three when he came over their table tonight’s dish: octopus salad with pitsou sauce and a Turkey escalope. The three said unanimously yes to the waiter’s proposition. “How was the attendance today at your stand, Gerd?” “Quite acceptable. Most of the visitors were students and teachers of German. They complained about shortage of scientific books in Algeria. They told me that latest brands of foreign cars used to be brought in aeons before old scientific books showed up on Algiers sidewalks!” Ramice to say, “Thanks to Internet, we now have access to all the required scientific information and updates; however, the question of books is paramount.”
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And Sophia said for drollery’s sake, “Regrettably, I can’t have my hair cut by Internet!” The dinner was served. The clatter of cutlery was drowned by mayhem of people’s voices dining in Tamina. During fairs, the Hilton Hotel is abuzz with clients. Ramice masticated without appetite as he his thoughts caravanned to the woman he had come across with ninety minutes ago. “You haven’t eaten too much, Ramice,” Gerd remarked, dabbing at the same time his mouth. “I’m not too hungry,” he lied again. “Perhaps today’s chicken roast satiated you!” Sophia mused. “This grub is really delicious,” Gerd regaled. Sophia nodded her share of taste. The server was poise to clear the table. “Do you like anything else, sir?” “No. Thanks” Gerd tipped him a note of 500 Algerian dinars. “I must go, now,” Ramice said. “It’s nine-twenty. How can you get at your apartment? ” Gerd wondered. “Very easily. There’re underground cabs, you see what I mean, Gerd.” “I get it.” “That was kinda you, Gerd. Thanks for dinner,” Ramice said as he stood, “and in case you need anything, just contact me by phone or e-mail.” He shook Gerd’s hand. Sophia went along with Ramice till the exit. “It was a gay day, my friend. I’m looking forward to visiting more places in Algiers.” “Sure. Tomorrow if you want. I’ll be glad to hang around with you, Sophia.”
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“Vielen Dank!” She hugged him for the third time; the first was at the airport, and the second this morning. He felt the warmth of her neck on his left shoulder. And her arms fondled his shirted back so gingerly that his heart went on the double. Sophia’s heart throbbed as well… Ramice stepped back, their fingers gliding away. “Don’t forget me, Ramice.” “Sure.” He slipped out of the hotel. Incongruous lights dotted the silhouette of hilly Algiers, winking at the dark curls of sea.
42 Belkacem Meghzouchene Sophia in the White City
CHAPTER 5
Ibtissame was downright knocked up after a long day work at the bookfair. It was damn boisterous, she thought in her sleep violet light attire in her bedroom. There were at the German stand as many books aficionados interested in the knowledge as nosy parkers snooping around her flesh. She could not stand them. As a matter of fact, frustration-ridden men would pour in Maritime Pines’ book show just for wooing marvellous hostesses, even taking photos with them like Borneo’s orangutangs for souvenir’s sake. Non-sense! They would be coming back the following day! And so on till the closure of the fair. Ibtisssame’s father was nodding off. Today’s Ramice rather surprising reappearance made Ibtissame stay up, though time was homing in on midnight. She stood unshod in front of the wardrobe’s rectangular mirror. Her left palm cupped her powdered cheek as time-honored past showed up on her… “Say, Fariza,” Ramice said as they scrambled up the large marble stairs, next Sofitel Hotel, “do you think we’ll pull it off by September?” “Yes. We’ve just to buckle down. And I guess six months are
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broadly sufficient,” she replied. “I hope so.” Up on the hill, overlooking Algiers Bay, the Memorial of the Martyr, made up of concrete and having the shape of three merged gigantic palms, seemed to pop up the immaculate dome of the blue sky. When it was erected, Ramice had five years; Fariza, six. Chadli’s achievement, Ramice and Fariza remembered each other, while climbing on, shoulder to shoulder, in good spirits for this morning of fresh spring. Ramice and Fariza were dreaming of red poppy-strewn meadows, of twittering nightingales and robins, of crystalline water flowing peacefully in rivers and rills, of sesquidalians standing for sincere feelings, of moments profuse with fragrances, of tenderness, and of true love. These dreams faded away when they entered the forecourt of state-of-art, British- style National Library. They now walked along the high- ceilinged gallery with mighty colonnade. Inside the library, Ramice and Fariza chose a by-window table which permitted a glamorous view on viridiscent 80-hectare Jardin d’Essai at al-Hamma, another heritage of French colonialism initiated in 1832 by Auguste Hardy. “I’m very happy, Fariza. Do you know why? ” “No. ” “My being with you, right now. I mean, the fact of carrying out with you this study. ” Fariza’s eyes lit up out of bliss. “Look, Ramice. It’s a honor to work with the brilliant man you are. ” “At first, I hesitated to pair with you.” “How so?” Ramice straightened his back. “I was afraid of your refusal. That could have hurt me. ”
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Fariza patted Ramice’s hands which rested, palms down, on the table. “Poor Ramice! How did you have that in mind? We know each other since two years. We’d sit at university side by side, lunch together, and you’d chaperon me back home. In a word, amiable. ” “You’ve boosted my confidence when you said OK, Fariza.” “You deserve more than my OK!” Ramice grinned for the implication she hinted to, but dropped the subject to say, “Let’s get down to the nitty gritty of that study, Fariza. Well, I’ve found interesting articles pertaining to our subject of study. ” He pulled them out from his bag and laid them on the table. Fariza perused the papers, one after one. “Very interesting, indeed,” she vowed. “They’re the latest reports about new elaborated diagnostic methods for this neurogenetic disease.” “Are you subscribed to the magazines publishing these papers?” “Not at all.” “How on earth did you come up with that stuff?” “Well, a friend of mine studying in Germany sent them in. He, too, works on neurogenetic diseases.” Fariza to guess, “Spinal Muscular Atrophy? ” “No. Charcot-Marie-Tooth. ” “Okay. May I ask you a question, Ramice? ” He nodded his yes. “How your friend did fly to Germany but you did stay in here despite your competence?” Ramice fell silent before breaking it later. “Money talks, my dear Fariza.” “Is he rich?” “No. His uncle lives in France and has money to burn.”
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“And what does your uncle have to burn?” she asked for joke. He extended the joke. “A 12-candle pack! And yours? ” “Well, I think he’d prefer burrowing half your uncle’s pack of candles.” They burst out laughing… Ibtissame’s reminiscence conked out as salvoes’ reverberations sawed through the deep-silent Algiers. She glanced at her watch: midnight. What she had heard were rifles of First of November celebrations military schools fired skywards. Sheer protocols. Her fears vanished when she recalled the Revolution’s anniversary, then breathed a sigh of composure. In actuality, terrorism had committed such unspeakable horrors beyond any depiction or comment that Algerians would even break out into a cold sweat about fireworks, let alone rifles or bombs. Ibtissame put out the night-light and bedded down.
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Ramice in his apartment, lone and partly saturnine, cussed the night that did not grant him an easy sleep. In his bed, he turned left and right, closed his eyes, constrained himself to sleep but he failed. He slapped the plump magenta pillow in reprisals. It was all winsome with Sophia. Her arrival and lovely company with him revived his heart. Then, hell and damn, Ibtissame cropped out five hours ago. And where? In the vicinity of Sophia’s father business, Ramice replied himself, exasperated. A party pooper? Wait and see. He felt his mouth and throat sere. He pushed aside the fluffy blankets and loitered like a noctambulist, lights out, to drink in the kitchen. The kitchen’s large window had a view on a rectangle of what should have been a lawn. Instead, there pushed up a ramose third-floor-scraping leafless tree amidst a minatory weeds and out-of-window flying refuse. Ramice drank his glass of water…
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Precipitously, Ramice overheard eerie sounds coming in from the outside. He opened the kitchen’s window quite enough for his head to pop out. The sound grew stronger, as he heard female voices screaming and sobbing. He then regarded up at a lit apartment of a building on the other side of the garbage- littered lawn. Eighth floor, Ramice reckoned. “Now, I die…” a masculine voice vociferated. Then more and more wails and fracas. Ramice could not understand all the querulous conversation. But he was ascertained that it would be in for a trouble. Now, he could see a barefoot man setting a leg out of the balcony, two women crying out while grasping the man from his arms and hips. The two despaired women struggled maddishly to prevent him from committing suicide. The situation worsened as the loony man succeeded to throw out the other leg… Ramice swooped toward his bedroom, snagged the mobile phone and called the rescue department, giving the address of the peck of trouble. Afterwards, Ramice scurried back to the kitchen. All the neighbors had already rushed into their windows and balconies to see what was going on. And when the psychotic man slipped out of the defeated and howling two women’s hands to smack down on the sill of the building, all hell broke loose. The darkness opened its eyelids to scrutinize the umpteenth atrocity of night. Neighbors, even though they were shocked, broke out rattling and jawboning on the suicide. Ramice flinched back, and gulped down another glass of water. Half an hour later, the ambulance arrived in. It was too late. The man had already perished. The dead’s relatives sprang down the stairs foolishly. Other neighbors descended to the front of the building. The two women knelt down by the disfigured, blood-stained man, his eyes ogling out lifelessly. Their weeps echoed in the surroundings.
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Ramice would not like to go down to meet again the horror. He had enough seen back in khaki days when mates fell like flies. He asked himself what that tragic event augured for him. He knew he was for a sleepless night. Terrific night, he thought, all castdown.
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After Ramice had left the dinner table, Sophia excused herself, kissed her father on his well-shaved left cheek, and joined her room She stripped off and took a bath. Twenty minutes later, she towelled all her soaked gorgeous body to give dizziness to the most righteous man, then donned a fluffy blue bathrobe as she emerged out of the bathroom. Her long blonde hair was pulled back into a pail on the nape of her smooth neck… “Oh, mamma, you’re here?” Sophia exclaimed when she turned back. “Am I disturbing you my cute daughter?” Clotilde wondered. “Of course not. I just thought you were asleep. ” “Well, I was so till a nightmare awoke me.” They hugged and stroked each other on the back. Clotilde began to narrate. “A little girl laying on flat was whimpering. She wore a white dress; whiteness amidst total obscurity. I plucked up my moxie and advanced toward her. When I hunkered down to turn her back she swiftly hung onto my bosom to stab me on the back, then I awoke by the skin of my teeth… I was so frightened, my dear Sophia. ” “All is now right, mamma. Nightmares are to be forgotten. ” “But it’s the third time I saw that incubus.” “Perhaps you thought too much about the first one that you saw it again and again.” “Maybe.” “I assure you, mamma.”
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“I let you sleep, Sophia. Have nice dreams! ” Then Clotilde walked out of Sophia’s bedroom… Sophia opened her eyes to find herself lounging on the brown settee of her Hilton King Guest roomy room, still having the bathrobe on. She took it off, paced on the dark-blue carpeted floor, and slithered all au naturel under the warm golden eiderdown. She was so sleepy that she omitted to switch off the night- light. A painting fastened on the wall above her King bed, watched over her nakedness…
49 Belkacem Meghzouchene Sophia in the White City
CHAPTER 6
The seagulls, wheeling and shrieking over the gleaming and undisturbed Algiers Bay, would intermittently flop down, hardy and longish yellowish bills first, onto the sea for any raw fish knocking around just beneath the tepid seawater surface. Sophia and Ramice watched with relish the scene of a seagull, ducking in, and then out, victoriously, as it gorged the poor fish. They were dawdling along a small beach at the easternmost tip of Algiers Bay. The sand was gold; the sky, virgin blue and windless. Sophia rolled up slightly her light-blue hoses as she stood where breaking foamy waves met with sand. She had already parted with her shoes which rested on the sand, sunbathing like alligators. She stepped into the water till her plump white calves got immersed. “The water is pretty warm for a first of November. It’s really joyous a day! ” “Don’t forget that Algeria is dubbed the country of sun. We’ve sunny days year-round, even in winter,” Ramice told her.
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“You’re very lucky to catch rays whenever you like to. Back in Germany, as most of European countries, winter is winter: snow, blows, floods. ” “Your forebears’ pick!” he quipped. Ramice sat now on the sand, two yards away from Sophia’s soaked feet, ever excited by the sea under sun. Some puny nippers were naively making shapeless blocks of sand. “Say, Ramice you seemed a bit sad this morning when you came at the hotel. Something bored you? ” “You can say that. Yesterday, late night, a man committed suicide just close to the building where I reside. He jumped out from the eighth floor. The poor died on the spot. I felt pity for the two women, crying their eyes out. Surely his mother and sister or wife.” Sophia paddled her feet toward him and seated herself beside him. She fondled his back, and said, “I’m sorry for you. You’ve a sensitive heart, big enough to harbor every suffering soul on Earth. ” He looked out aimlessly at the far horizon. “Every day God makes shine, I wonder when will on this land people stop killing themselves and others. Since immemorial eras, this land has guzzled sufficient blood; perhaps as immense as this sea,” he gestured seawards, “You imagine, just in my teens, I saw blood gushing forth during nineties by gallons. Ignominy defied any vocabulary. ” “My friend,” she whispered in his left ear, then pillowed his indigo-shirted shoulder, “life has plenty of colors, not only the red one you spoke of. Isn’t Algiers called the White? ” Ramice’s good humor rekindled, he switched to History. “A long time ago before the French Invasion of 1830, merchants drawing on Algiers from the sea could look up at the deflected white of houses and mosques of the Citadel’s slants. The Citadel, or Kasbah, was the old part of Algiers, some 400 feet
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above the sea level. Phoenicians had named it Ikosim, and Romans Ikosium. Ikosim means the ‘Islands of Seagulls.’ I promise you to visit it all, Sophia. ” “Then, Algiers is a millenary city?” “Yes. Just the present city, erected by the seashore, was founded in 944 by Buluggin ibn-Ziri. ” “As to present-day Berlin, which might mean ‘swamp’ to the Old Polabian an extinct Slavic dialect spoken in present-day northern Germany it dates back to 1197.” Ramice mused a little while. “Algiers is thus, let’s see, about two centuries and a half older than Berlin!” “Anyway, we’ve almost the same age, you and me.” “I’m one year younger than you, Sophia!” “Algiers is older than Berlin; me older than you. We tie, Ramice! ” They gazed at each other, nose to nose, iris to iris, listening to the flux and reflux of waves. Peeping gulls screamed overhead.
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Ramice and Sophia lunched in seafront Langustina. Two hours on the beach of Tamentfust (formerly La Perouze), punning and cooing and laughing and flaring, had made them so hungry that they startled the waiter who kept serving till breathlessness. They ate brochettes plus shrimps copiously. The small al-Marsa Port, a fishing haven both for amateurs and professionals, had taken in tow many corporate feluccas. The latter all bore feminine names. The smell of fish was expunging for the unaccustomed nostrils. A stout and bald fortysomething man, Dacron pants tucked in his rubber black boots, depleted all his fishing paraphernalia from his boat, Mouja. “Excuse me, sir. Can you help me upturn
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this small boat? ” asked huskily the bug-eyed fisherman. The small boat was out of water. Ramice, who was sitting with Sophia on the steel-made ground-rooted greenish bench at three yards away from the asking man, stood to assist him. “You grasp from the left, me from the right. We’ll lift it and slam it flat at the same time. Okay? ” “I get it,” Ramice said. “One, two, three, now… ” And his Mouja turned over with a bumpy touch-down. The fisherman set his right foot on the Mouja’s back. “Good onya, sir. Thanks a lot. The hull is wimpy. It needs some fix. She’s fifteen years old. ” “Good luck for you.” “Say sorry to the woman.” “Sure. It was a pleasure helping you. ” “Kinda you, sir.” And Ramice to launch one of his jokes. “Don’t empty the Mediterranean of fish!” “Yeah,” mumbled the Mouja’s father. Sophia observed the man babbling with Ramice. What are they talking about? she asked herself. Now, Ramice came back. He smiled and sat down. “You’re a bit late!” she said to him. “Really? He’s talkative.” “It seemed you were wrapped up in checking a resuscitated Titanic!” “By the way, do you know, Sophia, what struck me most when I saw this over-advertized movie?” Sophia waited his response.
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Ramice quoted the sentence from the movie. “‘This liner even God wouldn’t sink it down.’ Yet, it sank down.” He kissed her smooth-skinned cheek. “Liebe Sophia… ” It was 14:12. “Let’s walk away, Ramice.” They climbed the narrow stony stairs. A fort came into their view. “That’s Fort Matifu. Ottoman-built. ” The fort had been built in 1661 by Ramdan Agha under the rule of Ismail Pacha, and was modified by Hajdi Hussein Mezzo Morto following Frenchman Admiral Abraham Duquesne-led bombardments of 1682-1683. The nine-meter octagonally walled fort was equipped with twenty-two cannons (three on each of the seven sides, whereas the gate-façade side had had only one cannon). Yet, now, as the fort had been honored by time, two olden cannons are exhibited before the rope-tied wooden folded-out gate, the extremity of which crosses a weed- overgrown and moist ditch. The fort is fenced and guarded. Foreign ships and frigates willing to capture Algiers would undergo the roundshots of Fort Matifu’s cannonade from east, and Fort Emperor’s from the west of Algiers Bay. Brothers Aruj and Khair ad-Din hosed off Spaniards from Fort Penon in 1529, ending a 227-year Spanish commandeering and menace. After the ousting of Spaniards, Charles Quint strived to fall on Algiers in 1541, but Hassan Pacha trounced his 33,000-manned, 515- vessselled fleet of expedition. Actually, Cape Matifu was the name given to this easternmost end of Algiers Bay;the other tip being Pointe Pescade. On Cape Matifu had been founded the ancient town of Rusguniac on which is now located Borj al-Bahri. Sophia listened with interest to the epic History of time- defying Cape and Fort Matifu. “Even then Pope warned Charles Quint of attacking Barbary Coast in October, but he was so stubborn to do his foiled expedition against papal advice. What’s more? Cape Matifu
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inspired eighteenth-century French writer Jules Verne in his novel Mathias Sandorf in which he referred to it as ‘a rocky tit land’ and Pointe Pescade as ‘a needle-shaped cape.’ Of course, Jules Verne described Algiers Bay from his aircraft of fiction. He was the pioneer of science-fiction. ” “You’re very erudite, I’d say to you. I begin to love Algiers the White. ” “Only Algiers?” “And the mad of Algiers!” She squeezed his hips, as they left the majestic Fort Matifu behind, breathing the sea-breeze amid the halo of polluted Bay.
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Ramice and Sophia continued their journey of Algiers the White, of poignant History, and, more importantly, of their tuneful nascent enchantment. Eyes aglow and hearts aflutter, Sophia and her friend jumped down in Borj al-Kiffan. The seaside small town has broad sidewalks with rows of French- planted green trees. Colonial-style houses border each side of the main east-west street. “French used to call it Fort-de-l’Eau,” Ramice told Sophia, who was walking by his left side merrily. “It’s lovely in here, ” she acknowledged. They now reached the westernmost end of the street, then veered right, sea-facing. The everlasting white-capped Mediterranean rollers bade them a cool welcome. They stopped by a balustrade breasting the sea. Forearms on the flat, waist- high top of the balustrade, they beheld the immense blue carpet of water. “Look over there! It’s Cape Matifu where we’ve been lolling around. ” He paused. “Now, just at the right, there it’s Fort of Chasms or Borj al-Kiffan in Arabic. Also raised by Ottomans
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in 1581, I think, by Jafer Pasha. Enemies got smart cannonballs and drove off, vessels afire. ” “Poor foes! ” Sophia gagged. Or edacious besiegers, Ramice thought. Colliding with the breaking waves, the T-shaped concrete quay of Borj al-Kiffan was aswarm with sea-promenading families and amateurs of casual fishing in this non-working first day of November. A smelly sewage pouring openly into the sea obligated Sophia to pinch her nose, as she and Ramice forged ahead the left end of the quay where it was less odorous. “Tea, goober…Tea, goober…Tea, goober… ” a shouting male voice reached Ramice’s ears amid pandemonium of sputtering ado. Ramice tuned back to realize the man wielding a copper-made teapot. “Some tea, Sophia? ” “Ja. ” Her long blonde hair was winnowing in the breeze. Ramice waved and called out the trudging man. Having spotted the yelling voice, the man shook a leg. The man in his mid-fifties, with unshorn ginger beard and wearing meretricious vestments, poured with dexterity the tea into dispensable white drinking cups before sousing a raw mint into the steaming tea. He grabbed Ramice’s coins, then came away. “Mmm, it tastes good,” Sophia recognized. “Yes it is. ” “But you’re the sweetest, meiner lieber Ramice!” “Do you ” Ramice felt a hand touching his right shoulder from behind. He turned his head and saw a familiar visage along with two children and a woman. “Oh, Samir! ” “Good afternoon, sir. Got lost in Borj al-Kiffan? ” “Not at all. I’m just giving it a whirl to upraise the long- sought Atlantis off Borj al-Kiffan shore! ”
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“No kidding! Well, I introduce you my wife, Najat, and my daughter and son, Romayça and Mounir. ” Ramice scrunched up to kiss the two kids. He sat up and said, “Sophia Weize. She’s a German science journalist. ” “Welcome to Algeria,” Samir said, smiling. Najat, covering her head with an emerald scarf from tulle, and loose-dressed, reached out to greet Sophia, exchanging beaming smiles. “Samir works with me for the magazine Hebdo-Sciences. He supervises ARCHEOLOGY & ANTHROPOLOGY section,” Ramice told Sophia. Samir, thirty-two, lived in Borj al-Kiffan since he tied the knot. “It’s a good day to breathe some fresh air, isn’t it?” “Sure it is,” Ramice responded kindly. “By the way, I’m putting the finishing touches to the Algeria’s marine archaeology topic. Tomorrow, I’m interviewing a researcher in the field to make the picture more thorough. ” “Oh, very good, Samir. This Monday’s issue will surely rope in archaeologists to voice their finds in our magazine from now on. ” “We hope so. Our country is a trove-treasure in terms of archaeological sites, nautically and terrestrially speaking. ” “Not surprising, I’d say, when we take into account the waltz of successive invaders,” Ramice said. Whenever a scientific or historic fact was popped up, Ramice would involve himself deeply and keenly and painstakingly. It occurred to him to fight nail and tooth in front of some people lampooning his fervor for science and History. And he could not abstain from going OTT when a fraction of presupposed Algerian researchers pooh- poohed his requests for commenting, in Hebdo-Sciences, a scientific breakthrough reported in world-renown specialized journals. The tart verity was that foreign researchers would acquiesce voluntarily to send in their commentaries and
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synopses. A home truth, Ramice thought, in a country where compatriots were more interested in collecting new beemers than putting up the money for science and research. Seven-year-old Romayça was reeling off things her puerile imaginariness believed exist underwater, while Mounir, six years old, disagreed with his sister’s census; she listed even Tom and Jerry, but her little brother corrected her by adding the sun! Samir laughed. “Kids are kids!” “Let fiction fertilize tots’ minds!” Ramice just said. Najat calmed her arguing tiddlers and told them to be nice before the two foreigners. Sophia, not understanding Arabic and French, kept silent, yet smiling here and there, generously, for Najat, who just grinned back, being busier with her blurting progeny. Ramice switched to German. “You bored, aren’t you?” “No. Why should I be so? ” Sophia said. “I just wondered if their presence doesn’t make you feel marooned on this quay. ” “I’m A OK. I admire Algiers Bay you’re so fond of!” “You’re the sole siren I cajole equally with this Bay, Sophia.” “I wish I walked with you, arms around hips, on the Bay’s water from Cape Matifu to Pointe Pescade! ” “Should the water freeze, I’d guess!” The seventeenth hour of November’s first day sank down as the wharf’s masses seemed all gung-ho amid the Bay of Wonders.
