The masterpiece of Rachid Mimouni : Tombéza

I got down, recently, to rediscover better the literary works of Rachid Mimouni, a major figure of Algerian literature, whose career began at a critical period of our country’s political life and cultural activity, namely the end of the 1970’s and the beginning of the 1980’s which were to be the framework of changes soon described as an opening, although these changes resulted, unfortunately, in the tragic events of 5-October 1988.

On the literary side, Rachid Mimouni lies between the generation of the 1970’s writers and the ones of The "Dark decade" whom he has undeniably influenced.

His more quoted books are  The Diverted river and The Pride of the tribe, but something drew me to the second novel of his trilogy, namely Tombéza where I smelt a sulfurous smell before I have even read it. And I wasn’t disappointed, I have been even surprised by the aesthetic vindictive charge of this novel which could be considered a saga although it is 327 pages long and doesn’t spread over several tomes. Nonetheless, the book contains so many short stories that go down in the great History, it expresses so many ideas concerning a wide range of topics that it would be certainly vain trying to do it justice in just one single article. Not to mention the writer’s style, punchy and incisive, yet never losing musicality, with the use of precise and well honed vocabulary, as though words were carved in stone to better scratch the soul.

As for the novel content, the book opens with the reflections of a man who has just got out of coma, stretched out in the bed of a hospital where nothing seems to work as it should.  That man tries to remember how he ended-up here, and then he portrays the city where he lives, before his memory slide backwards, towards the souvenirs of a past life.

Then, the reader discovers that Tombéza (that’s his name) considers himself as a victim in first place. He was not accepted when he was born in an Algerian village during French colonization era. He’s also rejected by his entourage because of his repulsive appearance. Thus, he becomes aggressive and cruel. He also witnesses the hypocrisy linked to traditions. Nonetheless, he wants to be educated, but he is denied going to the mosque to learn Quran. Like the narrator notices: “It is well-known that, except carrions, hyenas attack only wounded and weakened animals, that drag themselves painfully in the woods.  Hyenas are the more cowardly beasts, and hence the fiercest.” (Page 53)

Later on, Tombéza works for French colonists, and he witnesses colonial injustice of which he nonetheless want to beneficiate. From this turning-point, arises the moral ambiguity of the novel, which comes to a climax when Tombéza goes to work in a camp where Algerians are parked, in order to separate them from the National liberation army.

Of course, Rachid Mimouni draws an uncompromising picture of colonization and the Harkis’s role. Nevertheless, there are grey areas surrounding the period of the Liberation war because of the confusion that characterized those days of reckonings between families and flip-flops that had little to do with political convictions. Thus, all Rachid Mimouni’s virtuosity lies in his ability to clarify the unspeakable and lighten the grey areas, with a feat of story-telling that requires maybe several readings in order to grasp all the complexity of the narratives which, of course, go beyond colonial period and tackle, at length, all the problems that appeared after Algeria got its independence, notably in the hospital service of which the detailed description covers much of the novel since, surprisingly, the unsavory Tombéza ends-up working as a nurse in a very deteriorated hospital. There, he rises through the ranks, not much to get rich, but rather to take revenge over the world that despised him since he was a kid, and his revenge is a quest of power and influence over others, even in the mundane events of everyday life.

The most disturbing thing in this novel is Tombéza’s carrying about the large sums of money that come in his hands only in so far as it enable him to maintain his stranglehold on other people, and to gain sometimes their sympathy, like when Tombéza helps to readjust the mosque for equipping it with air-conditioning machines and other devices; hence Mimouni finds a way to denounce hypocrisy and all the problems linked to the dissimilation of vices under masks of prudery. So it is when the writer depicts the ceremonial observed by alcohol consumers who wish to go to a bar or the opening conditions of a hairdressing saloon for ladies….

However, in this novel the hospital remains the reduced model of the whole society with power relations, corruption that often takes place of coercion when it proved to be useless, and all the tricks to pretend you are weak in order to gain the trust of your vis-à-vis before you could jump to his throat on the first occasion, and so on…

Thanks to a never boring flash-back technique, Rachid Mimouni often draws us back to the colonial era with other characters resorting to delusion as a natural mean to survive. Hence, all is mixed up, all the novel narrative is axed around tricks and schemes, and all seems normal at the end, vice belongs to the décor, until the day when Tombéza falls into a coma…He was surely not the best among all, but was he really the worst?  This novel is to be read and read again…

Lyes  Ferhani