Roman Clodia’s Reviews > Le pays des autres > Status Update

'How right they are, she thought, walking up the stairs to her bedroom, how right they are to suspect us and to warn us, because what we're hiding, under our veils and our skirts, is so fiery and glorious that we might betray anything for it.'

'As a teenager he'd got into the habit of walking slowly, head lowered. He knew that his dark skin, his stocky physique, his broad shoulders made him suspicious in the eyes of white people, so he shoved his hands into his armpits like a man who has sworn not to fight.'

'Mourad liked to say that he had enrolled to defend France, this country he knew nothing about but which - he didn't know why - governed his destiny... 'Go to war or go to prison,' they'd said. So Mourad went to war.'

'Selim is learning very quickly. Yesterday was Aicha's seventh birthday. They're my pride and joy. They're my vengeance on all those who humiliated us.'

'From women he'd learned a mix of resignation and pugnacity, he'd realised that joy was a form of vengeance against those who sought to deny you.'

'But Mathilde was naturally contrary and she couldn't resist the temptation to argue with him.'

'There were two camps in the school - the whispering natives and the hopscotch-playing Europeans - and Aicha belonged to neither of them. She didn't know what she was, so she stayed on her own.'

'Aïcha connaissait ces femmes aux visages bleus. Elle en avait vu souvent, des mères aux yeux mi-clos, à la joue violette, des mères aux lèvres fendues. À l’époque, elle croyait même que c’était pour cela qu’on avait inventé le maquillage. Pour masquer les coups des hommes.'

'Aïcha connaissait ces femmes aux visages bleus. Elle en avait vu souvent, des mères aux yeux mi-clos, à la joue violette, des mères aux lèvres fendues. À l’époque, elle croyait même que c’était pour cela qu’on avait inventé le maquillage. Pour masquer les coups des hommes.'

'Comme ils ont raison, pensa-t-elle en montant dans sa chambre. Comme ils ont raison de se méfier et de nous mettre en garde car ce que nous cachons là, sous nos voiles et nos jupons, ce que nous dissimulons est plein d’un feu pour lequel nous pouvons tout trahir.'