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Samir had insisted on asking Ramice and Sophia in, for a North African dish. Couscous with lamb. “What’s that?” Sophia asked Ramice.
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Couscous with lamb
Semolina. Cut of lamb. Vegetables. Spices. For the stew: slice peas, carrot, potato, onion, tomato, zucchini. Put in a saucepan and stew all the minced vegetables in olive oil, adding pepper, garlic, cumin and saffron, and water. Half an hour later, douse lamb cuts in the stew. For the couscous: put the semolina in water to allow its grains to tumesce. Then pour all swollen grains of semolina in a sieve, under which a pot of steaming water send vapor upwardly to cook further the semolina through the tiny holes. A spoonful of olive oil to the semolina when it’s ready. Serve the couscous in plates, the sauce and lamb. Raise spoons to mouth and eat!
Clangor of spoons and glasses. Samir and Ramice and Sophia were eating in the living-room; Najat and her two children in the kitchen. “It’s very delicious,” Sophia appreciated. “It’s the most cooked Algerian traditional dish, that is, economic and satiating!” Samir frowned at his own plate when his ears were of no help for seizing Grass’ language. Out of gratitude, Ramice addressed now his magnanimous host. “Sophia appreciates your hospitality and sympathy. She tells me she’ll never forget this seasoned dish. ” Samir showed her a wide smile. “I think it’s time to go,” Ramice said. “How will you do to get back home?” “As always, underground cabs! I’ll drive Sophia to Hilton Hotel first, then me back in my apartment.”
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They all sat up. Samir led them to the door and wished them good drive and night. The ripple of vague sea spat ashore and gulls had already fallen silent.
60 Belkacem Meghzouchene Sophia in the White City
CHAPTER 7
Clamorous Thursday at the Algiers International Bookfair. Scores of families with their nestlings usurped every green space, picnicking, unmindful of the ongoing books manifestation. Maritime Pines was stormed by visitants hours before opening, to hijack the surroundings of blocks of exhibition for a gambolling, routine-breaking week-end, far from their hideous concrete cages studded with rusty television receiver dishes. Ramice was reading an Arabic-language daily, al-Khabar. Having seated himself in a corner of a stair overlooking the spacious courtyard amidst of which was set a fountain, he was waiting Sophia. His one and only? It remained about twenty-five minutes to let people into the stands. Ostentatiously, men and women with badges wobbling from their chests passed by the miffed crowd. The gates of blocks would be opening at eleven, leaving the waiting throng in high dudgeon. Why hell had they not begun on the dot of eight? Setting about one hour prior lunchtime was a magnum opus of irresponsible wankers, Ramice thought grudgingly.
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Ramice flinched as Ibtissame started to climb the stairs. He could not hide his face with the newspaper. She had seen him. His heart pulsed speedily. He folded up the newspaper, stood up and tucked it in the left rear pocket of his denims. She was now within handshake reach. “Good morning, Ramice!” “Good morning, Ibtissame!” “Stop joking! My name’s Fariza. ” “Really? ” “Ibtissame’s just a nickname during the fair.” “I see.” “What have you become?” Fariza asked. “You ask me this question after five years of vacua!” “Look, Ramice. I wanted to be in touch with you again but it turned out that you’d changed phone, e-mail and address. ” “How should I do else?” “I regret it to a high degree, Ramice.” “You chose money and cast me aside like a rotten apple.” Her eyes became wet now. “The guy I thought was serious walked out on me after one year of relationship. The following years, I lived them like a wounded beast. ” A tear dribbled down her left cheek. Ramice said to her, sorrow resurrected, “I remind you that you abandoned me for frivolous reasons, if any.” “Last night,” Fariza struggled to speak, “I stayed up mulling over old good days. Two superb years of common studies. Everybody was envious of our comely twosome. I rue the day I left you for gossips. ” “You thought that I was cheating on you. What hurt me most, was your firm rebuttal when I tried to make things clear. You didn’t even bother to answer my e-letters and calls. Therefore, I decided to change my addresses, a way of turning this spilled
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and spoiled page. ” He paused for a while then he went on speaking to her. “After university, I was called up. Eighteen months of duty; of daily terror and horror. Death had been claiming scores of soldiers. Days were really parading coffins; nights were dark shrouds. I still see nightmares raising cadavers in salute! ” Fariza’s tears swelled from drops into rills so that she found herself hugging Ramice. She drenched his white shirt on the shoulder. At first, Ramice’s arms were loose on his thighs, then feeling her mea culpa, he lifted them around her back, but withdrew shortly after. Passing people devoured them with their eyes. “Ramice, I beg your pardon.” “Oh, forget that, anyway. It’s part of destiny. ” “Harsh destiny,” Fariza stressed. “What comes from Heavens, I take it,” Ramice put it that way. Shrewdness got the better of Fariza. “You wait someone?” “Sophia. Your boss’ daughter. ” A green envy crept within her. “I must gain my stand before overture.” “Sure. You’re free now! ” Her voice vacillated for a while. “May I meet you again for a thorough and sincere talk?” “Is it necessary?” “Give me another chance, Ramice.” He patted his chin. “My phone number is…” “Thanking you is little for you, Ramice.” “Let time do its job!” She smiled from her deep heart. And so did he. Fariza excused herself and dashed into her work. Her heart less ethereal than before. Ramice eyed her suggestive gait.
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Five minutes later, visitors who queued up before the gates, crowded in like a tsunami of flesh and clothes. And irk. As he turned his head to the right, Ramice spotted the approaching, seducing Sophia in ever more alluring attire: skin- tight red T-shirt reaching down to her visible navel, pink pants moulding her rounds appealingly.
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‘WRITING AND EMANCIPATION’ was the motto of the running bookfair, the huge high-reaching banner read. Ramice skimmed through the eight-page fair’s prospectus. “Oh, great!” he exclaimed. The two friends were by an Italian stand. “What’s for?” Sophia asked him. “My favourite Algerian writer is holding a conference at fourteen.” “Who?” “Yasmina Khadra, his penname.” “Believe it or not, I came across a book of his while arranging my dad’s home bureau. ‘Wovon die Wölfe träumen?’ if I’m not mistaken. ” “That’s the German version. In fact, he writes in French. ” “I just scratched the surface, alas,” she avouched. “In a nutshell, it’s the story of an Algerian man, who after having helped bury his bigwig’s drug-killed mistress, in a raining and dark night, swung to new-fangled terrorism of early nineties. He afterwards slew intellectuals. Even members of his own family died in a bomb he himself posed in an overcrowded suq, he later learned…” Sophia was listening to him with utter compassionateness.
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Ramice bought himself Yasmina Khadra’s last novel, ‘Les Sirènes de Bagdad,’ as well as the two previous ones of this trilogy, ‘Les Hirondelles de Kaboul’ and ‘L’Attentat’. “I’ll buy the German translation when back home,” Sophia promised to Ramice. “Meanwhile, when I finish reading I’ll give you a summary to whet your appetite.” “You’re crazy about both science and literature! Is that written in your chromosomes? ” He smiled affably. “To be more accurate, science and literature represent my twenty-fourth pair of chromosomes!” “Lucky Luke of genomics, Craig Venter, would probably endeavor bagging their sequence!” “And file a patent, I’d bet!” They guffawed awhile. The day had already cremated half of its redundant course. Tummies triggered their midday guggle. Ramice and Sophia continued book-licking in the teeming stands. If all those masses loved books, why had libraries been converted overnight to pizzeria and emporia?
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Ramice…Ramice…Ramice…A voice, not odd to his ears, was calling him from somewhere in the noisy aisles of blocks of exhibition. Ramice revolved his head for fathoming the emitting source. “What are you looking for?” Sophia asked Ramice. “I heard my name called again and again ” At this moment, a hazy-skinned man came closer to Ramice. “Ramice!” the man shouted. Ramice thought momentarily, then bustled to hug him as he now recognized him well. “Abd al-Halim!”
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Even Sophia had not enjoyed such an embrace from Ramice when she landed in three days ago. “How’s my dearest pal, Abd al-Halim?” “Thanks God, I’m in full swing! And you, brother? ” “Fine, sticking to life!” “It’s been years now we haven’t seen each other.” “Since duty years,” Ramice said. He made introductions. Abd al-Halim and Ramice had been smart cronies during their eighteen months of military service. “How’s Bechar, Abd al-Halim?” “Good. Nothing special, you know; humans and palms and camels are challenging the dunes. Any olive oil, Ramice? ” “Well, just last year’s oil. This year’s has yet to be collected and processed. ” Abd al-Halim justified his presence. “As I’m fond of books, I travelled hundreds of miles, not by camel of course, to get by interesting titles.” “When did you arrive in Algiers?” “This very morning.” “I’ll be glad to put you up until you decide to go south, that is, back home. I’m living alone in a rented apartment. Your company is very welcome to unearth khaki days! ” Abd al-Halim beamed of joy before the kind-heartedness of Ramice. “Okay. I accept your invitation. ” “Do you remember, Abd al-Halim, the writers we were mad of?” Ramice’s vim revved up now. Abd al-Halim racked his brains. “Waciny Larej, Mouloud Feraoun, Nizar Qibbani,Rachid Mimouni, Khalil Djebran, Tahar Oussedik, Kateb Yacine, Rachid Boudjedra, Mohamed Dib, Ahlam Mostaghanmi, Charles Beaudelaire, Victor Hugo, Gérard de Villiers, Ernst Hemmingway, William Sidney Porter, and your idol, Yasmina Khadra. ”
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“By the way, Khadra will be today’s guest of ‘Literary Café’ about 14:00.” “I hope,” Abd al-Halim said, “I’m not crippling your style!” “Not at all, bloke. Aren’t you my best friend? ” Abd al-Halim conveyed his thanks by a frank smile. Sophia showed as much cordiality as Ramice’s toward demure Abd al-Halim. Ramice with his two guests slipped out of the boisterous block for a luncheon. Outside, the sun was toasting, and shadows had been plebeianly monopolized, not a single book in their hands. They were just chowing mumbo-jumbos.
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When Ramice and his two friends had lunched, they headed back into the uproarious block where ‘Literary Café’ was being organized. Impish youngsters lounged between the stands, wooping it up careless of the exhibited books. An atmosphere of merry-go- round gravelled the exhibitors, primarily the foreigners who discovered the disaster of books life in Algeria. ‘Literary Café’ turned out too narrow to take in all the human tide: plethora of journalists, but also anonymous Khadra readers. Not a seat was left free to plonk down. Standing people in the rear would crane their sweaty necks for a glimpse of lecturing Khadra. Fortunately, Khadra’s voice, amplified by the micro, reached the audience. Ramice and Abd al-Halim and Sophia had arrived thirty minutes earlier to pre-empt the seats at the rear of the space. Sophia sat at Ramice’s right; Abd al-Halim at his left. ‘Les Sirènes de Bagdad’ novel in his lap, Ramice listened attentively Khadra answering up to every journalist’s question. A tit for tat, as some journalists palavered about Khadra’s literary talent by repeatedly hinting to his former officer career,
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a way of playing down his gift of the verb. Ramice translated to Sophia the gist of Khadra’s explicit responses. “Waciny Larej,” Ramice whispered to Abd al-Halim, “is leaning on the wall just at your left level.” Abd al-Halim tilted his head. “Indeed, himself in flesh and blood. He likes Khadra, as it seems. ” “Writers' instinct!” Ramice murmured back to him. Abd al-Halim nodded his share of the viewpoint. Sophia was fanning her hot visage with the newspaper Ramice had given her. The yackety-yak above her head discommoded her. Ramice yawned, a bit done in. During over two hours, Yasmina Khadra defended his novel about the Iraqi war, ironizing the would-be democracy Americans had brought in Iraq with raids and tanks in a country of millennia-old civilization, of Mesopotamia and Abbasids heyday. Hamurabi and Harun al-Rachid would be writhing in their tombs for the dismemberments and apocalypses which doomed Iraq. The untold aim of Iraq war was, the annihilation of one of Arabs’ Illumination cynosures: Bagdad. The other would be Damascus, alas, sooner or later. Lebanon?Cairo?Algiers?Riadh? Who knows? Khadra earned a chime of ovation at the end of his voluble intervention. Ramice wished he had his copy of ‘Les Sirènes de Bagdad’ autographed by the author, but overwhelming crowd upset the applecart.
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CHAPTER 8
“The gaff is your home, Abd al-Halim. Take your ease. ” Then Ramice ushered him into the living-room. They dropped the books they had bought on the table. An empty mineral water bottle fell down on the floor. Ramice picked it up. “You’ll excuse this fuss. It’s the living of singlehood! ” The floor was strewn with newspapers, disks and diskettes, felt-tip pens, crumpled papers, socks, shoes, hangers, posters, used batteries, plugs, and a dusty broom. “It’s very quiet in here, anyway,” Abd al-Halim said. “By nights, I’d hear invisible creatures scourge the kitchen!” “Phantoms?” “No. Troops of cockroaches! ” After clearing the floor from its mess, Ramice went to the fridge in the kitchen. Meanwhile, Abd al-Halim switched on the television. “Here I am!” Ramice said as he sneaked back into the living- room, holding a copper-made, Arabian-style tray on which were laid a bottle of apple juice, two glasses, four bananas, and peanuts. “Help yourself, old bloke!” “Thanks, Ramice.”
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Ramice took the TV’s remote control and zapped to the unique national channel. It was 20:06. “I saw cameras by the ‘Literary Café’. Perhaps they’ll be showing Khadra’s conference, ” Abd al-Halim guessed. “Maybe.” Abd al-Halim poured himself a glassful of juice. “I hope I didn’t play gooseberry.” He sipped his drink. Ramice was crunching peanuts. “Sophia? She’s open-minded. Don’t worry about that. You’re my best friend, anyway. I could never forget your cheers of Service days. You always sided with me when other mates scoffed at my fever for books. ” “You know, Ramice, I really miss you. E-mails and calls couldn’t make up for things. ” He now peeled a banana on the wheeled table he had just dragged toward the armchair he occupied in the living-room. Ramice gaped as he outstretched his arms for a relaxation. “My memory goes back to all those slaughtered soldiers,” he said, stricken with grief, eyes half-closed. “Every day was synonymous of opprobrium. We thought, wrongly, that peace had been rehabilitated. Farcical peace,” Abd al-Halim added. “It’s cushy for no-hopers, jacking around for years under peaceful skies, to keep up an appearance and lay a deal of slander, by prancing on thousands of Algerians’ graves. And the worst of all, crouch before the killers of toddlers without any trial, ” Ramice lamented on, all uptight. They were talking about the wounded country till they perceived on the TV images of Yasmina Khadra. “The buggers! They show him just a little, ” Ramice yelled. “Not a word of his speech is aired. What a shame! ” Abd al- Halim followed the cuss.
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“It’s sheer ostracism in his own country he so loves. What’s more, he has been in the heart of anti-terrorism combat during years of blood and chaos. Poor Khadra! ” “Besides, he’s now voicing Palestine’s throes and Iraq’s disembowelments in his two last novels. ” Ramice changed channel in distaste of the infinite affront. Changing subjects, Ramice told Abd al-Halim about things he had realized in the last two years. “Do you happen to remember, Abd al-Halim, the dream I kept saying to you back in Service days? ” “Founding an Algerian weekly scientific magazine dedicated to reporting latest news for the common people. ” “That’s right! Little by little, I pull it off on the Internet first. Many people brought in their support. In the near future, we’ll go print version. Thanks to a handful of philanthropists. Despite all the difficulties along the way, there’s room for a palpable hope, or I’d say printable hope. ” “I’m very happy for you, Ramice. You must be rewarded for your love of science. ” “Do you want to see my work room?” “Very.” The room, next door to his bedroom, shared the wall with the kitchen. A personal bookcase was set against this wall. Hundreds of books and magazines, neatly aligned and tagged with the appropriate name of the field, went into the making of his bookish refuge. Opposite to this wall of books stood the computer on its desk, under which were placed a printer and a pile of CDs. A miniature DNA model over the bookcase almost kissed the ceiling. What bewitched Abd al-Halim most when he got into Ramice’s work room, were the numerous leaflets clasped on the two walls; one wall, in front of the door; the other, facing the bookcase.
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“What’s that stuff draping these walls?” “What you see now, is actually hidden within your own body…and mine!” “The picture is still blurred for me. Explain on, please! ” Ramice cleared his throat, straightened up, as though Abd al- Halim’s question breathed new life to him. “The human chromosomes that have been deciphered in the last fifteen years are in front of you! You’re graduated in economics, aren’t you? But, I’m sure you still remember your genetics courses of secondary school, don’t you? ” “I think so.” “Well, the project of reading all the information borne by human chromosomes necessitated conjunction of international efforts. Six countries USA, Great Britain, France, Germany, Japan and China contributed to this great endeavor that DNA's charismatic father, James Watson, had once dubbed ‘Project Apollo’ of biology. ” Ramice paused to take a 100- centimeter ruler, then he continued his lecture. “The enterprise got going in 1990, and the first sequenced, or read, chromosome was number 22. Afterwards, others followed the suit, the last one, chromosome number 1, was published last May. In all, 24 types of chromosomes. ” Abd al-Halim to barge in, “Then every gene has been found out?” “Well, the challenge researchers must meet is, to assign every gene its function in healthy and diseased cells and tissues and organs. There’s much work to do. ” “The medicine of future?” “You can say that, but we’re decades away to comprehensively tease all things out. One thing is sure: tomorrow will be better than today, scientific community hopes, in theory. ”
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“And what’s Magda Erroumi’s poster doing among these leaflets?” Abd al-Halim asked for joke. Ramice’s face rekindled. “She’s my favourite singer. Her voice is very tender and warm. ” He immediately powered the computer and put on a CD of hers. 'Be my friend,' the voice started off. Ramice heard the tone of his mobile phone he had left in the living-room. “Excuse me, my friend. Somebody is calling me. I think you’re accustomed to the apartment. Do as you like! ” He walked out of the room in haste… “Yes,” Ramice said, taking at the same time a seat. “Hello, Ramice. It’s Fariza. ” “Oh, Fariza. Good evening! ” “Am I disturbing you?” “Not at all. I’m with my friend. ” Fariza’s thoughts went without delay to Sophia. For a moment, she hung back. “Sophia Weize?” “No! A guy. A friend of mine, right? ” “I see ” “Are you OK?” “Yes I am. I just wanna hear your voice again! ” “Do you covet nightmares?” “Stop joking, Ramice! With you, all is sweet and fair.” “Really?” “Why you deride me? Can’t we patch up our relationship? ” “Well ” Ramice stammered out. “I know, it’s not so straightforward for you.” “I believe in destiny.” “Can’t we change it?” “Perhaps you deserve more than I’d afford to you, Fariza.” “Your modesty hasn’t been mutated all over the years. I felt guilty ” She wanted to weep.
