Colonial Memory and Postcolonial Europe: Maltese Settlers in Algeria and France

9. Place, Replaced: Malta as Algeria in the Pied-noir Imagination

THE TRIP TO MALTA When I traveled with twenty members and friends of the Amicale France-Malte on a week-long voyage to Malta in September 1995, I looked forward to the trip with considerable anticipation. I was eager to learn what it was about Malta that proved so alluring to these elderly former settlers. Most of the people Michel and François had assembled that year had never been there before, and all but two couples were of Maltese heritage. Typical of people of this background and family history, they did not know where in Malta their families were from, nor even, in most cases, which island. The choice of activities during our week there reflected the club members ’ tenuous link to the land of their ancestors. The trip was not unlike other package tours. We stayed in a large deluxe hotel that accommodates hundreds of guests, and spent our time visiting Malta’s main tourist attractions : the impressive fortifications of the Knights of Malta in Valletta, the working-class neighborhoods of the Three Cities, the medieval town center of Mdina, the Neolithic ruins that dot Malta’s southern portion and Gozo, impressive Baroque churches on both islands, the film set for Popeye (known as “Popeye village”) and the painted boats of the harbor towns (see fig. 12). There was much to see: each day was packed with events. I was enlisted as driver of one of the three vehicles we had rented and struggled to keep up with François and Michel as they maneuvered around treacherous traffic circles while driving on the left-hand side of the road. We visited several sumptuous churches, which were quite moving for the travelers—not necessarily because they remembered hearing about them, but because of their remarkably rich, Baroque, interiors. The settlers also noted the religiosity of the Maltese. While at the enormous church in NINE Place, Replaced: Malta as Algeria in the Pied-noir Imagination  Mosta, for instance (see fig. 13), the settlers were respectfully quiet as they walked by a prayer group. Once outside the church, they commented energetically on the fact that that particular prayer group consisted entirely of older men, which they found remarkable. Their distant, respectful manner inside churches marked them as tourists in my mind, people from a secular society for whom religion is a private matter, and this attitude seemed to derive from their long stay in France and, before that, French Algeria. There were some mishaps. François once missed a meeting because his van broke down and he had to walk over a mile into town to secure a replacement vehicle. On another occasion, we somehow took different roads off a traffic circle and split into two groups, one of which went back to Valletta to window-shop while the other ended up at an artists’ colony housed in former barracks of the British air force. And one day I followed Michel all day, for François’s group had decided to take a break and stay close to the hotel. Through driving rain and even a major thunderstorm, Michel and I drove in tandem along a coastal route, and I started to think that he was trying to introduce me to every single road on the island so that I wouldn’t get lost in the future. In a break in the storm, we drove along winding streets that were filling with puddles tan with the muddy limestone runoff, only to find ourselves at the back of the airport. To our amazement, the chain-link fence bordering the airport runways was lined with cars, and whole Maltese families Place, Replaced | 211 Figure 12. “Popeye village,” Malta. Photograph courtesy Lucien Jullié. 212 |      Figure 13. Mosta church, Malta. Photograph courtesy Lucien Jullié. were either waiting inside the cars, or standing outside the fence looking in. Some were even climbing onto their car hoods. “What do we have here?” Joseph asked, in amazement. I pulled over, and the elderly settlers in my car spent some time discussing this unusual scene. “I think they are here to watch the planes land!” Mrs. Dumont exclaimed, and they discussed this possibility seriously. “Perhaps there wasn’t much to do on a day with such bad weather,” Joseph’s girlfriend proposed. We stayed there watching the Maltese watching the runway, incredulous. Suddenly we heard a roar overhead , and the reason for the...