Burned alive (17 page)

“When I was fourteen or fifteen, I was really mad at you, you know . . . I was jealous.”

“Jealous of who?” I ask.

“Jealous of you,” he says. “I wanted to be with you all the time.”

“And now? Today?”

“I want to get to know you, I want to know so many things.”

“You don’t hold it against me for having other children?”

“It’s great to have sisters and I’d like to get to know them, too.”

He looked at his watch. It was also time for me to go back to work.

“It’s too bad you have to leave,” says Marouan. “I’d like to stay here with you.”

“Yes, but I have to. Can you come to the house tomorrow?”

“No,” he says. “It’s too soon. I prefer we see each other again somewhere else.”

“So tomorrow evening, at seven o’clock, same place. I’ll come with the girls.”

He seemed very happy. I didn’t expect it to be so easy because I believed he would so much hold it against me for having him adopted, that he would despise me. But he didn’t even ask the question. He hugs me, I hug him back, and we say, “Good-bye and see you tomorrow.”

And I get back to work, my head is buzzing like a beehive. An enormous weight is behind me.

Whatever happened now, I am rid of an anguish that was eating at me for so long, and that I couldn’t admit. I regret not having been capable of keeping my son with me. One day I must ask him truly to forgive me for having left him behind in my efforts to remake my life. I couldn’t really think straight at the time. I didn’t know what I was doing. Nothing was real. I was floating. I should have told him that and also that even if his father abandoned both of us, I loved him, this man. It wasn’t my fault if he was a coward like the others. I should tell him also:
Marouan, I was so afraid that I beat on my stomach in an attempt to abort.
He must forgive me for doing that. I thought that the blood would come to deliver me, I was too ignorant and I was terrified. Will he be able to understand and forgive me? Can I tell everything to this son? And to my daughters? How are all three of them going to judge me?

I was so overwhelmed that I didn’t sleep that night. Once again, I see the flames on me and I run in the garden like a madwoman.

Antonio lets me work it out alone and he doesn’t want to get involved for the time being. But he can see very well how bad off I am.

“Did you speak to the girls?”

“Not yet. Tomorrow. We’re going to have dinner together with Marouan, and I’ll find the right moment to speak to them. But I’m afraid, Antonio.”

“You’ll do it. There’s no going back now.”

At three fifty-seven in the morning, I found a message from Marouan on my portable phone: “It’s just to tell you that I’m fine. I send you a kiss. Until tomorrow, Mama.”

He made me cry.

To Build a House

That evening, Antonio went out with a friend to leave me alone with the girls. It is Saturday evening, seven o’clock, November 16, 2002. The dinner is lively. They devour everything. They laugh at everything. Laetitia is very talkative, chattering as usual. Marouan brought his girlfriend. To my girls, he is still officially only one of the children that I knew in my foster family. His presence doesn’t surprise them and they are happy to go out on a Saturday evening with Mama and pals.

They didn’t grow up together and yet they seem to be so compatible. I had been fearing that this little gathering would be trying. Antonio was concerned and said before he left: “Call me if you need me and I’ll come get you.”

It’s strange but I feel fine and I have almost no more fear, only a little uneasiness for my two daughters. Marouan teases the older one. “Come on, Laetitia, sit next to me.” He pulls her close to him and jokes.

And she turns to me and whispers: “He’s so nice, Mama! And he’s so good looking!”

“Yes, he is.”

I observe the details of their three faces. Marouan resembles Laetitia somewhat, the top of the forehead perhaps. Now and then I also see in him an expression belonging to Nadia, more pensive and reserved than her sister. Laetitia always expresses her feelings, and her reactions are sometimes too impulsive. She inherited the Italian side from her father. Nadia keeps her thoughts and feelings more to herself.

Are they going to understand? My tendency is to see them as little three-year-old kids and to be overprotective. At Laetitia’s age, my mother was already married and pregnant.

She has just said to me: “How good looking he is . . .” She might fall in love with her brother! My silence might have unleashed a series of catastrophes. For the moment they burst out laughing, making fun of a man who is quite drunk. He looks at our table, and yells over to Marouan: “You’re lucky to be with women! Four women and I’m all alone!”

Marouan is proud and takes offense. He mutters: “I’m going to go over there and smash his face!”

“No, stay where you are, please!”

“All right.”

The owner of the restaurant takes care of moving the intruder away quietly and the meal ends in pleasantries and laughter.