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“For what?” “I’d missed you for five years. I think it’s time to blow the wind of hope anew. ” “My masts are broken!” Ramice punned. “We’ll row together.” “The boat is punctured!” “We’ll bale out till we reach a safe shore.” “Actually, I’ve no boat!” “In my heart, you needn’t to have a timber of a boat.” “I’ll drown, then?” “The deeper you plunge, the swifter you reach down the golden bottom of my heart!” “I think we joked enough, Fariza.” “We’d do it lively and lovely in old good days!” “Since you’ve opened my wounds, you’ll have to cure them!” “No problem! Can we set a date? ” “Let’s see… Saturday and Sunday, I must supervise last touches to Monday’s issue… Well, Tuesday suits me. ” “Okay. Have a good night, Ramice! ” “You, too, Fariza! Glad to hear from you! ” The line went dead 'Brunette of the Nile,' the soft angelic voice of Magda Erroumi sang on, as Ramice moved back to his work room, where he found Abd al-Halim mesmerized by the walls gilded with chromosomes’ maps, bathing in the sensitive words of the Lebanese diva. “Then?” “Wonderful! A genetic museum of yours! ” “Tomorrow, I’m not meeting Sophia. What about paying a visit to Blida? ” “Nostalgia for Duty days?” “Indeed! How can I forget a one-year life there? ”
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“The City of Roses… ” The night wore on, and the two friends were looking back upon their booboos and tomfooleries.
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CHAPTER 9
Blida is only fifty minutes by drive from Algiers. The peevish driver of the bus burned rubber, his conductor busied with swapping tickets for dosh, and the passengers gave evidence of drowsiness as the time indicated seven-ten above the filthy visor. Ramice and Abd al-Halim had taken the first two seats behind the driver’s dusty pane. Dust everywhere. Nonetheless, the viridescent orchards and pasturages on either side of the freeway made amends to eyes and noses. Green landscapes, by acres, of Blida contrasts with all-concrete Algiers. Blida, lungs of Algiers, some would call it. “Happy to revisit Blida? ” asked Ramice, who sat by the window. “Very. Apparently, nothing has changed. ” “The land is ever greener, Abd al-Halim.” “Better off now than it had ever been during the nineties when blood was dunking the Metija.” “The Metija suffered too much. The red liquid was so pouring out that that land got tipsy all over the years of agony. ”
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The bus made a choppy pull-up at the station, on the farther side of the Stadium of Blida. The station was a wasteland of nearby suq’s refuse: sachets, packages, cardboards, rusty iron bars and litter, were scourging the area of the station. It was dreggy, in a word. The bus kicked its passengers out, in babble. The moody driver chewed the limping conductor out when the latter chatted with a young woman at the rear seats. “One thing is evident: drivers haven’t done away with dander,” Ramice had told Abd al-Halim. They walked away to take the downtown bus. Chrea Mountains looked down on the stretching concrete at its feet. Lugubriously. The two friends dropped at Bab al-Sebt, the center of Blida. Car and pedestrian traffics were less thick for this morning. Friday is a day of rest in Algeria. French-style mansions girdle Bab al-Sebt Square. Trees, metallic benches, and lampposts, surround the Arabian-style fountain where three nippers were paddling inside, splashing each other’s face merrily. The two friends halted in a cafeteria opening to this Square. They ordered two Orangina. “Say, Ramice, we’re in our habitual sanctuary. Hell how many drinks we’d sucked in! ” “Pretty enough to flood this fountain!” They chuckled. The refreshments arrived now. They sipped in silence and with lust. “I wonder where the other comrades are right now,” Abd al- Halim spoke up, breaking the silence. “Only God does know. Maybe they’re asking the same question about us. ” “To tell you the truth, all I’m sorry for, are those guys of ours six feet under.” “They died for the country’s survival, Ramice.”
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“Alas, still other soldiers are being ambushed and gunned. Newspapers report their death nearly everyday. ” “Top masqueraders think as long as just uniformed men drop dead in terrorist attacks, therefore peace has been recovered. ” Abd al-Halim spun his glass with his fingers. “Those charlatans forget a military has a family, a wife, children… ” “The buggers!” “Sonofabitch clique,” Ramice cussed back. He hailed the waiter, paid him, then slipped away with his pal for a walk in the heart of the medina.
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Dabbling along the labyrinth of alleys of Bab al-Sebt, Ramice and Abd al-Halim revived the hodgepodge in what had been the daily suq, at the exception of Friday. They could smell back spices, grilled meat, roasted chicken, hot chorba, and fried fish. Now, they rediscovered another appearance of this maze: shoddy walls, vapid restaurants, awry sidewalks, clogged gutters, and squirting sewage. Above the alleys, electric cables interweaved like gossamers, dangerous as ever to footers. “Bab al-Sebt has deteriorated a lot,” Ramice said. “It’s just a sample. Our towns are being ruralized. ” “Why are we so hostile to whole environment?” “People keep saying that our country is young! ” “We’ve to wait a decade? A century? A Millennium? ” “That depends of the maturity of everybody. Our country must be built by and for all. ” “What hell have Sixty-twoers been doing for 44 years?” Ramice wondered indignantly. “Filling in their bottomless pockets!” “Glut ruined our rulers.”
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“Let the riffraff feast on garbage.” “Even garbage ought to be halved with rats!” “Hard lines!” They strolled on and on till midday. They found themselves in Joinville, separated from the military zone by a railway. They lunched in a restaurant they knew well. White-robed men thickened the main street. Ramice and Abd al-Halim just followed the crowd…
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Friday afternoon Sophia spent it in her father’s stand. Fariza felt uncomfortable by the presence of the German stunner. Fariza knew well that Ramice could not resist falling for the entrancing Sophia. The time was rife for her to test the waters. “Is your friend coming today?” Fariza ventured asking in English. “No. He’s out of Algiers,” Sophia replied kindly. “What a shame! He ought to have shown you more magnificent places of Algiers! ” “We’ve got bags of time to do that.” “Then, you’re staying too long in Algeria?” “Another week.” Fariza’s intense brown eyes lit up. One week was not a great period of time to worry about. She convinced herself that the relationship between Ramice and Sophia would break off once she had flown back home. Gerd Weize was engaged in conversation with two university professors. One, was a teacher of German; the other, an archaeologist. They braggingly introduced themselves, gave numbers and e-mails Gerd Weize had accepted courteously. The professor of German even had his hunch take him a photo with Sophia’s father. What’s for?
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The two bald scholars bought dozens of titles, and then took a powder! “What’s this entire circus for? They had just to purchase books, not excoriating Germany’s rigid visa procedures. I’m not a clerk of a consulate! ” Gerd Weize deplored before Sophia and Fariza. “Dad, don’t be so unsparing!” “I’m sorry, Sophia.” He loosened his purple tie. “Herr Weize,” Fariza said, “Algerian researchers and teachers are so badly remunerated that they don’t hesitate to play up to the first met foreigner. ” Gerd Weize’s phiz mollified. “Then, any port in a storm, as things look like.” Fariza exuded a nod. “Have some beverage?” The Weizes said yes.
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Around 5 p.m., the bus tha thad taken them back to Algiers dropped Ramice and Abd al-Halim in Cinq-Maisons. After having perambulated all the day in Blida, reminiscing and laughing, Ramice walked now Abd al-Halim through Cinq Maison, where he owned a cybercafé. They greeted Nabil, then Ramice seated his friend in his bureau. “Help yourself with Internet, old bloke!” “I’ve to check my e-mails,” Abd al-Halim asserted. Ramice, also, checked his mailbox he had overlooked for two days. A bizarre ID of an electronic address drew him into reading its content first. Before the arobase, the e-address read:GCTACHR5D15. His neurons battered against each other as it turned out to be a threat of death signed by a female who named herself Amina. All he should be doing to not get his
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comeuppance was, the message said, to back out of Sophia Weize’s life… “You look pallid, Ramice. What happened? ” “Somebody, under the name of Amina, sent me in a menace of death should I not avoid Sophia Weize.” “Oh, no. Who’s this rascal wishing hurt you? ” “I don’t know.” Ramice fell now silent. Abd al-Halim said consolingly, “Perhaps it’s a joke. You know, Internet is bugged with such phoney threats. ” “But I’ve the impression this bitch knows me well. How fuck does she know about Sophia? More to the point, she mentioned genetics in her message. ” Abd al-Halim rubbed his neck. “She’d supposedly studied with you at university.” “Probably,” Ramice just uttered. Trenchant Abd al-Halim to hypothesize, “The person could be a man in disguise.” “All the conjectures are to be taken into account,” Ramice said, covering his visage with hands for a bit. “Can I read the message, Ramice?” “Of course.” He came over Ramice’s shoulders, and perused the text. “‘Proteins wraps up DNA, shroud covers corpse…’ It’s damn a death threat. All’s linked to Sophia. Jealousy? ” “Who on earth is this whore?” “Look, Ramice. Back in Duty days, we’d show bravery in a deadly ground. And not because of a sham e-mail you should now chicken out. ” “And if Sophia were in danger?” “The purpose of this so-called Amina would be to draw Sophia and you apart.”
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Ramice denigrated irefully about the sender. “Does this slut think, I’m going to honeymoon with her in Barbados if I let Sophia down? ” Abd al-Halim understood the perilous situation which his friend would be confronting from now on, and therefore found the foul language he used acceptable. Ramice drummed on the desk. A bad hair day, he thought. Abd al-Halim suggested to Ramice a print-out of the text for police’s sake. “How did she get your e-mail?” “Our e-mails run on Hebdo-Sciences. You’ve just to google my name and you’ll bump into the magazine’s website. ” “I see. Do you suspect your foes? ” “Foes!” Ramice snickered. “I can hardly whip a fly!” “Lab mice!” Abd al-Halim said, poking more fun. “That was before history, for research’s sake.” Ramice hailed Nabil to come up to his desk. “Yes, sir.” “Tell me, Nabil. Haven’t you noticed quaint clients these last days coming around here? ” Nabil’s smiler looked rattled. “No, sir.” “I mean, a client you might have seen for the first time showing up here the last couple of days.” “I think no. ” He paused. “Something went wrong, sir? ” “Don’t worry. I’m just asking. Go on your task, Nabil. Thanks. ” Nabil stepped back to his desk. Ramice and Abd al-Halim exchanged glum sights. “What are you going to do, Ramice?” His stare elsewhere, he replied, “I’ve to contact Sophia to warn her. ” Abd al-Halim patted Ramice’s shoulders. “All will be right, friend. I assure you. ”
82 Belkacem Meghzouchene Sophia in the White City
CHAPTER 10
During that very Friday afternoon, Ramice dialled from his walk-up apartment the Hilton Hotel and urged the responding operator, a male voice, to be put through to Sophia Weize. “Yes, a German woman. Checked in five days ago,” Ramice told the clerk. “Can you spell her name, sir?” “Sure. S.O.P.H.I.A…W.E.I.Z.E. ” “Hold on, sir.” The hotel’s clerk paused. Ramice could hear the buzz of the speechless line. “She’s with you, sir,” the clerk finally told him... “Sophia?” Ramice said when a female voice spoke. “Yes.” “It’s Ramice. How’re you? ” “Fine. What’s going on, lieber Freund? The clerk told me it’s urgent. ” “Well, not really. I’m I’m worried about you. ” “Why?”
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“From now on, you must be more cautious.” “Cautious? What are you talking about? Be clear! ” “Today, when I checked my e-mails, I found a death threat message on my person ” “Oh, no!” Sophia muttered. “And,” Ramice went on, “your name has been referred to.” “How so?” “To save my skin, I’m just told in the message to keep out of your way!” Sophia sighed. “Who’s behind that?” “I don’t know. The name of the menacing person is female, that is, Amina. ” “Did she threat you by herself or did she represent a group?” “Do you hint at a terrorist group?” “Why not? Have you spoken with police? ” “Not yet. I’d rather bide my time. Maybe the menace is a game. Nonetheless, vigilance is a must. ” “You’re right, Ramice.” “Anyway, don’t talk to Gerd. For the moment, let him concentrate on the bookfair. Okay, Sophia? ” “Abgemacht!” “I’ll set a date with you. Tomorrow, 15:00. Maritime Pines. ” “I get it, Ramice.” “Meanwhile, don’t hang around unnecessarily. And decline any invitation you’ll be offered.” “I’ll abide by your heeds.” “Gute Nacht, Sophia.” “Gute Nacht, Ramice.” Sophia rang off, now. When Ramice was phoning Sophia in the living-room, Abd al- Halim was taking a bath.
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He came out of the bathroom wearing a loose blue garb, folkloric in the Sahara, his hair were still wet. “Smile a bit, Ramice!” “You think, it’s not serious a threat… ” His voice trailed off. The print-out of the menace was hanging from his hands neglectfully. “You called Sophia?” “Yes. I told her everything. Advised her, as well. ” Ramice inspected again the letter. “I’ve been beating my brains for all the evening. Do you know why?” Abd al-Halim shook his head. “About the electronic address of the sender. I try to decode it. I’m sure it does hold a cryptic message or even the true identity of the mailer. ” Abd al-Halim pushed his armchair close to Ramice’s. The text was set between them. “Arobase and hotmail.com are of no help for us. The address before arobase is made up of 8 letters and 3 digits. ” “7 letters, then number 5, then letter D followed by number 15,” Ramice evaluated. “Can you make things out?” “It’s so entangled, apparently. There’s a slight hope to crack this code. ” The two fell into silence, meditating…
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Ramice had been in his work room for one hour and a half, as midnight zeroed in on, typewriting the upcoming editorial of Hebdo-Sciences and synopses of weekly cutting-edge reports of genetics. The magazine he had given birth to was a labour of love. The Algerian media landscape had been inundated by opaque politics, limping sports, and domestic tabloids. Not a
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single public-focused science magazine did exist. Ramice was itching for pioneering such an enterprise in Algeria. USA had its Scientific American, France its Science & Vie, Italy its Le Scienze, Germany its Spektrum der Wissenschaft, and Algeria should have its own publication, Ramice kept saying and dreaming and discoursing. His friends would express a tongue- in-cheek remark. Abd al-Halim was an exception. Back in Tour of Duty days, he had never discontinued bracing Ramice’s bid to found a science magazine later on. For this reason, and also for his modesty and inexhaustible sharpness, Ramice considered Abd al-Halim the best friend he had ever met and known. And, as if life had prophesied things, his pal was at his side, comforting and unburdening him, when he had received the threat today. Ramice's dreads began to dissipate as he looked up at the poster-covered wall against which the computer was placed. “Abd al-Halim,” he cried out, “Come here, please!” His friend darted out of the living-room toward Ramice’s work room. “Eureka!” Ramice yelled. “What?” Abd al-Halim wondered. Ramice faced feverishly the maps of the chromosomes on the walls. “How I haven’t thought about that? It’s a genetic code the e-mail address turns out to be. ” “Go into detail, Ramice!” Ramice breathed out for a moment. “The letters GCTA stand for the DNA’s four-letter alphabet, which builds the genetic information: Guanine, Cytosine, Thymine, and Adenine.” “And the other letters and digits?” “Well, CHR5 could probably hint at chromosome 5.” “But why chromosome 5?” “I must peruse again the Nature’s article that reported its decipherment for a clue.”
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Ramice clicked on his files of human genome literature. He opened the PDF of chromosome 5’s paper. He then buried himself in its content. “Then?” Abd al-Halim asked impatiently. “Oh, yes! How I missed that? The chromosome of SMA! ” Abd al-Halim’s lips twitched. “Spinal Muscular Atrophy, SMA for short. It’s a neurodegenerative disease. The gene, SMN1, of this debilitating affection, once mutated, is responsible for this genetic illness, which was identified on chromosome 5 by French geneticists, in 1995, if I’m not blinding you with science,” Ramice explained like a lecturer. “I see through a musty glass!” “I’ve told you, I did a work about this disease at the Pasteur Institute of Algeria during university days.” “Who knew about it?” “Nearly all former grad mates! ” “Amina was among them?” “I knew all girls’ names. There hadn’t been a girl bearing this name. ” “It’s a pseudo, then?” “It seems so.” “That person is aware of Sophia, anyway,” Abd al-Halim said. “Where did she hear about and see her? ” Ramice fulminated. “A real jigsaw. It remains to crack the meaning of D15. ” “I haven’t the slightest idea about it.” “Now, you did enough, Ramice. It’s time to catch some Z’s. Tomorrow is another day. ” “You’re right, Abd al-Halim. I’m overtaxed. ” ***************************************************
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A bundle of photos laid on the red bed-spread. Sophia reviewed the photos one after one. A tall, white-complexioned man in his late twenties was smiling in one of the shots taken by a fountain, Neptunbrunnen. She stared at him in her Hilton Hotel room with nostalgia. The same guy appeared in another photo; this time, his right arm belting Sophia’s waist, captured in Berlin’s Bradenburger Tor. Sophia leaned back on her wide bed, her long blonde hair scattered on the large pillow. Her past remembrances with him in Berlin were a mix of two-thirds pleasure and one-third disconsolation. Time could not elapse backwards, she told herself. The wheel of her life revolved on and on, till the hubcap parted with its rubber. She moaned old good days in Berlin. Now, Ramice mended her injured heart. She was excited to come meet him in Algiers the White. The Weisse Stadt or the Möwensinsel. She looked at the four walls of her room. Eight arctic corners watched over her beauty. She would be helping Ramice edge the new harsh episode he was facing. Tomorrow, she would meet him, show him the photos of the man she had known in Berlin before casting her away like a withered fall’s leaf. This Friday, she had not seen Ramice. She missed him enormously. The night had been a cave-in to her mind’s paseos. Handsome and courageous a man she had found in Ramice. He loved the land that gave birth to him beyond depiction. He would ignore a bare woman’s geography when the History of his land, old as the hills, was being trilled. Sophia sprawled out, closed her eyes and felt Ramice’s warmth welding her moats bit by bit, yet he was miles away. She opened her eyes and sat up against the wall. Arms crossed, she jumped back to the man she had been dating in Berlin. Her heart’s bruise had almost healed from him but the scab adjourned its dissolution. Sophia bate her lower lip for a few seconds then slipped under a duvet, pressing a pillow against her stripped, lone chest…
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CHAPTER 11
For this Saturday morning, Ramice slept in. Not because he had not heard the alarm clock at six, but he judged it compulsory to alternate his habits. In terrorism-victimized Algeria, a death threat was not a mere child’s play for Ramice. Before the advent of Internet and mobile phones, a letter of menace would be slipped under one’s door, with a shred of white shroud and a bar of soap on the doormat as tokens of impending tomb. And within few days, the death would have knocked at the door. Abd al-Halim, who had slept in the living-room, was up with the lark. He had refrained from awakening his friend, needing much more sleep for getting the better of his menace-caused strain and fright. When Ramice opened his sticky eyes, he realized that the sun had risen one hour before. The door of his bedroom was ajar so that he could see Abd al-Halim going back and forth in the apartment’s corridor. “Old chap, your breakfast is ready, ” Abd al-Halim told Ramice when he walked out of the chamber.
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“I’m sorry for busying you this morn.” “I did nothing. You’re my brother after all, aren’t you? ” “Yes. Thanks. ” Ramice headed to the toilet, then to the bathroom. Later on, he breakfasted in the sun-flooded kitchen. White coffee and croissant as usual. The golden rays pleased his still- wet epidermis. The stentorian voice of his same-floor neighbor reached him in the kitchen. Again he had it out with his wife, Ramice thought. One night, the man walked in this building blind drunk and his spouse did not open him the door, for the time was forty minutes after midnight. Ramice showed pity to the thundering man and had him slept in his apartment’s living- room. Since then, the potty man befriended with Ramice, assuring him that no burglar could break into his apartment as long as he lived there. Actually, the man knew well each yob of this suburb. Abd al-Halim joined now Ramice in the kitchen. “Who’s crying outdoors?” “Oh, a neurotic man. Don’t worry. Do you know what? He’s my friend! ” “How so?” Ramice narrated him the whole story. “Now, I see,” Abd al-Halim said when Ramice had finished. “Where’re you going today, Abd al-Halim?” “Book show. I must buy other books for my brother. He studies archaeology. ” “As to me, I’ll go to my cybercafé, and at 15:00, I’ll meet Sophia at Maritime Pines.” “Then, we’ll meet there, if you want.” “Naturally!”
