The Algerian Friend (original short story)

Last night in Oostende I saw a glimpse of what Europe is becoming, and I didn’t like it. I was there for a screening of my film at the annual festival held in autumn. In the evening I was wandering about town, and asked a stranger where to find the bars. He aimed at the distance. I understood that it wasn’t far, but he offered to take me there.
At first I thought he was French speaking, but soon it turned out he spoke less French then I did, and didn’t speak much of anything else either. Yet we sort of understood each other, and as I was shy of company I invited him for a beer.

We ended up in a bar that I remembered some barman earlier on had told me to go to.
With broken bits of French my friend explained to me that he had become an illegal, coming from Algeria, stuck in Belgium. There was no more future for him here. He was dreaming of getting under a truck and making the crossing to the UK: land of opportunities. ‘l’Anglettere c’est magnifique,’ he said several times, though he admitted he had never been.

I was trying telling him to use his head, think big, make plans, and that everything would work out for him, that there would be a future for him anywhere. Or at least I was trying to tell him that. In reality I was mainly saying: ‘La tête! La tête!’

As we were sitting in the outside area, I felt the gaze of many drunk folks around us. They were aimed at my friend more then me. I spoke a few friendly words of Dutch with some of them to ease the tangible tension. But they were growingly intrigued by my friend: ‘Why didn’t he talk to them? Didn’t he like them? Where was he from? What language did he speak?’

One guy even came up to me and asked what he needed to do for my Algerian friend to like him more. I told him to not try so hard, and be less annoyingly fascinated by seeing a stranger. He seemed to appreciate the sincere words.

Next to us there was a girl who had been flirtatious since we arrived. She kept staring at my friend and trying to make conversation, which was not possible. My friend did not want to give away his status, so he spoke as little as possible, causing her to grow more interested with the second. As she had been pretty obvious, and my friend didn’t have the vocabulary needed to kick off conversation, I decided to help him a hand. I introduced myself to the girl, and then said: ‘Meet my friend..,’ expecting him to introduce himself. But he didn’t. Instead he stood up and went inside, leaving us with his absence. When he came back two minutes later his mystery had risen to even bigger proportions, and the girl eagerly started chatting him up.

By now the Algerian friend was having a great night. We were two beers in, we were in a
bar he normally wouldn’t get in to, and he was chatting to a girl he normally wouldn’t meet.

Suddenly some mongoloid -excuse my phrasing, people with down syndrome are highly respectable, this guy wasn’t – came running out of the bar. He was, or claimed to be the boyfriend of the girl, and started beating the Algerian friend in the face for chatting to her. He threw a few vicious, unexpected punches.
The Algerian friend went mad and decided to take the fight outside. Also the mongoloid didn’t back down. I ran after them and tried to split them up, talking to the attacker: ‘What are you doing man? Seriously? Out of all people you find this guy to fight? Hey! What are you doing?’

By now the Algerian friend had taken off his shirt and was shouting in Arabic in the middle of the square, which didn’t seem like the right move. So I ran up to him: ‘What are you doing man? La tête! La tête! Remember?’ I picked his shirt from the ground, a blue jersey of the Italian national football team- and handed it to him. ‘Wear your shirt man. Come on, wear your shirt!’

He was having none of it. Some bottles were broken. Not thrown at people, but smashed to the ground, causing more noise than threat.

Suddenly three police trucks arrived with sirens. The Algerian friend, being an illegal, started running down the shopping street. Within seconds there were dozens of people running out the bar pointing at him: ‘There! He went there! Catch him!’ One policeman started running after him as fast as I have seen any policeman run. One of the police trucks followed.

Out of everywhere people ran out to talk to the policemen who had stayed behind; the neighbors, drunks, shop owners, pedestrians, stoned kids: people literally swarmed out of every hole to report about the Algerian friend breaking bottles and shouting in Arabic.

A few minutes later a police car with blinded windows came back from the direction of the chase. I couldn’t see him, but I was sure that the Algerian friend was in the back of the car. I stepped to the policeman standing next to the car.

‘Which one did you arrest?’ I asked them.
‘Just the one with the blue shirt,’ he replied.
The Algerian friend must have finally put his shirt back on.
‘He’s the one who was attacked,’ I told the policeman, ‘It’s not fair to arrest him.’
He took cold notion of it, then shrugged. ‘Okay.’

The policemen got in their cars and drove off, with the Algerian friend in the back seat.

For the idiot causing the fight it was just another fight. He didn’t even get arrested. The Algerian friend was beaten up, blamed, chased and arrested, all for just chatting to a girl. He won’t know where he will be dropped off, or where he will live the following day. Next time he interacts with locals he will be filled with hatred.

If this were to be the new Europe, where even cultural interest in strangers is deeply rotten and racist, where illegals are societies new scapegoat, I would denounce Europe in a breath. Yet, Europe is not what we denounce, but what we make of it. Let it be better then this.