France, Story of a Childhood by Zahia Rahmani

Author:Zahia Rahmani
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Yale University Press
Published: 2016-01-15T00:00:00+00:00

Why are we here?” My father doesn’t answer me. This is the only question that disarms him. “Why? Why did you bring me here?” If one of my parents asks me for something, I retort with this question. “Do the dishes.” “No, why am I here?” “Cook.” “No, why am I here?” “Help your sister, stop behaving like that, stop reading, help, help out around the house.” “Why did you bring me here?” I’ve always found myself on the outside.

When I’m twelve, I’m told to go home. “Go home, you’re a Muslim.” When I’m twelve and can’t bear to be in my own house, I’m told to go. “Go home. Keep Ramadan.” I leave, a backpack and Richard Wright’s Black Boy in my pocket as my only company. Thinking myself a hobo in search of a better place. I don’t know how long I’m gone. Four days, eight? I don’t know anymore. Everywhere I go they tell me I have parents. Everywhere they tell me I need to go home. They tell me so from every direction. Someone calls my mother. I make it clear that at the slightest reproach I’ll leave for good. I return. I win the battle. No Ramadan and the right to spend as much time as I want in my attic room. I am nonetheless forbidden from sitting at the table with the pure. The believers being my mother, father, and sister. My brothers have no religious obligations. This is when I begin my fast. I refuse to eat at night, even alone. My sister, scandalized by my stubbornness, grows outraged and turns against me. Taking issue with my mother, reproaching her for our complicity, she bangs at the doors to all my sanctuaries. She bangs loudly to make me come out. I don’t believe in God. I tell her I can’t. “Do what I’m doing. I don’t want any part of their life. Do what I’m doing. Disobey.” She doesn’t stop banging. I close my eyes. I wait. I can’t stand her any longer. I’m overcome by rage and anger with her constant attacks, her vulgar behavior, her taste for fighting, and her North African excesses. I grab my sister and hit her, expressing my disgust for her foolishness. She runs away, screaming that I’m crazy, that I should be committed, heaping insults on me that I reject and which her mouth alone knows how to pronounce. “Arbi ak mweche affouwathim.” May God eat your liver. “Ak mi ghnek.” May He strangle you. “Ak mi weth sou kavach.” May He strike you with an axe. “Thakzent.” Scum. I’m shaken. Shaken by these words that come to me out of the darkness. After these episodes, I bury myself in sad, desolate corners where only my mother joins me in the silence. Where did those words come from? Who taught them to her? My mother says nothing. To me, my sister is a demon. I despise this God who’s given her such license. I hate and avoid her.

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