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Going against the grain, Ramice set a foot in his cybercafé at eleven, wearing green-and-yellow tracksuit, trainers, and large sunnies. He had even renounced to take his routine brown bag, substituting it by a turquoise folder. Nabil did not recognize him until he removed his shades. They exchanged social amenities. Linda, Adel and Nasreen were there, too. Mechanical greetings followed. All the three stood aghast because of Ramice’s new, unexplained mien. Ramice led Adel and Nasreen and Linda into his office. “Sit down, please. Three days were a good rest for you all? ” They nodded in unison. “Right. Are your topics ready? Linda?” “This week’s LIFE SCIENCES AND MEDICINE will focus on the leishmaniases in Algeria. With thousands of cases per annum, nationally, the situation is alarming.” “Good piece of work, Linda. By Monday, I’ll have added in something about Leishmania genomics and drug resistance. ” “Okay, sir,” Linda said, relieved. “And you, Adel? What’s new? ” “ASTRONOMY AND PHYSICS section will treat this week of the exoplanetary systems, black holes, and the recently awarded Physics Nobel prize to American astrophysicists John Mather and George Smoot for their contribution to explain Big Bang theory.” Ramice’s interest flared. “Interesting, Adel! I’ve also prepared articles to 2006 Chemistry Nobel, Roger Kornberg, and geneticists Andrew Fire and Craig Mello for Medicine Nobel. A real American sweep for this year’s science Nobels! ” At this moment Samir showed up, panting. “I’m sorry for my being late. I had to take my son to the dentist. ”
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“Take a seat, Samir. We’ve just started. ” Samir produced from his coat pocket a floppy disk and gave it to Ramice. “That’s the interview with an Algerian marine archaeologist I’ve told you when we met in Borj al-Kiffan. Besides, there’re articles about origins of North Africans in the ANTHROPOLOGY section.” Now, he noticed Ramice’s weird attire. He held back a giggle. Nasreen thawed her silence. “If all your inputs are in readiness, I’ll be glad to process them.” “I think two days are sufficient to finish things up, ” Ramice addressed Nasreen. “Very,” she said. Ramice stood. “Well, you’ve done professional job. Thank you very much. Within weeks, we’ll go print, and the electronic edition at that. Support to our magazine is gaining momentum to the better. ” Adel and Linda and Samir broke away. Nasreen had to do her web design job of Hebdo-Sciences. Ramice gawped when he read his e-mails. Again, the yesterday’s friendless sender. He opened the message. It read:
Puzzled Ramice,
Have you found a clue about the code? I’m sure yes, for you were always smart a man. Your background would help you shed light on its obscurity. Remember that the most distant You’re from Sophia, the less plausible the grave will be dug. Got it, guy? Buy for yourself a fridge!
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Sitting near the fountain under the shadow of a pine, and leafing through Die Wissenschaft der Welt, Sophia’s kisser illumed as she saw Ramice standing by her head His sunnies were pushed back above his forehead.
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She stood up and hugged him softly. “I missed you to madness, Ramice.” “Me, too, meine liebe Sophia.” They disconnected, and sat down. Sophia grasped Ramice’s left hand and caressed it. “What happened to you?” “As I told you by phone. An anonymous woman wrote me by Internet a death threat, in which I’m advised to avoid you, Sophia. ” “This supposed woman must have known you.” “Unquestionably.” Ramice took out of his pocket a folded sheet of printed paper. “The two e-mails I received so far. The second was sent in today. ” She was reading them, while Ramice was staring at her beauty. “Last night, I deciphered the cryptic electronic address, GCTACHR5. It remains to do so for D15,” Ramice told her. “GCTA represents the four-letter DNA alphabet. CHR5 means chromosome 5. ” Sophia looked amazed. “Genetically formulated?” “Chromosome 5 bears the gene of SMA. Years ago, I did some lab work on that disease’s gene, that is, this person knows me well. ” “And D15? ” “That’s the enigma?” “The last piece of a puzzle.” “You said it.” Sophia wondered what ‘buy for yourself a fridge’ was hinting to. “I don’t know,” Ramice replied her.
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She brought his hand to her lips and kissed it with care and lust. Sophia drew some photos from her handbag. “That’s mama,” she said as she passed him the first photo. “She’s a dentist. Since her divorce with dad, she had a nervous breakdown. She even tried to commit suicide…” Her eyes got wet. Ramice’s right index reached out up to her dribbling tears for wiping them off. “I understand your sorrow very well. Yet, life must go on. ” She showed him two other photos of hers, and another of her brother, Jochen. “Now, I’ll let you glance at my former boyfriend. The picture was taken at Brandenburger Tor. ” Ramice looked so disconcerted that the photo fell aground… “What’s wrong with you, Ramice?” He kept silent for over one minute. Sophia was confused. Ramice finally spoke up. “The man on the photo was my former mate; we’d studied altogether at university before he flew to Europe.” “Are you sure, Ramice?” “Isn’t his name Yacine?” “Yes.” “I lost his trace three years ago. No mails, no calls. ” “I was acquainted with him when I’d conducted a reporting in the research laboratory of Max-Delbrück-Centrum in Berlin. Yacine was carrying out his doctorate thesis about neurogenetic diseases. ” “Is he still in Germany, Sophia?” “I think so, if he hadn’t flown back to France.” “Could he be found in Algeria these days?” Sophia angled her eyes up toward the fluttering flags of countries taking part at the Algiers International Bookfair, then
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to Ramice’s countenance. “Do you suspect him of being behind the mails of threat you ” “Unfortunately, yes.” “The fact you two had studied genetics?” “Have a look again at the code of the e-address in question!” Sophia did what Ramice had asked her. “D15?” Ramice closed for a while his eyes. “I’ve disclosed it now. How I didn’t think about it! D15 was the room we had shared in university residence for two years. ” “And the fridge insinuation?” He grinned. “Yacine and I were the only students who had a fridge in the room! ” “In conclusion, Yacine could have posted threat messages under the sobriquet of Amina? ” Sophia wondered. “Yes, I’m afraid.” After a short pause, he asked: “Why you and Yacine got split?” “For many reasons. After two years of steady relationship, things frayed at the edges. Yacine wasn’t the guy I’d dreamed of. All what mattered to him, was his libido. A masochist, I’d say. I knew he was dating hookers. I advised him not to, but he never stopped. We left each other just a couple of weeks before I met you on Internet. ” Ramice wanted to bawl; however, he at last held back “Have you had ” “Sexual intercourse?” she completed his sentence. “Yes. I told you he was so lascivious a man. ” “But why hell he’s striving to hurt us right now?” “No idea, Ramice. Perhaps he’s just playing the fake jealous man. ” “Jealous? Damn it. ”
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“Calm down, Ramice. I’m here with you. I won’t part with you whatsoever. I promise you. ” She cupped his cheeks. Ramice felt her warmth. Pessimistically, he said, “I wonder how he knew about your Algeria stay. He’s aware that I’ve been with you. The screen is really inky, anyway. ” Sophia pondered, too. “How did Yacine hit on you, Sophia?” She crossed her arms on her gorgeous bust. “Well, he was well-disposed to help me take a tour in that research facility. The laboratory staff was bored by my presence, ogling at me as if I were a Martian. Yacine was also a handsome guy. We exchanged phones and e-mails, then an enamorous relation had been weaving, strengthening… ” “Hadn’t he mentioned my name to you?” “No. Of course, he would talk about Algeria: terrorism, research thwarts, sports, culture crisis, were all subjects he would lively speak about.” The phone mobile of Ramice buzzed in his pocket. “Yes…Hello, Abd al-Halim…I’m by the fountain…Okay, I wait you, I’m with Sophia…Bye, see you, friend. ” It was sixteen-thirty. Ramice was unsettled to hear from Sophia, in her sixth day of visit, the story of his old friend. Ramice could not believe his eyes and ears or all his five senses, that Yacine would misbehave, and worst of all, menace him of death. Death he had escaped during National Service. Ramice would nickname Yacine, while both studying genetics in Algiers, Francis Crick. And Yacine would dub Ramice of James Watson. The two names referred to DNA double helix co- discoverers, in 1953. Ramice and Yacine had been like DNA’s two strands. Destiny had split up the two pals. Sophia would be twisting the strands back by soon…
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Was Yacine’s contumely encounter to Ramice the merited due? Old sacrosanct friendship between the two geneticists underwent a morbid mutation. Ramice asked himself many questions: Had Europe adulterated Yacine so dramatically? Was the death threat serious or comical? Where was Yacine? In Germany? France? Or Algeria? Ramice had told everything to Abd al-Halim that night. “Is your friend lunatic?” “Anyway, the bugger is going down a treat with his fucking threat spasms.” “And now, what are you going to do, Ramice?” “First, sniff out where his ane is raking.” “How?” “Tomorrow, I’ll get in touch with a Customs officer at Houari Boumediene Airport for a clue. My sixth sense tells me he’s in Algiers.” “Good idea, Sherlock Holmes!” “Thanks Doctor Watson!” Abd al-Halim joked. Ramice resolved to read, before turning in, the last novel of Yasmina Khadra, ‘Les Sirènes de Bagdad,’ he had bought on Thursday. ‘L’Attentat,’ for later, he thought. Abd al-Halim, for his part, held in his hands the immortal Kateb Yacine’s ‘Nedjma’ novel. Literary entertainment for this slow-moving night...
97 Belkacem Meghzouchene Sophia in the White City
CHAPTER 12
Downtown Algiers the White, with its infinite deafening hubbubs, gave a rasping welcome to Ramice and Sophia. As they walked from Tafurah bus station up to the police-steered intersection of roads, Ramice elbowed delicately Sophia to direct the eyes down on the Port of Algiers, where twirling huge cranes were hauling the interminable containers out of ships along the terminals. “Sophia do you know that standardized containers were conjured up by US trucking magnate Malcoln McLean in 1956. Sorry to say, the efficiency of his devised boxes in terms of freight and cost remained disregarded a decade along. Afterwards, the Pentagon realized their advantages of rapid shipping of war stuff to Vietnam. ” He so wowed Sophia that she said: “You’re a walking Encyclopaedia!” The two veered right when they arrived at the intersection. A few yards away, at the beginning of sea-front Zighout Youcef Boulevard, people were waiting urban transport by a fenced small garden.
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“Believe it or not, this garden bears the same name as yours: Sofia Garden!” “What a cute coincidence!” she exclaimed. They now entered the garden, and sat on a bench. “I guess,” Sophia said, “this real-sized statue is Sofia.” Twenty minutes later, Sophia and Ramice came out of Sofia Garden, and plodded along from Sofia Square to Port Said. French-style monumental buildings with their colonnades and galleries and relievos line the other side of this sea-overlooking ex-Carnot Boulevard. Parliament, Senate, banks, are all in this area. “They look nice, ” Sophia said. “Trumped-up corridors of power, as a matter of fact. And I don’t want to blind you with Algeria’s politicking and electioneering. ” “I agree with you. We’re both scientists, after all. ” They stopped and laid their arms on the balustrade, just above L’Amirauté. “Algerian Navy headquarters,” Ramice told her. “Remember, what I told you in Tamentfust. L’Amirauté was formerly known as Fort Penon. Spaniards built it on these rocky islets in 1510. Khair ad-Din Barbarossa kicked Spaniards out of Fort Penon nineteen years later. From that victory on, Algiers was a protectorate of the Ottoman Empire. What’s more, Khair ad-Din defeated the fleet of Charles Quint in the Battle of Preveza, on 28 September of 1538. Imagine that: Khair ad-Din-led Ottoman fleet had 122 galleys and galliots, whereas Charles Quint-led Holy League numbered 302 ships! Three years later, this emperor’s debacle in Algiers went down in the History. Poor Charles Quint! ” “At school, we’re taught that Barbary Coast of North Africa had been an open eyrie of piracy.” Ramice laughed. “I may irk you by saying that historic terminology is still the most vilificating glitch of the Western
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World. You know, misnaming things is like taking candy from a baby! I mean, corsairs or not, locals, most of them Muslims, considered the presence of Christian armed forces as unacceptable, and therefore backed any Muslim pirate to free them from their iron-grasp. Another recent example: during Algeria’s Revolution of 1954-1962, French colonialists would tag Algerian revolutionists of terrorists! ” “The word ‘terrorism’ is indeed much manipulated nowadays. Self-defense isn’t terrorism; recovery of sovereignty isn’t terrorism. For me, terrorism is the killing of one’s nationals and innocent people in all over the world. ” Sophia cuddled Ramice’s back when she noticed his despondency upon the remembrance of Algeria’s days of hideous terrorism, lost mates and relatives and thousands of anonymous innocent citizens… “Let’s walk on, Sophia!” Sophia began to be passionately attached to the History of Algiers, and inevitably to Ramice, the Romeo of the White City. She thought, if he were to choose between a diamond-embossed city and Algiers the Millenary, he would beyond doubt ignore the former and die for the latter. Ramice felt deeply the prangs of past and present as he reached with Sophia La Rue de la Marine. He invited her to see a small- sized sign on a wall, white letters on black slate. “ ‘Icosium,’ ” Sophia read. “That’s the Roman name of nowadays Algiers. Here, we’re in what could have been the former Roman Street. Actually, the first comers in here were Phoenician traders centuries before the Christian era. They named this commercial outpost, Ikosim, hence the Roman name, Icosium, which meant the ‘Islands of Seagulls,’ in the fifth century. Möweninseln, in German. Remember, ‘Islands’ referred to the islets on which Fort Penon had been erected centuries later.” “Where did Phoenicians come from?” Sophia asked. “Well, I can say simply from present-day Lebanon. Phoenicia had been a flourishing civilization during the first millennium
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BC. It had had a wide sea-faring commercial tradition in the Mediterranean coasts. North Africans claim their Phoenician origins. Genetically speaking, DNA analyses on bones of ancient Phoenicians compared to DNA of living people from Lebanon and other Mediterranean countries have borne out the kinship of modern residents of the Mediterranean and olden Phoenicians. ” “Which chromosome has been selected for this phylogenetic analysis?” “Y chromosome,” Ramice responded. Sophia got more and more astounded by Ramice’s prompt answers. “You’re very clever, Ramice. How have you inherited all this erudition? Is it coded in your DNA? ” “Nobody was born smart. Knowledge is acquired by curiosity in asking for everything. Perseverance, thirst of knowledge and commitment, that’s all. ” “In any case, you’ve the three criteria. And the fourth one is your warm heart that I wanna share with you, Ramice.” Ramice and Sophia stared at the open blue sea. At their left, a piece of cannon, levelled seawards, eavesdropped by rights the language of powder, flame, fierce warding-off, and echoed thunder of bombardments on the seven-gated Citadel. Those Seven Gates had been the only entrances to the walled Citadel, in the seventeenth century. The Gate of Rampart’s Path (Bab Triq al-Sur), through which only soldiers would go in and out. The Gate of Kasbah (Bab al-Qassaba) had been the sole access to the New Citadel. A painting representing two lions was placed above its gate, and from its awning hung down a three- branched anchor. Anybody who was prosecuted, and in case he succeeded to reach the high anchor shouting ‘Justice to Allah’ at the same time when the Dey of Algiers was standing by his window, the gate would swing open, then shut again. The man would be offered refuge and safety. The Gate of Azun (Bab A’azun) had been the door of food supplies. People sentenced to
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death, would be slung on the huge iron hooks, arranged on the ramparts from both sides of the Gate of Azun. Charles Quint failed in 1541 to storm into the Citadel through this gate. French colonialists destroyed, later, Fort Azun and set up instead the Church of Holy Trinity in 1870. The Gate of the Islands (Bab al-Djazira), on the eastern side of the Citadel, had been giving exclusively access to the port in the seventeenth century. In 1870, the French removed it for paving the Republic Boulevard. The Gate of Sea (Bab al-Bahr), through which fishermen went out toward their boats. Again, French erased it, later on. In the North, was The Gate of Stream (Bab al-Wad), which led to the Fort of Stream and Fort Zubia. By 1841, this gate was so narrow that it was impossible for passage of carts leading to the quarries. Again, this gate disappeared by 1896. The seventh gate, the New Gate (Bab al-Jedid), was opened in the sixteenth century at the south-western side of the Citadel. It led to Fort Emperor… Sophia was listening to Ramice’s account of the epic, bygone Citadel. “You know, Ramice, the Citadel is engraved in your heart, which is your real fortress of memory. ” “Do you know why it was called Fort Emperor?” “Go on narrating, my Emperor!” He smiled lovely at her, holding her riffling blonde hair. “Local people of ancient Algiers would call it Fort Peacock. The European name of Fort Emperor referred to Charles Quint. The fort had been built, later on, on the same spot where Charles Quint had personally installed his own HQ to steer the rout of his October 1541 campaign. Besides, on July 4 of 1830, Fort Emperor fell down under the shots of French artillery. Capitulation of Algiers followed suit the next day… ” His voice trailed off, mourning the fall of Algiers the White. “Fly- whisk…” he murmured. “What are you muttering about, Ramice?” Sophia bothered.
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He cleared his throat. “You know, Sophia France had seized the Fly-whisk Incident to invade Algeria. I explain away: In 1827, the French consul to Algiers, Duval, jumped all over Dey Hussein when the latter reclaimed from France to pay off its overdue wheat debts. The Dey went through the roof, and scraped Duval with his fly-whisk. King Charles X felt France had been outraged in its pride and during three years a military expedition had been plotting till the summer of 1830 saw Algiers succumb into the hands of General de Bourmont-led History-changing, gargantuan fleet. ” Sophia touched the exhibited cannon and wished she could fire the roundshot of noon. “Where are we going to bite some nosh this time?” “In Bab al-Wad. The Gate of Stream. ” “The dish?” “Mediterranean sardines with herissa! ” “Mmm, sounds delicious.” “Forget your showy Hilton Hotel. Bab al-Wad is the heart of the great unwashed! ” They crossed the street and headed up to the Guarded.
*************************************************** The narrower blood vessels are, the speedier the red liquid flows. Contrary to this hydrodynamic law, the alleys of Bab al- Wad’s suqs, crowded as ever with peddlers, seemed to be stationary. Vegetables and fruit, spices and herbs, Chinese vestments and electronic devices, fowl and rabbits, fish and prawn, all were jamming the sidewalks, let alone the shopping throng in this slum. Ramice held Sophia’s right hand, moving and zigzagging laboriously in the middle of the human tide. The heat was broiling for a beginning of November. Due to global warming change, seasons have been shifting in a crucial trend.
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“Here we’re!” Ramice said, bursting in one of the seafood restaurants. The waiter led them to a corner table, away from inquisitive eyes. The restaurant was unadorned, but spick and span. Prices were reasonable; in brief, underprivileged citizens could satiate their hunger. A basket of cut bread, a saltshaker, a bowl of herissa, a bottle of vinegar, and a glass container of water, had been already put on the tables. Ramice ordered sardines and fruit salad. Sophia did as her friend. Sophia saw inadvertently a young man devouring all the bread on his table and even asked for a help from the waiter! “So Algerians eat too much of bread?” she asked Ramice. “Well, all our dishes are taken with bread. If we assume that an Algerian eats two baguettes a day, each baguette having roughly a length of 60 centimeters Then 120 centimeters of bread per day, which brings the figure to 438 meters of bread annually per person! ” “Impressive!” “To make things more humorous,” he now used his mobile phone’s calculator “in a half of century of lifespan, an Algerian will have consumed 21 kilometers of bread! ” Sophia was struck speechless. “A more replete picture? Well, Algeria’s population is over 30 millions. If we multiply 21 kilometers and 30 millions, let’s see that is, 630 million kilometers The distance between the sun and Earth is 154 million kilometers. That means, Algeria consumes in a half of a century, without of course adding up the following births, the equivalent of two come-and-backs to the sun! ” Sophia laughed out of bafflement. “The planet will run out of bread by soon!”
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“I remember you that the volume of alcoholic drinks that non- Muslims swig would fill in the oceans! Of course, there’re people who claim they’re Muslims though they do drink, enough to flood a lake! ” The good smell of spicy sardines heralded their good taste. The waiter dished up with tact, smiling awhile for the sake of politeness as he must have presumed Sophia was a foreign woman from her physiognomy. “The sardines are fresh. Forget the frozen fish,” Ramice told Sophia when his gaze met hers. “Delicious, but a bit hot.” “Oh, that’s the flavour of herissa. It’s a tinned red pepper. ” Sophia let her tongue out for alleviating her palate, as her eyes were on the brink of tears. She drank cool water. “My God!” “You’ll get used to such spices,” he said, biting a chunk of bread and swallowing a herissaed sardine. “Why an ambitious man like you remained single?” “I haven’t met the woman of my dreams here in Algeria! ” “Really?” “Actually, women I’ve known let me down just because I was moneyless. Thanks God, my situation has now polished up. Here, women wrap up their hearts with bank notes! ” Sophia’s blue eyes suddenly lit up, utterly drowned by Ramice’s soul-stirring features of his face. Holding his hands in hers, Sophia said: “I must confess you my dear Ramice that I love you.” He ran his fingers through his short hair backwards, then down on his nape to finally let them rest on his reddened cheek. The feelings had hibernated for years in the subterranean retreats of Ramice. He had so waited the snowdrop of his spring. He felt at the hearing of the three little words from Sophia’s sensuous lips a new breath of reanimation being blown into his suffocated heart. The same stabbed heart that had run the gauntlet of discouragement, whipping, lovelorn days and lonely nights. He
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beheld Sophia, a siren fitting the times, come to nurse his time- defying injuries and disturbances. “I feel you, too, Sophia. It’s nice to share your chaste emotions of love. A romance is born, isn’t it so? ” Their fingers crossed in slow motion. “I wonder how your compatriot women shunned you like this, Ramice. ” “In the past, I had known, in all, four women. The first love came to naught when she flew over the Mediterranean Sea and concluded an arranged wedding with an emigrant. The second love betrayed me with a well-to-do man after two years of relationship. The third love went on the rocks of Fouka just before khaki days. The fourth love, I would imp its feathers to make it fly toward my heart, preferred at last to deplume on a Siberian eyrie. She didn’t even give me a thimbleful of a chance to pop the question. ” Sophia kissed his thin-haired hand. “I’m now with you, my darling. Ich liebe dich… ”
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After two hours in Bab al-Wad, loitering and lunching, Ramice and Sophia walked out of its mazes down to the al-Kitani esplanade, three feet above the shrunken beach, to nip out for sea-breeze of this small bay. All the benches had been taken up by twosomes. The nearby road was dense with vehicles, whose curmudgeons behind the wheels hooting their impatience of traffic jam. Ramice and Sophia leaned against the balustrade, contemplating the placid, sapphire sea. “I’ll talk you about a foreboding happening, if you’d like to,” Ramice said. Sophia nodded her OK.
