“Thank you for your little note,” says Édith.
“You understand?” asks Fadila, radiant.
“Absolutely. You wrote down four hours.”
“I writing too the old lady her code.”
She explains to Édith that at number 16 on her street, where she goes three mornings a week, the electronic code to the entrance has just changed. The old lady called her two days ago to give her the new code. But she was very worried that Fadila would not be able to remember it.
“He say, you going remember? I say, I gonna writing. He say B 24 09 and I writing.”
“Did she say B or P?” asks Édith, equally concerned.
Fadila pronounces her P’s like B’s; it seems to Édith that she has heard there is no p sound in Arabic.
Fadila picks up one of Édith’s felt-tips, and takes a sheet of paper: “I making B my way,” she warns, writing a perfectly recognizable B.
She adds the four digits of the code. These she remembers. And writes in her own way; it’s not that easy to tell the 2 from the 9. But she manages.
“Did it work? Had you written the right code down?”
“Is working!”
She was sick in Morocco. She cannot stand the spices. “In Morocco I always getting sick.”
“And besides that? Your vacation?”
“Bah.” She raises one shoulder.
“Did things go all right with your cousin?”
The cousin, yes, but not the cousin’s husband. Fadila winces. He’s Algerian, and she doesn’t like Algerians. “Moroccans is no liking Algerians,” she says bluntly.
“Do you still have a house in Morocco?”
“Yes! Is big house on the mountain next to Essaouira.”
“The house where you grew up?”
“Yes, is my house. But is my brother living there with his wife.”
“I thought you were an only child.”
Her father and mother had no other children, she explains graciously. But when she found herself alone in Rabat with her three children, she had to earn her living. She left the house at seven in the morning and came home at eight in the evening. Her mother came to keep house and look after the children. “I loving my mother very much; since she die is all finish with me,” she says, word for word the same formula Édith has already heard.
The two women were quite pleased with this arrangement, but someone who was not so pleased was Fadila’s father, who had stayed behind on his own in the village. He ordered his wife to come back, to no avail. She didn’t want to. So he took a second wife who gave him a son. It is this son whom Fadila calls her brother. He is twenty-five years younger and Fadila has never seen him. She knows he has a wife and children and that he lives in the family home. She supposes he lives the way people have always lived there, from the land.
Fadila’s mother was first to die, a long time ago, then her father, whom neither she nor her mother ever saw again, and finally her father’s second wife.
For Édith, Fadila’s story had left off when she was fifteen, living with her parents in the village, at the moment of Aïcha’s birth. She did not know that Fadila had gone on to live and work, on her own with her children, in Rabat.
“You were married twice?”
“Three times.” Fadila lifts three fingers of her right hand. “All three husbands is bad husbands,” she adds. “Enough, I got to do ironing. You listening, I talking all the time, I has ironing, after all!”
“Don’t forget that next Wednesday evening, the 7th, is the day to enroll at the association.”
“Yes, of course, I remembering.”
“If you like, I can go to the meeting with you.”
“Is nice of you. Okay.”
Édith would like to find out which type of writing they use with their beginners, and to tell the instructor that Fadila is more at ease with capital letters than with cursive handwriting. She’s afraid the class might use cursive.
“It would be good if we did some work beforehand.”
“Have to!” says Fadila. “If I enrolling next week . . .”
She goes to fetch her bag from where she left it in the hallway.
“Is no gonna be easy,” she continues. But she does not seem to be particularly worried, her tone is the same as when she finishes a sentence referring to the future with “inshallah.”
She takes a piece of paper from her shopping bag. On it she has written FADILA AMRANI twenty or more times, flawlessly, in a column.
Édith wasn’t expecting this. “You’ve been working hard!”
“Is okay, I know my name,” Fadila says forcefully. “Let’s doing something else.”
This is the first time she has asserted that something has been learned and it is time to move on.
She is sitting at her usual place at the dining room table. She’s not in a hurry today. Édith sits down in turn, places a few pieces of paper between them and asks her to write her first name from memory. Fadila does it without making any mistakes, first time round.
“Perfect. Now your last name, Amrani.”
Fadila’s hand hovers in the air.
“Begin with AM,” says Édith, “A, then M.”
Fadila writes M.
“That’s a good M, but to write AM, remember, you need one other letter, too . . .”
“Yes,” says Fadila, “the letter there and there.”
Fadila points with her fingertip to the two A’s in Fadila. She writes an A, not before the M but after.
Next to this MA, Édith writes AM, explains that MA is pronounced ma and is not the same thing as AM, which is pronounced am.
She writes AMRANI and asks Fadila to copy her name. Fadila writes MRANI. “There’s a letter missing,” Édith says. Fadila cannot see which one is missing.
Enough difficulty for now. Édith says again, “Your name begins with A, you know the A,” and at the same time she adds it to MRANI, where it belongs, at the beginning.
