Bitter Almonds (12 page)

She thinks of Fadila. Tonight Édith is being asked to enter a mental world that is unfamiliar; to discover signs, a language, a system of symbols that are disconcerting. It's going too fast. She is lost. She feels too old. She can't cope. And yet she knows it will be to her benefit, and she's prepared to make an effort. It's all so complicated, so tiresome.

She is also perfectly aware that the effort she is being asked to make is nowhere near as great as what she regularly expects from Fadila. Her instructor is speaking to her in her native language, and affectionately. She has been using computers for years. The adjustment she is being asked to make is marginal, and clearly defined.

 

“We gotta do is something different,” says Fadila.

Édith would like nothing better. She writes, then reads,
LAUNDRY
. “Do you remember?” Fadila copies out the word.

Édith has her write the first letter on her own,
L
, and then next to it, the second one,
A
. She points to
LA
and asks her, “What does that make,
L
and
A
?”

“
Fa
,” says Fadila.

She takes her homework sheets with her. She almost never brings them back. And every time she says the same thing: “I doing a lot but forgetting the paper.” “I forgetting the paper but is doing a lot.” “I doing everything but is leaving paper at Zora's house.”

One days Édith suspects she is making things up, so she says, neutrally, “It doesn't matter if you don't bring the paper back. What does matter is that you worked. I can tell when you've been practicing. Because it goes well.”

And the more time goes by, the more often Fadila says, straight out, “I no doing writing. I'm too tired.”

 

Martin had a little time off at the beginning of the afternoon. One of his teachers was absent, and there was a free period. He called his paternal grandmother, who lives two métro stops from the lycée, and invited himself to lunch at her place.

He told his mother the story when he got home. Fadila overheard, and paused in her ironing: “Is nice boy, Martin. Is my grandchildren they never coming to see me. They saying, ‘Why you no coming my house?' I'm old, I no have car, they wanting me go see them? No is possible!”

“It's nice at least that they invite you.”

“Nice? Is no nice! Sometimes is making sad, I start crying.”

“You mustn't cry, Fadila.”

“Is not me crying, is my heart.”

Fadila's got the numbers down, more or less. She knows how to read them and use them. Writing is another matter, and memorizing them harder still.

They work on Fadila's telephone number and the electronic code for the entrance to her building, B862.

Fadila knows her code, she uses it every day. She can even write it from memory from time to time, with her own special way of making the
2
.

She has greater difficulty with the telephone number. She still doesn't know it by heart. She copies it without too much effort, but certain numbers give her a hard time, the
2
,
4
,
5
, and
7
.

The hardest of all is the
4
. Édith guides her hand and breaks the gesture into three consecutive movements corresponding to the three pencil strokes. She says, just as she had to the children, “It looks like a little chair.”

 

“I am sure you can write the beginning of your telephone number from memory,” she ventures.

Fadila writes
01
, then an illegible little sign, a sort of poorly made
K
. Édith asks her to take a good look at the
4
. Fadila gives it a rounded back. Édith mimes the three pencil strokes: there is no curve to a
4
, only three straight lines: the first two must be drawn without lifting the pen, and then the third one, this time after lifting the pen. Fadila does a series of impeccable
4
's.

 

From memory she writes
01 40.
The
4
is perfect. Édith claps her hands.

“Is easy,” says Fadila, and for the twentieth time, Édith assures her that writing letters can be just as easy.

She has her work on the next two digits from her telephone number, the
7
and the
2.
Two digits that give her trouble.

After five minutes Fadila lays down her pen. “That's enough for today,” she says, coming out as she does from time to time with a perfect expression, perfectly pronounced.

 

She has a glum expression on her face. Her telephone line has been cut. She doesn't understand why, she's never been late with her payments.

She has brought her latest bill with her. She asks Édith to call France Télécom.

Over the phone, the representative does not take long to find the problem. France Télécom didn't cut the line; rather, Fadila herself asked to change carriers.

Édith relays this information to Fadila, and she exclaims, “Ah, is Nassima!” Nassima, her cousin, persuaded her to change carriers so she would have “free telephone.” Nassima's husband said he would take care of it, over the internet. End result: Fadila has no more phone.

She fulminates. “I swearing, Nassima no do nothing only stupid things.”

Once again she takes the measure of what it has cost her not to know how to read and write. “You is right making me go to school,” she says to Édith.

 

Things are looking better. Her daughter-in-law has cancelled, in writing, her contract with the “feebok” and signed her up again with France Télécom. Her line is working again. It takes a while for Édith to understand that “feebok” is “free-box,” the miracle system that allows you to make phone calls, watch television, and have internet access all for next to nothing.

“Is not only me is telephone no working,” says Fadila. It's an obvious scam. It costs e30 to sign up. To cancel the contract you have to pay e100. Everyone signs up and then cancels, and the “feebok” rakes in a tidy sum. “If ever I finding TV reporter, I no care, I tell him.”

 

She brings in a sheet of paper with her own work on numbers. Her telephone number, to be precise. “Is okay, the number?” she asks.

Yes and no. Yes, with the exception that the
2
is still a
9
facing the wrong way, and of the two
7
's, one is correct and the other is backwards.

It looks as if all Fadila is doing, still, is copying, without knowing what the numbers actually stand for: it's more like drawing (approximate, clumsy) than reading. Édith makes her work on the
2
, which she has so much trouble with, and the
7
, which doesn't seem as hard.

 

But the following Tuesday, it's the other way round: Fadila cannot write the
7,
whereas she gets the
2
right first try.

“I having to learning telephone numbers is my children,” she says.

