Trafika Europe 6 - Arabesque

faïza guène

had a bulging wallet. There were so many notes sticking out of it, I thought she was a millionaire. She bought me my first game console and paid for me to go on trips to the cinema from time to time. While forging a brilliant university career, she was a waitress at a stylish brassiere in the centre of town, called La Cour des Miracles. One Saturday, she took me there after I’d promised not to say anything to our parents. She didn’t want them finding out, because she still felt guilty about it back then. For my father, who wasn’t short on fixed ideas, a waitress was a prostitute with a tray in her hand and an apron round her waist. I kept the secret, out of loyalty of course, but also because I was dreaming about her getting me that

pair of Adidas Stan Smiths for starting my new school. Dounia had a new group of girlfriends who were customers at the brasserie. They drank white wine and left lipstick smears on the rims of their glasses. I remember them laughing while exhaling their cigarette smoke, which seemed to fill every nook and cranny of the room. They wore short skirts and one of them kept asking another one: “D’you think he’ll call me back? Hey? D’you think he’ll call me back?” A group of twenty year-old Julie Guérins had helped my sister to reveal her inner ‘Christine’. I bet mum wouldn’t like these girls , I remember thinking to myself, as I watched them. And then, on my way back

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