I Love I Hate I Miss My Sister by Amelie Sarn Read Free Book Online Page B

form. I listened patiently, without really hearing him. I had already obtained all the necessary information by phone, and I had all the documents required to fill out the scholarship and residence application forms.
    I’m beginning to have a knack for filling out applications. Since enrolling in correspondence courses, I’ve had to sort through all sorts of forms: registration forms to courses by mail, where you have to make sure to answer all questions if you want to receive the lessons in a timely fashion; forms to take the French and biology exams, where you can’t overlook anything if you want to be admitted to the test room; forms for the graduation certificate …
    I asked him where I could find computers with Internet access and he showed me, saying, “You’re lucky. One of them is just freeing up.” I thanked him.
    I had to fill in all the blanks. Name, surname, address. I had already calculated my tuition based on my parents’income taxes. I would receive about 250 euros a month and I would be entitled to a room on campus. I would be fine. A new life was opening up in front of me. As soon as school starts again, I will be in Paris. I will no longer be Sohane Chebli, sister of Djelila Chebli, the girl who was burnt alive in the basement of the Lilac housing project.
    I also had to indicate how many dependents my parents were providing for. I wrote four.
    I try to forget you, to escape you, but everything brings me back to you, Djelila.
    I can’t take it any longer. I can’t look at your posters or at your bed anymore. I can’t look at your blue comforter, at the pair of socks rolled into a ball at the foot of your bed.
    You always wore socks to bed. You hated to have cold feet.
    Nothing has been moved. Nothing.
    I wanted it that way.
    The doorbell rings. I am alone in the apartment. Mom and Dad are at work. The boys are in school.
    Is it Mrs. Achouri again with a cake? She says she comes to offer “comfort,” but I know her eyes take in the state of our despair so she can feed the gossipmongers in front of the mailboxes.
    I get up, determined to be less polite than last time, and open the door. There are five of them. I recognize them all. Djelila talked about them all the time, and I watched them often in the schoolyard. Also, they have come before.
    Sylvan, Karine, Estelle, Jerome, and Basil. A delegation.
    They never came to see Djelila, not even to pick her up to go out. The dividing lines had been drawn. Neither my sister nor I had ever invited friends over.
    Karine is the one who starts talking.
    “Hi, Sohane.”
    “Hello.”
    My answer is anything but welcoming.
    “We’d like to talk to you.”
    The first time they came, Mom opened the door. It was just a few days after Djelila died. Her death made the front pages of newspapers. They printed theories, created facts, spitting their lies and using all the gossip they could pick up here and there: Djelila, Age 16, Murdered by her Boyfriend. Djelila Chebli: Violence in the Projects. Tragedy in the Lilac Housing Project: Racism Is Alive. The Djelila Affair: Crime of Passion or Politics? Dead Because of a Slap . And of course, the unavoidable, The Rise of Islam in the Projects .
    Karine had spoken for all of them at that time too. Her eyes were red and swollen. They all had red and swollen eyes. Mom had not invited them in. She simply hadn’t thought to. I had stayed in the corridor.
    “We came to offer our condolences, Mrs. Chebli. For Djelila.”
    Mom had looked at them lifelessly, as if she didn’t understand what they were talking about. She turned her head,her face distraught, glancing at me, then at Dad, who was crumpled in his living room armchair. Prostrate with grief.
    “Thank you,” Mom had mumbled as she started to push the door closed.
    “Mrs. Chebli—”
    Mom didn’t listen to the rest, probably hadn’t even heard what they said. She had shut the door.
    “What? What do you want to talk about?” I ask Karine today.
    My voice is