Samah, Unveiled

By Samah Jebbari

When she was seven years old in Tunisia, her father forced her to wear the veil. An abusive husband subsequently continued the work of destroying a woman who wanted to live, and live free.

Political asylum and immigration to Canada did not succeed in breaking the chains right away, since you end up carrying chains within yourself, by cherishing them, since you have never known anything else.

It took the young girl turning forty years old to take off her veil and break her chains. This is her story.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Tellwell Talent
• Release date: Jan 24, 2022
• ISBN: 9780228847564

Samah Jebbari

SAMAH JEBBARI est enseignante de français au secondaire. Elle a quitté la Tunisie, son pays d'origine, à l'âge de 21 ans pour demander l'asile politique au Canada. Elle est détentrice d'un baccalauréat en enseignement et d'une maîtrise en gestion de l'éducation. Elle a écrit son premier manuscrit intitulé Le vent dans le voile (2021). L'histoire de libération d'une femme musulmane voilée qui, après 40 ans d'oppression décide de mettre en question tout son système de croyance. Elle a commencé par enlever le voile et défier le tyran.

Book preview

Samah,

Unveiled

A Story

Samah Jebbari

Samah, Unveiled

Copyright © 2022 by Samah Jebbari

Writing Coach: Jean Barbe

Photos of the author: Bénedicte Brocard

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the author, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other non-commercial uses permitted by copyright law.

Tellwell Talent

www.tellwell.ca

www.samahjebbari.com

ISBN

978-0-2288-4757-1 (Hardcover)

978-0-2288-4755-7 (Paperback)

978-0-2288-4756-4 (eBook)

Table of Contents

Preface

Chapter 1 - The Turning Point

Chapter 2 - Take off the Masks

Chapter 3 - Discovering my Body

Chapter 4 - A Confession

Chapter 5 - The Veiled Woman

Chapter 6 - Surviving

Chapter 7 - Ulysses from Tunisia…

Chapter 8 - Desert Storm

Chapter 9 - Never Without My Daughters!

Chapter 10 - Beyond the Clouds

Chapter 11 - The Reunion…

Chapter 12 - The Path of Freedom

Chapter 13 - The Inconvenient Truth

Chapter 14 - The Conditioning

Chapter 15 - The Wheel of Life

Chapter 16 - Getting Past Appearances

Chapter 17 - The Long Return

Chapter 18 - Samah, on Her Way

Chapter 19 - But Before That…

Chapter 20 - Everyone Deceives Everyone

Chapter 21 - The Constancy of Change

Chapter 22 - The Warrior’s Rest

Chapter 23 - The Price of Freedom

Chapter 24 - My Children

Chapter 25 - Samah, Finally

Thank You

There is nothing better than a novel

to make people understand

that reality is poorly designed,

that it is not enough

to satisfy human desires,

appetites, and dreams.

Mario Vargas Llosa

For the reader who will find comfort

or a source of anger in my words.

You will bring my story to life…

Preface

For the past thirty-five years, I have devoted my life to writing. My own writing, and that of others. I don’t possess many great certainties in life, but I do have this one: if we don’t tell our own stories, others will do it for us.

The biggest wounds, the biggest abuses, the biggest sorrows appear when others tell our stories without listening to our version of things. When others give a meaning to our lives that we don’t recognize.

All the great moments in history are really just stories. Dictators tell a story, political organizations tell a story, big corporations tell a story—all to serve their purposes, invented to justify their actions.

For a long time, men have told women’s stories. Not long ago, the story of the Jews was told by the Nazis.

When we leave it to others to tell our stories, they distort us, they put us in a convenient box. They… simplify us.

They take a part of our humanity away from us and play with us like puppets. They manipulate us.

This is why I have been leading writing workshops for almost ten years. Many workshops, for many people: men and women from diverse backgrounds, young people, older people… I give writing workshops so that as many people as possible are able to tell their own stories, to tell what is in their own hearts, their own bodies, their own spirits.

I try to give them the narrative tools that will allow them to tell their stories, so that they can claim them as their own.

And then came Samah…

She had only been sitting in the large room that housed the writing workshop for a few minutes, but she was already asserting her desire to tell her life story in books and films. She was sure it was going to happen even if, at the time, she had no idea how. She had a kind of faith in herself, to which all I could do was bow.

