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men don’t cry
different Dounia.
The summer she turned
twenty, she announced that
she would no longer be joining
us for our traditional family
holidays back in the
bled
.
This decision marked a
breaking point for my parents.
Up until then, they had both
lived in the hope that it was
all a passing phase.
“It ’s what ’s cal led an
adolescent crisis.
”
“What ’s that? A virus? A
disease?”
“It’s the kind of disease you
can only catch in Europe! If you
hadn’t brought me here – and
we’d raised them in Algeria
instead – Dounia would never
have caught this adolescent
crisis!”
“Yes, but if I hadn’t brought
you here, then right now you’d
be milking a cow, feeding the
hens, washing the laundry in
the
oued
and fetching drinking
water from the well!”
“That’s enough of your stupid
ideas! You know perfectly well
they don’t live like that any
more. They’re doing better
than we are. The Algerians are
the Americans of North Africa.
D’you want to know what I
think? If you hadn’t brought
me here, I’d see my family
every day, and in my garden
I’d have planted lemon trees
and almond trees instead of
watching
Stop
signs and rusty
washing machines sprouting.”
I was just a kid busy playing at
the Trojan War in the garden,
but I can remember clearly
that when my sister distanced
herself something snapped in
our family.
I loved Dounia, because she
askedmy opinion about a heap
of things and also because she