Bitter Almonds by Laurence Cossé, Alison Anderson Read Free Book Online

letters, as the children call it, capital letters.
    She tells Fadila that there is indeed another type of handwriting besides the one they have been using together from the start. They must have been learning to write in capital letters at the literacy class.
    â€œWas it easier for you?”
    â€œYes.”
    There’s no harm in trying. Édith writes
FADILA
on a sheet of paper and asks Fadila to copy it out. Fadila picks up the felt-tip, but she hesitates, she can’t get started.
    Just below that, Édith writes the capital letters that make up the word, spaced well apart, and she shows her their place in her name, with the
A
coming twice. She explains rapidly that these are the same letters as in the other sort of writing, and they are called the same, they’re just drawn differently. She already gave up a while ago on trying to distinguish the vowels from the consonants, the red letters from the green.
    Guiding her hand to begin with, Édith has Fadila write the let­ters one after the other, and then she has her do it on her own. It doesn’t seem to demand too much effort. She manages quite well with the
F
, the
L
, and the
I
. She can’t make a pointed
A
, the tip is rounded. “It doesn’t matter,” says Édith, “we can still recognize it.” The
D
seems to be more difficult. Fadila has a hard time with it.
    Â 
    She comes again the next morning. She has written
FADILA
in this new handwriting, twice, and rather well, with the exception of the
D
which doesn’t look like anything.
    Ã‰dith has her work on the
D
. A vertical line, from top to bottom, and then a curve—she calls it “a belly.”
    She has her practice the
A
. One slanted line leaning one way, a second one leaning the other way, with a point at the top, then a little bar between the two.
    When the time comes to copy the letters, sure enough, Fadila manages quite well, except for the
D
.
    â€œSoon you’ll be able to sign your name,” says Édith. “That will be a major step.”
    â€œYes, my name, and telephone number, and is all, I think.”
    â€œNo, no. We’ll do more. When you know the names of the métro stations, you’ll be able to take it all by yourself.”
    Fadila doesn’t answer. She looks ahead, holding herself very straight: perhaps she is about to smile, or perhaps she won’t allow herself to dream.
    Â 
    They spend two more sessions on
FADILA
. They’ve regained their momentum.
    The second time, Fadila shows up with a sheet of paper full of
D
’s. She has copied the letter out a hundred times or more, with the end result that she can write it very well, as Édith points out to her.
    She asks her to write
FADILA
from memory.
    â€œAll alone?” asks Fadila.
    She hesitates, then she writes
ADIH
. “Last letter I forgetting.”
    â€œNot bad!” says Édith emphatically, hiding her bewilderment.
    Fadila is aware that there’s a letter missing at the end, but not at the beginning. She hasn’t registered that the
A
, the last letter of her name, is also the second letter, in other words that there are two
A
’s in her name, one in the second position and the other at the end. As for this unexpected
H
, where on earth did that come from? Is it some memory? Or a distortion of the
A
?
    Beneath
ADIH
, Édith writes
FADILA
and asks Fadila what is missing at the beginning of the word she has written. Fadila cannot figure it out on her own that it is the F, the first letter.
    Since she knows how to copy out her name from a model, Édith suggests a new exercise: she can work at home on writing it once with the model, then once without, to learn it by heart. Édith is the one who says “by heart.” Fadila says “in my head.”
    Â 
    She doesn’t bring back the paper but she has been working hard, she says.
    Ã‰dith has her write
FADILA
“in her head” (they are creating a