let's chat in arabic

7/26/2019 Let's Chat in Arabic

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RA B A T, M O R O C C O S C A P I T A L , had a great imperial history, de-

fended by an impressive fort, but its modern reputation was one of

dull bureaucracy. When I had told Yacine my travel plans, he ickedhis eyebrows up and huffed, Eh, Rabat.

I thought it was fantastic. I had three days in this new city, alone,

before meeting my family in Tangier. It was a relief to have no role

to play for anyone. Overnight, the last bit of enchantment that had

made me Btissam and Yacines daughter wore off, and I woke up a

plain old boarder. I was free, in my traveling clothes, in a city that, af-

ter subdued, inward-looking Fes, felt as anonymous and cosmopoli-

tan as Paris. In the lobby of my hotel, businessmen with gold watches

huddled in negotiations, and intellectuals with sculpted hair pored

over the days French paper. I walked to the city tram, just to ride and

admire the scenery.

I had intended to wander around the neighborhood at the end of

the line, but when we arrived it was drizzling, the air was biting cold,

and the streets looked dull and sterile. I ducked back into the warm

tram, to go back the way I had come.

Lets Chat in Arabic


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A minute later, a young woman sat down across from me. She

stared pensively out the window, checked her phone, pulled her sheer

leopard-print scarf tighter at her ears, checked her phone again. Itwas a natural extension of her dgeting when she leaned over and

asked me something in French.

I studiously told her I did not speak French, and she answered,

Oh, good, you speak Arabic. Then she let loose a torrent of Darija.

As soon as I could get a word in, I explained my situationthe time

in Egypt, the newness of Darija, the total failure in listening compre-

hension. And when she answered me, I understood her perfectly. OK,

no problem, she said. My cousin is from Port Said, so I learned to

speak Ammiya. Now,yalla ndardish.

She used the very phrase that had been the title of my rst

Egyptian-colloquial textbook, from my rst visit to Cairo all the way

back in : Lets Chat in Arabic.

Yalla ndardish, I said. It was the rst time I had used the phrase

in a natural context. Yes, lets chat. The tram doors dinged, and thetrain eased into motion.

Where are you from? Europe? she asked.

When I told her I was from New York, her eyes lit up. Oh! Amer-

ica! There are only two places in the world I want to go, Mecca and

America. She clapped her hands together. Forget Europepf.

She lived in Rabat, and she had been visiting her brother here on

the edge of Sal. He was recently married and had a new baby, born

not long afer the wedding. They did things a little backwards, she

said with a conspiratorial laugh.

Her name was Houriafreedom. With her long face and big, dark

eyes, she had looked serious when she sat down, but when she smiled

now, she lit up and looked ready for anything. As the tram zipped

along its route, Houria told me she worked at a fancy restaurant, but

her mother didnt approve because the place served alcohol. My


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mother would prefer that I just sit in the house until I get married,

she said.

But how are you supposed to get married if you dont leave thehouse? Just wait around? I mimed looking bored, peering out the

window.

Rightwait around. For my destiny! She did a fake swoon. I was

thrilled to get her joke.

As we neared the main train station in Rabat, we swapped phone

numbers. Lets meet tomorrow, she said. My day is empty every

day af

er three.

Cairo had plenty of men-only spaces, but these social conventions

had never chafed because I rarely wanted to be in their spit-and-

sawdust coffeehouses. There was always somewhere nicer and

more mixed to go. Morocco, though, was full of elegant old salons

de thand cheerful bargain restaurants where I could easily picture

myselfuntil I saw the wall of men, smoking louchely and facing

the street, as if to defend their territory. On my rst day in Rabat, Ifelt a sudden surge of rage when I happened to walk past a chicken-

and-rice restaurant. The men out front all seemed to be glaring. I

glared right back.

Now, the next day, Houria was marching us right toward that same

restaurant, elbowing in among the men and sitting us down at the

sidewalk tables. She waved at the waiter, who smiled in recognition.

Inside, two women were chatting and nibbling chicken lunches. Ap-

parently I had not looked closely enough at the clientele.

I love this place, Houria said, but for a long time I came here

every day afer work, and I got so fat!

Picking up where wed lefoffon the tram, Houria told me that

in high school she had run track, traveling with her teamTunisia,

Libya, all around Morocco. Her grades hadnt been great, so she

didnt apply to college. Now, at age twenty-six, she was feeling stuck.


