I Love I Hate I Miss My Sister (4 page)

At the time, I thought,
Djelila will get what she deserves
.

It’s not as if she had no warning. They had already insulted her once before. Still, she continued to provoke them.

Yes, this is what I thought, Djelila, my too-pretty little sister. Deep down, I wished they would teach you a lesson. That you would be knocked down a peg. That you wouldn’t be so sure of yourself. That you would need me again, just like when we were little girls. Do you remember, Djelila? You and I, when we played together? I was the one in charge, the one who decided what adventure we would go on, the one who saved your life. I was also the one you wouldn’t venture outside without, the one who held your hand to cross the streets, the one who read you stories, the one who comforted you when a boy bothered you at school.
You were a little girl whose big eyes turned to me whenever you were in doubt. I never resented Dad for calling you his treasure, because you were my treasure too. You always had more friends than I did. You loved to play and laugh. Do you remember the jump rope Uncle Ahmed bought for us? I could barely count to ten before getting all tangled up in it. But you, you could jump forever.

Little by little, you no longer needed me.

You became your own person, without me holding your hand, and I resented it.

Yet you didn’t forget me. You still loved to talk things over with me, to tell me your secrets, to share your feelings. But we were very different, and I decided that we could not get along.

Do you remember our talks about religion? You insisted that you did not understand, that the Koran verses had nothing to do with you, that centuries had gone by, that the idea of God did not interest you, that you had other things to think about, that all you wanted was to live. Live.

That’s all you wanted, Djelila.

I tried to explain that you were wrong. I was arrogant. I was so sure of myself. I was so jealous of you.

Forgive me, Djelila.

But how could you possibly forgive me today?

Stop haunting me, Djelila!

After that slap to your face, the first slap, I ran over to you. I held my hand out for you, but I also rejoiced to see you humiliated.

“Thank you for being there, Sohane. Thank you.” This is what you said to me.

I didn’t want to admit it that day, but watching the whole scene without even trying to intervene was probably worse than hitting you myself. Nearly every night, Djelila, you live in my dreams. I see myself, side by side with Majid and Youssef, watching them hit you again and again. I do not move. Then I bend down and open a can. A can of gasoline.

“Your daughters are beautiful, very beautiful.”

Uncle Ahmed is leaning back in his chair, rubbing his stomach with satisfaction. Mom did not keep her word. It’s almost midnight, and Taïeb and Idriss are still watching a DVD. The rest of us are just finishing dinner. As usual, Mom outdid herself: her tagine was delicious. When I saw how much she had prepared, it looked like there was enough to feed an army, but that wasn’t counting Uncle Ahmed. Or Dad. Now Djelila is serving tea. Mom put out three dishes filled with the gazelle horns on the table and one on the rug, near the boys. Mesmerized by the TV screen, Taïeb and Idriss hardly say thank you before they start stuffing themselves.

Uncle Ahmed also helps himself to a horn; he sips his
tea, his mouth filled with biscuit, and looks at us, my sister and me.

“Yes, they are really beautiful, your daughters,” he says again.

Dad smiles. He appreciates the compliment.

“If we were back home, you could marry them off. You’d have no trouble finding them good husbands.”

Uncle Ahmed’s tone seems to indicate that he is joking. But we all know that he believes what he says.

“Aren’t we already home?” Djelila asks suddenly.

Everyone turns to look at her.

We have an implicit rule: be respectful of guests. Mom and Dad let us dress the way we want, even let us wear makeup. They allow us to have a drink (as long as it’s non-alcoholic) with friends after school. They consented to let Djelila join the basketball team. Simply put, they aren’t always on our backs. They trust us. In return, we have to bring home good grades. We’re supposed to work studiously. But we have to be discreet when we have company, not stand up to our parents, not draw attention to ourselves. We have to be kind and respectful.

Respect. That is what the Koran teaches us. We started praying with our parents as soon as I turned seven. Djelila was only six, but it made no difference. We loved these moments together. Dad and Mom recited the surahs of the Koran while my sister and I repeated after them. One prayer in the morning, the other ones in the evening. Impossible to do otherwise because of work or school. Then, after I turned thirteen, Mom told us we could go to the mosque
by ourselves. Djelila and I talked about it in bed until midnight; we were nervous and excited at the same time. It was an important step. Our parents were granting us a freedom and a responsibility.

I’ll never forget the first time we went to the home of Imam Mokthar Benrahmoune without our parents. It was a Friday evening. The muezzin had just made the call for prayer. We had been unable to go to the midday prayer because of school. Mokthar smiled at us discreetly. We removed our shoes, adjusted the scarves that covered our heads, and knelt in the women’s corner to pray. It wasn’t a real mosque, but that didn’t matter. The imam had set aside one room of his apartment for prayer, and he was there to guide us toward God.

Djelila and I used to go there every Friday after school.