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“You’ve seen that Bab al-Wad is on a slant. On 10 November 2001, it rained impetuously on Algiers. The gutters had all been clogged. In that morning, furious floods carrying tons of mud darted down Bab al-Wad and wash it off. Hundreds died, drowned. Most of the corpses had been swallowed by al-Kitani seawater. It was chaotic to see that inland surge. ” “Now, I get it why you dragged me down here. I condole with you for all the victims. ” “Thanks, Sophia.” Later, Ramice took Sophia for a tour in Algiers’ reputed streets. At 4 p.m., they got back home.
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CHAPTER 13
Next day, Ramice received a call from his friend, Rezki, working as Customs officer at Houari Boumediene Airport. He confirmed him the arrival of Yacine Lejeni in Algiers. Ramice said thanks to Rezki. The computer time indicated 10:27. Ramice looked perplexed in front of his PC. He knew, now, that Yacine was somewhere in Algiers, or rather he was sure not so far from his shadow. Perhaps Yacine had been hunting him down. Was really Yacine a nutter, willing to lasso Ramice’s head? “Shit!” Ramice grunted, as he reflected for a second about Sophia’s imaginable kidnap by Yacine. Without delay, he dialled Hilton Hotel for giving fair warning to Sophia. The answering male voice said that she had stepped out of the hotel thirty minutes earlier. Ramice sprinted, direction Maritime Pines where, Sophia must have been roving to and fro by the bookfair. Nabil understood nothing of his boss’ behaviour.
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Ramice stepped in the German stand where Gerd Weize was talking with a group of students, probably undergraduates in German language. Fariza, in her good-looking hostess clothes, felt gratified when she saw Ramice closing in. Gerd excused himself, withdrew from the talkative students, and shook hands with Ramice. “Tag, Ramice! How’re you?” “Fine, Gerd. ” His eyes on Fariza, who was standing behind Gerd. “Where’s Sophia?” Gerd Weize asked him. Ramice’s heartbeats sped up. “What? I thought…” “Sophia told me this morning she would be meeting you at 10:00. ” “But I didn’t call her at all!” “You left a message to the clerk of the hotel by phone before 09:00, I think.” Ramice froze for a moment. “Gerd, I rang at Hilton Hotel about 10:30. The clerk told me she was already out. ” “Then, from whom did Sophia get the message?” “I equally wonder, and I’m too worried, Gerd. ” Gerd had got his wires crossed. “Do you think my daughter got missing?” he asked, turning gray with worry. “Could I have a word with you, Gerd?” Gerd gazed at Fariza. “Ibtissame, I’ll be back in half an hour. You’re used to the business now, aren’t you? ” “All right, Herr Weize. I’ll take care of all,” she assured him, smiling. How could Fariza tolerate the frustrated men who would be chatting her up in the absence of Gerd? Drop that, she thought. What bothered her was the conversation that Ramice and Gerd had had about Sophia, the graceful woman that stood between her and Ramice The Second. Sophia had better buzz off, Fariza mused malevolently.
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Meanwhile, Ramice and Gerd had moved away, drowned by the crowd. Outside the pavilion, the noise was less ear-splitting. Walking in the court, Ramice told Gerd the ins and outs of the story. Sophia’s father would frown at some points; however, Ramice emptied his guts. “What are you going to do, Ramice?” “For the moment, there’s no fire. She might be safe. What the message said exactly? ” “I didn’t read it. Sophia just came in my room before 09:00, telling me she would be dating you at 10:00. ” “Let’s walk into the Hilton Hotel to get more information about the message, ” Ramice suggested to Gerd.
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The desk clerk at Hilton Hotel was familiar with Gerd Weize, in his fifteenth day of stay up to then. He straightened up as the two men came up to him. “Good morning, Monsieur Weize. Can I help you? ” “Good morning, Noordin. Yes. Is my daughter Sophia back? ” “Not yet, Monsieur. I saw her going out about 09:15” Ramice involved himself in the discussion. “Who contacted her this morning?” The clerk thought awhile. “Well, two male voices. The first about 08:30. He just insisted on transmitting her a message he dictated to me by phone. The second ” “It was me,” Ramice cut in. “At 10:30. Understood? We’d like to have the content of the message, if you mind to. It’s urgent.” “The voice who claimed he was Sophia’s friend, Ramice is the name, told me to inform Sophia of a date with her at 10:00, in Sofia Garden, downtown Algiers. ”
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“My Allah! He used my name,” Ramice said to Gerd. “It’s a decoy. A trap… ” “It’s Yacine, then?” Gerd wondered. “Yes, I’m afraid,” Ramice sentenced. Gerd thanked Noordin for his valuable cooperation, urging him to get in touch with him if he saw Sophia. Noordin promised to do so, timely and contentedly.
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Ramice found himself in the grip of the least envious course of his life. He arraigned and hated himself. Yet, he had forewarned her not to believe such snares. Sophia, Ramice thought sorrowfully, loved him so blindly that she played down the threat. It turned out that Yacine feigned menacing Ramice while he actually targeted, in camouflage, Sophia. Ramice would never forgive himself if Sophia were hurt. He felt the vault of the sky hammering on his head like a sleazy nail. His visage went wallow; his eyelids rolled down from harassment; his heart wobbled to the right; and his throat shrivelled. Algiers the White he had so revered, narrated, licked, consoled, condoled, and idealized, unexpectedly engulfed the fair-complexioned Sophia. Ramice promised himself to leave no Algiers’ stones of forts and ramparts unturned, hoping to find Sophia safe and sound as soon as possible. He understood well the befuddlement and disquiet of Gerd. She was his daughter, after all; Sophia, the blonde beauty, brilliant science journalist, tender and decorous. “Gerd, officially speaking, there’s not a single proof that Sophia has been kidnapped. It’s 12:41. Perhaps she’s just wandering somewhere in Algiers,” Ramice said to Gerd when they got back to the bookfair.
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“Yes. Maybe she had become aware of the trap in the nick of time and she’s lost in the streets of cobweblike Algiers,” he consoled himself. “I’m sure she’s unharmed, ” Ramice assumed, hoping he was not saying one thing and meaning another. “Should we talk to police, ” “I’d prefer not to. Cops are the ultimate solution. If it’s Yacine who abducted Sophia, I’ll try to negotiate with him in secret. He’s my former mate, and I can by all means bring him around to let her free. ” Gerd breathed out his unhappiness. “Rather, isn’t your former friend a radical person?” “I kept wondering if he had turned a loony man once in Europe.” “Please, Ramice, look for her in the center of Algiers.” “Of course, I had thought to do that. Sophia is my dearest friend. I’m confident that things will be all right. Don’t worry, Gerd. ” Ramice smiled, patted Gerd’s shoulder, and then lost no time to get out of Maritime Pines, taking a taxi instead of the terrible busses which would halt every one hundred yards. Gerd bought two bottles of cool Pepsi in a refreshment stall, located across the pavilion where he had his stand, then he joined Fariza. He greeted her, offered her a drink, and sat down. “Are you okay, Herr Weize?” she asked, worried. He unbuttoned his gray jacket and gulped down his Pepsi. Fariza sipped hers, too. Gerd, nerves reposed, broke the silence. “My daughter, Sophia, got apparently missing since morn. She might have been baited to downtown Algiers. ” “By whom? ” “I don’t know, ” he lied, for he did not find it necessary to let her in on the secret.
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“You called police? ” “No. We prefer to wait a bit. Besides, Ramice went after her. ” Fariza bate slightly her lower rosy lip with the upper teeth, as she heard the name of her Ramice.
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The taxi dropped Ramice by Sofia Garden at 13:36. He burst into the garden he had visited with Sophia the day before. He patrolled it all; no trace of her. He even asked, and described her to, an employee of the pay public W.C. inside the garden. The response was negative. Ramice ogled at the female statue for a while, for its name recalled him of the German woman he was looking for like a crazy. Realizing that statues did not talk, he walked out, feeling like hell. He scoured Zighout Youcef Boulevard, Martyrs Square, al-Kitani esplanade, then turned back to Larbi Ben Mehidi Street (former Rue d’Isly), and near La Grande Poste he bifurcated to Didouche Mourad Street (former Rue Michelet) where he wended his way till after Cinema Algeria. He crossed the boisterous street, then continued marching on the sidewalk before branching off down Belhouchet Mouloud Boulevard and Rue Vitor Hugo to find himself in Hassiba Ben Bouali Street. There, he turned left, stepping toward Sofia Garden via Colonel Amirouche Boulevard. This entire marathon in the Daedalian downtown Algiers made him feel dog-tired. He had been walking for over two hours, anxiety as his shadow, and finding the missing Sophia, who had declared to him her love, as the only mark that mattered for the time being. It was a race against time, in actuality. How could Ramice close his eyes this night should Sophia not show up? What could Gerd take Ramice for? Ramice still believed that the conundrum of Sophia must be divulged without the involvement of police, for he considered it too personal a concern that he should cope with solely. The hypothesis that it was Yacine who
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sequestered her made Ramice think that the abductor would be getting in touch with him for a deal. For a ransom? Another hypothesis zipped through his mind. If Sophia had only wandered off somewhere in far-flung Algiers, why she had not rung him up for a help? He did not dare put forth the hypothesis he was most afraid of. No…No…No…She’s alive…Perhaps she’s taking some photos in historic sites of Algiers the Millenary… A car barely turned him over outside the garden, because Ramice was pensive, body here and soul elsewhere. He waved his hand for apology but the driver called names and hooted his huff. Ramice was determined to hear about Sophia at any price. The hunger got the better of him; he had not nibbled a loaf since breakfast. And the long walk had dehydrated him, hence the need to quench his thirst first. He passed into the first pizzeria he discerned in the vicinity of La Grande Poste. He ordered a royal pizza and fresh water. The place was really plush. Water arrived in a jiffy and the smoking pizza five minutes later. Making up for burned calories was vital for him in order to trot again… The mobile phone rang in his pocket as he was munching his pizza. “Yes, ” Ramice said, his mouth full of grub. “I’m Gerd Weize,” his voice was jubilant, “Sophia is here with me! Safe and sound. ” Ramice swallowed up his mouthful. “How could ” “The most important she’s back.” “You know, I can’t convey my emotions. I’m so excited and surprised… ” Tears ran down his cheeks. “Here’s Sophia… ” The phone changed mouth and ear. “Hello, Ramice. I’m sorry for all what happened ” “What do you mean?” he broke in.
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“We’ll talk when we meet.” “I was caredown. I searched for you like a mad. I ran out of adrenalin. ” “I said to you sorry, my dear Ramice. The essential is your testosterone! ” “Stop joking, Sophia!” “Don’t be late, darling!” “Okay, dear Sophia.” The line went in the limbos. Ramice breathed a sigh of relief and resumed eating like a horse. His moral was so bolstered that he asked for a help. More calories…More energy…More hormones…
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CHAPTER 14
Ramice had had a lousy day till the good news about Sophia’s reappearance was music to his ears. He thanked God that her eclipse over Algiers Bay was a spurious alarm. In whatever way, he should be ironing this riddle out. Who left the message for Sophia under his name at Hilton Hotel? Was, therefore, Yacine’s presence in Algiers sheer coincidence? A gruff person, having correct information about Sophia and Ramice, might have been using Yacine as a scapegoat. With all these wheels-within-wheels queries Ramice retraced his steps to Maritime Pines. Speedily, he beamed in on Gerd Weize’s books stand. It remained roughly two hours from daily closing. Drop-dead gorgeous Sophia was chatting with her father, and Fariza standing at the far corner of the stand like a statue, when Ramice, breathless and impatient, arrived in. Ramice proceeded to automatic handshakes; Gerd, then Fariza, but Sophia preferred cuddling him, her chin resting on his left shoulder. “I miss you,” she whispered to him. “Me, too,” he murmured back, assuaged.
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They now stepped back simultaneously. Ramice ran his hand on his fatigued face and rubbed his eyes for awaking himself, and demanded, iffy, “Can you tell me the inside story, Sophia?” Nearby Fariza strained her ears, yet the mélange of English and German distressed her. And Gerd kept his eyes peeled for visitors of his stand. “Well,” Sophia began to speak, “the desk employee told me before nine o’clock that I had a message from you. Date in Sofia Garden at ten. I kissed dad and went out. I took a taxi to meet you there ” “Since when have I to date you like this? I’ve always picked you up from the hotel, personally. ” “I’m really sorry, Ramice. I so love you that I was incautious. I shouldn’t have misbehaved. ” “What happened has barely made me go berserk. I thought you were kidnapped by ” he did not pronounce the name of Yacine. “There, I’ve waited for an hour. I didn’t understand anything about your not coming. Afterward, I decided to saunter in the streets of Algiers. ” “Why you didn’t call me? ” “I haven’t your phone number on me, alas. I forgot it in my hotel room. ” “I arrived about 13:36. I’d been scanning the streets, gardens and slopes like a mine detector! ” “About 15:20, I turned back in here by taxi,” Sophia told Ramice “I see,” Ramice said, as his features shrank out of the dilemma of that day. Sophia concentrated on the weary eyes of Ramice and said, “If it’s not Yacine, who else might have done this?”
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He shrugged not without venturing to say: “That person was surely behind the e-mail threats and this morning’s bogus message. And more expediently, this person could be around us right now! ” “My gosh!” Sophia said in trepidation. In the same breath the blue-eyed Sophia and the brown-eyed Ramice swivelled their vision toward Fariza. Seconds later, they backed their eyes out of her in-profile physique. “Could she… ” Sophia spoke softly. Ramice nodded his assumption. “Do you happen to know her, Ramice?” “Actually, she’s one of the four women I’ve told you about when we lunched in Bab al-Wad.” “How ” “Let’s go out for a spying-free talk, Sophia.” “Okay.” Gerd said to them, “Don’t get lost, you two!” Fariza followed with her jealous brown eyes the two amorous friends pacing away. The cardiac rhythm of Fariza accelerated, suspecting some private matters of hers to be let out…
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The afternoon was poised to swap its apron for a pyjama and hand over the powers to the evening. Ramice looked down at the fountain, free of imps at this time of day. “She was my second love,” he confessed to Sophia. “Funny coincidence to her being my dad’s stand hostess.” “Yes. When I saw her again here, my heart bewailed anew. After all these years of her silence and withdrawal, she cropped out. ” “Ibtissame ”
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“Her true name is Fariza.” “Oh, really?” He nodded his yes. “Does she know Yacine?” “Not physically, but I would in the past, university days I mean, talk her about him. How Yacine and me were much attached blokes. I’d even told her about the room we shared; its number, the fridge, and the like. ” “She has a robust memory to remember the room’s number and include it in the genetically coded e-mail address.” Ramice closed his eyes for a while, then reopened them and said: “Now I’m looking forward to seeing Yacine again for old days’ sake.” He paused, trying to meditate upon the purposes of Fariza who had revengefully put her oar in, turning thus topsy-turvy their sailboat off Algiers Bay. He could not shrink from thinking that Fariza was acting like Charles Quint, shooting for the destruction of the alcazar of love where the hearts of Sophia and his had found shield and candor. Ramice whished a torrential rain for the vessels of Fariza! He merely chuckled. Fariza…Vessels…Charles Quint…Forts…Failure… Sophia interrupted his mothballed speculations and playing of psychological darts. “Hey, Ramice! You forgot I was here! What’s going on in your mind? ” “Oracular things!” “Yacine? Fariza? Or me? ” she wondered. “You three form the Triangle of Bermuda!” “And I suppose you’re the missing ship or plane!” “Well, I’d be feeling safe around your angle, would I not?” he grinned. “Yes, should your hull be watertight.” “It’s from flesh!” Sophia laughed at his allusion. “Yummy food for sharks!”
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“Do they bite?” he joked. “Sure.” She cupped his right hand, and wished she could bite him. “You know, liebe Sophia, as the years sped by, I’ve the sensation I’m precociously senile,” he said dismally. With the back of her velvety hand she caressed, romantically, his three-day black beard. “Why you said that? At thirty, you’re still young and handsome.” “Every elapsed year I felt it five. It’s hard to grow up in dire straights and pitiless bloody scimitars all around your neck. ” “Oh, Ramice. Let bygones be bygones. Enjoy life now! ” “Yeah. Sorry. I was too lugubrious. Life goes on, notwithstanding. ” “Now, are you going to talk to Fariza for clearing things out?” “Tomorrow I’ve a date with her. I advice you to be near your father at the stand for helping him while Fariza is away. Besides, up until now, there’s no clear-cut evidence that it’s Fariza who is the culprit. It may turn out a mere coincidence, again. ” Sophia frowned. “Then, who else if it’s neither Yacine nor Fariza? ” “That’s the question. By soon, I’ll get at the verity. ” “The sooner, the better. I can’t continue hiding like a fearful, potential prey! ” “I hope so. You’ve just to place confidence in me. ” “You have it, my dear friend.”
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The sun betrothed to come back in fourteen hours, the time it needed to shed its light on the other part of the world. The sky above the horizon shook a celestial brush for the ritual erubescent tints following sunset.
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Ramice was relieved and glad that the night set in after he had seen Sophia at Maritime Pines, with soundness of body and soul. What a calamity could have fallen on his consciousness if Sophia had been really kidnapped or bruised. He had entered his apartment at nine p.m. Abd al-Halim, whom Ramice had not met during that day, was back from the bookfair four hours ago. “Where have you been all the day?” Abd al-Halim worried, when he opened him the door. “A long story, Abd al-Halim! God knows how I suffered today. I’ll tell you everything later on. ” Ramice removed his shoes, saluted them for their good work of walk, and headed toward the bathroom. Later, he came out in good shape. Ankle sores and aches had been eased up by the warm water. “Have you dined, Ramice?” Abd al-Halim asked him from the kitchen when he saw him towelling his head in the apartment’s corridor. “Not yet, guy. Anything to be put under teeth? ” “Chekchuka.” “Great! It’s been years I haven’t taken it ” “Before it gets cool.” After three minutes, Ramice sat around a low table in the kitchen, facing the cook. “Mmm. It’s delicious. You’ve golden fingers! ” “Cooking the stew of vegetables and playing with spices are my specialities.” “Good, friend. As to me, I just know how to make omelettes, fry meat and French chips. ” “Poor old Ramice! Why don’t you get married with a woman who cooks well? ” Ramice gazed at the photo-draped refrigerator, one yard from the back of Abd al-Halim. The photos were all about soccer
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stars: Zidane, Rolandinho, Kaka, Beckam, Maradona, Pelé, van Basten, and Madjer. If it were not a rental (fully furnished apartment of his friend, Walid) Ramice would replace them by photos of DNA’s charismatic figures: James Watson, Francis Crick, Maurice Wilkins, Rosalind Franklin, Arthur and Roger Kornberg, Barbara McClintock, Har Gobind Khorona, Walter Gilbert, Frederick Sanger Craig Venter, Francis Collins, John Sulston, Eric Lander, without forgetting Algerian-born Elias Zerhouni, Kamel Sanhadji, and why not a huge poster of the human genome decipherment’s 2000-member crew. Ramice was now bent upon answering his comrade’s question. “Marriage it’s a matter of fortune. Women ran away when we desire them and stick to us, poor men, when we repel them. I know, I seem to you too philosophic and, therefore, quite ambiguous. ” “Nowadays, women look for wealthier men. Love is really nugatory, ” Abd al-Halim put it that way. “The solution is straightforward: Rich women for rich men, and poor women for poor men,” Ramice postulated. “Hybrid deal isn’t workable?” “Well, it’s like viruses. You know, hybrid viruses are the deadliest! ” Abd al-Halim grinned with rapture to Ramice’s sharp responses. “And Sophia?” “She declared her love to me!” “Oh, you’re lucky, old bloke!” “Maybe, maybe not.” “Stop saying such malarkeys! She’s German, beautiful, and above all a science journalist. What do you want else? ” “I need some time to meditate.”
