The author explains his feelings about the lost French and Judeo-Tunisian culture and its lost characters, such as his Arab, French, Italian, Maltese, and Spanish friends, with whom he grew up until the age of fourteen. He defines the Tunisian capital of today, as a theatre without its actors.

Nostalgia

Many people are telling me that I am nostalgic about my past, about the country where I was born, about the people I used to know, and about the language I learned there when I was young. I am telling the people who criticize me for being nostalgic:

What is wrong about loving the place and the land which saw me first, when my mom put me on this earth. Why should I be ashamed for loving the cradle, which sheltered me, especially when I needed it the most, when I was the most fragile? When I speak about North Africa or about my town or about the city where my grandma was living, do they know of which time or of which age I am talking?  

The period when the horse carriages filled the streets, and once in a while the wheels of the carriages went into the tracks of the tramway.  This kind of  carriages used to take us to the train station, early in the morning, around four o’clock, in order not to miss the train back to our town after a nice couple of days with our grandma. I still miss Baiza’s restaurant which had a menu comprising various kinds of meat, grilled outside, on charcoal.  Just the flavor of the grilled meat used to give me an appetite. 

How can one tell me, I am in love with the past, when I just like to remember my father playing the dominoes with his friends in an Arab Tunisian café, which was full of Arabs, Bedouins, Italians, French people, Jews, Maltese, and Spanish, people. Everyone enjoying the game, others watching their friends playing various card games. I still remember the waiter, who jumped from place to place, with his tray in his hand, full of coffee cups, glasses of tea and of water, to serve each and everyone who was calling him. He did not even make a note of each order, he just memorized them instantly.  The only words one could hear were, “Yes Sir!” The place was full of customers and he had to worm his way through the crowded place.  I don’t know how he always managed to edge himself to the right customer.  He served the coffee and the tea with such a precision and with an innocent smile, that everyone liked him. 

In 1939, I was seven years old, when my dad took me with him to Tunis, the capital city of Tunisia. He was dressed in his French army uniform.  At that time, I was proud of him, as the uniform symbolized strength and power. He took me to a grill restaurant of his close friend.  The owner of the restaurant served us with such love, he fed us like a mother bird which feeds her young birds.  He always came to our table, in his hand, a tray full of hot grilled meat. He went from table to table and emptied his tray without reservations.  When we came to pay the bill, he always said:  “You pay what you want and what you can.”

How can I forget the face of such a noble friend of my dad’s? How can I forget his generosity? These were very rare moments, full of joy and happiness! How can I forget my father’s smile? He was drafted for both wars, World War I and World War II. Why I chose to mention the war in this scene, is because when I went to the restaurant, my father was in his French uniform.

Those are the moments which appear once in a while in my memory, when I speak about nostalgia.  The people I knew from my dad’s generation, from my grandparents’ generation, even from my great grandparents’ generation, these people are no longer with us.  Because we were separated, I was deprived of enjoying their presence and their departure from our world. Our life was cut short without any appeal.

Occasionally, we encounter or we discover certain persons from our generation. One time a friend, and another time a member from our school.  Our heart bursts with joy for every face we find again, whom we thought having lost forever. When I evoke the flavor of the grilled meat, is not by greediness, far from this thought, but because of the eradication of an entire community, of a few entire generations, of an ambiance, which for me today is hard to describe, in one word, of an entire culture of coexistence which can no longer be reproduced, even if we wanted to.

The actors and the scenery are no longer there. And without these actors, a new generation will grow up, orphaned of our culture and of our ancestors, without even the memory of the old traditions.  This is the pain that I always carry within myself.  This is the kind of love I am talking about, when I speak about my native country Tunisia. This is what is causing my nostalgia.