“Learn, learn.” Édith points out that most people have a little notebook with an index where they list the numbers they need.

The index: this could be a way to study the letters, the initials and the very purpose of setting them apart like that. Édith has an unused address book. She has Fadila copy out
AÏCHA
under
A
,
NASSER
under
N
. “Do you want to learn Zora?”

“Is you writing.”

“Look, this is the
Z
, the last letter, on the last page.”

No sooner has she written
ZORA
than Fadila gets up, leaving the address book on the table. Édith hands it to her: “It's for you.”

“What is do if I taking?” asks Fadila. “I no doing nothing.”

“What you can do,” says Édith, who would like to mobilize Fadila's family if she can, “is to ask your children, and other people around you, to write their name and telephone number in the notebook, on the right page.”

“All right,” says Fadila. “Give it to me.”

But Édith gets the impression she has taken it out of politeness, not to refuse a gift twice.

 

Fadila overhears Édith on the telephone, first protesting, then suddenly silent. Finally she hangs up and just stands there, lost in thought.

She goes over to her: “Is something wrong?”

Yes, explains Édith. Something to do with her work. A thief. A publisher who had her do a long translation, and now he won't pay her. A brazen liar.

“Is worse things than that,” says Fadila, reassured. “Is getting sick and no getting better, is somebody dying . . .”

 

In theory she can write the first eight digits of her telephone number from memory, 01 40 72 75, but in practice it's never a given. Sometimes she forgets the zero at the beginning, or the zero in the fourth position. And yet that zero, of all the numbers, is the one that gives her the least trouble, both to identify and to write.

Which all goes to make for a very small gain. But now Fadila will be able to take down a number over the phone. Édith remembers how one day she had to leave a number on Fadila's answering machine, not her home number: she carefully said one digit after the other and asked her to call back. Fadila had not returned the call, and later she explained that as she did not know how to write down a number, she could not use it.

*

No, this Tuesday she won't do any reading. She has a headache. She has caught cold. She freezes at night in her little room. It's not that she doesn't have any heating: her son has given her an electric radiator. But the device doesn't have a thermostat, so if she switches it on when she goes to bed, even on the lowest temperature, after a few hours she is suffocating. So she sleeps without the heat on.

 

What about the address book where she was going to have her family write their numbers? She doesn't know where she's put it. She showed it to her daughter-in-law, she must have left it at her place.

 

Luc comes home from school. On his way to leave his schoolbag in his room he says hello to Fadila, who is ironing.

Édith didn't notice. But Fadila comes to her and says: “Is beautiful boy, Luc, I being very happy. Even if isn't my kid is making me very happy. I asking God for good health for him always. Your children is very nice. They showing respect, they combing their hair. Some children is wearing something here (she pinches her ear), or here (she pinches her nostrils), is trousers dragging in cat wee, is make me furious, not you?”

Christmas? No, she didn't have a good time. She would rather not talk about it.
But then she says, “You think is normal is old woman all alone Christmas Eve? Is not even go the dinner with her family?”

 

All too often she is tired, hasn't got time, doesn't feel like it; she won't work with Édith that day.

Sometimes just before leaving she asks hastily for some homework; Édith gets the impression it is just to make her teacher happy. It's not as if she brings the worksheet back with her; she just says, “next time.”

Fadila must have been very disappointed not to have been admitted to any of the literacy courses. She must have seen this as a sign that no one thought she was even capable of learning how to read. Édith cannot persuade her to get back into a more sustained work rhythm. It's as if Fadila has lost faith.

 

One day by chance Édith runs into her cousin, Sara, on the rue de Rennes; that long mane of red hair, as she stands unlocking her bike, is unmistakable. Édith goes up to her and relates her difficulties with Fadila, and her own doubts about her abilities as a teacher.

“You know,” says Sara as she straddles her bike, “it's very rare that people with a background like your lady's really manage to learn to read and write. They may learn to write their name, or read a few useful everyday words, the ones they see in the street or in the shops, the ones they need to fill in a form for sick leave. But to get to the point where they can read a book, or even the newspaper, that would be exceptional.”

 

It's not the best time to begin, either, at the end of the day, when everyone else has finished work. But Fadila is no longer willing to start the lesson upon arrival. Édith wonders if it isn't simply that in the evening she can blame the time of day or her fatigue to get the lesson over with more quickly, or even postpone it until another time.

 

Her first name: she hesitates. She writes
FADI
then stops. Édith tries to help her find what is wrong. “Is just one number missing,” says Fadila. “I know is five.”

Édith hasn't got the heart to tell her that in this case it is letters, not numbers, and that there aren't five, but six altogether. She adds
LA
to
FADI
and says, “The
L
and the
A
.” But there are no clear signs that Fadila has understood, or that her analytical approach is the right one.

She remembers—why just now?—how at the very beginning she had started off by separating vowels from consonants, the former were red, the latter green . . . The luxury of a rich person. An idiotic rich person.

 

They read the words Fadila knows.
LARBIT
: Fadila initially says Nasser. (In the beginning she always hurries, answering at random; then she gets hold of herself, and makes fewer mistakes.)
AÏCHA
: she reads
Fadila
.
FADILA
: she says, “Is me.”

Édith writes
ME
for her: “Here, this is me.” Fadila laughs, points to
FADILA
, she's understood: “Is my name.”

“That's right,” says Édith. “Good, your reading is fine, let's learn a new word.”

Fadila laughs: “You thinking is fine? Is no fine at all!”

“Let's look at a new word,” says Édith again. “
Madame
. You know that you are Madame Amrani. You have
Madame
Amrani
on the letters you get. Perhaps you have a letter in your handbag right now?”