bedroom. “I have to dress and get down to the café. Make sure Ramzi meets the delivery. And listen to me, Joseph,” she calls to him as she pulls a navy blue dress from the closet, “I mean it. You go to school today. All day. And come to the café as soon as you’re finished. I want to see what the homework is.” She hears him in the bathroom. “Do you hear me?”
“I’ve got soccer after school.”
Saida knows this is not true. She wants it to be true, but she knows he does not go to soccer, although it is an excuse he uses often. There are never any soccer clothes to wash. Never a soccer ball in the house. As far as she knows he owns no soccer shoes though he says he keeps them at school.
She does not want to call his bluff and telephone the school. Although she would never say this to her son, she dislikes the teachers at his school almost as much as he does. The tone of voice they use, as if their mouths are full of sour pickles, makes it clear they hold no respect for her—just another Arab woman raising a child alone, and one who bears the taint of her hardscrabble life in the texture of her very skin. The headmistress, Madame Brossard, lumps her into the same stew with Algerians, Tunisians, Moroccans. How can she explain who she is to the Parisians, who never go into Barbès, let alone beyond the pé riph é rique , into the housing projects where most of the immigrant population live? Her father once an engineer, her mother once a teacher just like them. Saida speaks three languages, how many do they speak? It’s no use, and she suspects it’s as little use for her son, who doubly condemns himself because he makes his friends among the beur s, those hard-eyed, slouching, baggy-clothed boys who try so hard to look like American rappers and who everyone assumes steal wallets on the subway whether they do or not. And her son does not. Of this she is sure.
She pulls her tights up under her dress. “I will call the school, Joseph; I will find out if you have soccer or not. Don’t make me do that.” He says something she can’t hear over the flushing of the toilet. “What?”
“Call if you want. I have soccer.”
“I will call. Don’t you think I won’t. And if I find out you are lying to me, I will tell your grandfather, I will tell your uncle. And you know what they will do. You’ll be locked in your room for a month.”
“I don’t have a room. Besides, I’m too old for all that. I make my own decisions.”
Saida wraps a scarf around her neck. She says nothing for a moment, letting him think about the consequences of his words. It’s natural he would push the limits. It’s his age.
“You can’t treat me like a child anymore,” Joseph says, standing in the doorway, his hand on his hips. Her beautiful son. Bold and brazen as he should be. Saida smiles at him, then narrows her eyes, purses her lips and shakes her head at him in a parody of his own expression until he laughs.
“Such a mean man you’ll grow up to be.”
“I’m almost grown now.” He shuffles back and forth, afraid to look foolish.
“Almost grown isn’t grown. Be at the café this afternoon. I need you to take your grandfather to the doctor. He has to have his blood pressure checked.” And Joseph sighs deeply so she will know how he suffers, but Saida understands she has won this round at least.
Oh, the men in my life, she thinks. So many men and always everyone needing something. Where is the air left for me to breathe, and when the time for me to breathe it in?
Chapter Five
It is just after nine o’clock when Matthew finds the Bok-Bok, in the mostly Arab neighbourhood known as Belleville, in the 20th arrondissement, where windows full of oriental pastries and shops selling prayer rugs and Korans line the streets. As he walks, he keeps his eye on a group of twenty-something North African men wearing track suits and