Laila Lalami - Secret Son

Malika turned to her husband and said between her teeth, “See what you’re doing to your family?”

Nabil took out his pack of Dunhills and lit a cigarette. Almost immediately the waiter rushed up to the table. “There’s no smoking in the restaurant, sir.” Nabil put his cigarette out on his filet mignon. The diners around them had stopped speaking, all of them far too interested in the scene unfolding before them.

“Wait for me,” Malika called. In the lobby, she put her arm around her daughter’s shoulders and walked with her to the causeuse, where they sat, sharing one seat. “I know it’s a shock, my daughter. It was the same for me when I found out. At least you heard about it from us. Me, I found out because of rumors at the beach club. He’s making a fool of me.”

Amal stared straight ahead. “I hate him.”

“No, no,” Malika said, shaking her head. “You don’t. All of this will pass, I promise.”

Amal chuckled. “You promise?”

“We’re a family. We have to endure the good and the bad together.”

“That’s a good one. And where was he the past two years?”

“I was there for you.”

Amal nodded.

“You have to come home to Casablanca with me.”

“He has the son he’s always wanted. What does he need me for?”

“I need you, child. I can’t handle this by myself. I need you there.”

“But I can’t just drop everything and go.”

Malika stared at her daughter. “You love him.” It was a statement that needed no confirmation. She seemed disappointed with Amal and shook her head slowly. “You have to break it off with him before it gets serious.”

“What?” Amal said. In their correspondence and weekly phone calls, Malika had never said that she disapproved of Fernando. Perhaps she had assumed that it would not last.

“This relationship,” Malika said, sighing, “it has no future.” She said it in a tone that suggested her daughter should have realized this long ago.

“How would you know?” Amal asked, her voice raised. She got up and walked through the lobby to the street. She craned her neck, trying to spot Fernando’s car.

“Look,” Malika said, catching up with her. “Don’t be so upset. Just think about what I said. Think about your family. Think about your future.”

Amal remained quiet. Long minutes passed, and still the words cut through her as though they had just been spoken. What was she supposed to do? Give up Fernando and go back home? Was she to pretend they had never met?

Looking down, Amal noticed a few stubborn blades of grass growing between the curb and the sidewalk. When she was a little girl, her father had pointed out a beautiful daisy that had grown between two slabs of marble stone on the terrace. He had marveled at how even the most fragile of creatures can move a crushing object by the sheer force of its will to live. She had looked up at him, squinting at the light that surrounded him as he spoke, and he had patted her shoulder, the way he usually did when he told her a story. The memory made her miss her father.

Amal spotted Fernando’s car up the street and stepped off the curb to wave. He parked his old Honda and climbed out. “Hi there,” he said to Malika. “Nice to see you again.”

He slipped his arm around Amal’s shoulder and kissed her temple.

The display of affection seemed to irritate Malika. “I will call you tomorrow, OK?” She started walking back toward the hotel.

“Good night,” Fernando called out to her back. Then, turning to Amal, he asked, “How’d it go?” He released her hair from its bun, and the weight of it on her shoulders made her feel at once like her usual self.

“Let’s see,” she said. “My father cheated on my mother while she was pregnant with me. And it turns out I have a younger brother.”

Fernando’s eyes opened wide. “That’s bigger news than I thought! I thought they were going to ask you to go back.”

“That, too.”

“Oh.”

They got into the car. On the radio, Dave Gahan was singing an old Depeche Mode song, reminding Amal of the night she and Fernando had met up at a club in Hollywood to go dancing, their first time together. A ball formed in her throat. “Let’s go somewhere,” she said.

They ended up at a coffee shop not far from the apartment, a little place they often went to late at night. Amal recounted her dinner with her parents. It was the kind of moment, she told him, when one knows that nothing will be the same again, when life suddenly splits into Before and After. She had long suspected that her father had been unfaithful (she had heard her parents fighting when she was twelve or thirteen) but she did not know his infidelities were as old as her — older, in fact.

“What did your mother say?”

“Not much, I don’t think. I’ve never seen her so broken.” Amal was angrier on her mother’s behalf than on her own. She wished there was something she could do. She wanted, of course, to go back home and be with her mother, but the finality of what her mother was asking was a sacrifice she was not prepared to make. Giving up one love for the sake of another — who made bargains like this? Then it dawned on her that her father was precisely the sort of person to do that. She drew her breath, suddenly remembering a particular moment at dinner. “You should have seen the look on my father’s face when he was talking about Youssef — like he was the best thing that ever happened to him.” She rubbed her eyes.

“But your brother — can you imagine?” Fernando said. “Growing up all this time, never knowing his father, or his sister. Poor guy.”

“I don’t want to talk about him,” Amal said. She was far too wrapped up in her own pain to think of the pain of others. “What about you? What were you doing while I was with my parents?”

“Working on my résumé,” he said. He finished his coffee and, noticing that she had finished her tea, asked, “Ready to go home?”

Amal smiled at the word he used, and put her hand on his arm. Whenever she was with him, she found it hard not to touch him, as though she were making up for hours of not being with him. They arrived at Amal’s apartment to find three messages on the answering machine, all from her mother, a woman who clearly took special pleasure in using the redial button. “Amal, c’est Maman,” she said in a singsong voice. She asked Amal to call back immediately. They were still listening to the third message when the phone rang again. Fernando looked at Amal. “Do you want to pick it up?” he asked. She shook her head and unplugged the cord. Then she put her arms around him and asked if he was feeling sleepy.

THE PHONE RANG almost immediately after Fernando plugged the cord back in on Sunday morning. Amal was brushing her hair when he handed her the receiver. Malika, sounding disturbingly cheerful, asked if Amal would like to go to the county museum. Amal said she had to study for her last final, but her mother sighed and complained about having to come halfway around the world just to be turned down by one’s only daughter. Amal felt a mixture of guilt and irritation, and guilt won out. (Is it not always so with mothers?)

She turned off the phone. “I have to go meet my mother.”

“All right,” Fernando said. “I guess I’ll go look at the apartments alone, then.”

“I’m sorry,” Amal said. “Maybe we can go when I get back? Or do you want to come with me to the museum?”

“I don’t think so, sweets. Your mother can barely stand to look at me.”

“I’m sorry.”

Fernando shook his head. “Not your fault. I’ll call or e-mail if the apartments are any good.”

WHEN AMAL ARRIVED at LACMA, the esplanade was packed with tourists. Her mother waved at her from outside the box office. “How did you get here?” her mother asked as she kissed her cheeks.