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“One evening, after the burial, Omar the coalman summoned his wife and children into a room and said, in a voice that might have sounded sweet had it not dripped with hate: ‘I promised the imam I would not slash this criminal’s throat. Not that I don’t want to, but I will keep my promise. From this day on, know that it is not Ali who is dead, it’s Yussef, his murderer. He is dead and buried. I never want to hear his name again. He does not exist. He has never existed. If any one of you makes even the slightest reference to him, you will be turned out of my house. Do you understand me?’ They all looked down.Then, turning to Yussef, who was cowering, petrified, in a corner, he said firmly: ‘From now on, your name is Ali. This way, your crime will follow you to hell.’ More serious still, in his statement to the police, the coalman gave Yussef as the name of the drowned child.” My mother sighed. “And that is how the friend you’re so angry with right now officially lost his identity.”
    That distressing story stayed with me for a very long time. On so many occasions I almost called Blackie by his real name, but I stopped myself. In the end, his nickname sorted things out: it saved us from punishing him forever. Yet, many years later, coming out of the garage, we’d gathered at the bus stop on our way to the city. Half the Stars of Sidi Moumen were there, divided into two groups. Blackie was in the second group. The sun blazed down on the peach-colored ramparts. The birds were chirping as if nothing was wrong. Cars came and went, trailing clouds of black exhaust fumes. A few donkeys with hollow bellies strained to haul their ramshackle carts, piled high with all sorts of junk. Cyclists panted up the hill. Just the ordinary hubbub of an ordinary day. Behind us sprawled Sidi Moumen and its garbage trucks, its dump and its poor. What we were thinking at that moment, I couldn’t say. Probably nothing. We were wearing our paradise belts aroundour thudding hearts, awaiting deliverance. Ali and I hugged each other for a long time and said those words that even today resonate strangely in my mind:
    â€œSee you up there, Yachine.”
    â€œYes, Yussef, see you up there.”
    It was the first time I’d called him by his real name. He smiled at me and gave a shrug of resignation.
    Our group caught the first bus.

6
    IN SOCCER, DEFENDING players have lower status than attacking players. People only ever remember the goal scorers. And yet, the real battle is fought at the back and in midfield. If Khalil, our central defender, didn’t command attention, he was very much a linchpin of the team. And I have to admit, I owe a good part of my notoriety to him. Without good defenders, a goalkeeper is lost; he lets everything in. In fact, I’d like to pay public tribute to that talented boy. There, it’s done. The truth is, Khalil and I didn’t have much in common. We’d always be bickering on the field. And sometimes off it, too. One day, accusing me of siding with the enemy, because of a save I’d missed, he threw a broken bottle at me, without warning, which cut me on the left shoulder. It was no big deal, just a scratch, but at the sight of blood, my brother came chargingover, right in the middle of the game, swinging his bicycle chain, and laid into him with insane violence, almost finishing him off. I remember a curious thing: Khalil, barely conscious, scrabbling in the dust, trying to locate the two teeth he’d just lost, as if he could stick them back in, like a bridge he could simply replace to restore his smile. Hamid, whose strength increased tenfold at times like this, was bellowing like a wild animal as he went at him. The others hadn’t attempted to separate them because no one liked this stuck-up boy who’d just turned up from the city and thought the sun shone out of his ass. Forming a circle round the brawl, stoking the rage