bedroom and, with considerable concern in her voice, said, ‘I just don’t know what we’re going to do.’
Houria smiled and told her, ‘Don’t try sorting out the rest of your life tonight, darling. You’ll see, it’ll all work out in the most unexpected ways.’
And so they went off to bed in their separate rooms and both of them lay awake thinking about everythingfor a very long time. Houria was the first to go to sleep—Sabiha heard her snoring through the door. Then Sabiha herself went to sleep. She dreamed she was at home in El Djem in her own bed, her sister Zahira sleeping in the bed next to her. She was comforted by the crack of light coming under the door just the way it used to when she was a little girl, knowing it signified that her dear father was sitting up late composing one of his pamphlets for the movement. She wanted to get up and go out to him and put her arms around his shoulders and kiss him on his unshaved cheek and tell him she was happy. But she couldn’t move.
Chapter Eight
A bitterly cold January morning, two and a half years after Sabiha and John had spent their day together in Chartres. Sabiha was holding the back door of the café open for John. It was still dark outside, the light from the kitchen spilling into the laneway. A blast of frigid air drove down the lane and Sabiha drew back, almost losing her grip on the door.
John leaned down and kissed her on the cheek as he went past, raising his voice against the wind. ‘See you later, darling.’ He stepped out into the lane, turning his head aside from the needles of sleet whipping against his cheeks. His overcoat collar was turned up and he was wearing a green woollen scarf around his neck and a black cap on his head, the shiny peak of the cap catching the light like a startled eye as he went by her. John had not shaved and he looked older, a man withcares and responsibilities that did not sit easily with him just at this moment. He bent forward and hurried across to the van, carrying the last tray of the day’s orders, the white cloth lifting and flapping, pinned at two corners by his thumbs.
Sabiha watched him struggling to slide the tray into the back of the van. The runners he had made to take the trays were not perfectly square and there was always a bit of jiggling to be done to get the trays to slide in. He was forever promising to take the runners out and realign them. But he never did. His skill at carpentry, it had turned out, was more make-do than pretty good. He knocked things together and declared them near enough. His heart wasn’t in it. It was all temporary for him. Not part of a life’s work, but measures for the time being. He stood back and closed the van doors, turned and gave her a wave, then went around to the driver’s side. He yanked the door open and climbed in. His tall frame was too big for the tiny cabin and he had to hunch himself up to fit in.
Crouched in the cab, John was evidently a man in some kind of diving bell about to descend into the solitary depths. His mother, had she been able to see him at this moment, would have laughed at him; her laughter fond, loving, good-natured, amused and pained by the lanky fool her boy had turned into.‘Look at yourself, John!’ she would have shouted at him. As she often had. ‘Look at yourself!’ So he did, seeing himself through his mother’s eyes more readily than through his own—and laughed, too, at the man he was, the man he had
become.
A puzzle not only to his mother but to himself as well. His mother had seen herself in him and encouraged him to travel, imagining the remedy might lie in seeing the world: ‘Get out and see the world or you’ll end up like your father, stuck here in the back blocks for the rest of your days.’ His father grinned to hear her say such things. His father loved the farm. His father was a contented man and had no need of the great world; it was enough for Jim Patterner to have his thirty breeders and a good
Houria smiled and told her, ‘Don’t try sorting out the rest of your life tonight, darling. You’ll see, it’ll all work out in the most unexpected ways.’
And so they went off to bed in their separate rooms and both of them lay awake thinking about everythingfor a very long time. Houria was the first to go to sleep—Sabiha heard her snoring through the door. Then Sabiha herself went to sleep. She dreamed she was at home in El Djem in her own bed, her sister Zahira sleeping in the bed next to her. She was comforted by the crack of light coming under the door just the way it used to when she was a little girl, knowing it signified that her dear father was sitting up late composing one of his pamphlets for the movement. She wanted to get up and go out to him and put her arms around his shoulders and kiss him on his unshaved cheek and tell him she was happy. But she couldn’t move.
Chapter Eight
A bitterly cold January morning, two and a half years after Sabiha and John had spent their day together in Chartres. Sabiha was holding the back door of the café open for John. It was still dark outside, the light from the kitchen spilling into the laneway. A blast of frigid air drove down the lane and Sabiha drew back, almost losing her grip on the door.
John leaned down and kissed her on the cheek as he went past, raising his voice against the wind. ‘See you later, darling.’ He stepped out into the lane, turning his head aside from the needles of sleet whipping against his cheeks. His overcoat collar was turned up and he was wearing a green woollen scarf around his neck and a black cap on his head, the shiny peak of the cap catching the light like a startled eye as he went by her. John had not shaved and he looked older, a man withcares and responsibilities that did not sit easily with him just at this moment. He bent forward and hurried across to the van, carrying the last tray of the day’s orders, the white cloth lifting and flapping, pinned at two corners by his thumbs.
Sabiha watched him struggling to slide the tray into the back of the van. The runners he had made to take the trays were not perfectly square and there was always a bit of jiggling to be done to get the trays to slide in. He was forever promising to take the runners out and realign them. But he never did. His skill at carpentry, it had turned out, was more make-do than pretty good. He knocked things together and declared them near enough. His heart wasn’t in it. It was all temporary for him. Not part of a life’s work, but measures for the time being. He stood back and closed the van doors, turned and gave her a wave, then went around to the driver’s side. He yanked the door open and climbed in. His tall frame was too big for the tiny cabin and he had to hunch himself up to fit in.
Crouched in the cab, John was evidently a man in some kind of diving bell about to descend into the solitary depths. His mother, had she been able to see him at this moment, would have laughed at him; her laughter fond, loving, good-natured, amused and pained by the lanky fool her boy had turned into.‘Look at yourself, John!’ she would have shouted at him. As she often had. ‘Look at yourself!’ So he did, seeing himself through his mother’s eyes more readily than through his own—and laughed, too, at the man he was, the man he had
become.
A puzzle not only to his mother but to himself as well. His mother had seen herself in him and encouraged him to travel, imagining the remedy might lie in seeing the world: ‘Get out and see the world or you’ll end up like your father, stuck here in the back blocks for the rest of your days.’ His father grinned to hear her say such things. His father loved the farm. His father was a contented man and had no need of the great world; it was enough for Jim Patterner to have his thirty breeders and a good
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