Anyway, long story short, I arrived at Aïn Deb half-dead from exhaustion, hunger, thirst, soaked to the skin, both arms pulled from their sockets by Aunt Sakina’s suitcase. And to top it all I’d caught a dose of flu. If it was like this in the camps, I’d prefer to be gassed straight off, I thought, as the night got blacker and, up there on the hill, where Rachel had once stood, lost, the wind blew harder. It nearly sent me toppling into the abyss, but with my big emigrant’s suitcase to weigh me down, I only flailed a bit.

Then, suddenly, I wondered what kind of welcome I would get. I hadn’t written, I hadn’t phoned. I hadn’t even thought about it, the trip was spur of the moment, because of the money Ophélie had sent me. Who cares, I thought, now that Papa and Maman and Rachel were all dead, I had no ties to Aïn Deb. I was a stranger turning up unexpectedly. But I was also a son of the village, following in my brother’s footsteps, in search of my father, my mother, our truth.

You could barely see the village from the hill. I waited for the next flash of lightning to get my bearings. I plummeted down the hill like a sky-diver. At some point, as a flash of lightning lit up the sky, I spotted smoke rising from chimneys. I had finally arrived.

When you grow up on the estate, you learn to improvise. Dragging my suitcase, I went and knocked on Mohamed’s door. Mohamed was the son of the local shoemaker, we were friends back when I was a kid. I remembered people used to call him Mimed and I don’t remember seeing him going barefoot back in the day. I figured this was the best thing to do – I didn’t want to panic the whole village. The memory of the massacre must still haunt them. As I crept through the village I prayed to God that Mimed was still alive. At this hour – it was after 8 p.m. – the good people would have recited Isha’a, the last prayer, and would be sleeping the sleep of the just.