81 pages • 2 hours read
Kiffe Kiffe Tomorrow
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Chapters 7-12Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 7 Summary
Doria and Yasmina visit Yasmina’s Algerian friend, Zohra, known to Doria as Aunt Zohra. Aunt Zohra was given her name, which means “luck” in Arabic, because she was born on July 5, 1962, the day that Algeria achieved its independence from France. Zohra’s situation resembles Yasmina’s in that her husband has taken a second, younger wife back in Algeria, but instead of abandoning his first family, he spends six months with each family. Zohra says this suits her, and Doria admires Zohra’s independence. She also admires the traditional couscous Aunt Zohra makes.
Doria spends time with Aunt Zohra’s three sons, Réda, Hamza, and Youssef, whom she played with as a child, but has little to say to them. She overhears part of a conversation between Yasmina and Aunt Zohra, in which Yasmina declares that her husband will be barred from heaven for abandoning his daughter. Doria feels that he will be kept out of heaven for abandoning her mother. In either case, she thinks they should forget him and move on.
As Youssef drives them home, Doria remembers how Youssef played the role of a big brother when she was younger. Yasmina does not invite Youssef in, presumably because their building’s elevator is so dirty. Hamoudi has told Doria that the superintendent of their development is a racist who fought in the Algerian war, and Doria reflects that for many French people, the war never seems to have ended.
Chapter 8 Summary
Mme. Burlaud wants Doria to go on a ski trip funded by the city, but Doria rejects the idea because she doesn’t want to leave her mother alone. She realizes that she knows nothing about Mme. Burlaud, even though Mme. Burlaud knows everything about her, which seems unfair. On the other hand, the eagerness of their social worker, Mme. Du, to discuss her upcoming wedding makes Doria jealous. Doria recalls how, as a small child, she cut the blond hair and breasts off her Barbie dolls out of jealousy, and how even her Barbies were actually a discount-chain knockoff named Francoise.
Musing on marriage and divorce, Doria describes her childhood daydreams of the perfect wedding with her dream man, MacGyver. Now she can’t have a wedding because she has no father to walk her down the aisle. She remembers an incident in her “boy band phase,” when a friend gave her a poster of her favorite band member, shirtless (27). Her father, declaring it the work of Satan, tore it off her wall.
Chapter 9 Summary
Doria receives poor grades at school, and her teacher’s comments make it clear they find her impossible to reach. Only her art teacher speaks well of her. One of Yasmina’s friends suggests that her son, Nabil, tutor Doria. Doria, who remembers Nabil being picked on by bullies in elementary school, is unenthusiastic. Nevertheless, Nabil starts coming over to help her with her homework. He’s surprised by what Doria doesn’t know, while Doria feels that he’s condescending. She comforts herself by thinking of his overbearing mother but finds this makes her sympathetic toward him.
While describing her latest session with Mme. Burlaud, Doria reveals that she’s just gotten her period for the first time. Like her mother, she’s developed late. Doria likes Mme. Burlaud’s nonjudgmental attitude, but not her description of the other physical changes Doria can now expect.
Chapter 10 Summary
Doria and Yasmina attend the annual Livry-Gargan summer fair. Doria enjoys the fair and seems to feel part of the community, though she’s embarrassed when her mother urges her to play a game for children. She also runs into Hamoudi, who is with a blonde woman named Karine. He introduces Doria to Karine, but she finds the encounter upsetting and feels jealous of Karine. Doria reveals that this is the first time she and Yasmina have been able to stay until the end of the fair. In other years, her father always came for them and made them go home.
Chapter 11 Summary
Doria remains upset about the fact that Hamoudi has a girlfriend and realizes this is why he has been around less. She thinks Karine, whom she calls Karim (a man’s name), looks trashy, and wonders how she’s gained so much influence over Hamoudi, who now looks ordinary and clean-cut. She thinks of the stories her mother has told her about spells and witchcraft back in Morocco. Doria wonders if anyone, perhaps Mme. Burlaud, has put a curse on her.
Before bed, Doria reads one of the paperback romances she found in a box outside her building. The book is set in the Sahara Desert and features a young tourist who falls in love with a nomad, unrealistically named Steve, after he rescues her from an accident. Doria finds the story clichéd and ridiculous, and thinks the heroine is “a total mental patient” (38), but still feels drawn into it emotionally.
Chapter 12 Summary
Doria goes to the pay the rent for her mother and is surprised when the super’s wife asks if she would like a babysitting job. Doria is grateful, though she doesn’t like the super’s wife telling her that the money would help her dress more like other girls. She imagines her prospective employer, Lila, as a glamorous older woman, but finds a pretty and friendly young woman who works as a cashier in a supermarket.
Lila tells Doria that she can tell she’s a good person and offers her the job. She introduces Doria to her four-year-old daughter, Sarah, and tells Doria that she’s recently separated. Lila offers Doria three euros an hour to watch Sarah each day from 5:30 until Lila returns from work. Doria accepts her offer with genuine gratitude. Yasmina, however, is upset, as Doria taking a job suggests that Yasmina is unable to provide for both of them.
Chapters 7-12 Analysis
Chapters 7-12 focus less on Doria’s inner life and more on the people around her, introducing a number of new characters and raising the possibility of changes to come. Doria’s memories of her father taking her and Yasmina home from the fair and tearing down her poster suggest that she and Yasmina may, in fact, be better off without him. The introduction of Aunt Zohra and her family place Doria and Yasmina within a wider North-African immigrant community, while the story of Yasmina and Zohra’s friendship suggests that Yasmina, who has appeared very isolated, is capable of creating social bonds of her own. Aunt Zohra’s and the super’s different experiences of Algerian independence also suggest how complicated and sometimes bitter the relationship is between the North African and French communities. Yet it is the super’s wife who tells Doria about Lila and her need for a babysitter, indicating that she is aware of Doria’s situation and willing to help.
Doria rejects the ski trip suggested by Mme. Burlaud, but her enjoyment of the fair and her acceptance of the babysitting offer suggests that she is willing to engage with the people around her. She also begins to negotiate the complicated emotional landscape of puberty. She resents Karine as a threat to her relationship with Hamoudi and fears being abandoned again. Doria feels betrayed by Hamoudi’s willingness to change himself into someone ordinary for the sake of a romantic relationship, though her response to the paperback romance she reads indicates that she shares some of the same hopes and desires. Hamoudi’s relationship with Karine suggests that his earlier claims to have no interest in marriage or settling down were posturing, like Doria’s claims not to care about her situation. Doria also has a conflicted response to her new tutor, Nabil. He annoys her with his patronizing attitude but also arouses her sympathy.
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