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trees, where all the grass was as smooth as carpet—I can’t remember anymore what the characters said. They wore old-fashioned clothes. It was pretty, orderly, strange. I draw the automobile plant seen from a distance , all splashed with phosphorescent colours, looking like an amusement park with lights that never stop twinkling ; I also draw houses with roof terraces free of all satellite dishes and television antennas, terraces draped with rugs and fabrics of shimmering hues. I don’t appear to like colour, and my children have often reproached me for always wearing grey, but really I adore natural colours, the tints of spring, and I don’t need to wear them on my back because they’re in my head, where they make music when my mind is tired but they stay inside me, that’s why people say I’m sad, but being sad is being frustrated: nothing happens the way I’d hoped, so since I can’t do a thing about it, I keep my face closed uptight and watch the world run around as if it were in a frenzy or had some incurable fever, and I’ve been sad ever since I came to France, a country that has nothing to do with my sorrow but hasn’t managed to make me smile, to give me reasons to be happy, that’s simply how it is, I can’t help it and I’m not the only one—look at the men when they leave the plant, they’re all sad, especially ours, the guys from the Maghreb, leaning slightly forward while they walk as if weighed down, although perhaps I’m imagining things and they aren’t sad but spending their time having fun, while me, I just can’t. So yes, I love colours and I keep that to myself. I can’t make my children understand it, but I don’t even try, don’t feel like talking, explaining myself.
    That’s why I’ve never talked much with them. I thought it would be easier for us to talk in France, but even around the dinner table I feel as if they’re elsewhere , already gone and merely showing up. Nothing happens. They chat among themselves about their friends, their plans. I don’t understand, and a few polite words are all we exchange. But I’m not the only one in this fix. Did my father talk to me? It’s true, he didn’t say a lot to me, but I knew what had to be done. No need for big speeches. He taught me the fundamentals of our religion: My son, Islam is simple: you alone are responsible for yourself before God, so if you are good you will find goodness in the afterlife, and if you are bad you’ll find that instead. There’s no mystery: everything depends on how you treat people, especially the weak, the poor, so Islam, that means you pray, you address the Creator and don’t do evil around you, don’t lie, don’tsteal, don’t betray your wife or your country, don’t kill—but do I really need to remind you of this? My mother said nothing, rarely spoke. The day I told her I should get married, she replied, I’ve thought about that and found you the wife we need. She emphasised the “we.” As expected, I married my cousin—a distant cousin—and everything was fine. No trouble, never a harsh word, everything quiet; she has never opposed me, and I have never troubled her. My mother knew what I needed; I’ll be eternally grateful to her. Parents should always be trusted, for they know better than their children what’s best for them. That’s not always true, I know: times change, but I don’t. With my children, I couldn’t manage it. I don’t understand—I’m lost and don’t know what to do. I allowed things to happen and said nothing. That wasn’t a good solution. Children need to hear their parents , and there I think I made a mess of it. But that’s another story, between LaFrance and me.
    I never dreamed about LaFrance. True, I heard about people who left to find work in LaFrance, but that’s all. When they came back they never talked about LaFrance, just the cold, the difficult language, the people who never smiled at you. They brought back money, though, and things we