Trafika Europe 6 - Arabesque

faïza guène

Six years went by like that. Dounia passed with flying colours and fulfilled her ambition of becoming a lawyer. Despite the tense atmosphere at home, my mother wanted to bring us together over a special meal. Food, always. Her way of celebrating her daughter’s success. Deep down she was proud, even if she told Dounia, who had just announced that a few days earlier she’d been called to the bar in Nice: “I don’t see what all the fuss is about, when at your age you’re still not married…!” The tagine of chicken with olives had gone cold. Dounia was hopping mad and decided not to show up. My mother was on the verge of having one of her turns, her blood pressure had shot up to

seventeen over six, while the Hombre went out into the garden and started nervously pulling out the long grass by the path. It was too much for my mother. Apart from a bit of tactlessness, she didn’t understand what she’d done to deserve this. “I’ve done everything to make my children happy! Her problem is that she’d like to have been born into a different family! She’s always been jealous of other people! She wishes she was a French girl! That’s the truth of it!” Mina, who had been close to Dounia in childhood, barely spoke to her any more. She was increasingly bitter about the sister she considered as the root of all our troubles. This was particularly the case on one day in September 2001,

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