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“Meditate? Guys are joining Europe by swim, at their risks and perils, just to wed with the first met woman. Anyway, it’s your own life. Do whatever you see appropriate for you. ” The night purled by, and the two friends careened in the Charybdis of women’s world. Ramice reminisced about the finials of past days and the sconce of his loved houris. And how, little by little, that stronghold was dismantled, and spalled away. The four women he knew, one after one, biffed his heart and gashed its ventricles. After the fourth let-down, Ramice had decided to use his heart as a fulcrum in lifting his survival among the katzenjammers of daily life. The day Sophia came upon his life, things had changed. What his national women had not cooed to him, Sophia spoke it aloud: Ich liebe dich…I love you…Ti amo…Je t’aime… Then, the previously adumbral Algiers Bay suddenly became coruscant; the forgotten forts were restored in their glorious and long History; the men of the hour resuscitated from their ramrodded lethargy; the White City regained its immaculateness; the larids celebrated the glamor of the blue sea and their recovered Islands. In brief, committing himself to solemnize the relationship with Sophia Weize was no laughing matter by reason of their distinct inherited religions… Ramice and Abd al-Halim dosed down at 23:20.
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Fariza nearly threw up the fruit compote she had gormandized for dinner, as she remembered the German blonde who had been appropriating Ramice in front of her envious eyes. Tomorrow, she would be meeting him. She thought it would be a climactic opportunity for her to wheedle his feelings she had bamboozled years before. Would it be possible? It was 90-10 %, she figured, heartsick. She felt tethered in the presence of Sophia. She admitted to herself that Sophia was not the kind of women Ramice could
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break up with: Smart, intellectual, close age with him, and most importantly, a German. Fariza knew well that Algerian men would not think thrice to spouse a foreign woman, especially if the latter crossed the sea southwards and, undeviatingly, landed in your arms! She foreshadowed muzzy horizons as soon as Sophia, classy and unflappable, kept on drawing with Ramice’s hands the contours of upcoming days. Months? Years? In disgust, she hit the dado between her bed and night table with her left hand, before schlepping on the floor of her bedroom…
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CHAPTER 15
Morning sickness still harassed Ramice when he arrived at the National Library of Algeria at al-Hamma. Today was Tuesday, the seventh of November; cloudless sky, 25 degrees Celsius; humidity about tolerable thresholds. Blares of nearby Algiers phlegmatic subway works were live persecutions to eardrums. This decades-old project, for an escapist, would never end. He had sent Fariza an SMS when he was up at six in the morning for confirming the date and the place. She SMSed him back her OK. Standing, with his back to the sea, arms akimbo, he looked up at the Memorial of Martyrs, dominating Algiers Bay, guessing how much concrete had been poured into it… “Do you fear that it’d topple down one day? ” a soft female voice spoke behind his neck. “I beg your ” he began to say as he turned back to find his face vis-à-vis Fariza’s beautiful face. They shook hands in silence, eyes aglitter and hearts aflutter. She was dressed to kill: hot pink panty hose, scarlet velvet undershirt which outlined perfectly her breasts, open fuchsia cardigan, and long-heeled red shoes. Well-armed to fan her old flame? “Am I late?” she said, rosy lips moving slowly.
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“29 minutes,” he replied, smiling. “Sorry. Traffic jam. ” “And all over the five years?” Her tongue reeled for a short moment. “You still bear me a grudge, Ramice?” “No. Your silence killed me, ounce by ounce. ” “I’m ashamed for all the damage I’d caused you,” she said gravely. “Should I kneel down for apology?” “You haven’t to do that. What should happen, happened. Let’s go up to the Memorial of Martyrs. ” “Okay. As you like, Ramice. ” They walked out of the National Library’s forecourt, turned left for tramping about till the cable car, next Pasteur Institute and over against Jardin d’Essai. As the cable car hauled them up, the sea came into view in its unsullied splendor, and overview of Algiers’ Amazon Forest by proxy, Jardin d’Essai, was a real pleasure for eyes and tranquilizing for nerves. Ramice and Fariza had not uttered a word in the cable car, preferring taking advantage of the panoramic views of Algiers the White. Once at the Memorial of Martyrs, Ramice whished he could lay a giant wreath at the feet of this imposing monument in the honor of past martyrs and recent victims of terrorism. “Tantalizing!” Fariza cried out, appreciating the Algiers below, mouth to mouth with the ever fascinating Algiers Bay. “It really is!” “God did so faultlessly shape it.” “It’s one of the magnificent bays of the world!” “You were very fond of Algiers Bay. Do you, now? ” “Every day my love to it triples. I’m a part of it. When it smiles, I smile. And when it weeps, I suffer. ” “Your heart is very sensitive, Ramice.”
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He leant his head backwards, breathed deeply the fresh air wafting up from the sea, half-closed his eyes, then swung back to the first position, and said: “Do you really think that my battered heart could love a woman again? ” “Ramice… ” Fariza’s voice trailed away as she shed tears, a bit pigmented by her make-up. Ramice produced from his pocket a white handkerchief and handed it out to her. She took it and dabbed her tears. “Please, Fariza, don’t sob. My heart is delicate. Can’t hold before a crying woman. ” Tuning up her vocal strings, she said: “I do feel your torture, Ramice. I admit that I acted up. You know, everybody can slip up. I’m only human. Besides, women are the weakest of all. ” “Anyway, I also learned how to forgive and forget. ” Fariza beamed a little. “I always told myself, you’d a great heart. Ramice I wonder why such a tender man is still unmarried. ” “After you’d vanished, I met two other women. They, too, cast me aside for moneyed men. All my care and love to them wound up on the rocks. Especially the latter one, who plainly genuflected before an emigrant she barely knew on the Internet, and got married with him. She was such a materialist woman. Her heart would skip a beat when she saw a lavish car driving by. Now, after all these years, I realize she didn’t deserve me. Every one should meet one’s match. ” Fariza looked uncomfortable, for she was not different a lot from the women Ramice had talked about. “What about Sophia?” she asked dauntingly. “She revived my heart.” “I see,” she said, despaired. He stared now directly at Fariza’s eyes. “Sophia loves me and… ” He hushed up the remaining words. “And what?” she demanded, impatient.
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“She wants to get married with me, ” he finally owned to her. Fariza had the impression that the Memorial of Martyrs had tottered on her head, dooming her within reaction into a pandemonium. Ramice... Sophia...Wedding... Sophia to hook up with Ramice... Her Ramice, stolen by the German blonde, Sophia... Ramice to be her husband... His wife... Wife... Wife... Impossible... No... No... No... “What’s up, Fariza? ” Ramice asked, plugging off the current of her to-do. “I’m feeling giddy, ” she said, grasping her forehead. “Are you dizzy because of the loftiness of this place? ” he joked. “Stop playing the fool, Ramice! Mount Everest wouldn’t make me wim-kneed! ” “Really? ” “Look, Ramice, ” Fariza said, her dizziness fading out, “I hope Sophia will take care of you, and make you ever happier... ” Her voice blew out, as though she had laid down her weapons of recapturing Ramice’s heart. “Fariza, you must understand me well. You showed up when I’d completely forgotten you. I can’t betray Sophia now. Unthinkable. Got it? ” She could not speak, sorrow getting the better of her. It was grim for her to accept the fait accompli, and did not estimate it was worth her while insisting on his change of mind. And heart. “Let’s hoof it to get some drink in the cafeteria. I wanna tell you something about what happened to me these last days,” Ramice said to Fariza. They went down from the esplanade of the Memorial of Martyrs in utter silence. Fariza was ruminating the chaff of belated reap as the wheat was rather in assortment with the blonde Sophia. ***************************************************
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Ramice pushed back the chair for Fariza and helped her sit down, politely and voluntarily. She appreciated his gallantry and smiled to him when he seated himself across from her. It looked as if they had met each other at this very instant. They ordered drinks and cakes when the waitress strolled over their table. Ramice could not ignore the prominent chest of Fariza, the other jewels above women’s navels which a few addled men would overlook their generosity. Being well aware of a man’s Achilles’ heel, Fariza would deliberately wobble her bosom in an appealing motion. The Tempter scored a point when Ramice stripped her awhile in his mind… Then the waitress came back holding a full tray, and Ramice donned Fariza in haste. The waitress tended, smiled, then cut out. “Someone threatened me through e-mails,” Ramice said after three mouthfuls of his drink. Fariza paused sucking her apricot juice and pricked up her ears, then said in ferment, “You were threatened?” “Yes.” “By whom?” “There’s the rub.” “Have you any suspect?” “I had.” Fariza’s heart pounded. “I thought it was Yacine Lejeni,” Ramice told her. “Yacine Lejeni?” she said, relieved that Ramice did not suspect her. “My former friend, right? He studied in France, then in Germany. ” “Genetics?” “That’s Right. It happens that he has been in Algiers for a week now. ”
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Fariza, still disconcerted, asked Ramice about the link between the menace and Yacine’s being back in Algiers. Ramice told her the whole story, but his suspicion about her presumable involvement. Fariza had lent him an attentive ear. She indeed agreed with him as for all these coincidences. Fariza felt at last that Ramice thought likely she fulfilled all the conditions of crime to be the next suspect after Yacine. The e- mail address in question, the relationship between Ramice and Sophia, were all sufficient to raise his doubts as Fariza had knowledge of these things; she had studied with Ramice, and she knew that Ramice and Sophia had been an item. “Ramice do you suspect me?” Fariza asked to lighten her burden. Ramice was taken abreast by her frankness. He did not like to violate the principle of ‘innocence till proof of the contrary.’ Then he said: “Of course not, Fariza. Why would I to? ” “If it’s neither Yacine nor me, who else?” “Fariza!” “I swear on the head of my father that I’m not the author of those e-mails. Nor of the hotel’s fake message. ” “I believe you, Fariza.” “You surely do. Thanks. ” She rucked up her lips. “I’m relieved now. I’m happy that none of you two was behind the menace. By the way, was there a woman named Amina who had studied with us genetics during university years? ” Fariza reflected for one minute, then said no. “It’s undoubtedly a pseudo,” Ramice guessed. “Who wants to split your relationship with Sophia?” “The mystery goes on.” “You must act as a detective for yourself, Ramice. Make a list of all the people who know you’re with Sophia, then hit off Columbo! ” “Inspector Tahar, you mean!”
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A peal of laughter followed upon remembrance of this deceased Algerian comedian in his satirical police movies of old with his aide, The Apprentice, also pushing up daisies. Ramice was sympathetic to Fariza because of her fairness, patience, and reborn cordiality. Her love for him rekindled by the fire of her lethal eyes, and the blow coming out of her sensuous lips, and the cyclone originating from her provocative bosom. Ramice could just assess the wreckage of her typically Algerian beauty and charm. He feared that he was being ensnared schmaltzily by allure-ridden carafe of Fariza, brimming over carnal hints. Was Fariza inexorably manacling and fettering Ramice? But Sophia loved him, tremendously and loyally. She crossed the sea, opened him her heart, shared his science woes, her father promised him help, and, reciprocally he should not cheat on her. Fariza reappeared late… Late… Late, he argued with himself. Fariza broke the long daydream of Ramice and said, “What are you going to do?” “Well, nothing special.” “Meeting Yacine, perhaps?” “Actually, I’d like to see him again. The problem is that I haven’t got his new address. ” “What a shame!” she said. Ramice looked at his digital wrist-watch. It was 12:03. They had been tossing around in this coy cafeteria for over two hours. The redolence of their past golden days, veined by hokey dalliance, had now reached the stage of pinchbeck… “You know, Fariza, love has no arbalest despite all the hard times it would carry on disillusionment, knifing, betrayal, solitude ” “I do realize lonely nights you suffered from. Ramice, I’ll try to alleviate your prangs if you’d like to. ” “How?” he asked cattily. “By smoothing your wrinkles,” she said, feline as ever.
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“You’d age before doing this nifty job!” “What do you mean?” “I’m no longer a spring’s hare, you know.” “Only love can rejuvenate a man!”
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CHAPTER 16
The conference auditorium, resembling those of Roman or Greek coliseums minus the mod con, was brouhahing before nine in the morning of Wednesday. Scientists most of them Algerians, but also some invited researchers from abroad , students and journalists had been convened for this gathering under the motto : 'GENETIC DISEASES IN ALGERIA: PAST, PRESENT AND FUTURE.' Ramice and Sophia arrived in the nick of time for the inaugural speech by the head of the Algerian Society of Human Genetics. They folded out two cushioned chairs, which made scrunches in the now muffled hall. As they sat down, the white-haired man in his mid-fifties cleared his throat to address the audience. At the left of the speaker's podium the screen read the title of the conference in blue capital letters, under which a model of the DNA double helix firing like a howitzer on a bare human drawing, hinting to humans' weakness in front of genetic disorders. A young man sat behind a laptop computer to handle the slides through the data-show device, the light framing his mug. After a fifteen-minute oration, welcoming the participants and delineating the aims of the one-day conference, the chairman
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called upon the first lecturer. At short notice, a tall man, wearing a black suit and holding papers, stood up in the front row, then made his way up to the podium… “Yacine Lejeni!” Ramice and Sophia whispered in the same breath and in amazement. “By golly, he flew in for this seminar, then,” Sophia spoke into the ears of Ramice. “Apparently,” Ramice murmured back, half-content, half- woozy. Come to cover this conference for his Hebdo-Sciences, Ramice did not expect at all that Yacine was taking part in it… “Chairman, ladies and gentlemen, my heartfelt thanks for inviting me in my own country,” Yacine spoke up, raising a wave of laughter in the audience, at the exception of Ramice who felt awful emotions upon hearing again his former accomplice's hoarse voice. Yacine went on, once the laughter ebbed, holding forth on the recently sequenced human genome, and the dividends that would be reaped in what had been heralded as the medicine of the future. And all that jazz. The last slide of Yacine, enlarged on the screen, showed the photo of the facility of MDC, in which he had earned his PhD back in Berlin. As he stepped down of the podium, this time,a thunderous applause echoed in the hall. Photographers took copious shots of him, all smiling and gesturing eleemosynarily toward the audience. He got back to his seat now, congenial and self-righteous. Ramice tilted his head sideways, saying to Sophia, “He's really silver-tongued! He has changed to the better, as it seems. ” “Unfortunately, he addressed in French,” Sophia regretted. “It's the first foreign language in here. ” “What would Yacine say when he'll see us together ” Sophia wondered. Ramice dived in his visible muteness, but his unfathomable interior burst into thrums and hums. At first, he was alone and
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forgotten, quiet and complacent. Then, the figures of past cropped out, one after another: Sophia, Abd al-Halim, Fariza, Yacine… Who else he asked himself. Before settling for one of the two women, he should have a word with Yacine. Quintals of words. He could not jump such an opportunity. He had too many things, borne by the heavy years, to unload.
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The conference marked a break at 12:30 for the luncheon. Well- spaced six-chair tables in the capacious gallery, with its huge columns and high ceiling and vitreous sides, were beset by the hungry crowd as soon as the chairman ended the scheduled morning communications. Ramice and Sophia saw the hall emptying in a record time; the call of stomach, as it was. At the far end of the hall's aisle, the two friends ambushed Yacine as he clambered up, escorted by the chairman and two other scientists, gabbing… When the four men were two yards away, Ramice said, “Do you need a fridge, Mister Lejeni ” The three men accompanying Yacine froze their hot babble, all left aghast by the unorthodox question. Yacine recognized Sophia first, then Ramice. He excused himself and advanced toward the two acquaintances he had not expected to see here, and together. “Sophia Ramice!” Yacine exclaimed, perturbed what to do: to hug or to shake hands as to Sophia. Sophia solved the confusion, as she extended her hand to Yacine. “Glad to see you again, Mister Lejeni.” “Likewise, Fraülein Weize!” Few seconds later, Yacine hugged Ramice's six-foot body. “Ramice! I so missed you, buster. The green-painted fridge of old! ”
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“I was looking forward to patting your back again. It's been bloody long, now. ” “You can't imagine how I'm so sorry for you, Ramice. I waited your phiz on Europe, but you didn't fly there.” “You know, Yacine, my destiny is to be here in my country. I want to weep when I saw you by the podium. ” Yacine laughed. “Guy, stuff your tears back in the fridge!” “Your jokes haven't lost zip, Sir Crick!” “You, bloody Watson!” Ramice's cheerfulness waned. “Why you look pale, Ramice ” “Oh, I'm just remembering nonsense things.” “Take it easy, comrade. I'll help you clear your overcast sky. ” “Well,” Ramice said, “let's eat if the ravenous crowd left something up there.” “Oh, yes. I missed Algerian grub, you know,” Yacine said, then turned to the three men for usual introductions. Later, the white-liveried waiter led the six Ramice, Sophia, Yacine, the chairman, and the two other colleagues to a tranquil table by a corner, separated from the other tables by two grand columns.
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Honorary awards were given to the three best scientific communications before closure at 18:00. Yacine Lejeni got the first prize. And when he received it from the chairman of the conference, he asked for permission to say some words to the audience… “Thank you very much for the honors I was endowed with. This prize could have been granted to another person, present here in the hall,” Yacine directed his arm toward Ramice “he's taken seat in the last row but I want to confess you that he
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was always ranked first when we were grads in genetics here in Algiers . Me, I would rank second behind him. His name is Ramice Taslent. He had not been given the opportunity to earn a PhD. Nevertheless, he didn't lose hope. On the contrary, his love to science led him to found the first scientific magazine in Algeria, dedicated to large public. He needs more attention and back-up. Yours, of course, is very welcome. ” The hand-clapping was timorous at first, then suddenly swelled into a deluging ovation. The chairman advanced to the microphone and called on Ramice to come down for an impromptu locution. Ramice could not outdo the choppiness of his emotions. His pulses galloped and his legs turned to jelly. He finally decided to sit up, thanks to Sophia's encouragements. He now paced down the aisle to the podium sure-footedly, all eyes on him. Ramice shook hands with the chairman and Yacine, then he cleared his throat as he posed his hands on the dais. The attendees, in utter silence, kept their ears open… “Good afternoon First of all, my real congratulations for the success of this conference in a field a bit disguised in Algeria. Paying tribute to Yacine Lejeni is a moment of great honor for me. Yacine and I were used to being linked to each other as much as two complementary strands of DNA molecule are at moderate temperature. Our four bases would respectively stand for Assiduousness, Commitment, Generosity and Truthfulness. The two-stranded molecule faced up to every impediment then harsh life laid out along our way. Yacine would fix up any deviation of mine, by virtue of complementarity, and vice versa. Yacine and I were crazy about genetics. At university, we would defend DNA as though we had elucidated its structure. Other mates chose genetics robot-likewise, and didn't give it the due interest. The day Yacine departed to Europe, Wednesday, October the second, the two strands split up. And you know well that a monocatenary DNA is easier to break up. Today, I was really delighted to see Yacine again, so triumphant, eulogized, recognized and most importantly grateful to our friendship; then,
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the single strands reassembled after years of separatedness. Better late than never, as the maxim goes. At last, I'll welcome any contribution to the weekly magazine I've launched for two months now. I've a dream of making science information a treasure endeared for and by Algerians. Thanks for listening, ladies and gentlemen. Genetically yours! ” The meeters stood up for a clamorous clap of hands, as Ramice quit the podium to hug Yacine on the brink of weeping. Even though Sophia did not understand what Ramice had said in French, she did feel he was speaking about Yacine, and his science magazine. And more wretchedly, she had been gazing down at her former love, Yacine, who seemed to her a bit tubby, chatty, radiant and cool as a cucumber. Whatever she might think of Yacine, Sophia should be taking into account of the reconstituted friendship with Ramice, her novel love. The friend of my friend is my friend, she reflected. How would Sophia cope with this paradoxical fact? Unequivocally, she concluded that as Ramice became aware of the guiltlessness of Yacine pertaining to the e-mail threats, the bonds between the two men should be consolidated for good. The chairman of the conference was now reading, in closing parlance, the outcomes of this meeting and the perspectives. Most of the people rushed into the exit door, itchy to get back home. Ramice Taslent and Yacine Lejeni got out of the hall to find their Sophia waiting them in the huge corridor of this Palace, overlooking Algiers Bay. Two's company…
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…three's abandon. “Sophia! You're OK ” Ramice said as he found her cross- armed in the marble corridor of this Palace. Yacine was beside Ramice, joyous at killing two birds with one stone. In actuality, Yacine had been champing at the bit, back in
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Europe, to meet again both Ramice to give him a hand and Sophia to make his apologies for her. “Yes, I am,” Sophia replied, mobilizing just half of her voice. “How did you find the conference, Fraülein Weize? ” Yacine asked uncomplicatedly. Sophia’s blasé deportment wore off and said, “Very interesting. Glad you two met again. ” “You mean the three of us,” Ramice pointed out. Sophia looked stealthily at Yacine, who had not lifted his eyes from her ever since she was in front of him. He missed her too much, the black eyes of his augured in passion. Ramice sensed that the two reluctantly reunited former lovers would surely like have a word with each other. Of course, Ramice did not want to be an obstacle to them. There were his best friends. No taboo, then.
