Fadila tells Édith how in the métro she found the direction to La Courneuve right away, because she knows the L. For the first time she didn’t have to ask another passenger to confirm whether she was on the right platform. “Just like everybody,” she says.
Édith takes her by the shoulders. “You see! Now you’ve understood that the first letter of a word can help you to recognize it.”
Of her own accord Fadila says she would like to be able to read the names of the directions of the two or three métro lines she tends to use. Édith seizes the opportunity and writes: LA COURNEUVE and VILLEJUIF.
Fadila may have been discouraged at not being admitted to a literacy course, but she hasn’t given up for all that. She wants so badly to be normal (she wants to be able to read like everyone else. Being illiterate is not just a handicap, it’s also a source of shame) and she has a great need for autonomy (it’s so trying, always having to depend on others). She isn’t asking for help or assistance; on the contrary, she would like to have the means to be able to get by on her own.
One day she comes with a form from the Social Security which she does not know how to fill out. Her family doctor gave it to her already a while ago. It’s the form that has to be used to choose one’s primary care provider.
The doctor filled in his part of the form. Fadila would like Édith to help her with the rest.
“You can do it,” says Édith. “It’s not complicated. Here you write your first name, there your last name, and then you sign here.”
Fadila is afraid she will “make a mess.” Édith shows her that they can avoid the risk by writing in pencil first, and if it’s okay, she’ll go over it in ink. With no further ado Fadila fills in the blanks for First Name and Last Name.
Just as she is about to sign she asks, “I do like always at the bank?”
Édith is familiar with her usual zigzag on the back of her checks, and stops her: “No, do it the way the doctor did, look. Here he wrote his name, Marc Aubenton, and here he signed M. AUBENTON. You can sign F. AMRANI.”
A printed envelope came with the form. Fadila folds the paper in two and slips it in the envelope. “You gotta stamp?” she says to Édith, “I no having at home.”
Her son and daughter-in-law are expecting a second child. Édith congratulates her.
Fadila screws up her face. It’s not that her son isn’t pleased, he only has one child so far and he has to have a son someday. But it’s already a tight squeeze in a studio that measures only 215 square feet. What will it be like with four of them? Nasser asked long ago to be re-housed, to no avail. There is nothing on offer, or nothing acceptable.
“And what about your daughter-in-law,” asks Édith, “is she all right? She isn’t too tired?”
“She is,” says Fadila harshly. “Is sleeping all the time, never going out.”
She cannot understand why this young woman who has “everything she needing thank God” coddles herself to such a degree. She certainly wouldn’t have spent all day sleeping just because she was pregnant.
24
Fadila would do a better job of reading if she didn’t always try too quickly to guess before anything else.
Édith asks her to take one of the envelopes addressed to her out of her bag and read it. It should work: Fadila knows perfectly well what is written on the envelope.
But instead of saying MADAME she says Aïcha. And when she realizes her mistake, and properly identifies MADAME, for the following word she reads AMRANI: it says FADILA, she should have recognized it, there is no word she knows better than that one. And AMRANI comes right after.
Once her memory has been refreshed, she manages better. It is obvious that these work sessions are few and far between.
Édith spends a week in London at a symposium on translation. She is in charge, with a colleague, of the days devoted to literary translation. It has taken a lot of work, but things are going smoothly, their discussions are practical and fruitful. There are a few memorable moments as they debate the sample cases, translating Mia Couto or Cormac McCarthy.
No sooner is she back in Paris than she has to leave again. Her father, who lives alone in Lyon, has to undergo an emergency operation. She stays with him for the forty-eight hours he is at the clinic and the days that follow, the time it takes to organize the home care that he will need for a time.
When Édith next sees Fadila, three weeks have gone by.
There was a post-it on the washing machine, a very recognizable FADIIA and two numbers one above the other. Édith gathered that Fadila had written down her hours for each of the two Tuesdays she’d come during her absence, but she was unable to decipher the numbers.
Fadila knows what she wrote, however, she can read her own writing: a 2 for two hours and underneath it a 1 plus a little dash for an additional half hour.
Once she has finished her ironing, she comes to Édith and asks, “You having time today?”
Édith suggests they start with what she knows well, in principle, writing her first and last name and, to Édith’s astonishment, Fadila writes both words correctly without hesitating.
It is the first time. Édith is puzzled, but delighted; she hides her bewilderment but not her joy.
“Is writing at home,” says Fadila.
“Every day?”
“No!” She rolls her eyes to the ceiling. “Sometimes.”
“That explains it,” says Édith, who understands even less about the process as time goes by.
Fadila leaves early this Tuesday, she has some cooking to do. It is the Day of Ashura tomorrow. “Is holiday, like Christmas.” Special dishes are prepared, “normally is chicken,” but not this year. Because of the bird flu epidemic Fadila no longer eats poultry; nor do any of her family. And yet she does like it: “Is prefer chicken to meat.” But with everything she’s seen on television, “Is disgusting,” she says. Her children as well, “They think is disgusting.”
Édith repeats what you can read in all the papers, that there is no danger in France, and you can go on safely buying chicken, unlike in Vietnam or Turkey. She reminds Fadila that ten years earlier it was beef you weren’t supposed to eat, because of mad cow disease.
Fadila remembers. She chuckles: “Is politics.” Or perhaps she meant politicians, because she goes on to say, “They has to talk, otherwise is television going to close! Has to find something to say, otherwise is no more work!”
She has come early. “I coming early to see Aïcha—is a bitch. Is not there.”
Édith points out that she’s used a harsh word.
“I doing on purpose,” says Fadila. “I stay all weekend at home, no one they calling, no one to see how I doing. You think is normal, old woman all alone and no one they calling? Aïcha she no has a husband.”
That’s another problem, says Édith. But Fadila goes on to explain, “If she no having husband, she can looking after his mother.”
“You could have called your daughters yourself,” says Édith.
“No,” protests Fadila, “Is me old one, is me the others they gotta call asking news.”
Édith recalls a passage in Proust, in Swann’s Way, where at a reception Madame de Gallardon tries to attract the attention of her young cousin, the Princesse de Guermantes, and when she is unsuccessful, she takes umbrage: It is not up to me to take the first step, I’m twenty years older than she is.
“Who I gonna go to when I’m old, retired, huh?” fulminates Fadila. “My daughter is look like I not even her mother. How he going looking after me when I’m old? They no looking after me even when I has good health!”
She does not calm down until it is time to leave. Édith suggests they do a bit of reading, but all she hears in reply is a curt, “’Nother time.”
Several times in a row the same thing happens. “Not today, I’m tired,” or “I no having time,” or “Next time.” But she agrees to
take some homework with her. She says she will do it.
She brings back a sheet that proves she really has worked at home. She has copied her name and address, and she’s in a good mood.
“It’s good, there are no mistakes,” says Édith, after she’s had a look. “But you’ve written the words any old how, rue, madame, Paris, 62, Laborde . . .”
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.”
25
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.”
26
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 wit
h 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.
Bitter Almonds Page 11