The teacher Mahfouz Ammar

I met Mahfouz Ammar who was going to the professors’ room with his grey hat that he never left. He greeted me in French as usual. It is rare that he uses the spoken Algerian language. I am one of those who prefer to speak to him in French; he is more competent than many French are and manipulates its vocabularies and expressions of prose or poetry. When he speaks French, nasal letters, vowels, and faint letters sway with lower and upper lip movement and emanate melodious voices. On the contrary, when he speaks the Algerian dialect, his pronunciation becomes vulgar without grace, inspiration or rhythm. It seems like a hurricane has come from his lips and almost pierced the ears. His French carries all his admiration, his dazzling and his love, and his Arabic carries all the feelings of inferiority and self-contempt.

His love of French reached the level of obsession, which he considered as a sanctuary and the paradise that wanted to be eternal. He likes French people and everything that is French. Somebody told me that he is frustrated when he goes to France, because he is, unfortunately, very brown dark, and the French treat him with as much caution as all other Algerians. He tries to prove that he is like them in education and civility. He belongs to them in the culture, and the bonds of culture are more important than the bonds of race in his opinion.

 

Abdellah Khammar

First day: Temperaments and tendencies

An extract taken from the novel: Entry bell to class