I Die by this Country by Fawzia Zouari

Author:Fawzia Zouari
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: University of Virginia Press

* Mausoleum.

Once back in France after this second trip, Mama was more unhappy than ever. Housekeeping ruined her health. She couldn’t get over my father’s absence, and she became less and less tolerant of her status as a maid. We understood her only too well: she passed pride down to us through her blood—she taught it to us through her gaze and her sighs, and on the rare occasions she talked about herself.

Only Mr. Zana, the Jew from Marrakech, had short conversations with her, on the rare occasions when she saw him. Those conversations revived her because a man had spoken with her, had asked for news about her family in Algeria, and had sighed while saying that it was time for the Jews’ and Arabs’ common God to put an end to their differences.

Mama had little interest in the Arab-Israeli conflict and contented herself with stealing glances at Mr. Zana’s eyes. They held a permanent tear, like a cloud of softness or a glimmer of humanity. He always had a hello on the tip of his tongue; it rushed out as soon as someone appeared on the street corner. People rarely replied. Those who didn’t know him stared at him as though he were crazy. Some responded by saying that they hadn’t asked him for anything. Once, he was assaulted by a blind man he tried to help cross the street.

“Mind your own business! I didn’t ask you to do anything, idiot!”

Mr. Zana got up without saying a word and started back toward the building, the cloud in his eyes dripping real tears.

We never dared ask Mama about going back to Algeria, even in the height of her pain. My sister and I couldn’t envision this solution as being a balm that would soothe our wounds. Amira had few childhood memories there, and personally, I felt only a fleeting nostalgia for it. We each had our little France and the hope of survival here despite our growing solitude, our permanent concern for the future, Mama’s prolonged silences, and her pain that grew deeper and deeper like the cracks Mrs. Sentini’s cleaning products dug into her chapped hands.

She started complaining about the cold. Insisting that she was going to die from it. The worst thing, she said, was that it wasn’t the same kind of cold as in Algeria—this cold was indifferent, haughty, and “foreign.” A cold set into motion by an evil spirit’s breath, blowing upward from a glacial hell that didn’t appear in the purgatories foretold in the Koran.

She veiled herself once again. To keep warm, she said. But in spite of the scarf wound several times around her hair and neck and the long, faded green raincoat that fell to her heels, she shivered most of the time. The creaking of her bones replaced her laughter. We feared for her.

Without a doubt, this is what pulled Amira out of her lethargy. She found a position as a temp worker in a small accounting firm. And, with the strength of this resurrection we had no longer dared to hope for, she railed against our mother.

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