Omar steps back from the satellite dish and slaps the dust off his hands. ‘Good. I’ll buy you another clothesline, Yamma. Don’t worry.’
‘Mashi mushkil.’ Aicha steps over the discarded paint cans and bends down to collect the workers’ dirty tagine pot. Finally, she has Omar on his own. It’s time to discuss the situation.
‘Zaina’s mother was here yesterday.’
Omar’s eyebrow twitches. ‘Oh, yes? She’s well? Everyone’s well?’
Aicha props the tagine pot on her hip as she picks dead leaves off her pots of pelargoniums. ‘Everyone’s well. But, you know, Zaina is getting older. Her parents are worried about her.’
Omar begins stacking concrete blocks into a neat pile. ‘No reason to worry about her. She’s a clever girl.’
‘Omar. You know what I’m talking about. You’re not so young. You must think about marriage. Zaina is waiting for you. You promised …’
‘Yamma, I didn’t promise anything. You promised her parents I’d marry her. Full stop.’
‘I don’t understand what the problem is. She cooks well. She cleans her parents’ house well. She’s young and healthy and very pretty. She’ll be a good mother.’
‘I’m sure you’re right.’
‘So, why are you waiting? They’ll marry Zaina to someone else soon.’
‘If Allah wills.’
‘Omar, I’m only thinking of you and your happiness. All you do is work. Your life is passing you by. Don’t you want to have a fine son?’
‘I think you want to have a fine grandson.’
Aicha twists her mouth into a pout. ‘What’s wrong with that? Yes, I want many grandchildren. We must think about Fatima as well. She must be married soon, even though she says no to everybody.’
‘Fatima can do as she likes. She’s a free Amazigh woman like the Queen Dihya of history. I won’t put my sister in a prison to make her marry someone she doesn’t want, like what happened to Uncle Rachid’s daughter. Fatima must be happy when she gets married. That’s my responsibility to her.’
‘Fatima thinks only of romance like she sees on the television. She has to be practical. It’s not easy to find her a husband because of her black skin, even if she’s your sister. It’s easy to find a good wife for you because you’re a hard worker. If you don’t want to marry Zaina, tell me. Everybody wants their daughter to marry you.’
Omar stacks the last concrete block onto the pile and sits down on it with a sigh. He rubs at the crease between his eyes.
‘I don’t like to talk about this situation. Anyway, maybe I’ll marry a foreign lady. It’s possible.’
Aicha bolts upright, dropping dried pelargonium leaves over the concrete.
‘You shouldn’t say things like that. You’re Amazigh. You must have an Amazigh wife.’
‘Uncle Rachid doesn’t have an Amazigh wife.’
‘He has an Arab wife, and this has caused many problems for him in his life.’
‘Yamma, I’m Amazigh, so I’m a free man. I can marry who I like. Anyway, I like a foreign lady. You met her.’
The beautiful woman with the red hair like a boy. Aicha shakes her head.
‘This is not a good situation, Omar. You’ll have problems with a foreign lady. Will she live in Zitoune? I don’t think so. She’ll want to be with her own people. She’ll make you live far away.’
Omar chews on his lip. His eye catches a movement and he looks up to see a falcon fluttering high in the blue sky, eyeing the green fields for prey. He couldn’t explain it. Why his heart jumped in his chest whenever he saw her. How her face haunted his mind. It wasn’t just Addy’s dream of seeing him the night before they met, though that was incredible. The moment he saw her in the bus, her face, red and sweaty from the ride, under the farmer’s hat, it was like they were magnets being drawn together. Like they knew each other already. Like all the days he’d lived had been steps to the moment they finally met.
‘I’ll have a big problem, then.’ He looks at his mother, at her still handsome face lined with worry. ‘She has captured my liver.’
Zitoune, Morocco – April 2009
Omar shouts through a window grille into his mother’s house. ‘Yamma! Fatima! Jedda!’
The blue metal door creaks open and Fatima steps out into the alley. Addy waves at her shyly from across the lane. Fatima pushes past Omar and runs up to Addy and kisses her on both cheeks.
‘Bonjour. Marhaba à la maison de Fatima,’ she says, welcoming Addy to her home. She grabs Addy’s hand and pulls her towards the door. ‘Viens avec moi pour le thé.’
Omar shakes his head. ‘Now my sister takes you away from me, Adi honey. It will be so hard for me to get you from her.’
Omar’s cell phone rings out the first notes of ‘Hotel California’. He wrinkles his nose at the screen and rejects the call. He slips the phone back into his pocket.
‘Was that the plumber, Omar? Shouldn’t you tell him you’re on your way to my house?’
‘He knows I’m coming. It’s urgent to fix the problem with your water.’
Fatima tugs at Addy’s hand and pulls her into the house.
Omar follows his sister and Addy into the narrow room that serves as both the living room and Fatima’s and Jedda’s bedroom. A low wooden table is set with a chocolate cake and plates of homemade cookies. Aicha greets Addy with several ‘Marhaba’s as she pours a stream of fragrant mint tea into tiny gold-rimmed glasses.
Fatima pats a place on the banquette next to her grandmother, Jedda, who grumbles and points to the opposite banquette with her cane. When Addy has settled sufficiently far enough away from Jedda, Fatima sits beside her and gives her a hug.
‘Stay with me, not with Omar,’ Fatima says to Addy in French. ‘You can be my sister.’
Omar picks up a handful of cookies and turns to leave. ‘Now I’m really jealous.’
Addy licks the sugary chocolate icing off her bottom lip, leans back against the flowered cushions and pats her stomach. ‘Shukran. Le gateau c’est très bon.’
Aicha smiles widely. She points to the chocolate cake sitting on a blue-and-white Chinese plate in the centre of the low round table. ‘Eesh caaka.’
Addy shakes her head. ‘Laa, shukran.’ Another piece of cake and she’d explode.
The Polaroid presses against her thigh. Aicha and Jedda would surely recognise Hanane. Zitoune was a small village. The type of village where everyone knew everyone else’s business. She reaches into her jeans pocket and pulls out the Polaroid, wrapped in her father’s blue letter. Leaning over the table, she hands the photo to Aicha.
‘Baba Adi,’ she says, pointing to Gus. My father.
Aicha squints at the photo, fine wrinkles fanning out from her deep-set amber eyes. Jedda taps Aicha’s arm impatiently with her stick. Aicha hands the old woman the Polaroid.
‘It’s my father in the picture,’ Addy says in French to Fatima. ‘He came to Zitoune many years ago. I’m trying to find the woman in the picture. I think she was from Zitoune. Can you ask your mother and your grandmother Jedda if they recognise