Chambre avec vue

The year's first Saturday. The sun - that prodigal child finally returned - bathes Algiers in its pale winter gold Un my scooter, I abandon my usual routes to Saint-Eugène, giving myself to the serpentine curves of the neights - the Rue des Frères Bellili draws me in like a half-remembered dream.

 Then the wall spoke to me. A crude gash in the masonry, a yawning mouth guarding secrets. Inside: the eviscerated remains of a house, its stone skeleton laid bare. 

One of those places where the city bares its teeth, where shadows come to gnaw on their sorrows. And yet... what vibrant energy in this chaos ! The walls whisper their stories. 

I choose my room - the one where the shattered ceiling frames a stained-glass window to the sky. Algiers' finest view: a border of ruins embracing an unbroken horizon.

Sitting on what might have once been a bed, I suddenly understand: these walls aren't dead. They breathe through every crack, more alive than half the souls walking Algiers' streets.

The sun caresses the rubble with the same golden fingers that stroke the pristine facades of the city's modern buildings.