I helped her to tell her story. It was neither easy nor quick. In that first workshop, she rejected basic concepts, convinced that willpower was enough to move mountains.

I don’t know about mountains, but I do know that to build a house, it is essential to master the tools and understand the blueprints. Samah came to understand, with the humility of the great ones, that only effort, patience, and work would enable her to achieve her dream of telling the story of her life, her journey, her history.

She was patient, she was brave, and she asked me for all the help that I could give her.

This is a few years’ work that you hold in your hands. But it is also a lifetime, or almost one. It is Samah’s truth. Samah’s strength, Samah’s despair, Samah’s joy.

I know of no greater victory than to take back one’s own story. To become oneself.

Beyond politics, beyond faith, beyond contradictory images people have of each other, beyond wars over territory and symbols, this is the story of Samah. Her story, told by her. Her complexity, which is too vast to fit into any box that might be ascribed to her.

Samah’s life, which is not even at its midpoint yet. The first half of Samah’s life.

And since she took back her own story by writing it, the rest belongs to no one but her.

Jean Barbe,

Writer and editor

1

The Turning Point

We have to get used to the idea

that at the most important

crossroads in our life

there are no signs.

Ernest Hemingway

It is 11 July 2018, on Autoroute 13 northbound. A car with four passengers on board starts careening dangerously, before inexplicably spinning around…

At the wheel, a woman is fighting for her life and for the lives of her family. With her right hand, she tries to push away her oldest daughter who, in a crazed movement, has grabbed the steering wheel. With her left hand, she struggles to prevent the worst from happening: the car is hurtling towards the fence, in the opposite direction of the traffic.

She slams down on the brake pedal and ends up regaining control of the speeding car, which finally comes to a stop. The silence that follows is deafening. Suddenly, the woman slaps her eldest child. Then, she gets out of the car to calm her nerves.

The air is nice, and the sun is shining. A beautiful summer day that was destined for family fun and for nature, not for accidents, or for death, or for the blackness of troubled souls…

***

The woman’s name is Samah. That’s me… and that’s not me. That was me, but I’m someone else now.

But I was that Samah then, the one who came back to the car, the one who opened the front door on the passenger side and took her eldest daughter into her arms. Who squeezed her hard, so hard, as if to reassure her, as if to reassure herself.

In the black Acura, the chaotic beating of four panic-stricken hearts slowly subsides…

Eya, the eldest, is frightfully pale, barely able to move. As her mother hugs her, she stretches an arm with an almost superhuman effort towards the back of the vehicle and, with her cold, slippery fingers, touches the hand of little Mohamed, her brother, whose large eyes betray a desire to cry, to scream, and to ask: why? Mohamed has forgotten the iced cappuccino he begged his mother for. Without really understanding, he knows it’s not the time for a tantrum. He is shaking.

His sister Mayan huddles against him, staying silent, like she usually does. She wants to know what’s happening but doesn’t dare say a word.

What is going on? Did her older sister, in a reckless act of despair, intend to kill them all?

***

I get us out of there, out of that precarious situation on the highway.

I avoided the accident; death is behind us. I take the first exit towards Montreal. This is no longer a family vacation day. The family is hurting; the family is in pain. I have to do something.

My feet are burning, but I just press harder and harder on the accelerator. My fingers slip; I wipe them on my shorts. I can’t seem to hold onto the wheel.

I really can’t see clearly, but I don’t know if it’s because of the sun. I put on my sunglasses and decide to fix my gaze on a random point to regain my concentration. I resist the idea of turning my head towards Eya, who is motionless at my side.

I’m afraid to know, and yet, I know.

I want to understand why she acted like that, and yet, I know why.

I’m scared of all the things I know.

***

I keep driving at 120 km/h. Eya emerges from her silence and says, Mama, you’re driving too fast! The police are going to stop us!

I don’t answer. Her voice electrifies me. I put the car in sport+ mode and change gears. I accelerate.

Eya is trembling, crying. She wants to speak, but the sobs get the better of her words.

