Trafika Europe 6 - Arabesque

faïza guène

later and later at night, without explaining herself to anyone, and giving very little away about her life. She almost never ate at table with us any more, but kept herself to herself, her nose buried in her books. She studied hard, always came first in everything and, after passing her baccalauréat with top marks, she began studying law as well as finding time to hold down a job. The transformation had begun. Within a few months, her curves had disappeared, her brace as well, she had traded her pair of clever-clogs glasses for contact lenses, paid for a straightening treatment on her hair, and even started wearing make up. She had become distant, dry, colourless, but I had already guessed that outside the house she was a very

world was full of Julie Guérins, and my parents’ attempts at cocooning their daughter were in vain. Threats and punishments didn’t work any more either. My mother, who was so wily when it came to the blame game, had fired all her cartridges. Her sudden palpitations or mounting blood pressure didn’t change anything. We had already lost Dounia. As for the Hombre, he became resigned to it. He avoided confrontation and started behaving as if his daughter no longer existed, he didn’t even respond to my mother’s calls for help: “Do something, Abdelkader!” He took to mending the bicycles of local children from the hideout of his hut, at the bottom of the garden. Dounia would return home

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