Laila Lalami - Secret Son

Seeing him out, Alia spent nearly ten minutes at the door, talking about school. It was all a good show for the help, but Youssef knew that the maid would not say anything. Why would she?

He walked slowly up the street toward the bus station, wondering what it would be like to live here, in Anfa, with people like the Alaouis, the Filalis, the El Fassis — and the Amranis. He could be one of them. At home, he would sit and have breakfast with his father, listen to the back-and-forth between his young brothers, smile at their altercations. At school, he would casually mention that he had to tutor his sister in math or chauffeur his little brother to school. He would have Alia for a girlfriend.

He was so lost in his dreams that he missed his stop and had to sneak back on the returning bus. He found Amin at his usual spot in the Oasis, smoking a cigarette. Youssef could not resist bragging about Alia.

“Forget about her,” Amin said yet again. “She’s not for you.”

“She’s crazy about me,” Youssef said.

“She’s not from your world, man,” Amin said. “You’re wasting your time.”

“What do you know about girls, anyway?”

“I know about rich people. My father spent his life working for them.”

Youssef fell silent. The mention of anyone’s father usually had that effect on him.

At school the next day, Youssef stood by the main doors with his friends, but his eyes scoured the crowd for Alia. When she failed to appear at the first class, he began to worry. Was she in trouble? He walked out of class and spent the next two hours waiting outside the main entrance, calling her mobile phone, and watching for her car. It was almost eleven when he saw her pull into the parking lot. He ran to meet her as she climbed out of the car in a green shirt and a worn-out pair of jeans. Her eyes were puffy.

“Alia,” Youssef said, reaching for her arm. “I was worried.” When his fingers touched her skin, he felt an electric jolt of recognition, and the memory of their afternoon together flooded his mind. He could still feel the weight of her breasts in his hands, the shape of her hip, the way she moved when he thrust himself into her. He wanted her again, and he felt himself harden.

“What’s going on?” she said, frowning.

“You weren’t in literature class. I thought something was wrong.”

She groaned. “Nothing is wrong. I just overslept.”

“Ah.” He put his arm around her shoulders.

She set herself free from his arm. “What are you doing?” She turned to look around her, worried that someone might have noticed the gesture.

“Nothing, I was just walking you inside.”

“I don’t need to be walked inside. Listen, just because we had a good time yesterday doesn’t mean you’re my boyfriend.”

“I just …” Youssef stumbled.

Alia shook her head in disbelief, or maybe it was irritation; Youssef didn’t know. She turned around and went to find her friends. He had made some mistake, but he didn’t know what it was or how to fix it. For the rest of the day, he stayed away from her, even though he could not help watching her from the corner of his eye. She certainly didn’t seem to act any differently: she stood with her friends, bought coffee from the espresso machine, giggled in class. Meanwhile, he couldn’t concentrate on anything.

At night he called her mobile phone, hoping to apologize for whatever it was he had said that had upset her and to finally get an explanation for her strange behavior, but she sighed audibly when she heard his voice. “Don’t be such a bore,” she said. “We had fun. But now it’s time to move on.”

He hung up and lay on his bed, listening to pigeons walking on the tin roof of the house. He had been nothing but a distraction for her. If he had been a Filali, though, would she have dismissed him so casually? Always, and especially on days like this, he thought of what could have been. If he had grown up in a normal family, with a father, would he and his mother be struggling so much? This question usually made him feel melancholy, but now that he knew his father had been alive all along, he felt angry and bitter instead. Why should he and his mother be struggling so much? Perhaps that was why his mother had lied to him all these years: she had traded the anger of what should have been and given him instead the sadness of what could have been. She had tried to be patient, to be good, to be wise. But Youssef was not so willing to make the same bargain.

He took out a pen and, in the margin of his notebook, wrote down his real name, the name he had been denied. The ‘alif in the middle of his new last name added balance and majesty. It stood like a guard, ready to defend itself; like a witness, ready to speak up. There was a heft to the syllables when they were spoken. They left his lips without pause or hesitation, making him feel that they had always belonged together. On the left-hand page he wrote his name in Latin characters: Youssef Amrani. The first letter of his last name looked like a house in which his first name might finally find a home, and the dot on the last letter had the finality of a judge’s hammer.

He stared at the name for a long while, wondering what kind of a person Youssef Amrani was. His existence until that moment had been nothing more than a role — he had played the part of Youssef El Mekki, lived in his house, eaten his food, slept in his bed, and gone out with his friends, but all along he had been Youssef Amrani. That was who he really was. If he could be Youssef Amrani, he would not have to play any part at all. He could be, at long last, himself.

AT THE PRECISE MOMENT Nabil Amrani picked up the phone to call his wife, his secretary buzzed him. All morning he had been undecided about whether to return Malika’s call, because he knew their conversation would inevitably end in a bitter argument. This was how it had been since they had returned home from their trip to Paris two weeks earlier. It was supposed to be their first vacation alone, as a couple, since Amal had left home to study at UCLA, and for days they talked about how a return to the city where they had spent their honeymoon was the best twentieth-anniversary gift they could give themselves. It was all ruined, though, by a single phone call.

They had been walking in the Luxembourg Gardens when Malika pointed out the little children sailing their boats on the pond. “Do you remember,” she asked as she linked arms with him, “when Amal insisted on having a red sailboat? The rental man said he only had blue ones left, but she said no, and she waited for an hour until a red one was returned. She was five, I think.”

Nabil smiled and pressed his hand upon his wife’s. How the years go by in a blink, he thought. “She was a stubborn child. Always sure of what she wanted.”

“Let’s call her right now,” Malika said, stopping.

“But it will be late in Los Angeles,” Nabil protested. Looking at his watch, he said, “It’s one in the morning over there.”

Ah, if only she had listened to him. They would still be blissfully ignorant, and happy. But as usual, Malika had not listened. She dialed the number on her mobile phone. The line rang for a while but Amal did not pick up.

“She’s sleeping,” Nabil said, leading Malika by the arm. He smiled again when he saw a little boy trying to pick a daisy from one of the flower beds; his mother caught him in time. In the distance, a violinist was playing a sonata by Bach. A cool May breeze blew; Nabil buttoned his jacket. Malika kept dialing the number until finally someone picked up. It was not Amal — it was her roommate Lindsay. Malika did not speak English well enough, so she immediately placed the mobile phone to his ear, forcing him to take over. Thus it fell upon Nabil to ask to speak to his daughter, only to be told that Amal was in San Francisco for the weekend with her boyfriend. “What boyfriend?” he asked, stopping.