*************************************************** That night, Ramice insisted on having Yacine as a guest. The three had driven down from the Palace by means of taxi. It was dusk when they dropped Sophia at Hilton Hotel. She thanked the two reunited friends for their amiability, and promised them a new date for tomorrow at Maritime Pines. Thrilling, Ramice thought. That would be an exotic quartet: Ramice and Yacine; Sophia and Fariza… Once Ramice ushered Yacine into his apartment, the clock chimed nine o’clock of the night. Abd al-Halim was reading a copy of Koran in the living-room, knees on the praying spring-green rug patterning the shrine of pilgrimage of Mecca. He closed the Holy Book of Islam and sat up to greet Ramice and the well-clad man. “Yacine Lejeni Abd al-Halim, ” Ramice introduced them, as they shook hands with extreme deference.
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Ramice cameoed his two guests to each other in three or four minutes, as if he were their biographer. “You’re in your home, Yacine. Do as you like. ” “I sure am. Ta. ” He put off his black jacket and the dodger blue striped tie that strangled him all that day of conference. “Have you dined? ”Abd al-Halim asked them. “Yes. We gutted a roast rabbit,” Ramice acknowledged. “And you, Abd al-Halim? ” “I ate out, too. Dolma. ” “Umm. I missed it,” Yacine talked. “It’s a becoming apartment, Ramice. ” “Yes it is. A rental, though. ” “I’m thirsty.” “Let’s see what’s in the fridge. You come, Yacine. ” Yacine laughed, then followed Ramice into the kitchen. “I’ve just halal drinks, guy! You know, I don’t take alcoholics, right? ” Ramice said when he swung the fridge’s door open. “Coca suits me. ” Yacine picked one pint of it out. Ramice favored fresh water to frizzy thingamajigs, his stomach abhorring gas. “Have some drink, ” he shouted from the kitchen at Abd al-Halim, who was still in the living-room. “Just a glass of Coca,” Abd al-Halim’s voice echoed in the apartment. Ramice led Yacine into his work room, then brought Abd al- Halim his drink, and then joined back Yacine. Yacine whistled in daze. “Waw! Francis Collins’ house wouldn’t contain such maps of chromosomes! ” “I’m mad about human genomics, you know. Short of taking part in this great endeavor, I’ve collected all the genetic papers and maps of human chromosomes. I’m feeling better upon seeing them on the walls every night. ”
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Yacine put a hand on Ramice’s shoulder. “You deserve to attend Harvard, Cambridge, Max-Plank Institutes. I’m really sorry that you had not been given any chance to enhance your academic career. ” Ramice, a bit emotional, said, “It’s my destiny. The most important thing is your ingenious profile. ” “Incredible! You were always ranked first, me just behind you. Nevertheless, job-for-the-boys policies of this unjust land stripped you of a merited scholarship to earn a PhD. ” “Fucking connections have been depraving the country,” Ramice blasted. “Ramice, I promise you to help you further your studies in Europe. Choose France or Germany. ” “Do you think it’s feasible now? ” “Naturally. I’ll be your adviser, right? ” “Thanks, Yacine. I’m feeling reborn. ” “You’re welcome, Watson! ” As Yacine noticed Magda Erroumi’s color-poster on the wall, he veered his mind to the world of women. Or that of a woman: Sophia Weize. “May I ask you a question, Ramice? ” “You can ask a million. ” “About Sophia how do you happen to know her? ” “By Internet, first. Then, she came here with her father, representing a German Book Publisher at Algiers International Bookfair,” Ramice spelled out. “I see. Queer coincidence. Did she tell something about me? ” Ramice caught his breath. “In fact, yes. She told me everything. ” “Did you believe all her account? ” Ramice shrugged in haze. “Then? ” Yacine asked. “Well, I wanna hear your version of facts for comparison. ”
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“Sure. ”
142 Belkacem Meghzouchene Sophia in the White City
CHAPTER 17
The aureated pine-treed Algiers International Bookfair was about to etiolate in this penultimate day. A good many number of visitors would have as their cicerone the tocsin of book- phobia. The advent of phone mobiles, DVD players, digitalized TV, Internet entertainments, had dashed the last hopes of enticing Algerians to buying and reading books. Some would say that it was due to sky-scraping prices. That was only a part of the truth; the other being the fact that Algerians would afford shopping for exorbitant, unnecessary fashion paraphernalia, condemning thus the world of books to epicedian days. Yacine was listening to Ramice’s complaints about deterioration of Algerian readership with utmost mindfulness. “Then, nothing has changed, old chum?” “As I told you, Yacine. There had been times when saving one’s head for 24 hours was a Guennissable deed. You know, massacres of people by rote couldn’t make us give a damn of an interest for books and the like. Every pace we did horizontally could at any moment auspicate a vertically dug grave. ” Yacine scanned gamely, for nostalgia’s sake, the pine trees, the lawns, the kerbs, the large stairs, and the tortuous paths. “Do you remember,” Ramice said, “the day, right here, I precipitously fainted, seeing all the objects whirring around me. I took minutes coming to myself. ” “Of course, I recall that, my buddy. To be precise, it was due to an out-of-date orange juice you had drunk during that morning’s breakfast. You scared me. I thought you were dying. ”
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Ramice rubbed his neck. “I’m indebted to you. Happily, you were there to nurse me. ” “Come, friend. It was my duty. ” “Six billion thanks!” “You always think about the human genome.” “I just can’t pass it up.” The two friends entered now the pavilion where Gerd Weize had been exhibiting. Sophia ought to be waiting them inside. Fariza would be there, too.
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As though the fountain outside the pavilions were playing Lethe River’s water, with which the unexpectedly met quartet had undergone a wash-over, Ramice and Yacine, gung-ho as ever, strolled in the German stand with vivified sureness and said Guten Tag to Gerd Weize and Sophia, and good morning to Fariza. Methodical presentations, festooned with smiles, and obmutscent astonishment, paved the way to an exciting discussion. “Tomorrow the Bookfair closes, Gerd,” Ramice said, standing between Yacine and Sophia, whereas Fariza was beside Gerd. “Yes. Every beginning has an end! ” “Any bargains?” “Well, quite satisfying. We sold many titles. And some Algerian books importers promised to purchase our books both in German and English. ” “Great, then, for a first participation.” “Very.” Yacine to ask, “What sorts of books do you publish, Herr Weize?” “Scientific ones.”
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“Good. Our country is down and out in terms of science books, as you have surely noticed. ” “People deplored insufficiency, indeed.” “And books fly in many years after they’re out in Europe,” Ramice added. Sophia and Fariza had been, as the conversation went on amongst the trio of men, playing psychological tug-of-war; Ramice’s heart being tied up with the rope. Why isn’t this blonde kraut kissing and making up with Yacine to unchain Ramice for me? And Sophia put the very question to herself about Fariza. Fariza thought, tactically speaking, that the arrival of Yacine, former Sophia’s lover, would devitalize the love between Sophia and Ramice… “Aren’t you interested in our discussion, you two women?” Gerd asked, unaware that he acted as an umpire for a truce of Sophia and Fariza’s war of hearts. “Of course we are. Aren’t we, Fariza? ” “Yes. I agree with what you’re talking about,” Fariza said, yet in the clouds. Yacine glanced at Fariza, finding her sexy but demure. He kept beating his brains ever since he met her here, for he was convinced that he had seen or encountered her before he emigrated. The flesh of his country had so missed him, too. Ramice got the point of the indispensability of a face-to-face between Yacine and Sophia, then suggested them to go outside, fountainwards. The two welcomed the idea, said Abysinnia, and broke out. Fariza did not believe her eyes that her dissimulated dream came true. She found in Ramice a Palladian and lambent man, having sent Yacine and Sophia digging up John Stenton’s tomb near the fountain! “Yes. ”
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“Are they going to patch up? ” so Fariza began grabbing the plow. The question troubled Ramice who had qualms about the feasibility of this scenario. “How should I know? ” he said, shrugging. “He's your pal, isn't he? ” “The two are my friends, indeed. ” “A dilemma for you, Ramice? ” “You can say that. If they decide to ,” he refrained from finishing his sentence. His mind was caught in a sirocco, welking on the shifting dunes of vagueness. “I'm here with you, Ramice. Unless you think I'm intruding upon your private life,” Fariza scooped the first plowful out of the treasure-laden unknown grave. “You're from the family, Fariza! I appreciate you. ” Now, Fariza bulldozed the earth as Ramice's heart opened up to her. She accepted to be a spare wheel for him when she realized the flotsams she had occasioned to his liner of life.
*************************************************** Yacine was prehensile to talk with Sophia. She had not changed too much since the two parted company in Berlin, he egregiously remarked as he scrutinized her well-formed body on both sides. Her sun-lit face looked somehow reddish on the otherwise milky-white cheeks back in numbing climate of Berlin by winters. Anyway, Sophia bore in mind that Ramice was her current knight in shining armour, and, subsequently, whatever Yacine would tell her, she should not take again a fancy to him. Unless Ramice invalidated her love… Yacine spoke first as they were ambling off under the auspices of pine trees. “Does Algiers please you? ” “A lovely city. Historic. Architecture and culture thriving astride Arabian and French styles. Algiers Bay is really breathtaking! ”
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“I guess Ramice had you visit it to a great deal. ” “Yes. He's fond of its History, you know. ” “I acknowledge Ramice's erudition. ” Sophia nodded, Ramice growing ever dearer in her heart. “Tell me Sophia what can I do for you in reconciliation? ” She swallowed her saliva in a miasma of convulsion and embarrassment, before responding him. “Is it pressing that way? I mean, past is past, you agree? ” “You told every thing to Ramice about our former relationship, right? ” “Yes ” “But why haven't you mentioned your boyfriend Matthias to Ramice? ” Sophia's tongue shuttered in her mouth. “Well ” “You've just told him half of the truth,” Yacine charged, “the other half being the fact that you and I got separated not because I had been allegedly dating other women for casual sex, but because you'd been cheating on me with Matthias. Am I mistaken Fraülein Weize? ” “Look, Yacine I'm not compelled to. ” “I know, Sophia. Ramice thought I'm a traitor. ” “Really? ” “Last night, I cleared my name, fortunately,” Yacine avowed. “You did well. I couldn't do that in front of Ramice. I was so regretful. ” Her voice translated a hard feeling of penitence. Yacine patted Sophia's right shoulder, stopped walking, and turned her to face him. “Come on, Sophia! Don't worry. I'm not here to spoil your relationship with Ramice. He's my intimate, after all. I'll help you to move forward, okay? ” Sophia beamed into lachrymose smiles…
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Ramice stammered an excuse for Fariza, then whisked away to answer a call of nature. When he harked back to the German stand, Yacine and Sophia were already there. The good mood of Fariza veered round 180 degrees to the opposite every time Sophia’s beauty swayed no more that one inch from Ramice. Begrudging, Fariza tortured herself every second she breathed in oxygen about Sophia: Why does she ever come in Algeria? Well, she has been here for the Bookfair with her father. Right. Then, within a couple of days she had better take flight back home, chat up with a German guy and do whatever she wants to fool around. German men for German women and Algerian men for Algerian women; deciphered: Ramice for Fariza; and Sophia for Satan… At this very time, two blue-uniformed policemen, and four black-suited bodyguards escorted the ambassador of Germany to Algiers toward the Gerrman stand. Gerd Weize sat up straightforward and put on rapidly his jacket. By-passers braked on their toes to have a glimpse of this official. “Your Excellency, welcome to our stand,” Gerd said politely and zealously, extending a hand. “Thanks, Herr ” “Weize. Gerd Weize. ” “Herr Weize, don’t hesitate in case you need anything. It’s a duty to help our German compatriots. ” “Thanks, Your Excellency. Your visit is paramount and laudable. ” Gerd turned to Sophia. “My daughter, Sophia. ” They shook hands, smiling widely. Gerd introduced to His Excellency Ramice and Yacine and Fariza. “Ramice is an editor of a scientific magazine, Your Excellency.” “Nice to meet you, sir,” the ambassador said.
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Now, Gerd baited the ambassador. “Ramice would like to further his studies in Germany, if you could help him, Your Excellency.” “If you say he merits help, I’ll do my best.” The ambassador gave Gerd his personal phone number. “Just call me, Herr Weize.” “Thank you very much, Your Excellency.” The ambassador flicked through randomly chosen books for courtesy’s sake, Gerd beside him in go condition to answer any question the Botschafter could ask. The bodyguards precluded, diplomatically, the visa-craving crowd from rushing in the stand. One irate young man hollered: “Hitler…Hitler… ” A policeman labored to calm him down, then bespoke him to go away, otherwise the riled man would be handcuffed and charged with ‘mockery encounter to an accredited foreign diplomat.’ The cad finally walked away, grunting curses. His Excellency played down the offense as he was cognizant of the idiosyncrasy of Algerians to humor and pun. “Well, Herr Weize, I’m glad that you represent our country dignifiedly and responsibly,” the ambassador said, shaking again hands. “It’s an honor, Your Excellency. That’s very kind of you. ” The four bodyguards circled the ambassador and furrowed him away through the throng.
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CHAPTER 18
Twelve days since Sophia had flown in Algiers the White. Like an exotic flower, falling in love with the vase which gave it shelter and water for the duration of its life, calyx and corolla, Sophia quailed at the thought of withering away from Ramice. Either of the two should be making a painful choice. In a couple of days, Sophia would fly back to Germany, her mother being in a critical condition. “Last night, my brother Jochen called me at Hilton Hotel. Mamma’s health worsened. ” Tears welled out of Sophia’s blue eyes. Ramice shared her affliction. “I’m sorry for your mother, dear Sophia. I hope she’ll get better. Have faith in God. ” He bent over the table, where they were sipping tea at one of Borj al- Kiffan’s cobble-stoned esplanades, and then wiped her wet- cheeked face with a handkerchief. “Mamma’s a nervous breakdown since she divorced from dad. I grew up, you can say, fatherless. He was a drunken man. He would be aggressive and unbearable. That was before divorce. After they got split, he didn’t take care of us. Fortunately, mamma got remarried with another man seven years later. He has three children. ”
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“But Herr Weize seemed to me affectionate, kind ” “For three years now, he has given up drinking alcohol. He has compunctions about all the damage he caused us. It’s hard to be raised without a father at your sides. Mamma suffered too much out that divorce. When dad invited me in here, mamma was at first reluctant, before she gave me the green light. I do understand mamma. ” Ramice toyed with his mug of tea. He had already taken in two-thirds of it. “You know, Sophia life is like Jekyll and Hyde; sometimes considerate and velvety, and sometimes unrelenting and thorny. Look at this mug, ” he put it at the center of the table “let’s suppose it represented life. Okay? When it’s filled with tea we enjoy gulping it down, right? But what about if the mug contained a drop of venom mixed with tea? Who dares drink it if one knew it’s poisonous? Nobody, you’ll agree with me. ” Sophia nodded to his philosophy. “Well,” Ramice went on, “the fact that we came to this life, we’ve to suck it in, be it tea-only, or suffused with venom!” He glanced at perplexed Sophia, and then sipped on his mug of life. Jokingly Sophia said, “I guess you’re immunized!” “I’m teetotalling!” He boomed out an immoderate laugh. The sadness of Sophia dried up. She melted in the sight and charm of Ramice, who, incredibly, was savvy about how to turn a woman’s melancholy to euphoria. “Ramice, I bequeath you my heart.” He reached for her soft hands, caressing them in slow motion, finger by finger. “Do I deserve you?” “Yes. Soul and body. ” She freed a hand and ran the back of her index and middle fingers on his right cheek. “I love you, Ramice. Back in the hotel, by nights, I would stretch supinely on my back, naked, looking up at the quiet ceiling, all thinking
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about you. Closing my eyes, I imagined you massaging my flesh from big toe on up to the lips ” “Oh, Sophia. Stop that, please! Do you wanna crush me to smithereens? And in public? ” He felt his blood vessels mobilized below his buckle. The Bay of carnal passion… Ramice checked his watch to find it 4:52 p.m.
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Algiers Bookfair was only three hours away from closure. Easy- going, Gerd Weize was keeping tabs on the hoi polloi, getting in and out of Wissen Verlag’s stand, more sedated by eye-licking Fariza’s thighs and bosom than procuring a damn book. Fed up with undying flirt-seeking men, Fariza came up to her German ringleader for a last talk. “It’s over by soon, Herr Weize. ” “I’m relieved, you know; back home shortly after. ” Cheery as ever, she did not lose a second to ask him about Sophia. “And your daughter? ” “Of course, she’ll come with me. Besides, her mother is hospitalized, ” Gerd replied, unknowing that Fariza was vying for Sophia-bitten Ramice’s heart. “I’m sorry for Frau Weize.” “Actually, we divorced twenty years ago.” He paused, looking off the crowdy blue-carpeted aisle. “Before divorce, I would drink like a fish; I used to be piss-head, if you’ll excuse the term. Neurotic and violent indoors, I would get tough with Clotilde... ” He flipped through the pages of Wissen Verlag glossy catalog. For the first time, Fariza felt woeful toward Sophia, her emulate... A brawny man, wearing a DEUTSCHLAND 2006 T-shirt, cut in. Fariza, then Gerd, recognized him now, without his formal suit of the day before.
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“Good afternoon, Mister Lejeni.” “Call me just by Yacine, Herr Weize.” “Me, Gerd. ” Half-smiling Fariza said to Yacine hello, too.She admitted to herself his handsomeness. Yacine periscoped the rows of books on display. He advanced more to read some titles. Interesting, he thought. Fariza followed him, as she was the only hostess, on call to help him choose books. Finally, Yacine bought a dozen. Fariza parcelled them by four, and put them in a paper bag bearing the German's publisher's label. “May I ask you a question, Fariza? ” Fariza looked up at Yacine, the bag of books still on the plastic-made table. “Yes.” Gerd withdrew many yards away from the two, as if he had to behold the flowing masses for the last time. Yacine framed a question, now. “Do you happen to know me, Fariza? ” She remained speechless for twenty seconds, her eyes down on the blue floor. “I'm afraid not to. ” “Are you sure?” “Well, probably.” “Probably?” “What do you want to know exactly, Mister Lejeni?” Yacine faltered for a moment, before he torpedoed, “I came across your videos in an Algerian website of dykes!” Fariza flushed and gazed down, stunned. “It's not a business of your own, okay?” “I'd like to help you get rid of your counter-nature bias. How could Algerian women do such dorky things? Religiously, it's unacceptable. Do you understand , Fariza? ” Fariza fell into submarine silence, ashamed.
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“Explain away!” Yacine insisted. Now, her salvo flared up. “I'm no longer in this dirty business. Please, mum's the word, especially before Ramice. ” She wanted to sob, but held tears back because of Gerd, who stood within earshot. Fortunately, he did not understand Arabic. “I promise you, Fariza. You, too, must promise me not to do again this. ” “I told you, I stopped that three years ago.” Her long red- nailed fingers quivered in the air. Yacine gave her his home address and phone number. “If you need anything, don't hesitate to ask.” “Can I know why you're concerned about me? ” “Because you're Ramice's friend. Convinced? ” She puckered her rosy-lipped mouth. Yacine to say, “I've a gene of jealousy for Algerian women. I've been living in Europe for years. You know, under the cloak of utter freedom, women there change partners in sheer depravity.Besides that, same-sex marriages are being legalized. Humanity without boundaries of reason is doomed to disappear. We must be proud of our traditions and religious principles. Don't-do-this-but only-this is good for us. ” Still-embarassed Fariza nodded. “Well, Fariza, I’ve to go, now. Take care of yourself and goodbye! ” “Thanks, Yacine. You taught me a lot of good things I've ignored. ” Yacine thanked Gerd Weize, shook his hand, and walked away with his bagful of books. Fariza brooded over Yacine's words...... And woos?
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Friday late afternoon. Ramice called at his office, in Cinq- Maisons, to pick up a file from his computer. The cybercafé did not open on Fridays. He had, of course, a copy of keys. As he let himself in, a mephitis drifted into his nostrils, careless of the obscurity to find the two nasal holes. He switched on the four neon lights, breaking thus the show of silhouettes. The aligned PCs were veiled to stave off dust. Apparently, Nabil had not come this morning, as it had been the custom, to neaten the week’s froth. Ramice took a rose-smelling air- freshner out from a closet, at the rear of Nabil’s desk, and made the inside atmosphere fragrant. All the PCs, including Ramice’s two ones in his glass-in box, were networked to the main Internet Server PC Nabil had in his desk. Ramice sat down and logged on to the Server. There were on the desk a pile of CDs and DVDs. Ramice wondered if he could find among them Magda Eroumi’s ones. Unfortunately , he came zilch. Beside the Epson printer a CD on which was blue-written the name of Nasreen caught his attention. Web-design of Hebdo-Sciences, he inclined to think first. He inserted it into the PC’s player and waited to be opened, amidst a series of electronic groans emanating from the central processing unit. The orange button stopped flushing. When Ramice peered at the CD’s content he became aware that all the icons refered to photos and videos. Over fifty, he furnished an estimate to himself. He double-clicked on one of the photos… “Allah!” he cried out shockingly, such that if Internet users had been there they could logically believe Ramice had seen a monster on the verge of giving him the kiss of death. He quickly peeped into the other photos and videos, open- mouthed, belying his brown eyes. He made the CD ejected, and thenstuck it in his leather bag. After copying his file in a floppy disk, he logged off the system, put the lights out, and went out to close down.