Fadila has trouble doing the same. She doesn’t know how to reconstruct a word. Édith cannot figure out why.
“In any event”—she is speaking to herself as much as to Fadila—“you’ve got your first name, you know how to write it now.”
She writes first and last name on a sheet of paper and asks Fadila to copy them out at home, first from the model, then on another sheet of paper on her own.
Fadila takes the papers and gets up, telling Édith all the while that the night before, her son called her on the phone, and she knew it was him before she picked up because his name was displayed on the little screen. “Is called Nasser,” she says, “But is name is Larbit. I seeing Larbit.”
“Like this?” asks Édith, hastily writing LARBIT.
“Yes. ’Xactly like that.”
“That’s great!” says Édith.
This time, she explains, Fadila has read a word that she learned to recognize all on her own. One day soon she will be able to read other words she’s learned on her own. And from then on she will know how to read. She’s getting there.
Édith calls the Association Saint-Landry to make sure that the enrollment session is still scheduled for the 7th in the evening. One of the organizers has taken her call; he asks her a few questions about Fadila, then sounds exasperated when he finds out how old she is. He warns Édith that there will be a lot of people on the 7th, and they won’t be able to take everyone. Given how hard it is for older people to learn to read and write, and how disappointing the results can be, the younger students will have priority.
“Obviously,” says the man, “we don’t know yet how old the participants will be, and whether your protégée will be one of the oldest or not. No point upsetting her; don’t say anything to her about it.”
*
Fadila brings back the paper where she was supposed to copy out her first and last
name. Underneath FADILA AMRANI she has written
FADNI
FADIANI
AMAILA
AMRIL
Four words using the letters from her first and last name, but in fact she was supposed to copy them from the model.
As cheerfully as possible Édith says, “You haven’t got everything, there are bits missing. You’re doing great on your capital letters now.”
She does not dare ask who wrote the flawless column of names Fadila has brought back with her from Morocco. She hides the sheet where first and last name have been scrunched together so dishearteningly, and writes Fadila’s name out again on a clean sheet. “Your turn now,” she says. “Look at it carefully and copy it out, the whole thing. Don’t leave anything out!”
Fadila laughs. She writes FADIAAMRANI.
Édith draws a line between the two A’s in the middle. Underneath she rewrites the first and last names, carefully separated by a space, and she points to the space. “Words mustn’t be stuck together in French, remember? Go on, write the two words again, each one separately.”
Fadila writes FADILA MRANI with a tiny space between the two.
Édith shows her that there is a letter missing from the beginning of the name. “Oh, right, is missing,” says Fadila, and she writes an A in the little space she had left between first and last names, effectively joining them together.
The enrollment session at the association is for tomorrow evening at eight p.m.
“Do you want to meet there?” asks Édith.
Fadila suggests, rather, that Édith come by her place at the end of the day, at around seven, and they will go together to the rue Saint-Landry.
13
Stairway B, is other side courtyard,” Fadila told her. “You taking elevator all the way to sixth floor. Is first room.”
The courtyard is long, expansive, and calm, with three trees planted in a row. The building at the end is solid, and the sixth floor is light and well maintained. But Fadila’s room is tiny. Inhuman—the word immediately springs to mind. It must be six feet wide by eight feet long, and the ceiling is no higher than six feet either. It has everything—a bed, sink, fridge, hot plate, microwave, and television, and a few stacking boxes for storage. The passage between the bed and the furniture, leading from the door to the window opposite, is so narrow that two people cannot pass each other. The window may well look out onto the sky, and when you draw closer there is a view of rooftops as far as the eye can see, but it is no wonder that Fadila has panic attacks living in such cramped quarters. It would be abnormal if she didn’t. At a push you can sleep in such a confined space, but you cannot stand up in there, you cannot live. In a place like this a television is so much more than mere distraction: it becomes an opening onto the world in the most physical way, a vital source of space and air.
Fadila has made some tea—she has noticed that Édith drinks tea all the time—to go with some almonds and a store-bought pound cake. She hands two slices to Édith straight off and says, “Is very good. I’m eating every morning for breakfast.”
She adds, “I having nothing, no money, room is small, I no telling nobody I have big house or money. I telling the truth.”
Her honesty clearly played a role in her son’s marriage, she explains. One day, it must have been—she stops to think—five years ago, they were walking down the street together in Clichy, where Nasser was living at the time. They walked past a middle-aged Moroccan couple with their daughter. Fadila took an immediate liking to the young woman, and said as much to her son. Nasser agreed. Shall I say something to them? suggested Fadila. Nasser nodded.
She turned around and went up to the threesome. She introduced herself and her son. They had a chat, and Fadila invited the parents and their daughter to have dinner at her place the following Saturday.
“I do it on purpose,” she says. On purpose, to have them come up to her little room without delay, to show them that her only wealth is her energy and her dignity.
