“I promise, Maman, I won’t do anything wrong.”
My face is pure radium. Dazzling smile, boundless generosity and a full heart. But what can I do? What can I do besides cry? I deny myself, as aware of the seductiveness of the taboo surrounding me as of the strength it gives me. In total control, I prolong my life by distancing anything that could, in my father’s mind, mean my negation. No alcohol, no drugs, no boys. I think I’ll make it out like this. Through will alone. I am not a bitch or a whore. I love my family. My brothers and even more so the three youngest, who I want to protect. I want to love them without fear. They shouldn’t be responsible for my virginity. In France, I can’t reconcile this timeless law with anything. Not that you can anywhere else. It hangs above my head like a sword. Each time my boyfriend takes my hand, it burrows painfully into my skull. I see it constantly. It’s in my dreams. The sword burrows in, and behind it is my mother. Silent and resigned. So I break away from my darling, who wants nothing but good for me. He thinks that restraint and time will ease the moment.
The summer ends.
What can I do? I can’t head off to high school. In two weeks I will be sixteen. My mother has no money. I can’t be a boarder. My father refuses. I knock on every door. I want to go to school. The party is over. I beg my father. I beg him to let me study. My mother is powerless. She’s always by my side. But this is beyond her, she can’t do anything.
One night I write her a letter, to thank her. I slip it under my bed. Dear Maman. I want to sleep for a long time. I love you. And under the sheets, I swallow.
That night, she approached in the dark. Her instinct, her love pushed her to enter my bedroom.
She told me, “First I touched you. Then I spoke to you and then I shook you. I shook you very hard.” Then she screamed.
They say her shouts woke up everyone in the village.
Epilogue . . .
I thought I would find you alone on your couch, but I see you stretched out, holding a small body in your arms. Your newest grandson, to whom you’re murmuring words in your language. I hear you call him, “Cébien. Cébien.” I correct you, “He’s called Esteban, Maman. Esteban. It’s a Spanish name. Spanish, like his mother.”
You look at me and, turning back to him once more, your son’s child, you repeat, “Cébien, Cébien.”
“Esteban. Es-te-ban, Maman.”
“Cébien,” you keep saying.
I leave you for a moment. You aren’t going to let this little one go so soon after his father has brought him to you. He recognizes those whispers you slip into his son’s ear. That gift you have is what kept him going too. Just like me.
I have faith.
About the Authors
ZAHIA RAHMANI is a French author and art historian whose works include three novels: Moze, “Muslim”: A Novel, and France, Story of a Childhood. Born in Algeria, Rahmani resides in Paris and the Oise region of France and directs the Art and Globalization research program at France’s National Institute for Art History.
LARA VERGNAUD is an editor and translator. Her translations from the French include works by Ahmed Bouanani, Mohand Fellag, Joy Sorman, Marie-Monique Robin, and Scholastique Mukasonga. She lives in Washington, D.C.