Abdellah khammar

Entry bell to class

Novel

 

Second week

Hearts thirsty for love

- 32 -

I entered with Issam the Basilica of Our Lady of Africa in the district of Bâb El Oued at 2 p.m. The two newlyweds who celebrate their marriage are two doctors practicing in Algeria: a Syrian and a Lebanese. We found in front of us the bronze statue of the Virgin Mary, dressed in a dress with gold threads, mixing European and Algerian art. The guests seated in the front seats of the large church facing the altar. We found empty seats in the back rows and sat down. The scent of women and men's fragrances mingled with the scent of incense that permeated the church. Sunlight coming in through the windows made the church lights twinkle like candles. I turned my head right, left, and looked at the audience. Most of the men wore European clothes and few of them wore traditional clothes. The women wore Algerian karakou, Kabyle dresses, Constantine and Oran caftans, Sahrawi burnouse and European clothing. Their fabrics were silk, wool and cotton and their embroidery was gold and silver. All the bright colours of these clothes were present, red, green, yellow, purple, white and black. All forms of clothing exposed: the maxi, the mini, the neckline, the bare back or the bare arms.

As if marriage transformed into an exhibition where traditional and European fashion, natural rural beauty and civil beauty from Algeria, Arab, European and Asian competed using all kinds of ornaments and make-up. Traditional Algerian hairstyles also compete with African braids and various European hairstyles. A cheerful and sweet melody emanated from the immense organ.

The priest's specific wedding attire added a religious touch to the celebration. It was time for the bride to walk in her white dress with a family member to the altar, where he entrusted her to the groom in a black suit. The organ stopped playing and the priest began the wedding ceremony.

 A young girl is sitting on the empty chair to my left. I smelled her sweet scent. She drew my attention by her long golden hair that fell from under her large white hat on both sides of her chest. Her hair left the rest of her body to her white dress, which barely covered the lower chest and back and was unable to reach the knees. In addition, her dress harmonized with the colours of her handbag and shoes and their distinctive elegance. I started looking at the blonde girl and I couldn't follow the ceremony. I couldn't tell her age. She was between twenty and twenty-four years old. I wanted to see her eyes and I found her turned to the left following the ceremony. I leaned forward and she realized I was looking at her. She was watching me out of the corner of her eye.

Suddenly her white handbag fell from her lap and before she bent over to take it, I had picked it up, our heads were almost colliding, and I gave it to her. Our eyes meet, her eyes are green and my eyes are black. I suddenly felt an electromagnetic current flowing inside of me and then the current went out. She shook her head and said to me in French, "Thank you". Her voice was angelic and had nothing to do with the voices of our world.

The ceremony ended and the married couple went out, followed by the guests. Issam shook me deeply when I no longer heard his voice or his call. He said to me, "What's wrong with you, are you asleep or absentminded?" I couldn't answer his question because I didn't know exactly what happened to me. Who is this woman? What is her nationality? I wanted to see her again, but I don't know anything about her and I don't even know her name.

- 33 -

Today Monday. I entered class at eight o'clock and found my students busy with the annual medical examination. I took this opportunity to go to the school library to revise part of the vocabulary of civilization, extracted from poet Al-Akhtal and look for their meanings in the dictionary. The school library is a large room filled with wooden and black iron cupboards that cover the walls of the room. Some with open shelves and others covered with glass. They formed four parallel rows inside, leaving wide passages for the reader. The shelves obscure the light from a single open window, so that its rays do not reach the interior of the room. As a result, the library is lit by bright, powerful electric lights. The principal is constantly striving to enrich the library with Arabic and French literary and scientific books available on the market, what you don’t find in many other high schools. I registered the parts of the dictionary that I had taken in the library register and I sat in the interior room of the library attached to it to start working. I started with the names of the clothes: Isfahaniyah, which is the saffron-dyed garment, made in Isfahan. A question suddenly occurred to me: What do I do with current cultural vocabulary? During the past year, Mr Makadri was furious because I allowed the students of the first year of secondary school to write the names of the clothes, as they really are; jeans pants, velvet pants, Loubia pants, Charleston pants and simple pants. He objected to the use of foreign words. Jeans are a kind of fabric, that's their name and Loubia, Charleston and simple pants are different. So how can we classify them by category if we don't define them by name? The students wondered about the terms "sofa", "stool" and "counter", for furniture, for example, and the types of "cakes": mille-feuille, flash and rolled, as well as for types of cars , electronic and mechanical machines. Makadri wants to use the word Pants to designate all types of pants, cakes for all types of cakes, armchair for all kinds of chairs, machine for all types of machines. How do students learn the accuracy of observation of people and things around them if we limit their vocabularies?

