A King in Hiding (15 page)

When the Créteil club re-opens at the end of the August, my father goes off to live in his tent. He wants to pitch it in the grounds of the apartment building where the club has its premises, as this would be practical, but Hélène has to explain to him that it's not allowed. So he takes himself off and pitches it on the roof of a supermarket, where no one can see him, and when he gets moved on from there he camps out beside a tennis court in some public gardens.

This is where I find him when I get back from Brittany at the end of the summer. The first night is awful. The ground is hard, a thunderstorm is rumbling and it starts to rain. My teeth are chattering, I'm cold and frightened, and I feel dirty and ashamed. All night I ask myself what I've done to fall so low. By the morning I'm in pieces. Devastated and lost for words, my father cannot bring himself to look at me.

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The economic crisis that engulfed Europe in the late summer of 2011 brought with it a social crisis that was just as acute: long queues formed outside the ‘Restos du Cœur' soup kitchens and food banks, and the shanty towns that had disappeared 50 years earlier from the verges of French motorways and the Paris ring-road sprang up once more. ‘It's like the Tex Avery cartoon where everyone keeps passing round the stick of dynamite before it blows up,' lamented Xavier Emmanuelli, founder and president since 1993 of the Samu Social, which ran the homeless helpline, in his dramatic resignation speech. If even Emmanuelli had given up …

By that time I'd been feeling out of my depth for a while, unable to help Fahim and Nura. I had no more solutions to suggest, no more plans to offer: I'd run out of steam. And once they were out on the street I was unaware of their plight, as I was being chased by my publisher and had cut myself off from the world, physically and mentally, so as to devote my time to writing a long-promised book.

Paradoxically, my absence turned out to be a good thing. Fahim and Nura's plight had plunged the club into turmoil. That same evening, Hélène made calls to a number of families. Since the state had washed its hands of them and would no longer provide support services or any other humanitarian aid, ordinary citizens would have to roll up their sleeves. In my absence, the more caring, generous and open-minded members of the club took over. It's not hard to imagine the discussions that must have taken place in different homes that night:

‘We can't let that boy sleep on the streets.'

‘But we haven't got room to put him up.'

‘We can make room. But we have to recognise that the delicate balance of family life is a fragile thing, and the arrival of an outsider can be challenging.'

‘Yes, I know that, but if he dies of cold how can we ever look each other in the eye again?'

‘You're right, we have to make room for him. But what about Nura? We can't separate them.'

‘No, of course we can't, but we really haven't got enough room for two people. Let's take in Fahim, get him ready for the start of the school year and then take things one step at a time.'

‘What will we do when we go away at weekends?'

‘We haven't got all the answers right now. Let's start with tomorrow night. If we start the ball rolling other people might follow our example.'

With two children of her own, Anna-Gaëlle had room in her heart for more. She and her husband David were the first to open up their home to Fahim. Later on, Gilles – a loud, larger-than-life character with a pronounced Mediterranean twang – and his wife Christine were to step into the breach.

Every morning Anna-Gaëlle wakes me up – with difficulty – and I go to school. In the afternoon I go and find my father at the club. If he has any money he buys me a snack. Then I do my homework and work on my chess. The club office has become my study. In the evening we eat there, then my father walks me back to the apartment block where Anna-Gaëlle and David live. If they're still eating when I arrive, I sit down with them to eat some more. Then Anna-Gaëlle puts her sons to bed. I sit on the bed to listen to the bedtime stories she reads to them. When she stops reading I get up to go, but I pause in the doorway to watch as she kisses her children goodnight.

Then I go to bed and think. I think about my father on his way to the vast artificial lake in the middle of Créteil; my father waiting until it's dark, until the last fishermen and lovers have gone, before pitching his tent; choosing a spot where he won't get soaked at dawn by the automatic watering system; sleeping on a second-hand mattress, until it gets soaked by the rain and becomes unusable, and he has to sleep on the ground.

I think about my father zipping up his tent and taking one last look at the Préfecture building on the far side of the lake, orange in the daytime but gloomy at night, the same Préfecture that won't give us our papers. My father crying himself to sleep, wondering how it can be that a country as big as France, with so many buildings, can't find room for him, just a little space, so that he wouldn't have to sleep outside; my father praying, though he's not very religious, and asking his god angrily why he has abandoned him on the streets.

I think about my father getting up at dawn, opening his tent and looking out at the Préfecture, his first sight of the day, then rolling up the tent and heading off for the club, washing in the little handbasin (except on days when he has €1.50 and can go to the public baths at Châtelet); my father doing our laundry in the washbasin (except on days when he has €2.00 for the launderette) and draping it over the radiators to dry, on condition that he takes it off again before the club opens.

I think about my father getting provisions from the Restos du Cœur food bank, tidying away our cases, boxes and bags so they aren't in anyone's way, doing the washing up, dusting the shelves, sweeping and washing the floors, doing everything he can so that he won't have to hear people complaining that the club has become ‘just like a campsite' and that it ‘smells of frying'.

I think about my father going to the Préfecture, going to see the lawyer, going to see the interpreter, going to see Frédéric, going to French lessons, greeting the children at the club; and after everyone has left, leafing through the books that are left lying around, dozing on the banquette, letting the endless days drift past as he waits for me to come back.

I think about my father with no money and no one left, living only for me. My father who can't afford a Métro ticket any more, who can't afford to buy me a pen, or a jumper. My father filled with shame, forced to beg for everything he needs.

I think about my father who can't take any more, who is sinking a little deeper every day, who loses his temper for no reason, and then can't even get angry; my father who never tells me off any more, who never shouts at me, who never smacks me, who never talks to me, who never speaks, who just waits, holding his head in his hands.

I think about my father who I don't live with any more, my father who I pass in the hallway as children go in and out; my father who I am getting further and further away from, or who is getting further and further away from me, I don't know any more. I think of him at night and I can't sleep.

I'm tired. I don't do my schoolwork. I start being cheeky. The teachers tell me off. My marks take a nosedive. My chess playing has never been so bad.

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Nura never complained, but he exuded despair. He had aged. Life had etched itself on his features. Being forced to do nothing, to be useless and to live in fear had destroyed him. He would spend hours just sitting or lying, not saying a word, not doing a thing, not moving, not looking at anyone any more. He was so damaged that I used to wonder if he would ever be capable of turning things around again, of getting back on top of things so that one day he could get a job and reintegrate into society. I was equally at a loss with Fahim who, driven by feelings of solidarity, of unconscious imitation or despair, more and more often went to sit with him and do nothing too.

My father never stops thinking about Spain. Spain was his original destination, and he regrets having stopped en route. He often says that if we'd carried on he would already have papers, a house and a job. He says that if France doesn't want us, he should carry on to Spain. Every time I persuade him to change his mind. I tell him to wait for the Préfecture's response, I explain that I don't want to leave, that I've got used to France, that I don't speak Spanish, that I don't want to leave my school, Xavier, the club, my friends, that we'd have to begin all over again.

Even when he's not talking about Spain, he's thinking about it so hard that you can see it in his face. Then, with no work, nowhere to live, no money, no papers, no future and no strength left, stuck in a dead end and with his family far away, my father decides to make a fresh start and head for Spain. On his own. Without me. He says he'll leave me at Créteil and try his luck somewhere else. He says that Anna-Gaëlle, Hélène and above all Xavier will look after me, that I will have a good life, that his life lies elsewhere, that he will come back and fetch me if he gets papers, a job, money. Maybe.

I don't say a word. I scream.