Bed Passerby

All I know is that when I left Algeria, I was no longer the journalist or photographer I once was. I became the hero of a novel, or a movie, living on edge? Ready for something…for a fleeting joy or an impending tragedy. We, the ones scattered by Constantine, meet in the capitals of grief and the suburbs of Parisian fear. Even before we met, I grieved for Nasser, for a name too great to be a guest on the outskirts of history, because his father left him nothing but his name, and because some turned the homeland into a real estate property for their children, running the country like a family farm, raising murderers in its ruins, while the nation’s honorable people are scattered in exile. Jamil Nasser, as I imagined him. It was beautiful to meet him, and to be hugged by him, embracing history and love together. He was half Si Taher and half Hayat. His apartment, in all its simplicity, was warmly furnished, replacing some loss with beautiful furniture. He used Constantine music to cover up his endless inner lamentations. I asked Nasser about his news and about his trip from Germany to Paris, whether he had found it difficult. He replied jokingly: The questions were longer than the distance. Then he added, I mean the polite insults that are presented to you from airports in the form of questions. Murad said jokingly, “What do you want, brother?” The sheep’s face is known. Nass replied: Known for what? That it is a wolf? Murad answered: If you are not a wolf, there are many wolves these days, and I see no reason for your anger. Here at least you have nothing to fear as long as you are innocent. And you do not pose a danger to others. But with us, even the innocent cannot guarantee their safety. Nasser replied complaining, “We are torn between one death and another, one humiliation and another, nothing more. In Algeria, they are looking for you to physically eliminate you. Your suffering lasts the time of a bullet’s penetration. In Europe, under the pretext of saving you from killers, they kill you naked every moment, and what prolongs your suffering is that nudity does not kill, but rather strips you of your intimacy and assassinates you with humiliation. You feel that you are walking among people and residing among them, but you will not be one of them. You are naked, exposed, and suspected because of your name, your face, and your religion. You have no privacy, even though you are in a country Free. You love, work, travel, and spend, as evidenced by cameras, eavesdropping devices, and intelligence files.