There was a knock on the door. Rachida set aside the artichokes and went to answer. On her doorstep was a young woman in a sleeveless white shirt and blue pants, her right arm clutching a large red handbag. She had on diamond earrings and a turquoise necklace, which made Rachida worry for her safety. She was obviously not from the neighborhood. Rachida wanted to put her arms around her to protect her — she had the look of someone for whom the world had not yet taken off its mask.
“Good morning, a-lalla,” the girl said. “Is this Youssef’s house?”
“Yes, it is. Who’s asking for him?” Rachida said, leaning forward to take a closer look at Youssef’s friend. Could she be an old classmate from university? Perhaps Rachida could enlist her help in convincing Youssef to go back to college.
The girl seemed to hesitate. She turned to look up the street, as if expecting Youssef to magically appear from that direction, then said, “My name is Amal Amrani.”
Rachida felt her stomach drop. Here she was, worrying about getting her son back into university, back to the life he had before his father appeared in it, and who should show up on her doorstep but one of his people? The only thing that kept Rachida from closing the door in Amal’s face was that look of hesitation and vulnerability. It tugged at her instincts.
“May I come in?” Amal asked softly.
Almost despite herself, Rachida opened the door wide. Amal walked in and sat down on the divan in the yard. She let go of her handbag, but it balanced precariously on her lap, so that the slightest movement could make it tumble forward. She looked around — at the pot of artichoke hearts, the washtub full of dirty laundry, the water closet with the broken lock — taking great care not to let her eyes rest on any single item for too long. “I think perhaps you know who I am,” she said.
Rachida had begun to warm up to this strange girl, but now she was irritated with her. Was arrogance passed down from father to daughter? “No. Who are you?”
“I’m sorry,” Amal said. She looked searchingly at Rachida. “I thought Youssef might have told you about me.” She waited for Rachida to say something. When nothing came, she drew her breath: “I am his sister.”
Something about the way she spoke those words made it seem that they had crossed her lips for the first time. Hearing them, Rachida felt a visceral need to turn around, to walk away from the reality to which even her best approximations, her most convincing lies, could not compare. All she had ever wanted was to give Youssef a family he could call his own. She had created stories and memories to which he could relate, so when he told her he had met his father, she had been dumbstruck; she did not understand why the comfortable world she had created had not been enough for him. But now, with Amal in her living room, quietly saying she was Youssef’s sister, Rachida saw clearly that her words had been powerless against reality.
“I wanted to talk to him,” Amal said.
“He’s not here,” Rachida repeated, her voice coming out hoarse. She cursed herself for having let Amal in. What if Youssef came home now and found her here? It would inevitably send him into another fit of questions about the past, about his father, or, worse, about his father’s sudden change of heart. “What did you want to tell him?”
Amal’s face fell. She seemed not to have considered the idea that people were not going to be waiting for her when she needed to talk to them. Again, Rachida felt sorry for her — such ignorance, such innocence. Many years ago, when Rachida had arrived in the Amrani family home near Fès, she, too, had been ignorant and innocent. She had let herself believe that Nabil Amrani was in love with her. Love was new. Love was intoxicating. Love gave license to the ultimate of taboos: sleeping with a married man, a married man whose pregnant wife was on bed rest. When Rachida herself became pregnant and Nabil Amrani’s mother ordered her to get an abortion, Rachida had refused and had returned to the orphanage with nothing but her dashed dreams and a baby growing inside her. Nabil’s reputation had been safeguarded; her life had been ruined.
“I just wanted to meet him,” Amal said. “I didn’t know about him until last June, when my mother came to visit me in Los Angeles.”
Rachida looked away at the mention of Malika Amrani. Did Amal know anything about Rachida’s visit to the mansion in Anfa? Surely, Malika would not have been so foolish as to talk about their conversation on the terrace that warm afternoon. Rachida had worn her best clothes — a navy blue jacket with matching pants, her only pair of gold earrings — and had come to the door of the Amrani house. She told the maid she was the nurse who had watched over Malika’s pregnancy twenty-two years ago, and that she was here about an urgent matter. Malika Amrani recognized her immediately, kissed her cheeks, welcomed her in, and ordered tea to be served outside. She looked at Rachida with patient eyes, waiting for a favor to be asked. Why would she think otherwise? Favors were commonly asked of a woman of her station. Although Malika was older than Rachida, she looked younger. Her hair was expertly cut, her face was carefully made up, her nails were manicured, and she seemed at ease with all the comforts around her. Rachida kept her chapped hands on her lap, hidden by the tablecloth. She spoke as softly as she could. The truth was hard to speak and — she knew — to hear.
The words formed short, simple sentences, but the propositions beneath them were filled with urgency and purpose: your husband has my son; take back your husband; give me back my son; and we can go back to the arrangement I made twenty-two years ago, with your husband’s mother, the other Madame Amrani. What mattered to Malika Amrani was what mattered to Rachida Ouchak: each wanted to protect her family. The two of them had come to an understanding because they had a common interest. All the other details were best forgotten, slipped under the rug of memory.
And all of it was Nabil Amrani’s fault, as far as Rachida was concerned. He should not have taken Youssef away and turned him into someone she barely recognized. She remembered walking into the back office at the hospital and finding Youssef standing by the detergent shelf, tall and handsome. He wore a polo shirt with the insignia of the Royal Golf Dar Es Salam, and a pair of fancy leather shoes. His posture had changed, his speech was peppered with words she was not used to hearing on his lips, and he had a new set of mannerisms, as if he were imitating someone. He was slipping away from her grasp. She might have been able to live through this loss if she had been sure he was going to make something of himself. But when he said he had stopped going to school, an animal rage awoke in her. She had worked so much, and for so long, to see him graduate from college, and now he had thrown it all away for the promises his father had made him. She had to do something.
Getting Youssef back had been the easy part; it was keeping him that turned out to be difficult. Although he tried not to let on, he was still yearning for his father, Rachida knew, and his sister’s visit would only heighten that feeling. She looked at Amal, at this girl who could have been her own, had the world been different. “I know you didn’t know about Youssef’s existence. But there isn’t anything you can do now.”