As soon as I started reading Rachel’s diary, I felt sick. It was like my insides were burning up. I had to hold my head in my hands just to stop it exploding, I felt like screaming. Reading every page, I thought, I don’t believe this. Then when I’d finished, I suddenly felt calm, like I was frozen inside, all I wanted to do was die. I felt ashamed to be alive. A week later, I realised that this whole thing, Rachel’s story, my story, was all about Papa’s past, I was going to have to live it for myself, follow the same path, ask myself the same questions and, where my father and Rachel had failed, I had to try to survive. I felt like this was all too much for me. But I also felt, and I don’t know why, I felt I had to tell the world. I knew it was all ancient history, but still and all, life doesn’t change and what had happened to us could happen again.

Before I start, I need to tell you some stuff about us. Rachel and me were born back in the bled, in Algeria, in some godforsaken village in the middle of nowhere called Aïn Deb. When I was little, Uncle Ali told me Aïn Deb meant ‘The Donkey’s Well’. I used to laugh, picturing this donkey standing on its hind legs, rubbing its belly, bravely standing guard over the well.