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

shared language). Fadila writes
ADILHA
.
    Again the initial
F
is missing. Which means Fadila must not identify it as the letter that carries the sound f. She doesn’t set it apart. Does this mean she’d be ill advised to start with the phonics method?
    On the other hand, given the fact she has written
ADILHA
, does this mean that the whole language method suits her better? She has the right number of letters, even if the
F
is missing and the
H
shouldn’t be there—this mysterious
H
.
    Â 
    Every day on television there are reports about sub-Saharan clandestine emigrants, young black men who volunteer to pass through Morocco in their effort to reach the Canary Islands by sea. They pay smugglers and set sail on leaky tubs, at night, risking their lives. The number of shipwrecks has increased because the network is doing well: there have been more and more attempts. Reporters tell stories of distraught survivors, and candidates for departure await their turn, hidden just behind the shore. Planned itineraries have been reconstructed. Those who stayed behind are interrogated: the families, the mothers in the villages they abandoned.
    Fadila has neither compassion nor even indulgence for these people who are prepared to risk everything. “People say is poverty, but is not poverty. In the village there is bread. That guy drown, he do better had stayed in the village. But people they no want just eating, they want big car, big house, all that.” When she was a child, she says, no one in her village had a car, or a television, or a telephone. People had food on the table, nothing more, but they didn’t think about crossing the sea.

9
    Early one afternoon Édith comes home to find Fadila outside her door on the sidewalk, extremely irritated. She was meant to meet her daughter at two o’clock and the door was locked, Aïcha was not at home. Édith suggests they call her on her cell phone, assuming Fadila has a cell phone; she does indeed but—the usual problem—Fadila does not know how to find Aïcha’s number in her little notebook.
    â€œAïcha not keeping her word,” she grumbles.
    Ã‰dith points out that Aïcha is not the only one who doesn’t respect the time. They have already discussed it; it is the only cause of friction between them and, after all, if Fadila finds it difficult to put up with people who fail to show up, perhaps she might be prepared to see that other people find it irritating, too.
    Ã‰dith fully expects Fadila to put her in her place, but she doesn’t: “Is true,” says Fadila, “is problem with Moroccans, they no keep their word.”
    She adds that perhaps Aïcha’s daughter called her, as she is about to have her baby. But since she is already there, she’ll come up and do the ironing, she says to Édith, without asking her whether it’s a suitable time or not.
    Ã‰dith is afraid that Fadila will be too annoyed now to want to work on her reading. Nevertheless, she suggests that they start with that, and Fadila accepts.
    Â 
    They go over the numbers, it’s a good day for telephone numbers: Fadila’s, Édith’s. Fadila can identify her own number without hesitation.
    â€œHow do you recognize it?” asks Édith.
    Fadila can’t explain. She doesn’t point to any given number that she can recognize in particular. “I just knowing, is all.”
    But she does not know her number so well that she can write it on her own.
    Experts are unanimous in affirming that writing is reading. Writing the digits helps to learn them. Fadila is stumbling over the
2
and the
9
, which look very similar the way she draws them. Édith repeats that it is vital always to draw the numbers the same way. Fadila looks at her skeptically, as if to say, that really does complicate things unnecessarily.
    Â 
    Fadila arrives late, and Édith is on her way out. They make an appointment for six