53 pages • 1 hour read
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Content Warning: This section of the guide discusses the source text’s depictions of addiction and attempted suicide.
The author notes that she’s a writer and her job is to tell stories. When she thinks about where to begin her own family’s history, she realizes that it doesn’t matter. Human stories are complex, interconnected, and always in various stages of becoming. They have, she reflects, no real endings or beginnings. She realizes that she can begin her own story anywhere.
Nine-year-old François writes to his father in Greece to tell him the family’s news. Until recently, they were all living in Salonica, where his father is the naval attaché at the French embassy, but as the Nazis began to advance across Europe, his father packed them all off to Algeria to stay with relatives. His parents have long spoken of the beauty of the city of Algiers and how important it is to their family, but when they arrive, François finds it hot and crowded. None of their extended family members seem to want to house them, and life is difficult. They’re staying with Tata Baudry, an 85-year-old relative whose home is dirty and unpleasant compared to their house in Salonica and their previous house in Beirut.
François was instructed not to share bad news with Papa, so he writes instead of the Nazis entering the city of Paris. He understands Paris as “the heart” of their nation but has never been to France. He knows that all of Europe is in danger because of the Nazis, and just yesterday he helped Maman dig a trench in the yard in case they need to take cover in the event of an airstrike.
Leaving Greece was difficult. They couldn’t go to France because of newly closed borders, and someone stole his sister’s suitcase. They spent the first night in Algiers with Tata Paulette and Uncle Charles but then transferred to various other family members’ homes. François was unable to keep track of how all of these people are related to him; he misses his father and their home in Greece.
Schools are closed in Algeria, and both François and his sister, Denise, whom everyone calls Poupette, are left mostly to themselves during the day. Maman suffers from migraines and spends a lot of time in bed. François wishes that schools were open, but he enjoys exploring the strange city, even in the company of his irritating younger sister who always finds something to complain about. Still, he hopes the war will end soon and that his father will survive and join them in Algeria as quickly as possible.
On the evening that the Germans march into Paris, naval attaché Gaston Cassar is on his way to a reception at the home of the Romanian consul. Gaston’s wife, Lucienne, and children, François and Denis, are in Algiers. Like many families of other European diplomats, they were sent to safety when the Nazis began to advance across the continent. Gaston misses them terribly, especially since they’re unable to communicate. The war has put a stop to all cross-border communication, even telegrams. Gaston was initially happy when he was posted to Salonica. He considered the job a promotion from his posting in Beirut. Now, however, Greece seems like a backwater place. He knows that he’s supposed to spy on the geopolitical maneuvering of the Italian government in the Mediterranean, but he’s too preoccupied about his family’s safety to direct much of his attention to possible collusion between Germany and the Italians.
The news of France falling to the Nazis that morning leads some to question whether consular affairs will proceed as planned (whether France is still a country, what the future holds). Gaston remains steadfast. Now, he feels, it’s even more important to remain strong and resolute. He’ll attend that evening’s reception as well as all other scheduled activities. He doesn’t entirely trust the Romanian consul or his wife and knows that the two, as representatives of the Romanian government, are friendly with the German consul. When he arrives at the party, the Romanian consul’s wife pulls him aside. She tells him, in a hushed tone, that she and her husband met as students in Paris and adore France but that they must support their country, which is presently allied with Germany. She then raises her voice to thank him for coming even though he can’t stay. Gaston, feeling ashamed, understands that he was just sent away because of France’s defeat.
Back at home, he reflects on the war and his family. He and Lucienne grew up in Algiers. They adored the city and felt that it shaped their identity as French Algerians. His naval postings kept them on the move since they married, but they always planned to retire in Algiers. He wishes now that he hadn’t brought the family with him to Salonica. Their departure for Algeria was chaotic, and his goodbye with Lucienne was particularly fraught. They had no idea when or if they would see each other again. He has written daily letters to Lucienne since she and the children left and included them in the diplomatic post. She hasn’t written back.
To pass the time and distract himself, Gaston socializes with his landlord, a wealthy Jewish Salonican named Hernandez. Hernandez and his wife both come from families that have lived in Salonica for hundreds of years, but they’re acutely aware of their Jewish identity and status as “exiles.” He remarks that through his wife they have citizenship in Persia and plan to leave if necessary. He’s sure, however, that they’ll remain safe. His son is in boarding school in England, and he remarks that if they were in Prague or Budapest they would surely flee, but because Mussolini will likely be the Axis leader in the Mediterranean, they aren’t worried about their personal safety. Mussolini, he reflects, is “not Hitler.”