Language is at the service of imagination and thought and it does not inhibit them. As for these foreign words, the solution is simple: either they become arabicized by using them, or there is an alternative to these words in Arabic. However, Makadri does not face this problem of expression: He didn’t invite his students to live their epoch and to describe what surrounds them. He writes two poetry lines and asks them to explain and comment on them. I told myself that the problem lies in the dictionaries. These do not mention the new vocabularies even those approved by the Academy of the Arabic Language. Makadri and his ilk consider themselves protectors of the language and refuse to introduce a new vocabulary or openness to other languages. They kill it by suffocating it from where they think they like and keep it. The student is either confused in the expression of his ideas and of himself in Arabic, or he abandons it towards a language that meets his needs and that he finds in it what he wants without difficulty. I asked myself again, what do we do with the current vocabularies? Would it not be preferable for us to direct some of our research in this direction, with a view to the completion of modern language dictionaries that help students to express themselves easily? The bell sound cut the chain of my thoughts.

- 34 -

Wajdi was happy with his first French lesson. He knocked on my door Monday around 9 p.m. after he returned from the Descartes high school where he had started his evening classes. He was impressed with the modern audio-visual method because it is an attractive and effective method for teaching beginners. He explained to me: "The teacher turned on the magic lamp and an image of the subject of the lesson began to appear on the screen. The first image appeared and a clear voice accompanied it with a tape recorder saying in French, "Here is Mr Thibaut". The second image appeared, "Here is Ms Thibaut". The images and comments followed. Then the cassette was put back again and the teacher got up after each image to ask everyone to repeat the sentence in French. We are fifteen in the class, Arabs and foreigners working in Algeria, spread out on a rectangular table. We turned towards the screen at the back of the class while the teacher stood at the end of the table to operate the lamp.

At first, we introduced ourselves. We were four staff from the Embassy of Czechoslovakia, two men and two women, a Palestinian engineer, two Syrians, one is an embassy employee and the other is a professor, a German couple, two English, an Iraqi and a Jordanian, as well as an Egyptian colleague".

He then complained of the provocation he had suffered at the post office, where the employee who sold the stamps refused to accept the 100 dinars because it was torn. Since he is Egyptian, an Algerian citizen supported the employee and said to him, «These are the laws in force in our country». A grocer also provoked him and refused to return a box of rotten tomatoes saying, «What is sold is not reimbursed, it is the law in our country».

 I cannot tell him that the reasons are not racist, but political. As much as confidence in Nasser was great, disappointment was also great after the defeat in 67. People did not accept that this small state could defeat all Arabs. Love has turned into violent and harsh criticism against the Egyptians as if they were responsible for what had happened without appreciating their continued sacrifice, and their success in the war of attrition.

I did not tell him that, but I felt that he felt it from the first day of his arrival in Algeria. I wish I could have freed him from his worries in one way or another and protect him from overexcited and irrational reactions. I was angry with the post office worker and the grocer, but Wajdi calmed me down by saying, "People did me justice at the post office and exchanged the 100 dinars. Concerning the grocer, he said after a local resident berated him, that he was joking with me and did not know I was Egyptian”.