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And back to his rent-apartment where he would be showing Abd al-Halim what kind of a person had been Nabil, who had remained until now unsuspected. And Nasreen?
156 Belkacem Meghzouchene Sophia in the White City
CHAPTER 19
Abd al-Halim flinched in consternation, saying: “He betrayed you.” Ramice bit his lips, not knowing what to state. He felt an avalanche of facts and odd events rolling down on his mind… “Ramice, who’s Nasreen?” “Believe it or not, she’s my webmaster at Hebdo-Sciences!” Abd al-Halim got now the gist of the story: a real network of porn. “A pornographer!” he sneered about her. “The best of all, friend, she’s veiled!” Abd al-Halim was not bewildered, for he narrated to Ramice what he had witnessed in a western beach of Algiers. “I and a friend of mine, Kranif, were lolling under a beach umbrella on the beach of Colonel Abbas. Three yards away from us, five veiled women, seemingly from the same family, stripped off to let just their bikinis. They swam all that day. In the evening, they donned their veils, unscrupulously. ” “We’re just Muslims by the clothes and the names,” Ramice said, belittled. Abd al-Halim slanted his head to match the quicksands of immortality. ***************************************************
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Nabil looked nervously at the two legs, crossed on the desk, of Ramice. This early morning, they had not even exchanged greetings. The skin of Ramice was overlaid with animosity, as he waited Nasreen for a Sackurian hard talk about bluey and disgrace and double-dealing. He had not slept the last night, pacing with his white panties in the apartment like a man staying up for his wife’s delivery through a caesarean. Ramice had yet to tell Sophia about this nastiness, meant purposefully to mud her name. He wondered if the X-rated stuff had already been posted in the Internet. Naturally, Nabil, his chin level with the soles of shoes on the desk, did not suspect that his boss had unveiled his Internet proxenetism and Nasreen’s being in league with him. He just thought that something was wrong with the magazine, or the rental, or the taxes. It was the first time he saw his chief in such churlishness and despair; his long silence harbingered a tempest of words stern words. The cybercafé was void of Internet-surfers, for Ramice had decided to keep on the doorway’s ‘CLOSED’ until he cut the porn-Gordian knot of naughty minds… A door creaked at the far end. It was Nasreen, who at last came in, with her pale green scarf and black robe reaching down to the ankles. She was unsettled by the vacuousness of the place. Usually, on Saturdays, the Internet space would be aswarm with users. She advanced, heavily, past the unoccupied PCs through on to Ramice’s box. “Good morning, you two,” she said, staring at Nabil. “Sit down, Miss, ” Ramice thought to adjunct ‘all-fur- coat-and-no-knickers’ but he dropped it for later “Nasreeeeen ” Ramice narrated to Nabil and Nasreen: “When I was a puny four-year-old child, I accidentally passed over a balcony and made a fall of three and a half yards. Luckily, I wasn’t hurt; not a microscopic graze. ” Ramice paused to let it sink in, looking at his two opposite mugs.
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Nasreen’s countenance shrank in pity, while Nabil’s appeared fully saurian. Ramice resumed speaking. “Angels had been there to look out for me through mid-air. And now,” he uncrossed his legs and swung them down as he were afraid the previous posture would cause him farmer giles “my feet are on the ground and I’m being poniarded on the back!” He almost burst a vessel as he thundered the last four words. “By whom?” Nasreen faked to ask, her voice trembling at the thought he had unearthed their dirt. Ramice rolled up the sleeves of persiflage. “Does a walnut rotten from inside or outside, Miss Nasreen?” She callowly answered, “From inside.” At her left, Nabil got the picture and said, “Who’s the worm?” “You mean, the worms,” Ramice mocked back, as he stood up, searched for the CD in his bag near the edge of the long overstuffed desk. Nabil and Nasreen inferred that their chief had had a good reap of walnuts, and therefore brought them a bagful! But they were disappointed as Ramice produced a CD, instead. Their CD… Moments of incredulity and eye-clashing and hearts’ Formule One for the two squirrels. Ramice played the CD after he had rotated the PC's monitor toward them. “What do you see, Miss?” She looked thunder-struck. “Sir, I'm ” “The comedy is over,” Ramice cut in. “Can you account for this, Nabil?” “I beg your pardon. I didn't mean to hurt anyone ” “You did fuck me instead,” the boss vociferated, slobbering some drops of saliva. “That is to say, you two have been deluding me along the way with your porn pics and flicks. I can't
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believe it; you, Nasreen, Attiring an Islamic veil, and at the same time being the webmaster of this smutty business! And where? In my Internet space! My Allah!” He wanted to kick them in the buttocks, but he held back, powerlessly and desperately. Nabil turned pale and ventured a last act of self-defense. “Sir, my mother is seriously ailing. She has a cancer. Needs hospitalization abroad and I haven't enough money to ” “So, you want your mum cured by dirty money? It doesn't add in; not at all. Why haven't you asked my help? Do you believe I would refuse to assist you? I've connections in Centre Pierre and Marie Curie at Mustapha Pasha Hospital. ” Nabil did not know where to hide his mortified head. He wished he had been engulfed by earth better than experiencing this scandal and betrayal. “And you, Nasreen? Explain that away! ” Her eyes had already let tears out, and then down on her cheeks. “From the outset I was hesitating. Nabil convinced me to take care of this website. You know, money is like a devil; it corrupted me. Besides, my oncoming wedding calls for a lot of money… ” Her voice trailed off, sobbing. Ramice turned toward Nabil. “I wanna just know why you sent in threat e-mails, photographed Sophia and gave her a phoney date, disguising in my name?” The author of the flamings kept silent for two minutes, during which he was contriving an ample response, before saying: “I was just driven by enviousness!” “Enviousness? Would this help heal you mum, too? ” Ramice taunted. And Nabil said to Ramice, “I had one goal: drawing you and Sophia apart. When I've failed to achieve this by menacing you, I afterwards intrigued a fake date at Sofia Garden. There I paid a
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guy to take, stealthily, photos of hers which I would use against her should she rebuff me later on. ” Ramice smirked. “You're a real cretin! You're gaga over movies. To tell you the truth, you need a therapy, too! In a psychiatric hospital! ” Nabil grimaced his remorse. “And if I reported, you two, to police?” “Please, sir,” Nasreen breaking up her hush, “don't do that. My whole life would be ruined. You know the society. For my dead father's sake! ” Ramice savored his victory over the two discredited gooses. He felt sorry for Nabil's mother and Nasreen's late father. “After all, I'm not a nark. Nevertheless, you're fired! ”
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CHAPTER 20
A roly-poly middle-aged man was seemingly honing in on the bronze equestrian statue of Amir Abd al-Kader. Cinching around his neck a camera, he lay in wait for a vindictive snap. His ganger had told him that the two chumps, a man and a woman, would arrive in the environs by noon. In the nearby cafeteria, another twentysomething burly man, in a tracksuit of a famous Algiers soccer team, was sucking his drink through a straw. An Adidas bag was beside his Reebok sneakers. Actually, he hunkered down by a table in the open air, facing the photographer, but also prying around Amir Abd al- Kader Place for a shadow of the two targets.
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Ramice had told everything to Sophia: about Nabil's prurient schemes, e-mail attacks and peeping photos; about Nasreen's enveloped connivance; and about the make-believe date at Sofia Garden. That was yesterday. Today, Ramice took Sophia for perhaps a last visit to downtown Algiers. As they were meandering through Larbi Ben Mehidi Street, the kingly seaward Equestrian Amir came into their view. The street was abuzz as ever; the solar disk still hot for a November day. Seasons have shifted, Ramice thought about drastic climate changes, globally and locally… “Photos, sir,” the photographer cadgered, as Ramice and Sophia passed under the muzzle of the bronze-carved horse.
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Sophia was eager to take photos for souvenir's sake. The photographer feigned making them fit for an echt photo, to gain more time… At this very moment, three policemen closed in on Ramice and Sophia. The two friends understood nothing as one of the blue- kepied men bent down to clench a sports bag, two inches behind their ankles, and unzipped it. “What's this?” the first policeman asked, looking up at Ramice. “I beg your pardon,” Ramice said, at sea. “Don't play the ignorant, sir. How can you explain that your bag is stuffed with antiques? ” “You're wrong, officer. First, it's not my bag. ” The second policeman demanded to see their papers. Ramice handed him the green Identity Card; Sophia her passport. “Mmmm Sophia Weize, Germany. The picture is clear, now; you're under arrest! ” Ramice, completely lost, said, “What's the charge against us, officer?” The third policeman to say, “Smuggling precious Algerian antiquities out to Germany.” “Wait, wait, officer. I repeat you, it's not mine. Ask the photographer ” Incredulously, the photo-snapper barged in, “I saw him coming up to here with this bag, officer.” The third officer, nonetheless, asked Ramice and Sophia to accompany them to the police station at Colonel Amirouche Boulevard. Passers-by nosed about the scene despite the police's injunction to move away. Other pedestrians expressed their anxiety, tut- tutting about the motive of the arrest. Gossips hinted to a possible bomb or weapons found in the bag.
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Terrorism reflex and routine.
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The phone rang four times before the other voice replied. “Yes, who's speaking?” “It's me, the artifice hit it.” “Good job, Zino. Come around the evening to wassail the victory over that bastard-Ramice and that kraut hooker! ” “Sure, boss.” There was a short silence. “Say, Zino are you sure your guy won't let the cat out of the bag?” Zino coughed. “The photographer Filla is a nancy boy. I promised him some shots! ” The boss laughed at the opportune implication. Photographer…Shots…
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Inspector Fewzi, a pouchy and thin-moustached man of forty, looked over his large specs at the three figures, seated opposite to his prim desk. Two policemen stood near the door, docile and silent. A neat framed and glossy portrait of the President was hooked up the wall behind Inspector Fewzi. “Someone called the police before noon; a male voice. He told us a smuggling of antiques was being carried out in the vicinity of Amir Abd al-Kader Place. Does this sports bag belong to you, Mister Taslent? ” Ramice cleared his throat. “Inspector, I've told you I was surprised to find it behind me there. I don't know how you think it's mine. Where are the clear-cut proofs, Inspector? ”
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“Do you reiterate,” Inspector Fewzi began to say as he pivoted his head leftward where the photographer had taken seat, “that you saw this man at your left carrying the bag?” The questioned fatso seemed in utter pinprick. “I think so, my Inspector.” “In any event, I inform you that we've cameras set everywhere, including Amir Abd al-Kader Place. In a few hours, we'll have viewed back the video footage. ” The photographer felt the world had turned from color to black-and-white. Shit, he thought. He did not take into account the presence of spying cameras. Now, he must prepare himself to be slimming in jail. Damn it, he groaned to himself. My bigwig tuned out a screw-up, a goofy man all wild about satyriasis…The bars… Sophia spoke for the first time. “Can I give a call to my father, Gerd Weize? He has been here for the just closed Algiers International Bookfair. ” Inspector Fewzi nodded, and pushed the phone closer to her. Only Ramice could understand her German. “Hello dad… I'm in the police station with Ramice… We're accused of smuggling Algerian artefacts… Yes, it's likely a misunderstanding… Don't worry, dad… Are you going to contact our ambassador to Algiers?... Right… Okay… Thanks, dad. I'm relieved now… See you… ” She hung up.
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Three hours later, Inspector Fewzi informed Ramice and Sophia that, indeed, they were victims of a conspiracy. “My apologies, Miss Weize Mister Taslent.” Alleviated and exuberant, Sophia bosomed Ramice.
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“Tell to Miss Weize,” Inspector Fewzi said to Ramice, “that the German ambassador called us, and we reassured him that all thing should be going well.” “What about the photographer?” Ramice asked, keen to know his fate. “We'll keep him in custody. When he saw the video footage, he admitted being a member of antiques dealers and pornography business. He works for Nabil. Do you happen to know him? Is he your enemy? ” Ramice saw the light, now. Nabil did this entire scenario as reprisals for what has happened between us. It was work of a dilettante. Now, Nabil would be put behind the bars for three charges: pornography, antiques smuggling, and menace of death. “Thanks God, it was over so soon. Again we're really sorry for dragging you here, you two. If you need anything, don't hesitate to ring us, Mister Taslent. Okay? ” Inspector Fewzi said, smiling, before giving them back their papers. “Oh, thanks Inspector. We're consoled that you've treated us well. You know, I'm a lover of our archaeological heritage, and I'd rather smuggle oil than these invaluable treasures of our History,” Ramice told him, not without coming out with his usual jokes. “You're a good-humored man, Mister Taslent.” Sophia joined their laugh. It was 4:21 p.m. when Sophia and Ramice breathed the air of liberty of Colonel Amirouche Boulevard. No, polluted, in fact. Cars, the culprit?
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CHAPTER 21
Ramice recited:
Algiers the millenary. Rare pearl of enchantment, wooed along the tentacular History, the Island of Seagulls, once the ruler of the Mediterranean, staved off all alien Sharks. Ikosim prospered at the cross of sinuous hills and clement sea. Algiers the Guarded, rhymes with eternity, resistence, generosity and freedom. Algiers by the Bay of Wonders, opens its arms to smart people who protect its golden heritage. From the sea, approaching boats careened on the sun-silvered water like rummies, at the sight of the entrancing Citadel! Inexpugnable fortress. The time goes by coyly and the White City hugs the sky, warm sea, fertile land, and importantly, its true children.
“Ich bin eine Algierin,” Sophia exclaimed, borrowing the expression from John Fitzgerald Kennedy, who during a 1963 visit to Berlin uttered in the Rathaus Schönberg his far-famed ' Ich bin ein Berliner.' Ramice and Sophia were mooning around under the shadows of imaginary pergolas of lilies and lyrics.
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“I didn't know, you composed poetry, Ramice.” “Oh, I'm just a greenhorn. By lonely nights I would own to the darkness. ”
I'm grateful to nights which during my sleeps present to me, complacently, the best of all dreams. You, woman of entrance, slithely along days, would come every dream to soothe my scares. I wish nights were leapfrogging the days of unmet chimeras. When I open my eyes, you just slip away with a taste of unripe cherries on baked pie. Dreams, short of you, are keen incubi.
Sophia wondered the woman to whom he wrote these verses. “You've a tender heart, my dear Ramice.” He just smiled and went on versifying.
Does really love dwell in hearts? Scepticism nullifies, as I'm concerned, so-so conviction. All humans own same kind heart; however, aversion, hatred and grudge, are all what flow out from them. We're flabbergasted before white snow, despite blackness of hearts and blindness of sights.
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Sitting on the beach with Ramice, Sophia tilted her blonde hair on his left shoulder, listening to the ripples of waves washing again, and again and again, the shore. Tomorrow, she would fly home. “I want to swig more poems, Ramice Taslent.”
Eristic heart's pounding in the lap of swells. Nervous rollers. Beats are feeble, limping ashore. Sere, lone shore; no palmtrees, scarce shells. Just smell of seaweed and shellfish. Gulls are screaming, for the heart is agonizing; impending vittles. Last sorrowing is sinking, silently, into the salty sand. Terns wait their chow, hungrily and angrily. A soaring white wall hauls the beatless heart back into seawater Larids cuss the sea that has been feeding them with fake tickers!
Ramice looked hopeless. Sophia caressed his face with her soft-skinned hand. “Lieber Freund, don't worry. I'll be waiting you back in Germany. ”
I kept cerebrating all the night and morn. How has that befallen,
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all of a sudden ? I lost my craved lady in a porous day. She blinded me with bogus winks, so that I let her lead me onto debris of unplanned ends. (Beans KOed brains !) The lonely flower vase fell down and shattered. Committed suicide as a last scene of betraying cut. It never wanted wilt and crawling humiliation. Delivery better that recovery. The story behind demise was an unexpected severance from well-cared princess. She'd been carefully guarded, supported, caressed, bowed, presented virgin heart, to at last slash it open. Please, give me back the slit's dirk for souvenir!
“You soliloquize, too much, Ramice.” Again he delivered from memory more lines of solitude and bareness and human self-destruction.
Four gelid walls, one hazy ceiling, one teetering floor, eight spiders' corners, keep me company. Flimsiness of cobwebs mirror my deep-rooted interweavings of ego; the relativity of ricktiness bears on human behavior, and misbehavior as well. Humans wreathe around
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their dewlaps the ruin of their own species. Gossamers crowded with liars and blind warriors. Ethereal dungeons of unending prisoners maculate the pages of purchasable History.
“You're a Confucius,” Sophia judged, as Ramice turned out a tidal wave in terms of philosophy of life. Ramice stretched on his back, sand crunching under his weight. He splayed arms and squinted at the sun as he patted Sophia's back.
The marine breeze combs your blonde hair, needing not Della's combs for such a care. Your seraphic face beggars no description, except that of a heart in surging emotion, speeding up pulses till insurgency hard to be presaged by chiromancy. You liked to dive in deep oceans in search of passions, reminiscent of Delilah's whims, body and soul coalescing in your streams. The snug to oceans' deepness you're fond of, is the semidarkness you ought to care of: as for the heart, the more we dig in, the more love got illuminated and lasting.
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When he finished pronoucing the last line, Sophia reached down for his lips for a cocksure drowning… The gulls screamed for jealousy's sake.
172 Belkacem Meghzouchene Sophia in the White City
CHAPTER 22
Airplanes roared overhead. Livid visages choked tears back; the air would be taking Sophia Weize off by soon. Ramice Taslent felt as though he had accompanied her to a cemetery; how many people had crossed the portals of airports and never returned? “I hope you've enjoyed your fortnight, liebe Sophia?” “Fantastic! With you, I learned a lot of things I love you, Ramice. ” Her eyes peered down. He lifted her chin gently to say, “I do feel you. I'll miss you, for sure. ” “I'll be looking forward to your coming in Germany.” Gerd Weize came to the two friends and said, “Hallo, Ramice Taslent. I spent wonderful days in Algiers. Glad I met you. By the way, I spoke with our ambassador to ease things up for you should you desire a visa whenever you like to.” “You're very kind, Gerd. Vielen Dank. ” Gerd smiled, then retreated to let them have a private and last talk. “Can you come back next summer, Sophia?” Ramice asked at his wits' end. “Oh, I so love you that I'll do my best to holiday in Algeria. You; the sun; the sea ” “The desert; the mountains; in a word, a paradise. I'll be your guide. ”
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Sophia flushed at the hint (an explorer of woman geography?) In terms of aphorisms, Ramice had galore; every word he ejaculated would fill in at least two semantic niches. She could not ignore other significance he connoted about Algiers Bay, curving inland, contemplation of which was demulcent for her along the two-week stay. “Ramice, it's time to fly. ” She cuddled and kissed him. Tears trickled down her smooth cheeks. “I love you, my darling. Take care of yourself,” she whispered to him. “Come on! Why all these tears? You'll flood Algiers Bay! Stop, please!” She laughed as she wiped her wet eyes with the back of her cuffs. “I'll miss your jokes!” “Get my heartfelt wish of recovery through to your mother, Clotilde, Sophia.” “Kind of you, Ramice.” Ramice drew near Gerd Weize and hugged him, too. “Come back next Bookfair, will you?” “Sure. Wissen Verlag shouldn't miss Algiers book show anymore.” “Ganz sicher! Ich hoffe, wir sehen uns recht bald wieder,” Ramice said. “Auf Wiedersehen!” Gerd exclaimed. And Sophia to shout as Ramice was four yards away, “Du bist meine Liebe, Ramice.” “Besten Dank! Ich liebe dich, Sophia. ” Now, Sophia and her father moved away to take their scheduled flight, back to Germany. Moments later, the airplane took off, devoured the blue sky and buzzed over Algiers the White, then flew on over the Algiers Bay on to the open Mediterranean Sea. The waiting hall became cold and evacuated for Ramice.
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CHAPTER 23
She's gone away; left the White City and Algiers Bay… Sophia had strummed my feeling's strings… Coming days and months would never be the same. After Nasreen got the sack, Ramice should find another webmaster to carry on Hebdo-Sciences which would go print in a couple of weeks for the French edition, and in two months for the Arabic edition. The English edition would be just issued on-line at least for a year, before the print edition. Abd al-Halim tried to console down-hearted Ramice. “I do understand you, crony. You'll get used to her absence. ” “Really?” “I mean, you can see her by webcam!” “Neat idea!” Ramice zapped from Al Jazeera's unbroken Breaking News to relaxing undersea wonders shown in Subacqua TV. “Submarine peace better than continental nuke wars!” “Or, rather, sharks better than humans!” The tone of SMS rang. Ramice realized it was from Fariza. It read:
Good evening my best friend, Ramice. Are you fine? Me, yes. I miss you. Can never forget you. Like meet you as soon as possible. Hope you long life. Kiss you. Good night my dear Ramice
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Ramice sighed and said, “After all, I think absence has some virtues!” Abd al-Halim grinned, then stood up and walked bathroomwards. Time to turn in. Fish don't sleep? Tomorrow, another day. Sure.
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