Summer Changes

Summer brings changes. I suppose it isn't really that everyone actually changes all that much during the summer. It's more that everyone runs off to their different vacation destinations or summer camps or quoi ce ça soit during the summer, then we don't see one another for several months, and once fall comes, we all are very aware of the differences in one another.

In high school, everyone came back to school with bleached hair, white teeth, brown skin. I spent plenty of time spraying lemon juice in my hair, covering my teeth in Crest Whitening strips, and lotioning my legs, arms and face with selfless tanner in preparation for those back to school days.

Now, with the women in my class, the changes are entirely different.

After not having seen the women for almost three months, I feel shocked at how much their lives have changed.

Here's an example:

This week, one of my women, Fatima flew into class and just started shouting, “Fatima morte!”, “Fatima morte!”, “Fatima morte!” over and over again.

My heart dropped to my shins, because I thought that she was saying that her friend (incidentally, also called Fatima) had died. I finally got her to slow down and tell me what happened. Eventually, she found the words she was looking for and told me that Fatima's husband, not Fatima, had died.

This was still a huge shock to me. I've been over to Fatima's several times, and each time, her husband had greeted me at the door, inquired after my family, and wished me health for the future. He had always seemed in much better health than his frail wife.

Fatima explained that her friend's husband hadn't even been ill, but that during Ramadan, everyone finished their nightly feast, and then, they all had lain down on the floor together. Fatima's husband had lain next to the grand fauteuil, she said.

“The big armchair?” I asked.

She nodded. “Grand, grand, grand armchair.”

“The couch?”

“Yes, that's it...the couch.”

She went on to explain that Fatima had tapped him on the shoulder and tried to wake him when it was time to head off to work, but that he wouldn't move. She'd started screaming his name, and all the kids poured into the room, tried to revive their father, and realized that he was dead. They called the urgences but it was too late. He had died during the night.

I was absolutely stunned by this news, and Tuesday after class, I headed over to Fatima's apartment with the other women I work with. We brought along a bag of gifts. My colleague had gone to a Moroccan shop and asked what we would be expected to give a grieving Moroccan widow after the death of her husband.

“Sugar,” the man at the shop said. “Everyone will be stopping by to pay their respects, and she'll be expected to make tea or coffee for everyone who comes. So, in Morocco,” he said, “we bring sugar when someone dies.”

So, we brought along sugar, nuts, and dates (which the shop keeper assured us weren't too festive).

We walked to Fatima's apartment and her son answered the door. When we came in, she was just standing there in the middle of the living room, dressed from head to toe in white, holding a silver tray with nothing on it. Huge, wet tears were sliding silently down her face. I wondered how long she'd been standing there like that.

We all walked over to her and took turns giving her the bise. Instead of the two kisses on each cheek that she gives normally, she gave us a million kisses on just one single cheek and held us so tightly to her that it was painful.

Seeing her like this got me choked up, and I couldn't help crying too.

We all sat down on the couches and exchanged formalities—we asked after her children, after their grades in school and if they'd been blessed with children. She choked through her responses. We gave her the sugar which she took to the kitchen. And as we'd been told she'd do, she emerged from the kitchen minutes later with coffee and trays of nuts and dates.

We spent two hours with her. She told us about her trip to Morocco, how she left her husband's body there, how he was buried in the ground not far from his hometown. She told us that everyone she knew had come over the Saturday she arrived back in France and that they'd all slept over until Sunday. Her older daughters and sisters were taking turns staying with her. She assured us that she wasn't too alone.

But when we left, her sister walked us out to the front gate, and I watched Fatima walk back to her room, open the door, and slip inside. She looked so lonely then.

She won't be back to class for four months, she said before we headed our separate ways. She'll stay in the house.

I was disappointed to hear this, because I leave in three months. I won't have her in class anymore.

Hmmm.

I've decided once again that I don't like change.

I read somewhere that the only people who like change are wet babies wearing diapers. I suspect that's true.