I wanted to call Detective Coleman to ask for news, but it was early yet, and so I kept myself busy cleaning house. I scrubbed the sinks, wiped the windowpanes, swept the floors. The bookcase took a while to dust, as I sat on the floor leafing through the paperbacks that lined it. Spy novels. Mysteries. Thrillers. Was that what my father came here to do all those weekends when he said he was renovating? Or were these books meant for the tourists?
By the time I was done cleaning, it was the middle of the day and I felt suddenly exhausted. I went to sleep in my clothes. Again, I dreamed about him. We were in a train station, filled with travelers rushing about, dragging their roller suitcases behind. The creaking of the wheels came from every direction, making it difficult to hear him, though he was standing right beside me. Hurry, Nor-eini. Hurry. We’re going to be late. When we went downstairs to our platform, I saw that we were not in a train station at all, but at a port. The ocean was cobalt blue and stretched before us endlessly. We managed to fit into a small boat with our bags. My father began to paddle, working his oar expertly, but I had trouble with mine. This way, Nora, he said. Look. Hold it this way. But the wooden handle kept slipping out of my hands.
I woke up in a sweat, my clothes sticking to me and the smell of household cleaner in my nostrils. After taking a shower, I glanced at the clock. It was finally time to call Detective Coleman. “We’re still investigating,” she said when I reached her. There were 251 silver Fords in town, she told me, and it would take some time to figure out which one was involved in the accident—and that was assuming that the car belonged to a local, not a tourist.
“Has anyone come forward? A witness?”
“No, no one yet.”
I tried to steel myself against more disappointment, but it came anyway. I would call Coleman again tomorrow, I thought. Perhaps tomorrow there would be some news.
Maryam
For a long time after my husband died, I felt as if I were caught in a heavy fog, unable to see my way forward, or even to perceive much of what was going on around me, the arrangements that my daughters were making, often without consulting me I should say, so that when I did speak, it was only to agree with a decision that had already been made. And yet that Thursday night, I forced myself to come out of the haze, put on some fresh clothes, and go see Sleeping Beauty at the elementary school. I did it for the sake of my grandchildren, who were only eight years old at the time; they didn’t know much about life, and therefore nothing at all about death. I walked into the school cafeteria thinking we would have a normal evening as a family, but my son-in-law wasn’t there, he had an emergency at the office, and my daughters started arguing about my husband’s will. They couldn’t even wait to get home to do it, they were yelling at each other in front of everyone, deaf to my pleas to lower their voices, and after a while I gave up, folded my hands in my lap, closed my eyes, and recited the Surat al-Nas, over and over again. I was so relieved to see the curtains part, and the king and queen appear onstage, that I started applauding like a madwoman.
When I was young, I was easily enchanted by new friends, new places, new ideas, but later the magic would wear off and I would see things for what they were. Other people were different, like my friend Karima Ait-Yaacoub, who was the voice of the student movement at the university in Casablanca, and I would say its face as well, because they put her on all the posters, after she went to prison. She was arrested early on, I think it was in 1979, they put her in Derb Moulay Cherif, which you may have heard of, perhaps, it was such a famous prison, if one can say that prisons are famous, maybe there is a better word for that kind of fame. Afterward, her husband was left to plead her case in and out of court, until he got himself arrested, too, distributing flyers for another protest, so that their children had to be taken out of school and sent to live with their grandmother in Midelt. I didn’t want that life for Driss and me.
After our friend Brahim was arrested, I told Driss we should move to California, but he disagreed with me. He was still in thrall to his Marxist ideas, and couldn’t see how foolish he was, placing his future in the hands of others. I am not proud of what I did next, though I had no other choice, how else was I going to convince him that he was putting his family at grave risk and that we needed to leave right away? When he came home from work the next day, I met him at the door. “The moqaddam was here,” I said, wiping my hands on my apron.
“What did he want?”
“He said there had been a car break-in down the street, so we should be careful where we park the Renault at night, but after I thanked him and was about to close the door, he started asking me questions about you. How you were doing these days, whether you took your exams, what your plans were.”
“Exams were canceled, he must know that,” Driss said with a frown. He pulled a cigarette from his packet of Casa Sport and peered at me anxiously. “You think he wants to report me?”
“Why else would he come here, asking all these questions?”
Driss walked past me to the balcony, where he sat smoking and thinking until the muezzin called the evening prayer, the streetlights turned on, and the neighbors began telling their children that it was time to come home.
All I ever wanted was to keep my family together. And we were, for several years after we came to this country, because Driss and I spent eighteen hours a day together, working at the donut shop, and as a result we grew very close, there were many moments when we could read each other’s mind or finish each other’s sentences. At night, we would tell Salma stories until she went to sleep, then we’d practice phrases from our English book, call my brother on the phone, compose letters to my sisters, gossip about our customers. But when I got pregnant with Nora, I was diagnosed with preeclampsia, probably caused by my blood pressure, which unfortunately is very high, Driss used to say it’s because I eat too much salt, but of course it’s also genetic, my mother suffered from it, too. The doctor ordered bed rest for the remainder of my pregnancy, imagine, no housework, no walking, not even to take Salma to school, no exercise of any kind.
I can still recall how long and lonely those six months were, being confined to my room all day, almost like being in a prison cell, especially because I am an active person, I enjoy doing things, not lying in bed, knitting or sleeping. I couldn’t even watch my afternoon talk shows because I had flashing lights in my vision, and the television made them worse. Every night, I waited for my husband to come home. “Talk to me, Driss,” I would say. “How was your day?”
But all he wanted to do after a long day at work, followed by cooking and cleaning at home, was to have some rest himself. Night after night, he would sit in his armchair, close his eyes, and say, “I’m too tired to talk.”
After I gave birth, I expected things would go back to the way they were before, but Nora cried all the time, and it wasn’t for the usual reasons, she didn’t have colic, she wasn’t hungry, her diaper wasn’t dirty. She could be in her crib, sleeping or playing, and suddenly she would start wailing, I could never figure out what was wrong with her. Eventually, I gave up working at the shop. I’m not saying I regret staying at home, how could I, my daughters are the light of my life, it’s just that I thought after all these sacrifices, at least my family would be close, but it surprised me to discover that my daughters lived in their own worlds.