Hope & Other Dangerous Pursuits Read Online Free PDF Page A

the laptop the boy had claimed he needed.
    â€œYou’re spoiling him,” Salma said.
    â€œHe’s going to get a master’s degree,” Larbi replied.
    Noura walked into the dining room and sat down at the breakfast table. “I’ve decided to start wearing the hijab.” Salma reached for her daughter’s hand and knocked over her cup of coffee. She pushed her chair away from the table and used her napkin to blot the stained tablecloth.
    â€œWhat? Why?” Larbi asked, dropping the pictures on the table.
    â€œBecause God commands us to do so. It says so in the Qur’an,” Noura replied.
    â€œSince when do you quote from the Qur’an?” he said, forcing himself to smile.
    â€œThere are only two verses that refer to the headscarf. You should take them in context,” her mother argued.
    â€œDon’t you believe that the Qur’an is the word of God?” Noura asked.
    â€œOf course we do,” said Larbi, “but those were different times.”
    â€œIf you disagree with the hijab, you’re disagreeing with God,” she said.
    The confident tone in her voice scared him. “And you have a direct phone line to God, do you?” he said.
    Salma raised her hand to stop Larbi. “What has gotten into you?” she asked her daughter. Noura looked down. She traced the intricate geometric pattern on the red rug with her big toe. “Those verses refer to modesty,” Salma continued. “And besides, those were the pagan times of jahiliya, not the twenty-first century.”
    â€œGod’s commandments are true for all time,” Noura replied, her brow furrowed. “And in some ways, we’re still living in jahiliya.” Larbi and Salma glanced at each other. Noura drew her breath again. “Women are harassed on the streets in Rabat all the time. The hijab is a protection.”
    Salma opened her mouth to respond, but no sound emerged. Larbi knew that his wife was thinking of those young men with hungry eyes, of how they whistled when they saw a pretty girl and how they never teased the ones with headscarves. “So what?” Larbi said, his voice already loud. He stood up. “The men can’t behave, so now my daughter has to cover herself? They’re supposed to avert their eyes. That’s in the Qur’an, too, you know.”
    â€œI don’t understand why it’s a problem,” Noura said. “This is between me and God.” She got up as well, and they stared at each other across the table. At last Noura left the dining room.
    Larbi was in shock. His only daughter, dressed like some ignorant peasant! But even peasants didn’t dress like that. She wasn’t talking about wearing some traditional country outfit. No, she wanted the accoutrements of the new breed of Muslim Brothers: headscarf tightly folded around her face, severe expression anchored in her eyes. His precious daughter. She would look like those rabble-rousers you see on live news channels, eyes darting, mouths agape, fists raised. But, he tried to tell himself, maybe this was just a fleeting interest, maybe it would all go away. After all, Noura had had other infatuations. She had been a rabid antismoking advocate. She’d thrown his cigarettesaway when he wasn’t looking, cut pictures of lungs dark with tar out of books and taped them to the refrigerator. Eventually she gave up and let him be. She’d also had a string of hobbies that she took up with astonishing passion and then abandoned a few months later for no apparent reason—jewelry making, box collecting, the flute, sign language. But what if this was different? What if he lost her to this … this blindness that she thought was sight?
    He thought about the day, a long time ago now, when he’d almost lost her. She was only two. They had gone to the beach in Temara for the day, and Nadir had asked for ice cream. Larbi had called out to one of the vendors