Laila Lalami - Hope and Other Dangerous Pursuits

“He’s a pig.”

“Why do you call him that?”

“Because he’s a fascist,” he said. He leaned back against the headrest as he spoke, telling her about his father, a retired army lieutenant who had served under Franco as a young man. It was a bit of a tradition in the family, Martín’s grandfather having served under Franco as well. Hearing the Generalissimo’s name stirred in Faten memories about her maternal grandfather, a proud Rifi who’d lost his eyesight during the rebellion in the north. It was mustard gas, he’d told his children, and he’d spent the rest of his life begging for a gun to put an end to it all. It was cancer that took him away, though, two years before Faten was born.

Martín said his father hated the immigrants. He shook his head. “But I’m not like him,” he said. “I like you.”

“You do,” she said, in her I’ve-heard-it-all-before voice.

Martín didn’t seem to mind the sarcasm. “I want to help you,” he said, stroking her arm. He said he could help her get her immigration papers, that he knew of loopholes in the law, that she could be legal, that she wouldn’t need to be on the streets, that she could get a real job, start a new life.

Faten had never expected anyone to make extravagant promises like these, and so she wasn’t sure whether she should laugh or say thank you. For a moment she allowed herself to imagine what a normal life would be like here, never having to see the men, being able to sleep at night, being able to look around her without worrying about the police at every turn. She began to wonder about the price of all this — after all, she had long ago learned that nothing was free. He laughed when he noticed her fixed gaze. “But first, tell me about yourself. Where did you live in Rabat?”

She shrugged. “An apartment.”

“With your parents?” he asked.

“My mother.”

“Any brothers or sisters?”

“No.”

“That’s unusual, isn’t it?” he asked. “I mean, being an only child, in your country.”

“I guess.”

“And did you wear those embroidered dresses? What are they called? Caftans?”

“Not really.”

He seemed disappointed and, looking down at the steering wheel, he bit his fingernails, tearing strands of cuticle with his teeth.

“What’s with all the questions?” she asked. “Are you doing a term paper about me?” she joked.

He threw his head back and laughed. “Of course not,” he said, slipping his hand down her thigh. She burrowed through her purse, looking for condoms, and discovered she was out. When she told him this, he said he had extras in the glove box. She opened it and, there, between CDs, maps, and gas-station receipts was a copy of the Qur’an.

“What’s this?” Faten said, sitting straight up, holding the book in her hand.

“Don’t touch that,” he said, putting it back.

“Why? Is it yours?”

“Yes, it’s mine.”

She blinked. The brusque tone was not something she was used to from him. “Why do you have it in your glove box?” she asked.

“I’m just reading up,” he said. He reached out and caressed her hair. “Can we get on with it?”

She nodded her head and passed him the condom. In her experience with men, she’d long concluded that even when they said they only wanted to talk, they always wound up wanting some action, too. Maybe Martín was no different after all.

When it was over she adjusted her miniskirt and buttoned her corduroy jacket. Martín’s questions and his offer of help had caught her unprepared; his wanting to have sex had disappointed her. She felt the same sadness that she had felt as a child, when she’d discovered that the silkworm she’d raised in a shoe box and lovingly fed mulberry leaves had died, despite all her care. She’d cried all day, wondering what she could have done differently to keep the worm alive, until her aunt came home and told her that that was what happened sometimes with silk worms — they died no matter how carefully you took care of them.

He started the engine. “I’ll drop you off if you want.”

She opened the door and got out. “I’ll just take a taxi.”

FATEN CLIMBED THE STAIRS to her apartment just as the garbage trucks were making their rounds. She heard one of the men hollering at another in Moroccan Arabic, telling him, as he emptied a bin, that the family at 565 had just had a baby. Cleaning out people’s trash, the men got to know everything about everyone’s lives. Sometimes Faten felt that way about herself, as though she had been entrusted with people’s secrets and her job was to dispose of them.

Faten found her roommate, Betoul, in the kitchen eating breakfast. Betoul worked as a nanny for a Spanish couple in Gran Vía, and she had to take an early bus in order to get there before 6:30, when the lady of the house required her help. Sometimes Betoul couldn’t resist talking about her bosses, how the wife was given to depression, how the husband liked to read his newspaper in the bathroom, leaving urine stains on the floor. But Faten didn’t like to hear about the husband at all. She heard enough from the men in her job.

Betoul was from Marrakesh, where she had two younger sisters in university, one brother who worked as a photographer, and another who was still in high school. She was one of those immigrants with the installment plan — she sent regular checks in the mail to help her brothers and sisters. In addition, she lived like a pauper for eleven months of the year, and then, in August, she flew home and spent whatever was left in her bank account. Of course, her yearly trips only made people back home think that she made a lot of money, and so she always came back with long lists of requests in her hand and new worry lines etched on her forehead.

In Morocco Betoul would never have lived with Faten, but here things were different. Here Betoul couldn’t put on any airs, the way she would have at home. She had moved in with Faten because the rent was cheaper than anything else she could find, allowing her to save even more money to send home.

Faten dropped her bag and keys on the counter. “Good morning.”

“Morning,” Betoul said. “You left the door unlocked last night.”

“I did? I’m sorry.”

“You should be more careful. Someone could have gotten in here.”

“I’m sorry,” Faten said. “I’ve been distracted lately.”

Betoul nodded and finished her slice of buttered bread. She drank the rest of her coffee standing. Then she put a few grains of heb rshad in a hermetically sealed plastic bag, which she stuffed in her purse.

“What’s that for?” asked Faten.

“For Ana,” Betoul said. Ana was the toddler, the youngest of the three children whom Betoul watched while their parents worked. “She’s had a bit of a cold, and so I thought of making her some hlib bheb rshad.”

“Why do you bother?” Faten asked.

Betoul zipped her purse closed.

“I’m sure Ana’s mother wouldn’t want you giving that to her anyway,” Faten said.

“What would you know of what she wants?”

“She’ll probably laugh at you and throw it out.”

“You’re the one that people laugh at — the way you sell your body.”

Faten felt her anger take over her fatigue. She had been wary of having Betoul as a roommate. She’d heard a rumor that back home, when Betoul had found out that her husband, a truck driver, had been cheating on her with a seamstress from Meknès, she’d put a sleeping pill in his soup and then drawn X’s on his cheeks with henna while he slept, leaving him marked for days. Faten had finally agreed to room with Betoul because she wanted someone with a day job, someone whom she wouldn’t see much.

“I’m not forcing you to stay here,” Faten said. “You can move if you want.”