We are going to accompany Marouan and his friend to the railroad station. He lives and works in the country. My son takes care of gardens and the maintenance of parks. He seems to like his work and he talked about it a little at the table. Laetitia and Nadia don’t yet have clear plans at their age. Nadia talks about working in fashion design; Laetitia goes from one idea to another. All three of them walk in front of me in the street that leads to the railroad station. Marouan is in the middle and Laetitia holds one of his arms, Nadia the other. It’s the first time in their lives that they’ve done that, and they do it confidently. I still haven’t said anything, and Marouan is wonderful. He just lets things go along. He whispers with his two sisters so naturally, as if he’d always known them. I didn’t have much joy in my life before my marriage to Antonio and the birth of my two girls. Marouan was born in suffering, without a father, and they were born in happiness and are their father’s treasures. Their destinies are different, but their laughter unites them better than I possibly could. New feelings come over me. I am proud of them. This evening I lack for nothing. No more anguish or sadness, only peace in my mind.

On the platform in the station, Laetitia says to me: “I’ve never felt as comfortable with anyone as with Marouan.”

And Nadia adds: “Me, too . . .”

“I would like to go spend the night at Marouan’s with his girlfriend, and then tomorrow we could have lunch together, and then take the train to come back!”

“No, we have to go home, Laetitia, your father’s waiting for us.”

“He’s just so nice, Mama, I really like him. He’s nice, he’s handsome . . . Is he ever handsome, Mama!”

It’s Nadia’s turn to hang on me: “When will we see him again, Mama?”

“Perhaps tomorrow or the next day. Mama will arrange things, you’ll see.”

“What’s she saying, Nadia?”

“I asked Mama if we could see Marouan again and she said okay for tomorrow, no, Mama? It’s okay?”

“You can count on me. Mama will do it . . .”

The train leaves, I look at the station clock and see that it’s one forty-eight in the morning. They both run, sending kisses with their hands. I’ll never forget that moment. Since I’ve lived in Europe, I’ve become used to watches, and this habit has become almost an obsession. My memory of the past fails me so often that I conscientiously note the present when it’s important for me. It’s funny, Marouan wanted to know yesterday what time he was born. He needs anchoring, too. The details of my past are a gift I would have trouble giving him. Everything that I could pull out of my poor head, I thought about that night, in my insomnia. I thought I had seen an electric light in the corridor of that wretched hospital when a doctor took my son away. The precise time? That is a Western concept. In our land only the men have a watch. For twenty years, I had to content myself with only the sun and the moon. I will tell Marouan that he was born at the hour of the moon.

I leave a message on his cell phone when we get home, to check if they’ve gotten home all right. He answers with a “thank you, good night, see you tomorrow.”

It is late and the girls go right to bed. Antonio isn’t asleep yet. “How did it go, sweetheart?”

“Perfect.”

“Have you talked to the girls?”

“No, not yet. But I’m ready to tell them tomorrow. I don’t have a reason anymore for waiting. They liked him immediately. It’s strange but it is as if they’d known him for a long time.”

“Marouan didn’t say anything, he didn’t make reference to anything?”

“Absolutely nothing, he was terrific. But it’s strange that Laetitia became attached to him like that, and Nadia, too. They were hanging on him. They never behave that way with their friends. Never . . .”

“Are you nervous?”

I’m not nervous, I’m curious. Can brothers and sisters recognize each other this way? What happens between them for it to become so evident to them that they are somehow connected? Is there a signal, something they have in common without even knowing it? I was expecting anything and nothing at the same time, but not this instinctive affection.

“Maybe you ought to wait a day or two.”

“No. Tomorrow is Sunday, I’ll go to the office cafeteria because there won’t be anyone there, and I’ll speak to Laetitia and Nadia calmly. We’ll see what God gives us, Antonio.”

After my daughters, there will be the others I must tell, the neighbors, and especially the office where I’ve worked for some years. My job is to organize small receptions. I am at home there, and the friendship of my bosses means a lot to me. How to introduce Marouan to them as my son after ten years?

I need to be alone with my daughters. They are going to judge their mother on a lie of twenty years, and may also see me now as a woman they don’t know, as Marouan’s mother, who hid him all these years. The mother who loves them and protects them. I have often told them that their birth is the great happiness of my life. How will they be able to understand that Marouan’s birth was such a nightmare and why I never said anything?

The next morning, Sunday, I woke up as usual about nine o’clock. Laetitia asked if I wanted her to make me a coffee. It’s the morning ritual and I always answer, “Yes, please.” I am stubborn about politeness and mutual respect. I find the children here are sometimes badly raised. The language that they hear at school is vulgar, and Antonio and I firmly object to it. Laetitia’s been scolded more than once by her father for a sassy response. I only had the education of a slave.

