The Radiant City by Lauren B. Davis Read Free Book Online Page B

streaming down the window. “And unhappier still to see an Arab get ahead.”
     
    “Bitterness will only make your breath sour! I will not move again. How many times do I have to say this?” The old man strikes the table with the flat of his palm just as a girl walks in; she looks at them, hesitates.
     
    “Good morning,” Saida says with her friendliest smile and gestures with her hand to the sky. “Such dreadful weather.”
     
    “It’s September, fall already,” says the girl, stepping in, not looking at the men. “It’s the season. October will be worse.” She shakes her umbrella in the street and leaves it propped up against the door.
     
    “What can I get you?”
     
    “Espresso. A double to take out.”
     
    “Have a pastry to go with it, yes?”
     
    “No. Just the coffee,” says the girl, but she eyes the confections. “Oh, all right. Just one.”
     
    Saida wraps the baklava in waxpaper, then she picks out a fat piece of pistachio maamoul . “I give it to you. For later. You’ll like it.”
     
    After the girl leaves, the men resume their never-ending argument. To go. To stay. Finally, her father calls Ramzi ungrateful, which gives him an excuse to take off his apron and throw it on the floor. He walks out, leaving the old man in the doorway calling after him.
     
    Elias turns to Saida; his arms open wide as if he could catch understanding trying to escape. “What does he want? What does he want?”
     
    Saida shrugs. “A bigger life maybe. He’s young.”
     
    “He needs a wife. Not to be married is unnatural.”
     
    Saida looks at him but says nothing. The old man makes a sound, of apology perhaps, or merely confusion at the strange new world in which he finds himself.
     
    Ten minutes later Ramzi comes back again, and the day continues as all their days do, serving the customers who are only plentiful around lunchtime when they come in for falafels and kebbé of lamb or chicken. The rest of the time Ramzi makes plans behind his newspapers, Elias revisits grief-salted dreams of the past behind his, and Saida cleans, cooks, does the accounts and pays the bills.
     
    At five-thirty, she hears someone come in and looks up from the ledger book, expecting Joseph, who is already late, but it is not her son. It is the tall American, thin as a drug addict, whom Saida has seen in the square. She thought he was a tourist at first, but it seems he lives nearby.
     
    “Good morning,” she says. She decides when Joseph gets here she will skin him alive.
     
    The man returns the greeting and nods to her father and brother. He orders a café crème and sits at the counter. Saida watches him. He does not look healthy. There are red blotches on his skin, such fair skin, and his coppery hair is dull. He has a good nose, though, straight and long. And his chin shows character and strength. He holds his hand up over his mouth when he is not drinking. He moves slowly, deliberately, as though he plans his movements in advance. It strikes her that he is someone who is working very hard to look relaxed.
     
    Ramzi makes himself an espresso and sits down next to the American, flipping through a real estate paper from Montpellier. He runs his fingers down the page and picks at an ingrown hair on his jaw, near his ear. He makes small noises, which Saida knows indicate he would like to begin a conversation, but the man does not speak.
     
    “You are American, yes?” Ramzi says, finally.
     
    “Canadian.”
     
    “Canada? But not from Montreal, your French . . .”
     
    “Not very good, is it? No, I’m from the Maritimes. East of Quebec. By the sea. Nova Scotia. Pretty much all English.”
     
    “That’s all right. We speak English. Don’t we?” Saida and Elias agree that they do. “My father insisted on our education. You never know where you will end up, do you? It is good to keep in practise. So we will speak English with you.”
     
    “Fine,” says the Canadian and he smiles. It is a good smile,