her face at all, a melodious, quavering voice. She said, "If you go slowly, you

risk getting sunstroke. But if you go too fast, you work up a sweat and then

catch a chill inside the church." She was right. There was no way out. Several

other imagesfrom that day have stuck in my mind : for instance, Perez's face

when he caught up with us for the last time, just outside the village. Big tears

of frustration and ex­ haustion were streaming down his cheeks. But because of

all the wrinkles, they weren't dripping off. They spread out and ran together

again, leaving a watery film over his ruined face. Then there was the church and

the villagers on the sidewalks, the red geraniums on the graves in the cemetery,

Perez fainting (he crumpled like a rag doll), the blood-red earth spilling over

Maman's casket, the white flesh of the roots mixed in with it, more people,

voices, the village, waiting in front of a cafe, the incessant drone of the

motor, and my joy when the bus entered the nest of lights that was Algiers and I

knew I was going to go to bed and sleep for twelve hours. rB 2 As I was waking

up, it came to me why my boss had seemed annoyed when I asked him for two days

off: today is Saturday. I'd sort of forgotten, but as I was getting up, it came

to me. And, naturally, my boss thought about the fact that I'd be getting four

days' vacation that way, including Sunday, and he couldn't have been happy about

that. But, in the first place, it isn't my fault if they buried Maman yesterday

instead of today, and second, I would have had Saturday and Sunday off anyway.

Obviously, that still doesn't keep me from understanding my boss's point of

view.

 

I had a hard time getting up, because I was tired from the day before. While I

was shaving, I wondered what I was going to do and I decided to go for a swim. I