Men Don't Cry by Faïza Guène

Author:Faïza Guène
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: CASSAVA REPUBLIC PRESS
Published: 2021-10-15T00:00:00+00:00

‘So, are you coming to see Papa?’

It wasn’t like I had any convincing arguments up my sleeves. I just sat there, arms splayed, elbows on the table, sucking through a straw.

‘Seeing Papa means seeing Maman and Mina again.’

The Americans were heading off now. No doubt for a spot of shopping on the boulevard Saint-Germain.

I stared idiotically at Dounia, willing her to agree. I felt like a job applicant at their first interview: limited qualifications, zilch experience, nothing to offer. The kind of candidate who’s hoping for a charm offensive. Except they answer in monosyllables – yes, no – and they’re so transparent you can see right through them. The kind of candidate who writes films, reading, travel under ‘Interests’ at the end of their CV.

If I’d been interviewing me, I’d have extended a limp handshake and said, ‘We’ll let you know!’

‘Mourad, you should pay more attention to your posture,’ Dounia rebuked me. ‘You’ll end up with scoliosis!’

So I sat bolt upright. ‘Sir, yes sir!’ I nearly answered.

Military service is no longer compulsory in France, thank God. But if it were, my mother would have devised a cunning get-out plan, which would probably have involved getting me psychologically classified.

Speaking of which, that was why Miloud enrolled at a university in Paris: to escape national service in Algeria. He was granted an exemption. ‘It wasn’t so much a brain drain,’ he confided, ‘as a case of cowards splitting!’

Dounia bucked my expectations by ordering not warm goat’s cheese salad but steak tartare.

Eating steak tartare? I’ll eat my hat if that’s not true integration for you.

Because learning a language, respecting state institutions, embracing a country’s culture by cherishing its great writers, marching for the glory of the nation… all that counts for nothing compared to stuffing your face with raw chopped steak splatted with egg yolk and some condiments.

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