- 35 -

I decided to continue studying English this year at the same institute where I studied last year twice a week. I signed up even if I didn't need English in my research. It is clear that the participation rate has increased considerably in the Anglo-African Institute. I entered the class six minutes before 6 p.m. and found it empty. I sat with my back to the door on one of the seats around the table. It is clear that the learning of English has increased at this institute, at the British Council and at the American Cultural Centre. The French, Spanish, German and Italian languages ​​have also grown in popularity, but priority given to English and French. The director of the institute is Algerian, but the teachers are British, from England, Scotland, Northern Ireland and Welsh. At the beginning of last year, and in this very room, my real contact with Europeans began. I was in the past looking at them with suspicion, considering that they are all spies who hide hostility, hatred and evil. I learned through my contact and my dialogue with them, that politics is Machiavellian, because it is concerned with the interests of a group of people, even at the expense of other groups, while thought is ideal because it is concerned with the problems of humanity as a whole. The intellectuals who raised the slogans of the French Revolution were different from the Machiavellian politicians. They distorted the slogans of the Revolution by their invasion and colonization. Scientists, inventors and human rights defenders have nothing to do with the greed of exploiters, mercenaries and arms merchants, or false intellectuals and thinkers who justify their actions. "The builders of civilization cannot destroy it", my uncle Laroussi always told me. There are persons who have the power of construction and others who have the power of demolition as if they belong to two different species. They exist in all nations, in all peoples and in all countries. The teacher's job is to promote nation-building power by instilling love and tolerance in the soul and by working for the development of science and the arts. They are able to withstand the force of demolition.

After a year of contact and dialogue with them, we bonded well while suspicion and caution gradually faded. As a teacher, I learned an important lesson; it is my duty to cooperate with teachers like me, in all countries, to build the future, and not to teach my students hatred of strangers in general “xenophobia”. Hating Westerners as enemies and spies is more dangerous than being dazzled by them. The dazzled man can one day wake up from his dazzling and use his mind to assess things objectively. However, the man who animosity planted in his heart and hatred anchored in his soul turns into a patient suffering from mental disorders and obsessed with suspicion. This disease is difficult to cure. The security guard needs suspicion and caution, and his task is to be constantly alert, but the teacher's mission is to plant the love of man and to trust him. The teacher is not acting as a safety officer, nor is the safety officer acting as a teacher.

I was absorbed in my thoughts when I heard a voice saying to me in English: "Good evening." I looked up. Surprised, I saw in front of me the girl I met at the church. I saw the signs of surprise on her face at the same time. I said to her confused, "Good evening.

I wanted to see her and know who she was, and now she is in front of me. I asked her, "Are you studying here?"

- "Yes".

 I sat on the opposite seat. Her beauty amazed me with her big green eyes, her flowing hair and her soft milky white skin. I smiled and asked her in English, "Do you sell me your hair?"

Her golden yellow hair was reddish, or rather yellow-reddish, covering her bare back.

- "What did you say?"

- "Do you sell me your hair?" I pointed at her hair. She laughed and replied, "I will sell them to you after thirty years".

- "But I want them in gold".

- "I will sell them to you in silver" and we laughed. At that time, others began to come. Professor Mrs Stephens then entered. She was in her forties, still retains her vitality and part of her beauty with her red face, her blue eyes and her bright blond hair indicating that she lives in the north. The ten people seated opposite each other around the table, the professor seated at the head of the table. The room can accommodate more than this number and is located at the end of the corridor on the right. Between the door of the institute and the entrance, there is the director's office. The Institute is located on the second floor of a building with two entrances, one from Bouakouir Street and the other from Mohamed V Street.

At first, the professor asked to know each of us individually and his profession, then to call her by his first name Deborah, as is customary in English classes. Most of the students are Algerian and also an Italian engineer, a German and a Belgian work in a mixed enterprise. The role reached the girl of the church. She stated that her name is Janine, a French teacher at Descartes high school. She taught ordinary students during the day and gave evening classes to adults twice a week. This high school is the only one in Algiers where the French program is taught. Her students are sons of French or mixed marriages, sons of some Algerian executives and sons of the staff of foreign embassies. In the evening, it is considered an annex to the French Cultural Centre for the dissemination of the French language and its teaching to adults, mainly foreigners. I looked at her eyes as she spoke, her eyes were two green oases and their shadows stretched far away. I dream that they become my refuge in the desert of life where I rest for the rest of my life. I was not satisfied with their spacious greenery. She noticed my interest in her, in her attractive Bisontine beauty, native of Besançon, the country of Victor Hugo, the author of Les Misérables, and the dreamlike adventures.

My turn has come. I said that I am from Boussaâda and I teach Arabic in the new high school. I felt that she looked me in the eyes while I was speaking. We are drawn to each other. I felt weak before this princess, the granddaughter of Charlemagne. I felt, or maybe even imagined, that she couldn't resist the grandson of Oqba, Jugurtha and Haroun al-Rashid. We exchanged looks and smiled.