One Friday, Djelila came home in a hurry. She told me that she couldn’t come to the mosque because she had to catch up on a lesson with one of her friends. She was in ninth grade, and for the first time in many years we weren’t at the same school. She promised me she would go the following Monday. This happened several more times, until she simply asked me not to wait for her anymore. Mom and Dad didn’t notice right away. In fact, it’s probably the imam who told Dad. From then on, whenever I prayed at night, Djelila read a magazine or did her homework.

Even though my sister claims that she doesn’t recognize herself in Islam, that she feels distant from all its teachings, she can’t possibly have forgotten the notion of respect.

Yet I have the feeling that she’s about to break this rule.

Her ruddy cheeks and the spark in her dark eyes belie the apparent calm of her face.

Uncle Ahmed furrows his brow. To be on the safe side, he has kept an amused flicker in his eyes. It’s always good to have an exit. Being a guest calls for the respect of manners: no scandal in your host’s house.

“Your uncle means Algeria,” Mom says, as if Djelila had not really understood.

My sister does not back off. “I thought you were born in France, Uncle Ahmed,” she says.

It is true that Uncle Ahmed was born in France. Like Dad and Mom. Only Aunt Algia comes from “back home,” as Uncle Ahmed calls it. And once a year, he goes to El Aricha, the area in Algeria where his ancestors were born. We have cousins there, cousins I do not know. They are the ones who introduced Uncle Ahmed to Aunt Algia, as the custom requires. She is twelve years younger than he is. They were married in the village, according to tradition. He brought back magnificent photographs. When I saw them I wished I had been at the wedding. All the women were beautifully dressed and made up, the men dancing. I could almost hear the
youyous
.

“Yes, that’s right, I was born in France,” Uncle Ahmed answers. “But I’m not one of those Arabs who repudiates his roots. France is my second country. Algeria will always be first in my heart!”

Uncle Ahmed has grown a little agitated. He gives Djelila a defiant look.

“Well, I don’t feel like an Arab,” Djelila counters. “I’m French and proud to be. It’s great that Jadi and Hana decided to live here. In France, liberty is a right! I think some Arabs forget that this is France and not Algeria!”

Her tone is so unexpected that Taïeb and Idriss have stopped watching the DVD and turned their attention to us.

Uncle Ahmed stiffens in his chair. He no longer looks at Djelila but at Dad. It is the host’s duty to maintain respect.

Dad gets up. He glares at Djelila. She looks down but does not say a word.

“Djelila! How dare you speak to your uncle this way?” Dad says. “Apologize, right now!”

“Djelila, dear, what is the matter tonight?” Mom says, getting into the fray. She approaches Djelila and puts her hand on her forehead. “You’re sick, darling. You have a fever.”

My sister sighs and looks up.

She is pale now.

“Forgive me, Uncle Ahmed. I did not mean to offend you,” she says.

Uncle Ahmed raises an eyebrow. He is satisfied: justice has been served.

“Don’t forget, my girl,” he says. “It is the whole family and your country of origin that you offend when you speak so.”

Djelila nods silently. “Can I go to bed now?” she asks Mom softly. “I’m dead tired.”

“Of course, dear.”

Djelila leaves the dining table as Uncle Ahmed sips his tea again, and Taïeb and Idriss refocus their eyes on the TV screen.

It is the second time today that my sister has needed me and I have abandoned her.

Taïeb’s and Idriss’s voices in the kitchen, closet doors opening and shutting, chair legs squeaking on the linoleum. Dad dragging his slippered feet.

I slept in Djelila’s bed last night. In her sheets that haven’t been changed. In fact, nothing has changed: her posters of singers, the tiny mirror she used to put her makeup on in the morning, her stuffed bunny, her school supplies, even the magazine she was reading at the time is on the bedside table that we shared. Just as if she were going to come home from school tonight, all smiles, dropping herself onto the blue comforter to tell me all about her day—about her teachers and the gossip in the cafeteria. As if she were going to throw her bags beside the chair and sit at her desk, grumbling about a math problem she needs to solve.

But she will not be back.

Djelila, my sister, is dead. Dead.

Is this the first time I’ve managed to say it? Is it the first time that I’ve fully realized it?

Yet there is the slab at the door of the tower.

We had the funeral, with Mom’s constant weeping and cries of pain, Dad’s hardened face, Taïeb and Idriss with Grandmother Leïla, Hana Leïla, their faces wet with tears.

Before the funeral, the TV news, with their huge cameras and fuzzy microphones and nosy journalists, lurked.

And before that, the police.

And the flames.

That is all I saw: the flames.

Did Majid wait for you after school? Did he follow you the way he did the day he slapped your face? How did he convince you to go to the basement with him? Did he force you? Did he say he needed to talk? Why did you go with him? You thought you were so strong; you said you weren’t afraid of those dimwits; you called them dumb, impotent jerks. Is that what you told Majid? Did you insult him? In any case, he had already made up his mind; he probably had a few days earlier. Maybe the desire to murder you had been boiling inside of him ever since he slapped you—ever since the first slap.