Hope & Other Dangerous Pursuits Read Online Free

aside to drop them on her desk he saw her friend, a girl who sat on the chair by the window, her hands folded on her lap. She wore a gray, pilled sweater and an ankle-length denim skirt, and her hair was covered in a headscarf. Noura introduced her as Faten Khatibi, one of her classmates at the university in Rabat. Noura was supposed to have gone to NYU, but her scores on the standardized TOEFL exam were not high enough, and so she had to take a year of English at the public university. She was going to apply again in December. The delay had left her somewhat depressed, and the feeling was compounded by her loneliness—most of her friends from the private French lycée she’d attended had gone on to universities abroad.
    Larbi stepped into the room and cheerfully extended his hand to Faten, but Faten didn’t take it. “Pardon me,” she said. Her eyes shifted back to Noura and she smiled. Larbi dropped his hand awkwardly by his side. “Well.” There was unpleasant pause; Larbi could think of nothing to say. “I’ll leave you two alone.”
    As he went toward the kitchen to get a drink, Larbi heard the key turn in the lock. His wife, Salma, walked in, her leather satchel on one arm and a set of laundered shirts on the other. “Sorry I’m late,” she said. “The judgetook a long recess.” Larbi took the shirts from her, dropping them on a chair in the foyer. He asked her who Noura’s friend was. Salma shrugged. “Someone she met at school.”
    â€œShe’s not the type of girl I’ve seen her with before.”
    â€œYou mean she’s not an enfant gatée?” Salma gave him a little ironic smile. She had little patience with Noura’s friends, private-school kids who spent most of their time worrying about their clothes or their cars. Years ago, Salma had disapproved of the idea of Noura’s going to a French school, and Larbi himself had occasionally felt guilty that his own daughter was not part of the school system he helped to administer. Yet he had insisted; his daughter had so much potential, and he wanted her to succeed. Surely even an idealist like Salma could understand that.
    â€œI just don’t want her to mix with the wrong type,” he said.
    â€œShe’ll be fine,” Salma said, giving him that woman-of the-people look she affected from time to time and which irritated him supremely—just because she took on several cases every year for free and was active in the Moroccan Association of Human Rights didn’t mean she knew any better than Larbi.
    F ATEN BECAME A REGULAR visitor in Larbi’s home. He grew accustomed to seeing her hooded figure in the corridor and her shoes with their thick, curled soles outside Noura’s door. Now that Noura spent so much time with her, Larbi watched Sunday-afternoon football matches by himself. This week his beloved FUS of Rabat were playing their archrivals, the Widad of Casablanca. Salma, for whom football was only slightly more exciting than waiting for a pot of tea to brew, went to take a nap. When Larbi went to the kitchen at halftime to get a beer, he heard Faten’s voice. “The injustice we see every day,” she said, “is proof enough of the corruption of King Hassan, the government, and the political parties. But if we had been better Muslims, perhaps these problems wouldn’t have been visited on our nation and on our brethren elsewhere.”
    â€œWhat do you mean?” Noura asked.
    â€œOnly by purifying our thoughts and our actions …”
    Larbi walked a few steps down the hallway to Noura’s open door, which she promptly closed when she saw him. He retreated to the living room, where he smoked his Marlboros, drank more beer, and barely paid any attention to the rest of the match.
    Immediately after Faten’s departure, Larbi knocked on Noura’s door to ask what their conversation had beenabout. He stood close to