The walls of the room were painted light yellow, like the rest of the rooms. On the wall opposite the door was a tableau printed with a bear and a dog sitting on a sofa, reading a book. At the bottom of this tableau is written in English, "Read". On the opposite wall was another tableau containing the letters, the syllables and their pronunciations.

The presentations ended and the teacher asked us to define our goals of learning English. We were in the upper level of the institute, the class of candidates who had already studied English, but who lacked practice. When the serious discussion started, the stammering started. We helped each other with words and sentences. Most of them explained that their objective was to improve their position in trade or function. The doctor wants to prepare a specialty in America, the engineer and the employees want to improve their careers. Management in companies and banks needs English to deal with foreign companies.

I told Janine during the coffee break in French: "I have a friend who learns French at night and you may know him?"

- "What's his name? »

- "Wajdi Azzam, an Egyptian".

- "Ah, Azzam, Egyptian, yes, I know him, he works as a music teacher".

- "Yes, in the new high school where I teach".

- "So you know, Mr Le petit, Mr Jacques Le petit? »

- "Math teacher, yes I know him."

- "He is my friend".

I don't know why I was upset by this word. I was hoping she didn't have a friend to have a chance to be her friend.

We resumed the lesson and I explained my objective of learning English: "I study English for a cultural purpose, acquire knowledge, increase my knowledge of the Arabic language that I teach”.

Janine stressed that her cultural objective was similar to my objective, namely the completion of her doctoral research on "French teaching methods for foreigners". I felt that it brought us closer. The bell rang at half past seven. We went out together and took the stairs to Mohammed V Street. I saw Jack waiting for her in his Peugeot. She said "goodbye" to me and went with her boyfriend. I started to hate this man. I was walking on the road with no specific goal. Her image first caught my imagination, then I took it out of my mind saying, "She's not mine, I have to admit."

- 36 -

There was a strong rumour that the civil service intended to change the official weekly public holiday in Algeria from Sunday to Friday. Issam spoke in French with Mahfouz Ammar and Hakim Boualem, who deplore this change for its negative effect on the national economy because the connection between banks and certain Algerian and French institutions is Saturday and Sunday. If we add to that Friday, communication would be interrupted for three days, which represents a great loss for Algeria.

Mahfouz Ammar is an Arab and Hakim Boualem is an Amazigh. Both share hatred of two things and love of two things. Regarding hatred, they both hate Islam because they see it as the cause of the backwardness and deny the Arabic language because it is linked to Islam and that it is written from the right to the left. At the same time, they share the love of Kemal Atatürk as their ideal of the European model and the replacement of Arabic letters with Latin letters in the Turkish language. They also share the love of the French language, which they both master and manipulate its vocabularies and expressions. Consequently, who hates a language necessarily hates its people. The hatred of Hakim for the Arabs was limitless. However, Mahfouz Ammar belongs to a desert tribe descending from the Hilalians. He does not hate the Arabs, but he believes that they can only progress by following the French model. His idea of ​​Arabic is not racist but cultural. The two expressed their conviction and wanted to convince Issam that changing the holiday to Friday would lead to the collapse of the economy.

Issam simply asked them, "Why do people have to take the holiday in one day?" "

He added, “The weekly leave for banks and banking institutions in Syria, for example, is Saturday and Sunday. Workers in all trades and industries determine their weekly leave according to their professional interests. The hairdressers take their leave Monday. The holidays of certain official departments such as museums and libraries are Tuesday because they welcome visitors on other days. In Algeria, banks and institutions linked to the European economic market can take their leave on Saturday and Sunday. As for artisans, merchants and pharmacies, they can take their leave in turn and close Friday at prayer time. Nevertheless, the holiday of the whole people, their schools, their universities and their main municipalities must be compatible with the way of their life and civilization, which is Friday".

Mahfouz and Hakim were not convinced by Issam's argument. According to them, the Sunday holiday was a civilized holiday, because it was a European holiday.