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She didnt like her job at the restaurant, and she hadnt met any good

men.

She showed me photos of her friends at her restaurant job

thehostesses in their tight-tting, knee-length dresses, the bathroom at-

tendant in her white smock, and Houria herself in black-and-white-

check kitchen trousers and a white snap-front top. Morocco was

lled with women in such uniforms, mopping hallways and pushing

carts of cleaning supplies. I had been looking right past them, just

as I had glossed over women in niqabs in the Gulf, not bothering to

imagine them with any other life. Houria asked if I had any children. I told her no, and I probably

wouldnt.

Oh, but you have to! she said.

Families were different in America, I explained. We lived spread

out across the country, without aunts and uncles and cousins and

grandparents (I used all the words Id learned in class) around to help

raise the kids.

I have the solution, she declared with her brilliant, up-for-anything smile. I will come to New York and be the nanny. Now, tell

me what the weather is like there, so I can prepare.

In that moment, in which I understood both Hourias joke and the

personality behind it, I knew I had made a friend.

When we nished eating, Houria proposed we go to her grandmoth-

ers housenot far, and a nice place to kill time until her evening

work shif. Walking to the corner, we passed two other cafs, and I

noticed a handful of women at each one. At Hourias side, Morocco

looked different.

When we get to the house, she said as we climbed into a cab,

Ill give you a beejama,and we can take a little nap. New cognate

vocabulary, and an afernoon snooze! This was turning into an excel-

lent date.

Grannys place was in a middle-class subdivision, and pajamas


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turned out to be a yellow cotton nightie. Houria handed it to me,

along with plastic sandals, as soon as we arrived, and gestured for

me to change in the side salon. Having nally grasped the impor-tance of loungewear with my host family in Fes, I wasnt going to

resist. I wanted to make a good, properly relaxed impression with

this new family. Still, it was awkwardthere was Granny and the

housekeeper, and no real wall between the salons, much less a door

to close. Houria strode in and stripped down to her bra and under-

wear.

If it seemed intimate to change clothes with someone Id just met,it also seemed a bit intimate to lie down and take a nap in the same

room with her. But Moroccan salon sofas are rm and wide, ideal for

napping, and even the arrival of Hourias two-year-old nephew didnt

keep me from sleep.

When I woke up an hour later, Hourias grandmother, clad in a big

stretchy housedress with a hole in the armpit, had laid out a tray of

sweets and tea. Houria was already dressed in her street clothes. Go

ahead and eat while I pray, she told me as she arranged a prayer rugin the farthest sitting area.

Over tea, we talkedor rather, Houria and her grandmother

talked, and occasionally Houria translated to Ammiya for me. Our

one-on-one lunch conversation had taken a lot out of me, and post-

nap, I was having a hard time tuning in. I slumped back on the pil-

lows, watching a dubbed Bollywood movie on TV, a swirl of color

and syllables I couldnt piece together.

Oh, Lalla Zora, youre tired. Houria patted my knee affection-

ately. And its time for me to go to work. Yalla, habibti.

I smiled up at her. One afernoon, and I was not just her friend,

but her habeeba,her darling.


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A T W H A T P O I N T had I agreed to go home with Houria? I re-

wound the day in my head, trying to nd the turn in the conversa-

tion. We had met that morning, the day afer napping at Grans, andstrolled around Rabat together, stopping to admire the silvery sea

from the ramparts of the casbah. We had nibbled almond cookies in

a caf, sheltered from the rain. Just afer that, in a garden crawling

with cats, we had denitely discussed going to her housebut with

inconclusive results, I had thought.

Then I had followed her across lanes of traffic, her arm rmly

looped through mine, and into the front seat of one white Mercedes

taxi, then another. And then we were walking down a poorly lit street

in a part of the city that I could only identify as uphill from the cem-

etery.

At the entrance to her apartment building, in a pool of dark

where the streetlights didnt reach, Houria had fumbled with her

keys in the lock, and I had suddenly seen my situation from outside

and thought, Have I done something very stupid? The door had

Sweet Sensation


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opened, into further pitch-black, and Houria grabbed my hand and

pulled me in. Perhaps.

But I had not been jumped and robbed and knifed in a dark stair-well. Hourias mother, a Berber woman with skin so pale and papery

she resembled a Walker Evans portrait, had greeted me at the apart-

ment door, squeezed me, and kissed me, tak, tik-tik.

