The fridge

 by Reda Kenzaoui

Translated by zakaria El Bajjaj

There was no meat in the fridge, throughout the harsh winter, the fridge that its door got rusted, the rust that wreaked on it and had  shapes of archipelagos and charts.
I was telling my little brother:  this is the chart of heaven, here where the devil refused to kneel, there’s a plethora of eternal honey rivers and here is the apple tree, where eve has orchestrated us the scheme.
We used to hide those oxidized patches by gum stickers and pictures of footballers, my mother would like that, as the fridge located within the field of view of guests, specifically in the foyer, she believed that the signs of poverty manifests itself only in those little things, ripped socks or pants, thus, she strived to sew small napkins in a certain way and she put it in top of the fridge, however the chart of heaven was crawling bit by bit like eczema, it was like we were handing politely a belly of a pregnant sister, in an illegal way, even i had to sacrifice Maradona’s picture, this little rare piece i barely earned it in the  “dadosa” game from a cheater kid in the neighborhood.
The rubber in the edges of the door also has been eroded, it wasn’t easy to shut it unless you do it strongly, we were wailing with a hunger that cannot be satisfied,  it had nothing inside but a bundle of mint, a bottle of vinegar, a half lemon, some rotten tomatoes and a few empty white plastic bags.
But our battle never was inside the fridge, going through the patience of starvation it was that simple … but the provocative looks from the guests, was eating the liver of my mother, our battle was external, superficial.
We were like some submarine sailors, working hard to fill its holes for not losing our pride.

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