Zahia Rahmani - France, Story of a Childhood

Maman, it will be the fight of your life to combat the amnesia demanded of me. You understand that the renunciation of our culture will destroy me, and all your children. In adversity, one risks everything. You know this firsthand. So you outsmart negation by evoking grandeur. I hear you describe the kindness of man as a fact. And we are all a part of this miraculous world of justice and fairness that you carry with you like a storyteller unconcerned with her surroundings. According to you, men and matter can transform themselves of their own will and your internal world map ignores all frontiers.

In your language, you describe to us, through examples, a line of men and women of unparalleled feats. We need to keep them alive and untouched by time, you say. You like to repeat that without them history will lead us straight to a shipwreck.

You call this lineage clever. And I finally understand how you’re using our ancestral heritage. You present it to me like a tale from time immemorial that reenchants me, further sparking my curiosity, especially about your language. To the extent that I can’t brush against a tree without thinking it might also have feelings. “Who knows?” you say. My dawning reason coexists with warm visions populated by vivid, unidentifiable figures, whom I sometimes sense nearby, observing me. They patiently watch over me.

In France, I can’t share what you want to teach me. I would need, as you did, to describe the world around me without restraint. But there’s no audience before me.

“So what? You can be a storyteller in any language,” you say. “I still have things to tell you children.”

And they are unending.

I need to understand where your language comes from. You never waver. And sometimes when it seems like I’m winning, you retreat without ever admitting defeat. You use few words in battle. Waldin, Thajadith, Lejdud , and Din are the ones that strike me the most, stumbling as they do against the reality of our lives in France. These words, independent of all religion, call out for a kinship of men and women who bear the weight of the world without ever breaking our hold on it. Enveloped by the legends of our ancestors, you say, we are living among familiar guardians. Obliterate them and we risk disappearing.

“Those who protect you. By calling on them, your actions will be noble.”

“ Waldin , those who brought you into the world.”

“ Thajadith , those from whom they came and therefore from whom we all originate.”

“ Lejdud , the guidance of those who watch over our movements.”

“ Din , action through speech.”

With this last word, you remind us of dignity, honor, and give-and-take. One can’t be practiced without the others. It pains you to teach us about Din , it reminds you of our own failings. According to you, we were born within him.

But how to transmit these words? If you had lived in your country, I don’t doubt that in your community without books you would have known how to hone your weapons and perpetuate, through us, what you believed should still belong to Din . Speech, in all its possibilities. But in France, you’re focused on combating French society and its certainties about your children.

You refuse to integrate and, fearful of a deadly contagion, you impose your rules on us. We can only speak to you in your language. You teach it to us even through our closed ears. You enthusiastically acknowledge our academic achievements but refuse to understand their meaning. To you, knowledge doesn’t guarantee a future. It’s up to society to assume its role.

Whereas you never abandoned your fringed scarves and colorful dresses, we aren’t permitted to reveal any exoticism to the outside world. Polite, smiling, and clean. You have such an aversion to an unclean backside that you teach us the techniques for rinsing under any circumstances.

“Dishonor will not touch your bodies.”

Settling disputes with the principle “without shouting, there can be no blows,” you forbid us to raise our voices in your presence. You banish violence from your home in order to awaken an awareness of our humanity within us.

“You are not what they think you are.”

And lastly, these guiding words to shield us from others’ contemptible expectations: “Do not become what they want you to become.”

“Equipped with all these rules, they will respect you,” you say. “You will be judged. But never condemned.”

You ignore the society that surrounds you so politely that no one can reproach you. You never go outside. If someone comes to you, you welcome him or her with grace. They always leave moved, carrying a gift you offer without a word. In this way, you make everyone who knows you come directly to you. In a country that isn’t your own, you never go toward the “other.” You don’t want to trespass. That’s how you view yourself, the foreigner. They can’t, you say, ask someone to deny who she is.

You don’t want to be cut in half. You wouldn’t risk such an affront. You’re able to fulfill that ambition all the while protecting us from your withdrawal. Rather than facing an uncertain future, we are living at this time as if nailed to the mast of a ship during a storm.

Against all expectation you refuse to assimilate. You say you love this country that permits this. Here you are nothing but a silent storyteller who leaves no trace. A firm believer in your heritage, you bequeath an unspoiled legacy to your children, filling in a void that we cross with growing strength. Later, you will share your language and culture with your children’s spouses and companions so their daughters and sons can understand that they come from a rupture you view as a blessing. You will also want to approve their names, as if to assure yourself that together they will be the custodians of a just future. Samy, Mira, Sarah, Yannis, Mouss, Hacène, Mouloud, Kennan, Nout, Hayet, Idriss, Sabri, Taina, Tissem, Esteban, and Inès embody that wish. Let’s hope they don’t think of leaving.

When you go, leaving me alone in front of The Jewess , I know what I have to do with this image. Just like the painting, the surface on which she lies, this woman wanted to live. She found no one to save her. My Jewess left this world, well before the ashes.

“She’s gone, all that she once was is gone, leaving me alone,” the piece of canvas beneath her tells me. “What makes me worth hanging on a wall now? I lied to people. Cover me with gray . . .”

And into my body, she enters.

You came into the world one spring. In 1930, when the West’s gold had turned to paper, you arrived outside of Europe. And though that continent’s claws were digging in deeper and deeper, your Kabylie mountains loomed like ramparts. Blessed with the power of inertia, they forced back a thousand and one incursions. Your father chose a name for you. Ourida, Woman of the Rose. He had five daughters, and on each he bestowed a carefully thought-out name. He owned his land in Tigzirt. Fifteen hectares facing the sea that, you would tell me, he used to gaze upon while holding his daughters close. Not so long ago, you could still find all kinds of fruit and shade there. As young girls, you were able to walk from the family house to the shore without being seen by strangers. Long after his death, when you were living in France, they took his land from you. They wanted to build an Algerian Miami. A new palace for the newly rich. On the waterfront, of course. In this respect, wisdom was lacking.