The dinner was a success (it is beyond Édith how five people could share a meal in that room). The two young people hit it off. Three months later they were married. The young woman was a secretary in Morocco, and her parents had a bit of property. They are fond of Nasser. They had a proper wedding. “In the church in Clichy,” says Fadila, and before Édith can comment on the word church, she adds, “Is nice room in Clichy mairie, is very good for weddings.”
She stands up and reaches for a large photograph in a cardboard frame next to the television. A radiant young woman in a white dress on the arm of a slim, slightly awkward young man.
“By the way,” says Édith, “you told me you put the card with your name on it next to the television, but I don’t see it.”
“I put, is here.”
Fadila picks up the card, which was indeed next to the television but face down, along with a small pile of papers which Édith recognizes as the letters and words they have worked on together.
“You would see it better if you stood it up,” says Édith, indicating a vertical plane with her right hand.
“Yes, is like children at school . . .”
“Children and grown-ups. If you see something every day, you end up remembering it.”
Fadila stands the card against the side of the television. She has manners. The guest is always right.
But it is time to set off for Saint-Landry. They need at least ten minutes to get there on foot, and it would be better to be on time.
As they cross the courtyard, Édith observes how pleasant it is with the three trees. Fadila agrees. She sits down here whenever she can—she points to a stone bench next to the wall separating the courtyard from the neighboring apartments. Édith doesn’t say anything, but all she can think of is the way Fadila comes down to this courtyard for fresh air when she is stifling at night. She must sit on this little bench in the dark.
Along the way, Fadila shows Édith around her neighborhood. She’s been living in this arrondissement for eleven years. She points out the grocery shops, the Laundromat where she has her washing done by the kilo, the shops: “Is for children but is expensive”; “They has so nice shoes.”
“It’s a pleasant part of town,” says Édith, who doesn’t know this arrondissement very well.
“Yes, is only rich people. Is very calm and quiet.”
They are not late on arriving in Saint-Landry but other candidates have come early, so Fadila is given the number 30. Gentlemen who look like retired seniors have everyone go and sit in a large room in the basement in rows of plastic chairs. Facing them are six wooden tables, against the wall.
It was here that Fadila tried years ago to learn to read. But the classes were held elsewhere, in a much smaller room. And the people Fadila had met back then are not here this evening.
The meeting is late getting started. The candidates continue to pour in. Everyone is chatting, although from time to time a woman with a chignon, wearing a straight plaid skirt, asks for silence. Édith notices worriedly that most of the candidates are young Filipino women, plus a dozen or so Moroccans of both sexes (“They is Moroccan,” said Fadila), three black Africans, and a few Asians.
More candidates arrive and some benches are brought out. Then a group of young people who look like students come in: they must be the volunteer instructors.
And indeed they go and sit at the tables, facing the candidates. “Let’s get started,” says one of the older men in a loud voice.
The woman in the chignon knows what to expect from the Filipinos’ level of language: she calls out the numbers in English, “Two! Sree!” in a caricature of an accent, until one of the Moroccans says, “Speak French, Madame!” As their numbers are called, the participants go to sit at one of the tables with a volunteer who helps them to fill out a form.
Fadila knows a few of the Moroccans. She points to one of the men in the group, in hi
s forties, sitting next to a brown-haired woman. “Is not his wife,” says Fadila, furious. His wife stayed behind in Morocco with the children, and now this is how he behaves, while the wife has to bring up the children all on her own, in addition to the housework.
“Is hard, children, when you is all alone.”
“At least, thanks to the father, there’s some money in the family,” says Édith.
“Money is not everything,” retorts Fadila, with one of those idiomatic expressions she uses from time to time.
When children grow up like this, she continues, only seeing their father once a year, they don’t know him, “is no respect, is no good relation.”
The numbers are called, one by one. Number 15, number 16. Édith asks Fadila whether she would prefer to go to the interview alone or accompanied. Accompanied, opts Fadila, without hesitating. Clearly she has noticed that she is the only one in her particular situation, for when the manager walks by, she stops her and says, “I is coming with is lady teaching me to write. Is okay she come enrolment with me?” The woman has no problem with that. As soon as she is out of earshot Fadila leans closer to Édith and says, “Must to always telling truth, like that is no trouble after. I is always telling truth.”
The fact remains that she is probably the oldest of all those who have come to enroll. She sits unmoving, slightly slumped on her chair, observing those around her. Fadila has that swarthy face with heavy eyelids, thin lips, and the impressive implacability often found in old women from a poor background, whatever the continent, as if age made them all alike. In fact, she looks much older than her sixty-four or sixty-five years. Which won’t argue in her favor today.
Fadila’s turn has come. Fate has it that she is interviewed by an exquisite young man, as friendly as can be. Fadila states her identity, her address, her telephone number. When he asks, “Are you married?” she replies fiercely, “No.” Édith breaks in: “You’re living alone now. But you have been married, you have children and grandchildren.”
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