Now Houria and I were the picture of Moroccan domesticity,

lounging on the banquettes in the central salon in our beejama(this

time, mine was a oral-print nylon cafan with red-and-gold brocade

trim). It was

:

p.m., and I was yawning. We dont usually go to sleep this early, my new friend said, her

fair brow wrinkling. Maybe well have a little snack, but we wont eat

dinner until my dad gets home, about midnight. Then we can sleep.

Oh. Well. That was funny. I had been thinking her dads arrival

was imminent, and then hed drive me back down the hill, to a part

of Rabat I vaguely recognized, in his taxi. That was, however, only a

story Id made up in my head, Dr. Badawi style, afer we had arrived at

Hourias. I had taken a few language clues

father, taxi, dinner

andstrung them together in a story. I couldnt possibly be spending the

night here, could I? Somewhere else in the city, my hotel room sat

empty.

Hourias mother was in the kitchen, rattling pots and pans, and

her brother, a skinny sixteen-year-old who looked about twelve, was

opped on the oor, studiously ignoring us. On the Arabic version

of The Voice,a coach clambered up on his red chair and applauded,

crowing theatrically, Allahu akbar!

Come to the roof with me, Zora, Houria said, standing up from

the sofa. She could see I was about to doze off. I have to put my laun-

dry out to dry.

We ventured into the dark stairwell again, Houria lighting the way

with her phone screen. The apartment building was new, still unn-

ished, and we climbed over broken bags of cement. From the roof,


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I saw we were at the very edge of the cityto one side stood more

housing blocks like this one, stretching down a hill toward a dense

glow of light; to the other side was darkness. Hourias family had moved here not long afer she nished high

school. She liked it; they had more room. Although they didnt have

a room for her, precisely. To change into our cafans, we rst had to

shoo her brother out of his bedroom, decorated with posters of Tu-

pac and Bob Marley. Houria had folded her street clothes in a neat

stack, then brought them out and set them on a banquette in a side

salon, instructing me to do the same. When I had asked where she slept, she indicated the same ban-

quette. Her parents hadnt built her a separate bedroom, she ex-

plained, because they had been sure shed be married soon. Six years

had passed, and she was lobbying her father to wall offthe side sa-

lon. It would be easyit would hardly cost anything! She bent to

smooth the folds in her blouse.

Up on the roof, Houria pinned her work uniform to the laundry

line. Lalla Zora, come here, she said. I need to tell you my prob-lem. She pulled me past another pile of construction materials, into

the shadows, and we squatted by the roofs perimeter wall. She was

saying something about a man, a difficult situation, a test. My energy

was aggingmy brain could no longer process euphemism, or per-

haps Houria had lapsed out of Ammiya and back into Darija.

Im sorry, Houria, but I dont understand. What did you say? I

asked her. Breathe, relax. Just listen.

I. Lost. My. Virginity, she said.

She had met a man at the restaurant where she worked, and they

went on a few dates. He was older, and married, and a bit fat. But he

was very nice to her, and one time he invited her to his apartment.

I felt a hass hilusweet sensationwith him, Houria said mean-

ingfully. But I paid a very high price.

There had been some blood. Aferward, she had gone to two doc-


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tors to conrm what she feared: there was not enough of her hy-

men leffor her to bleed on her wedding night. This had happened

months ago, but she couldnt stop thinking about it. She was savingup money to have an operation. For now, she tried to pray and keep

busy, to keep her mind offit.

I muttered and stammered. Not, for once, because I couldnt nd

the Arabic words, but because I had no counsel, in any language.

Well, at least you enjoyed yourself? I nally said, lamely.

Oh, no, it wasnt that good. Houria pursed her lips. But the

man who was calling me today

she had borrowed my phone a fewtimes that afernoon, to talk to a second man she knew from the

restauranthe has made me feel, you know . . . ishqand mutaand

everything.

These were juicy words: ishqwas passion; muta,gratication. Far

juicier than the hass hilu,the sweet sensation she had described with

the fat man. She had already told me that the man shed spoken with

today was terrible, untrustworthy, also old and married. I was glad it

was dark

she couldnt see me gaping at her revelations. What about with your boyfriend? I asked. In high school? How

did he make you feel?

She had told me about this boyfriend earlier that day, when she

pointed out a dark-skinned tourist in the caf. See that black one?

