Bitter Almonds (15 page)

Fadila interrupts: “Is no matter!”

Édith tries to convince her that it does: “Think of the mailman. Poor guy, what's he supposed to do if he sees an address like this on an envelope: 62 Amrani Paris Madame?”

Fadila howls with laughter, something she only does during their lessons.

Édith however worries about these words scattered all over the place. It is this type of incompetence, this lack of an organizing principle within her abstract thoughts that must be preventing Fadila from making any progress. If the word order doesn't matter, there can be no intelligible text, no possible reading.

 

Easter is coming, the shops are full of chocolates, eggs, fish, bunnies, and bells.

“You no buying chocolate?” asks Fadila.

Édith replies that all this commercial pressure annoys her and that Easter is a religious holiday that has nothing to do with chocolate. Fadila is friendly, attentive, the way she is whenever they touch on spiritual matters.

“I understand,” she says. “Is not just eggs, Easter.”

 

The third trimester has started and still no one has called back from the
mairie
of the sixteenth arrondissement. “You mustn't forget to sign up in June,” says Édith. “This time for sure there will be a place for you.”

Édith is away from Paris quite frequently and does not see Fadila for two weeks at a stretch.
When they meet, Fadila immediately says, “I been writing at home.” She laughs: “Yesterday I doing a lot. I thinking, you coming back, has to do lesson, has to work.”

The words she has written are all run together, sometimes swallowing each other (
FADILMRANI
). Not a single one is as it should be (
NSSER
,
MADZAE
,
RUELABDE
.)

 

She is in a mood. “Is something wrong?” asks Édith.

She shakes her head and turns on her heels. But five minutes later she comes back: “You wanna know what is wrong? Is always something wrong with children.”

Aïcha, again. She hasn't called her mother for three weeks. Perhaps she has her own problems, suggests Édith.

“No. Is just like that, Aïcha, she cutting off everything, dunno why. Just when she getting married . . .”

“Her daughter is getting married?”

“No, is Aïcha!” moans Fadila. “She is old, is fifty years, is getting married one young guy.”

A thirty-year-old undocumented Moroccan: it is obvious to Fadila and her whole family that the fellow is getting married merely in order to have his status regularized.

Aïcha's grown children are furious. Fadila lectures her daughter: why does she need a man in the house? This one has no job, he'll cost her a fortune. Already Aïcha complains she cannot call her mother “because she no having money.” And when the fellow has taken her for all she's worth then finds some work, he'll vanish.

Yet Aïcha does know what a husband is, she had one, a drinker, violent, good for nothing; he died from liver cancer. But she won't listen. When her mother speaks to her she looks at the ground and doesn't answer. What can anyone do to stop someone this age heading straight for disaster?

“Is daytime I working,” says Fadila, “but at night I no sleeping, I seeing things, I seeing everything is gonna happen.”

 

She's in a hurry, she has to go to Boulogne to a halal butcher for the cow's feet with chickpeas they cook in Morocco. They'll do their reading another day.

 

She calls to cancel—for once ahead of time; she can't come this Tuesday afternoon but she'll make up for it tomorrow morning, Wednesday.

Édith needs to be alone in the morning. That is when she does her best work. She tells Fadila that the change of schedule does not work for her.

“I no see why not,” says Fadila harshly.

Édith doesn't insist. In Fadila's place, she wouldn't see why not either.

 

Her son's child has been born, a second daughter. “Is fine baby,” she says, without another word.

Probably she was not allowed to get involved at the time of the birth. Her son has taken yet another step away from his mother and closer to his wife. Once again, Fadila is suffering from the fact that she does not have the position that should be hers at her age—the position that would have been hers had she had a normal life in Morocco.

She emerges from her silence to say, tersely, “After you having children, life is fucked.”

Bitter. Stoic. Torn. Brutal. Not about to be contradicted.

 

She has some time today. She wants to try and write, but she has nothing left “in her head,” as she puts it.

Édith has her copy her name and address from an envelope. She does it without error. She remembers to separate the words with a blank space, and even points it out.

But when Édith shows her the
MADAME
she forgot to copy in front of her first name and asks her which word it is, she says, “Nasser.”

“Have a good look.” Édith is within an inch of giving up. “
M
and
N
are different, they sound different, they're written differently.”

And she writes out a card to illustrate the principle: every word has an initial letter,

M
for
MADAME

N
for
NASSER

F
for
FADILA
, and so on.

Fadila takes the card and gets to her feet, she's got it, she'll “go over at home.”

But how long will she spend? How many times will she work on it? Édith follows her with her gaze. Half an hour would be a minimum, half an hour every day. How can you ask that of a woman who is weary and disgusted and who sees herself as an old woman? A woman who has lost her roots, who sits alone at night in a tiny room, who cannot switch off the television for fear of being devoured by her anguish.

 

“You see?” she asks, laughing. “Diana: is old one she put Koran on her head.”

“The Koran?”

“Yes. Is one lady she giving me book, is putting Koran on her head. Is queen she no want but he is winning.”

“Ah, you mean Camilla!”

“Yes, she getting married, has Koran on her head.”

“The crown.”

“Yes, she is winning and the other one, poor thing, the pretty one, is dead.”

Of her own accord Fadila reminds Édith of the literacy course at the
mairie
of the sixteenth arrondissement. “Has to signing up.”

She'll go on her own. She knows the way, it's only a short distance from the rue de la Pompe where she goes to the family doctor she likes.

 

The enrolment cost her fifty euros. “It's not expensive,” says Édith, “when you think, for three two-hour classes per week for a whole year.”

“I know,” she says. “Fifty euros is insurance. Only insurance.”

