As a child, Céline used to like crunching unripe, soft almonds. It was supposed to make her sick, but she never was. Green and downy, clusters of them would hang on the way to school. Céline would shell them with her teeth. Now the kernels no longer interest her, and their milky flesh seems bland. She just about enjoys cracking a few dried shells with a stone once the almonds are ripe. And not so much at that. The very gesture feels obsolete, a childhood gesture she discarded after she learned to put on make-up. Only Jo still gets excited when she finds twin fruits inside the shell and badgers her sister to play at Philippine, a stupid game where each swallows one of the pieces and, the next day, has to be the first one to yell “Good morning, Philippine”, so her wish comes true. Kids’ stuff. She remembers it because of the almond trees lining the long path between the main road and her grandparents’ house.

In her grandmother’s impeccably tidy kitchen, Céline has filled a flask of coffee for the workers, like she does every morning. She’s slipped pieces of bacon and cheese, bread and a bottle of wine into the basket. The dog was attacking a bone, she could hear it through the open window, panting and growling at the end of its chain. To avoid the animal as she came out, she’s dashed straight between the two hackberry bushes in the courtyard and gone to give their break to the wretched of the earth working in the apple tree field.

“Why do you insist on bringing us bacon when three quarters of us don’t eat it?” Saïd asks, rummaging through the basket.

“It’s not me, it’s my grandmother.”

“She does it on purpose.”

“Yes, probably.”

He takes a piece of cheese and eats it without bread. “I guess they’ll never change.”

“Bastards…” an old Algerian whispers as he opens the bottle of wine.

“But you do enjoy the bacon and the wine, you pig,” Saïd exclaims, laughing.

“I’m Kabylian, I know what’s good. But what they’re trying to do, son, is to piss us off.”

Céline doesn’t like that. “Yeah, but they do give you work. Nice, considering they’re bastards.”

The Kabylian smiles at Céline, apparently weighing the words about to come out. The light digs into his wrinkles and he squints in the sunlight. Other workers approach and help themselves from the basket. They unroll their bodies, stretch and focus their eyes on the boss’s granddaughter, sitting on a mound like a pot-bellied icon. She doesn’t know what they think of her. The old man leans towards her. He gives off a slightly sour smell of sweat, full of tiredness. “Do you know what your grandfather did last year?”

“Why are you telling her this?” Saïd pleads.