Many of the men Gaston knows from France and other countries imperiled by the German military and ideology are joining various resistance groups. Some even hope to join the fighting. Gaston, overcome with worry about his family, continues to write daily to Lucienne without receiving a reply. He writes to his superiors and is sent back to Beirut. Beirut is still under French control and will be safer than Greece. Greece is too close to Italy, and it’s increasingly clear that Italy will indeed join the war on the Germans’ side.
The novel begins during the early days of World War II. This immediately establishes The Interplay Between Personal and Historical Narratives as an important theme. Because Paris has just fallen to the Nazis and Gaston worries about a possible Axis invasion of Greece, he sends Lucienne and the children back to the safety of Algiers. This becomes the family’s first major displacement, and the strain it puts on all of them reverberates throughout the rest of their lives. Gaston’s role as a diplomat is thrown into chaos by the presence of both Axis and Allied countries in Greece. He’s shunned by the Romanian consul, but his wife explains that they must act on behalf of their country. The difficulties that this section depicts accurately represent the ways that the war fundamentally altered relations between European countries, and Gaston becomes a casualty of forces beyond his control.
The war not only alters Gaston’s career path but also reorders Europe and its former colonial empire, and Gaston later reflects that much of his working life was spent in the struggle to reorient and recalibrate Europe’s business and commercial interests. François and Denise, who grew up mostly in Lebanon and Greece until the war, initially find Algiers foreign, though it’s ostensibly the family’s cultural home. Denise ultimately frames her identity within a French Algerian context, but François never truly (or fully) does. His struggle for identity begins during this section of the novel, and Displacement, Rootlessness, and Belonging emerges as a key theme. Because François spent much of his childhood outside Algeria, he experiences a distinct kind of identity confusion. Upon arrival in Algiers, he observes:
‘Here’ was France. Algeria, of course, but Algeria was France, and this was home, apparently, and François was supposed to feel happy to be safe, or as safe as anyone could feel right now, Maman said, referring he knew, to the war. This is where his family belonged, and where they’d lived for a hundred years, Maman told him (13).
It's evident that he was taught to understand his identity within the context of both French and French Algerian culture but doesn’t feel a deep connection to either. “Home” is French Algeria to his parents, but to François home has always been Lebanon or Greece. He understands that France means one thing and French Algeria another, but he can’t quite identify which beliefs and values might make him French versus which his family gained through their life in colonial Algeria. He initially finds Algeria foreign because his connection to it is so tenuous. Although he enjoys exploring the bustling streets of Algiers, he never fully becomes as connected to the city as Denise does, and his eventual choice to attend university in the US makes sense: He isn’t leaving a place that he considers “home.”
At the beginning of the novel, the author ostensibly focuses on colonizers rather than the colonized. Colonialism’s long and troubled history is not, at this point in the novel, a point of discussion. The experiences of indigenous Algerians were arguably more difficult than those of the French living in Algeria, but through Gaston’s and François’s characterization in particular it becomes evident that the author intends to explore the complexities of French colonial identity rather than tell the story of oppressed colonial subjects. She later delves deeper into the brutality of France’s colonial project, but here her interest is clearly the way that colonialism impacted the pieds-noirs, meaning French colonial citizens who were born in Algeria and felt, in many senses, a greater connection to French Algeria than to France.
Another focal point that emerges in this section is family. Gaston’s deep love for his family is at odds with the aloof, hands-off style that was common for men of his generation. Lucienne’s commitment to François and Denise is evident, but so is the way that love for family has become a value that they pass down to their children: François fully admits to finding his sister irritating but also notes his desire to please his mother by being kind to Denise. Additionally, he makes an effort to include her in his activities, and their lifelong bond is already apparent. Gaston and Lucienne are imbedded in a vast, extended family network. Although they struggle to find help in Algeria when they return, Lucienne and the children ultimately settle with a family member. The novel emphasizes the importance of family to the pieds-noirs: Because they live in a country that is, even after a century, essentially not their own, maintaining connections with family for support in times of need is crucial for them.
In addition, the author draws an interesting parallel between the pieds-noirs and the Greek Jewish community in these chapters. After Lucienne and the children leave, Gaston spends time with Jewish friends. Until World War II, Salonica (Thessaloniki) was the heart of Greece’s Jewish community. Like the pieds-noirs, Gaston’s Jewish friends experience identity through the framework of being displaced, feeling rootless, and a search for belonging. Even after hundreds of years, they still feel like outsiders in Greece. Like Gaston and the pieds-noirs, they’re both “of” and “not of” the place that they call home, and their identity is a complex composite of historical (Jewish) and national (Greek) identity.
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