 

Fadila has been hesitating for a while now, but this time she's made up her mind, she is going to drop one of her employers. This is the first time she has mentioned this man to Édith. It's obvious he's been taking her for a ride. He has always told her that he would enroll her for benefits “with is government pay slip,” but he's done no such thing. He tells her he's going away, on a trip, and asks her not to come for a few weeks, then he calls and says he needs her urgently. His apartment is utterly filthy. She doesn't believe this travel business. In her opinion, the man never leaves Paris, he just waits until the filth gets unbearable to call Fadila.

And this morning when she was working there she was told not to make any noise, no running the vacuum cleaner, because “is his friend sleeping in the bedroom.”

“This is man he going with men, is too bad,” she says. “I meeting his mother, he's been study, is smart guy. Is pity when people they go ruining life like that. Is no children, is no family, it breaks your heart.”

 

There are days when things suddenly click into place, and her progress seems to have moved forward a notch.

Édith tries once again to get the principle of the Meccano across, deconstructing words into letters. On one side she has the word
FADILA
, and on the other, in the textbook, the column of the twenty-six letters in the alphabet. She points to the
F
in the word and asks Fadila to find it in the list. Fadila can't see it.

“The
F
, you know it. Look, let me write it for you.”

No response.

Édith goes through the alphabet one letter after the other, and with each letter she asks, “Is this one the
F
?”

At the
A
, Fadila says, “This one is RER,” and at the
B
and
C
, too.

She recognizes the
F
when Édith comes to it.

She manages to find the second letter of her first name, the
A
they just mentioned, at the head of the list.

For the
D
, she comes right out and says she won't find it. “We saw it just a minute ago,” insists Édith, and she manages to locate it.

For the
I
, which to Édith seems so easy to identify, Fadila initially says she doesn't see it, but then puts her finger on it.

As for the last letter of her first name, she knows it's the
A
at the beginning of the alphabet, she no longer hesitates.

She is relaxed. Édith tells her again that once she knows the twenty-six letters, she'll know how to read. She shrugs, discreetly, like someone who doesn't really believe it.

 

Fadila is in tears. She is due to go to Morocco at the end of July, one month from now, and for the first time she has allowed herself be talked into taking the plane, but now she's just found out that all her children and grandchildren are leaving before her. She was supposed to travel with Nasser, but he's changed his ticket, along with his wife's and daughters'. He found a much cheaper flight, but he's leaving a week before his mother. Zora and her family are leaving two weeks earlier by car. And Aïcha? She and Fadila aren't on speaking terms.

If she were going to do the trip all alone by bus, she wouldn't worry. She's used to it. But she's never taken the plane. She's occasionally been to an airport, and she always feels completely lost in a place like that. She won't be able to manage on her own. And now this ticket, which one of her grandsons reserved for her on the internet, has cost her three hundred euros and it can't be reimbursed.

Last night at Zora's she lost her temper. Her son-in-law Mohammed was insulting, the way he talked back to her. He's a brute, she doesn't want to see him anymore. He drinks. He tells lies. “One day he tell Zora is one his friend he sleep with her!”

“Have they been married for long?”

“Is thirty years! Problem is, Zora she in loving with him! She putting up with him! He going after other women, is always doing like that. Already in Morocco is never eating with is wife and children. He coming home late, he wearing nice suit, is perfume, is going out until five o'clock in the morning.

“I telling Zora: What is going on? You ironing his shirt one o'clock in the morning, he going with women you no say nothing? She rather say nothing, have peace and quiet. Never I accepting like that.”

“Does he have a profession?”

“Yes, is working electrician.”

“And if he drinks, doesn't he have problems at work?”

“No. Is working, is drinking, is working, is drinking.”

“Well, so much the better, I suppose. It wouldn't help matters if he were to lose his job.”

“I no caring if he have accident. I sorry to say that, but is no good life for Zora. Drunk, drunk, always drunk!

“One day, I been Zora's house, is going with Nasser. Is Mohammed he say, Nasser, come on, we going out. Nasser asking me lend him 50 euros. Zora is no worry, she going sleeping. I no can sleep, is hurting (she points to her stomach), is heart beating (her breast), I walking walking in the house, I waiting. At two o'clock I waking up big son Younes, I tell him he get dressed. He coming with me to bar in the street. Is boss he close at ten o'clock but after is keeping customers inside, everyone they drinking, is music, with Younes we listening, can hear the music: that is where they is. At four o'clock is coming back, Mohammed. I telling him off good and proper! I say, Where is Nasser? He say, I take him home to sleep. I been so mad I go crazy. I no speaking him and Zora for two months.”

The French football team have won the World Cup semifinal. The final match will be held on Sunday.
“So, is bravo for the French!” says Fadila the moment she walks in the door.

“Did you watch the match on television?”

“No. I no watching 'cause I getting mad if the French they no win.”

“You're for the French team?”

“What you expect! Is eating piece of bread!”

“What do you mean?”

“We is in France, we eat in France, is want France to win. France she doing a lot for poor people. Is giving welfare to people he has no work, is school cost nothing, is the social security . . . Is why God he always giving rain, flowers, trees, all that. God is watching, is what we believing.”

 

“So France team she losing.”

She has taken the matter to heart, it would seem.

“Yes. It doesn't matter.”

“No. Is no worth is getting annoyed about it.” Firmly: “Is a game.”

 

The latest news is that one of her granddaughters might be able to go with her to the airport at the end of July—Khadija, who is a hairdresser at a big beauty salon on the Champs-Elysées. But it has not been finalized, and Fadila is beginning to get impatient. No matter how often she leaves messages on her granddaughter's cell phone, her calls have never been returned.

“I no care,” she says, “I going to Champs-Elysées is talking with her. She no wanting I go Champs-Elysées with headscarf, I no care.”