Mama, please, I’m sorry. I know we made you feel bad when we left. We judged you; we were selfish. I apologize for doing that. I don’t know what else to say. I’m sorry. I don’t want to kill myself. Papa’s the one who…

Papa’s the one who…

But Samah can’t hear, can’t listen, can’t see…

Images explode in her head like flashes of pain: pieces of her childhood, fragments of her youth, the sharp splinters of a marriage so dark it seemed to absorb even the light from outdoors.

Samah, that’s me. That was me!

Samah is having trouble breathing.

She is driving 150 km/h and going faster still. Her consciousness is blurred like the landscape scrolling past…

It’s her turn to play with death…

***

For the first time in my life, I’m happy to hear a police siren. I pull over to the side of the road. The officer asks me for my papers.

I hand them over and thank him.

I regain my senses. I take a deep breath.

I won’t let things get any worse. I have reached my limit. For a long time, I endured in silence, patiently, but that’s over.

You could hurt everyone, Assi, but not my daughter, not my children.

My children are my soul, and my soul rebels.

2

Take off the Masks

We are never so

defenseless against suffering

as when we love.

Sigmund Freud

At 40 years old, I love you, Samah!

At 40 years old, I have saved my daughters!

At 40 years old, I am clarity!

At 40 years old, I have rejected my father’s orders!

At 40 years old, I have challenged the religious authorities!

At 40 years old, I have refused to submit to the community of Muslim men!

Yes, that’s me, the girl with her white dress that shows a little bit of skin, with her long hair that has rarely been seen. That dark-skinned woman, who is neither blonde nor brunette.

I don’t look like anyone. I am me. I’ve always been me, deep down, even when I was trying to be like everyone else.

I am everything people think about me, even if I am not. I do not say anything in response; I do not deny anything.

I used to pretend to be myself, yet I only know myself in the light, since I am afraid of the dark.

I never noticed the color of the seasons. My years have passed by without color. Only black and white existed. Heaven or hell. Between the two, there is only the void. Between the two, I did not want to think.

I was taught not to think.

My name is Samah. In my native language, my name means forgiveness. But the way they pronounce it here in Quebec, it means, still in my native language, the sky.

My father’s daughter, my children’s mother, my students’ teacher, my two brothers’ and two sisters’ sister, for a long time I was also a naive and obedient wife.

After thirteen years of that marriage, I am a divorcée.

I was also the spokesperson for an organization that claimed to want to defend the rights of its community. I wore the veil as one carries a burden, but I defended that burden.

I wore masks, and under the masks, there were other masks.

But if you are reading my words today, it’s because…

One day, I opened the refrigerator door…

The tears froze on Samah’s face…

And the question arose:

What am I doing with a veil over my head?

3

Discovering my Body

Someone who looks like me

To love is to take care of

the other person’s loneliness

without ever filling it

or even knowing it.

Christian Bobin

It has been a lonely month. I’ve been going around in circles since the beginning of summer vacation. Since my children left. Like a well-civilized ex-wife, I drove my children and their father to the airport. The children were excited. I was scared.

For the little ones, it was the trip of their dreams. A full month away from me. This was the first time in our lives that we would be separated. But with my ex-husband, nothing was ever given away for free. I begged him to take care of the children, to let them call me, not to take revenge—like he had already done.

Previously, I had always refused to let my children leave with him by themselves. But things had changed. There was another woman now, who was staying in Canada over the summer, and with whom he was expecting a child.

Besides, I desperately needed a break.

And yet, the further away the children got from me, the more my heart broke. They are the center of my life. They are my life.

This vacation is not a vacation. I’m in a strange state of mind. I isolate myself; I close myself up like in a cocoon.

I’m alone all the time. I don’t reply to any messages, and I don’t want to meet up with anyone. I barely eat, and when I do, I eat poorly. I can’t bring myself to leave my house for a simple meal at a restaurant. I no longer even know how to respond to this vital need to feed myself. I’m at the end of my rope. I’m at the end of my rope because of something, but I can’t quite seem to figure out what, exactly. Am I nothing without my children? That’s terrible; being nothing but a mother is not being a good mother.

Three weeks pass, all the same, the days and the nights. I’m sleeping too much. I don’t know who I am.

At dawn, I wake up and go for a run through empty streets and damp parks while other people take advantage of the opportunity to sleep in. I drink my latte at the edge