Laetitia brings me coffee and a glass of warm water. She hugs me casually and Nadia, too. The love that I receive from them and their father surprises me every day, and I wonder how I deserve it. What I’m about to do is as hard for other reasons as was my fear of facing my son.

“I would like to speak to you about something very important.”

“Okay, Mama, we’re listening.”

I tell them that we will go to the office cafeteria to talk.

“But you’re not working today! You know, I was thinking again about last night. It was too super! Has Marouan called you yet?”

“We stayed out late. He must still be sleeping.”

If he weren’t her brother, I’d be worried. They talk between themselves, absolutely not concerned about this unusual trip to the office on a Sunday morning. I’m the one who’s nervous. They’re going out with Mama, who is going to the office to do something, and then . . . It doesn’t matter, they trust me.

“Last evening, we had a wonderful time. Is that what you wanted to talk to us about?”

“Wait, first things first . . . So, last night we had a wonderful time with Marouan. Doesn’t that say anything to you? Marouan? That makes you think about what?”

“About a nice boy who lived with your adoptive parents, he said so . . . And he’s so good looking and he’s so nice.”

“Is it his attractiveness or the fact that he’s nice that attracts you to him?”

“Everything, Mama. He just seems very gentle.”

“That’s true. Do you remember that I was pregnant when I was burned? I talked to you about that.”

“Yes, you told us . . .”

“But where do you think that child is?”

They look into my eyes, strangely.

“But he stayed there! In your family!”

“No. You have no idea where this child might be? You’ve never seen anyone who resembles you, Laetitia, or you, Nadia? Or even me, someone who might have the same voice, who might walk like me?”

“No, Mama. I promise, no.”

“No, Mama.”

Nadia is satisfied with repeating what her sister says. Laetitia is usually the spokesperson, but yesterday I saw a little trace of jealousy appear in Nadia. Marouan was laughing more with Laetitia, and he paid a little less attention to Nadia. She listens to me very attentively now and doesn’t take her eyes off me.

“You, either, Nadia, you don’t know?”

“No, Mama.”

“Laetitia, you’re older, you could remember? You certainly saw him at my adoptive parents’ house.”

“Honest, Mama. No.”

“All right then, it’s Marouan!”

“Ah, my God, it’s Marouan, who we were with last night!”

And they both burst into tears.

“He’s our brother, Mama! He was in your stomach!”

“He’s your brother, he was in my stomach, and I gave birth to him all alone. But I didn’t leave him there, he was here with me.”

Now comes the most difficult explanation, the reason for the adoption. I pick my words carefully, words that I had already heard from the psychiatrist,
build a new life, self-acceptance, become a woman again, become a mother again . . .

“You kept this inside yourself for twenty years, Mama! Why didn’t you tell us sooner?”

“You were much too young and I didn’t know how you were going to react. I wanted to tell you when you were older. The same is true about how I got the scars . . . and the fire. It’s like building a house: You have to put one brick after the other. If one brick isn’t solid, what will happen? The other bricks fall. So it’s the same thing with this, my sweethearts. Mama wanted to rebuild her house and I thought that later it would be more solid and tall enough to allow Marouan to enter it. If not, it could collapse, my house, and I wouldn’t have been able to do anything. But now he’s here. It’s for you to choose what’s next.”

“He’s our brother, Mama. Tell him to come live with us. How about it, Nadia? We have a big brother and I’ve dreamed of having a big brother, and I always said so, a big brother like my girlfriends have. And now I have a big brother, he’s here, it’s Marouan! Right, Nadia?”

“I’ll clean out my closet and I’ll even give him my bed!”

Now, Nadia wouldn’t give me a piece of chewing gum! She is very generous but doesn’t easily give away her things. But for her brother, she’d do it! It’s amazing, this brother who pops up out of nowhere, and here she is ready to give him everything! So that is how the unknown big brother came into the house. As simple as emptying a closet and giving him her bed. Soon we’ll have a bigger house, there will be a room for him. I am consumed with happiness. They spend a lot of time calling each other on the telephone, waiting for each other, and I tell myself it won’t take long for them to squabble. But Marouan is the big brother and he immediately assumes authority with his sisters: “Laetitia, you don’t answer your mother in that tone! She asked you to turn down the television, and you should do it! You’re lucky to have your parents, you must respect them!”

“Okay, okay, I’m sorry, I’ll be better, promise . . .”

“I didn’t come here for us to quarrel, but Papa and Mama both work. So what about this messy room?”

“But we work hard at school, too. You’ve done it and you know how hard it is!”

“Yes, true, but that’s no reason to treat Papa and Mama like that.”

And then Marouan took me aside: “Mama, what does Antonio think? Does it bother him if I take on the girls?”