I had a boyfriend like that, she had said wistfully. He had been her

rst love. They had wanted to get married, but her father had said no;

at sixteen, she was too young. Afer school had ended, the boyfriend

went to work in Spain, where he met someone else. She still thought

of him all the time, had even dreamed of him the night before: he had

been wearing white and had taken her in his arms.

That was different too, she explained. With him, I felt hubband

farhalove and joy. We did things, but we had certain positions,

you know, so I didnt have to worry about my virginity. But I didnt

feel muta.


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I admired Hourias ability to identify what she felt. At her age, I

had hopelessly muddled love and passion. Arabic and its wealth of

synonyms was helpful here

precision was encouraged. And Houriahadnt even touched on so many other possible words: maram,crav-

ing; huyam,love like thirst; hawan,love that feels like falling; shahwa,

a greedy lust.

Sex is like food and water, Houria went on, a little indignant. Its

something everyone needs. She only felt bad that she had taken it too

far and ruined the evidence of her virginity, which created a problem

for her whole family. My parents would killme if they found out,she said. I was pretty sure she didnt mean this literallyMorocco

wasnt known for its judgmental religious fanatics.

But as if on cue, Houria pointed over the parapet, down to the

street below. Look, its our neighbors, the Shoulds. She had used a

funny adjective for their nickname, multazimeen,which I remem-

bered from Egypt, where it meant dedicated. Its root suggested being

morally obligated, but also a bit holier-than-thou. I peeked over the

edge of the roof. The Shoulds dressed as they should, he in a beardand a just-above-the-ankles tunic and she in an all-encompassing

black robe. The whole time I had been in Morocco, I hadnt seen

anyone in this fundamentalist uniform.

Houria laughed. They have the apartment there, across from

ours. What they must think of my brother and his Tupac! She didnt

seem concerned with what they thought of her. Why should she? She

prayed ve times a day, and she believed that Islam was the best re-

ligion, the one true pathshe had told me this earlier, during our

stroll around Rabat. She dressed modestly, though not as conserva-

tively as her mother would have liked. Unfortunately, the very thing

her mother feared had already happened.

A cool breeze blew in the one small window in the salon. Did the

ies wake you? Houria asked as I sat up, bleary and disoriented.


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She was already dressed, her hair brushed back neatly. The ies

had woken me earlier, but I had pulled my sheet over my head and

dozed another hour. At rst they annoyed me, she said as she checked her outt in a

mirror outside the bathroom, but now I think of them as my alarm

clock. They come at exactly the time I need to get up. She was like a

fairy-tale princess before the magic happened, so utterly good.

Hourias mother emerged from the kitchen with a tray of breads

and cheese and honey, a bowl of hearty beans, and thermoses of cof-

fee and hot milk. As I ate and drank, I recalled brief

ashes of thenight before: a beef tagine with cardoons for dinner, a short exchange

with Hourias tired father, then opping down to sleep on a banquette

as the family chatted next to me. The feeling had reminded me of

nights as a kid, when colorful friends of my parents would show up

at the house, midroad trip or in between jobs. The grownups would

stay up late telling stories, and I would listen as long as I could stay

awake. Now I was both the overtired toddler and the exotic grownup

guest, and not since Id been a child had I given myself over to otherpeoples whims for so long. My brain felt empty now, but the passivity

I felt in Hourias home had helped me to stretch myself in Arabic, to

really make a connection, as I had the previous night.

When Houria and I set out for the bus, I had a better look at her

neighborhood. The city had chewed up the countryside here, but not

yet digested it. Between four-story apartment blocks sat a vacant lot,

studded with neat rows of onion greens. Next to a goat pen stood a

cement mixer. As Houria and I rode into Rabat on the bus, the city

seemed to knit together in front of us, growing more whole. In her

smart khaki pants, tailored blouse with a bow at the neck, and sheer

headscarf, Houria had looked out of place dodging construction de-

bris en route to the bus. Now she blended in with the morning com-

muters.

At the central station, Houria kissed me goodbye, tak, tik-tik.The


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whole morning I had barely spokenI was exhausted. Youll meet

a good man soon, I managed to say. I know it. It didnt begin to

convey all the good I wished for her. I hope you are right, Zora. I pray to God you are right.

She walked into the crowd, and I lost sight of her among the other

young women.

let's chat in arabic

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