- 37 -

During the first two weeks, things organized at the school. I continued to give Arabic lessons to Novara at one o'clock. I used a good copy of the book Kalila and Damna. I chose texts adapted to her level from the newspaper Al-châab "People" and the magazines Al-thakafa "culture" and Alouan "varieties" from Algeria, as well as the monthly magazine Al-Arabi. My goal was to make her practice reading, acquire vocabularies and expressions and strengthen her confidence in learning Arabic. I interviewed teachers and looked in libraries for an effective way to teach adults in Algeria, I found only the method of teaching the illiterate, which is not valid for those at the Nouara level. I tried to fascinate her for Arabic poetry through National and sentimental poems transformed into songs. Therefore, I brought her beautiful verses from the Rahbani brothers through Fairuz's voice. Moreover, I brought her the poem "Ayazounno" of the poet Nizar Qabbani by the voice of Najat Assaghira and composed by Mohammed Abdel Wahab. She was intelligent and ready to learn, but nobody could learn a language ​​ in a day or two, or a month or two. It seemed to me that even if she continued on this path of rapid progress, she could not pass the exam, because what is required in the program is more than impossible for those of her level.

These two weeks also witnessed the consolidation of relations between Wajdi and the principal, which surprised everyone in high school of this sudden turnaround. His visits to the music room became frequent, attending practical lessons during which Wajdi trains students on piano and other instruments. He discusses with him in his spare time the oriental music that the principal had previously hated. He considered it synonymous with dancing and shaking the belly. I attended several discussions between them in Italian and they translated me into French and Arabic. Akli believed that classical European music is universal music. Wajdi replied that Europeans and the people who studied classical music enjoyed it but those who have not studied it could not enjoy it and this applies to the oriental music. Both, several peoples and many races contributed to their creation, originality and development. Akli's ear began to get used to classic and modern oriental melodies. He recognized the modes of a quarter of the sound thanks to the wonderful Wajdi’s playing the lute, as if he would make it speak and emit the most beautiful melodies.

Relations between Wajdi and Faiza during these two weeks were characterized by mutual reservations. Wajdi realized that Faiza's reaction when they first met was normal and that her experience with the husband that she had fled from him in terror the night of the wedding was hard. He was convinced of what Nadia had told him about her condition. She assured him that Faiza was aware by her culture and her studies of psychology that men were not alike and that there were as many models of men as women. There are also caring and compassionate men like her father and brother and some of her parents and neighbours and her teachers. However, once subjected to a new experience or a man tries to approach her, fear paralyses her mind and her culture that, men are different. She strengthens herself against him by an aggressive position to drive him away without giving herself the opportunity to know him. Her fear becomes panic if he starts again and insists on approaching her. Hearing a word of marriage, wedding feast or engagement makes her tremble in horror, reminding her of the unhappy night. Wajdi did not insist on approaching her and he did not move away from her, but he greeted her politely each time he saw her. She feels his friendly looks trying to read what is inside her. She watched his looks. They were not looks of pity, irony or frivolous looks. His looks question her more than admire her beauty. Nevertheless, these are admiring looks, of course; otherwise, he isn't looking for what her eyes are hiding. I felt from her furtive looks at him that her sleeping heart suddenly awakened. It is thirsty for love and it has gone through years of prolonged drought. The promising season has come with rain. Its winds came from Egypt, the land of magic and beauty, pyramids, movies, romantic songs, emotional series and drama that she loves and adores.

She saw him speak with me and with Issam and she began to take an interest in us, to get closer to us and to take comfort in the presence of one of us when Wajdi was absent. As for him, he was warm and pleasant with everyone and the single girls who work at the high school started to compete to win his heart. It is natural for girls to set seduction traps around him to catch him and drag him into the golden cage. His grace and accent evoke romantic dreams and recall Omar Sharif and Abdel Halim Hafez. The girls' interest in him aroused the jealousy of the male teachers and myself, even though I was his close friend. How was Faiza's reaction?

Embers of jealousy began to rise in her heart. I watched her when the brown librarian or the fake blonde accountant came up to him on some pretext. I see her face suddenly turn red like a beet, as if all the blood in her body suddenly jumped into her face. However, she pretended that she was not interested in this race and that she was not involved in it.

Wajdi avoided opening Faiza's subject and I respected his wish. He was happy with his evening classes, and so did I. Janine treated me in a friendly way and I treated her the same way, but on Thursday at the end of class, I quickly went down the stairs so as not to see her with Jack, even if it is natural that a Frenchwoman befriends a Frenchman like her.