Hope & Other Dangerous Pursuits by Laila Lalami Read Free Book Online Page B

kitchen and rolled the round table on its edge, setting it down in the courtyard, between the divan and the car seats the children had rescued from the trash heap a few blocks down. When it rained, the family had to eat in the kitchen, elbow to elbow on the cane mat, but today it was sunny and they could eat their dinner by daylight. No need to use the gas lamp.
    Halima’s daughter, Mouna, was the first to come home, her braids swinging on both sides of her head as she pushedthe metal door open. Halima caught her breath. With her high forehead and aquiline nose, Mouna looked so much like her father. Mouna asked if she could go to the neighbor’s house for dinner. Halima slipped her arm around her daughter’s waist. “Stay here with me,” she said.
    â€œCan we eat dinner now, then?” Mouna asked, in a whining tone.
    â€œWe have to wait for your father.”
    Mouna sighed, loudly, dramatically. The boys had gotten unruly—lately Farid had started talking back—but, Halima thought, Mouna was a good child, she would go far. She could have everything Halima had wanted for herself—if only the family could get out of the shanty-town, with its dirty alleys where teenagers sniffed glue by day and roamed around in bands at night.
    Mouna’s younger brothers, Farid and Amin, walked in and dropped their schoolbags on the floor. The three children decided on a game of cards. “Don’t cheat,” warned Amin, the youngest. They sat on the ground in a patch of sunlight and started to play. Above them, flies danced in a never-ending circle.
    For days after he beat Halima, Maati would sulk. Hours would go by, she’d wait for him to apologize or at least speak to her; but he never did, and she’d give up waitingand end up trying to console him, as though
he
were the one who’d been beaten. But tonight he came home with an apologetic look on his face. He let her sit on the divan with the children and took a car seat for himself, then served the tea. Halima watched as he ate his rghaif, finishing each one in only three bites. One thing that could be said for him was that he had a healthy appetite. If only he’d help out instead of drinking his money and eating hers. “These are delicious,” he said, a smile on his face.
    After dinner Halima cleared the table and sent the children to play outside. She was at the kitchen sink when Maati came up behind her, wrapping one arm around her shoulders. He kissed her neck and she felt it burn with heat. He still had that effect on her, even after ten years of marriage. When they had met at a neighbor’s wedding, she’d immediately been attracted to his magnetic eyes, to his body, so thin yet full of pent-up energy. They had married only weeks later and had three children in four years before Halima went to the family planning clinic and got the Pill.
    â€œLeave the dishes,” he said. “You can do them later.” He pulled her away from the sink, his hand on her wrist, and took her back to the courtyard, where they sat down on the divan. His skin felt softer than hers, yet his fingershad left a mark on her wrist where he had pulled her. He leaned in and kissed her palm. I shouldn’t have doubted my mother, Halima thought. The powder is working.
    T HE NEXT DAY , Halima was waiting for the bus that would take her to the fish market at the Casablanca port, when she spotted a crisp fifty-dirham bill on the dusty sidewalk. What luck! That same morning, Maati had promised her he’d stop drinking and now this. When she got on the bus the attendant said he had an extra ticket that someone had bought by mistake and she could have it for ten rials. She smiled and put the ticket in her wallet. She found a seat by the window and looked at the outside world through the smudged glass. Buildings with peeling walls and satellite dishes flashed by, occasionally interrupted by palm trees.
    At the market entrance, a