Sand & Sorrow
My dad was born in 1953 in Algiers. His family migrated from Catalonia to Algeria at the end of the 19th century. He lived in Bellecour, a district where there was a lot of Spanish-speakers. He is what we call a “pied noir” in French. He should have lived his entire life there but war happened.
As a“pieds noirs”, his parents didn’t want anything to change- their mother-tongue was French and their children’s too. My dad told me that every night, people in his neighborhood would hit a saucepan five times from their kitchen to say they were against the independence. He never realised how bad the situation was, though. Sometimes, he would hear gunshots or he would hide in the bathtub with his brother but he didn’t know death was close to him. He only realised it on his last day in Algiers. It was sunday, a week or two after the proclamation of the independence of the country. On sundays, he always went to the beach with his parents to meet their friends there. He remembers an old man playing his trumpet while others were dancing. Suddenly, a car drove along the coast and its passengers started to shoot at them. Several people died and his parents decided to flee the country. His father drove them to the airport and when they got there, they were thousands of people who were trying to go to France too. His father decided to remain in Algiers because otherwise they wouldn’t have any money left . He waited for hours at the airport with his brother and his mother. Miraculously, a woman came towards them and asked “Are you the woman with the two children who wants to go to France?”
“Yes”she answered.
“Then hurry up, your plane is leaving in an hour”.
“C’mon, you both heard her" said his mother with a trembling voice.