Free I Love I Hate I Miss My Sister by Amelie Sarn

Djelila gives me a glance. She’s about to speak when Hana Leïla cuts her short.
    “Since when do you wear the hijab, Sohane?”
    Her expression is serious.
    “Since today.”
    “Today?”
    “Yes.”
    Only the sound of the music fills the apartment now. Djelila sits up.
    “Sohane has the right to wear a head scarf if she wants to,” my sister says. “It doesn’t hurt anyone.”
    Hana Leïla shakes her head. “No, of course not. I’m just surprised,” she says. “You have to be careful—very careful—with religion, as you know, girls.”
    I nod.
    “My granddaughter started wearing the hijab last year,” Nadja says. “She’s older than you are, Sohane, but I don’t understand it. Now she even refuses to shake hands with visitors who come to her home. Her parents have tried to reason with her, but she won’t change her mind!”
    “I don’t get it either,” Fatiha joins in. “I lived in Algeriauntil I was twenty-five and my mother never wore the veil, and hamdullah . And she wouldn’t want me wearing them either! My mother wanted us to be rid of this custom. She wanted us to be happy, to have fun, not to be hidden behind a veil.”
    “I don’t feel hidden,” I manage to mumble.
    Hana Leïla puts her hand on mine.
    “No, Sohane. You make your own choices, of course. Inshallah . Our past has nothing to do with your present, but be careful, my dear, be careful anyway.”
    I bite my cheek. Djelila looks at her feet.
    Fatiha gets up abruptly. “Come on, what’s all this about? We’re not going to spend the whole afternoon on this topic. These young girls came here expecting hospitality and warmth, and here we are giving them morality lessons. I’ve had three husbands and twelve children, of which eight are girls, so I feel I know that each one of us has to find her own path, and that it shouldn’t keep us from laughing, singing, and dancing together.”
    “Three husbands and twelve children?” Djelila says in disbelief.
    Hana Leïla laughs. “I have the feeling the number increases every day,” she says as she gets up to turn up the volume on the radio.
    I think again about Uncle Ahmed the other evening and how he worries about his mother. He probably meant the company his mother keeps. I doubt that he likes Fatiha very much.
    Malika and Nadja are on their feet now. They begin to dance, swinging their hips like belly dancers. Fatiha has secured her darbuka under her left arm and beats on it in rhythm with the music from the radio. Hana Leïla takes the castanets that were on a table and begins to play as she too dances. The sparkling smiles of the women warm the apartment. But my uneasiness has not disappeared. Not at all. It would take more than this, but when Nadja takes my hands to make me get up and dance with her, I don’t resist. Fatiha attaches a bell-fringed scarf around my sister’s hips. The music fills my body and my heart. We don’t move nearly as well as our elders, but I don’t care. The pins start to slip off my head scarf, so I remove it and put it on the armrest of the sofa. I am not supposed to wear it here anyway. We are among women.
    Nadja, Malika, Fatiha, and Hana Leïla start to sing. I take my sister’s hands and dance with her. She laughs. Her hair covers her face. I wish the anxiety in the pit of my stomach would vanish with your laughter, Djelila.

Vanish with your laughter.
    Your friends are heading down the stairs. They’ve given up. I can go lock myself in my bedroom again.
    They gave up more easily than the first time, when they got together about the petition.
    When we got home that evening after our visit to Hana Leïla’s, Mrs. Desbeaux had already called. Dad wasn’t back yet. Mom was biting her nails.
    “What’s all this about, Sohane?” she asked. “They’re talking about having to expel you from school. Do you know that?”
    Taïeb and Idriss were sitting on the floor, drawing at the coffee table. The TV was off. Djelila, Mom, and I were leaning