Needless to say getting out of Algeria was a fucking nightmare. Boarding the plane seemed to take forever, the paperwork, the Ausweis, the security checks, the waiting, the petty bureaucracy, it’s like the Bonzen in Algeria like nothing better than torturing people. They’re like the Gestapo. I was bricking it, terrified I’d be dragged off somewhere. At one point, just as we were going through the last security check, an officer in a blue jacket came over to us and said, ‘You, you and you . . . come with me.’ I thought I’d had it, but it was nothing – he just needed four young guys to help him shift a crate from a truck and carry it down to the basement. Even now I can hardly believe he said thanks and gave us each a cigarette. Only after the plane had taken off and we had reached the point of no return did I breathe again. I fell asleep straight away. I needed to build up my strength so I could face the estate. I had a sick feeling. I expected the place to be completely different and on our way back from Orly airport – where they gave me a hero’s welcome – from what Momo and the crew told me I was convinced the place would be unrecognisable. Between what you expect and what you find there’s a lot of relativity. The estate looked exactly the same as it always did, what had changed was the atmosphere; I had felt as though I’d been away for ages but, looking up at the tower blocks, it was like I’d never been away. Time, to those waiting on the platform, passes at a different rate relative to those on the train. I felt weird. I had no experience of long journeys, of the dislocation caused by relativity. A week can be a long time and a short time. In Algeria, every second seemed so heavy with meaning that it felt like I’d spent a year there. Back in France, staring up at the tower blocks, it feels as though I’ve only been gone a couple of hours. My mates feel like they’ve lived through a whole century, but to me they seem exactly the same as when I left.