The Last Piece of Chocolate

CREATIVE NONFICTION

by Lilia Mahfouz

          It’s as hot as an oven, and the glare hurts your eyes. The sun bounces off the white walls of the houses and makes everything too bright to look at. But sunglasses are for tourists. That’s what my mother says. And I believe my mother because I’m little, and because everything she says turns out to be true. For instance, she says my father will come back, just like he does every year.
          And he does. Every summer he arrives with presents and bars of chocolate melted inside his suitcase. We have a photograph of the place where he lives. My mother pinned it to the wall. It looks like a castle covered in lights. At night it sparkles like something out of a fairy tale. I’ve always wondered where he sleeps, because his house has such a strange shape.
          My mother says his house is called the Eiffel Tower. She is always saying that one day we’ll go to France too, Inshallah. If God wills it.
          A long time later, God did.

          “It’s here,” my father says. “Second floor.” We all look up. The building is dirty and ugly. I stare at it in disbelief. It’s not the house from the photograph! 
          My father unlocks the door and we follow him inside, one behind the other. There’s a tiny kitchen tucked into a corner. The first room has a coal stove, a sofa, a sideboard, a table, and a few chairs. The window faces the courtyard. It’s dim inside. The floor is covered with fake red tiles made of plastic, the color of wine, spotted with black stains. Yuck.
          The second room is a bedroom with a big bed, a small bed, and a large wardrobe. Everything is brown and ugly. The window faces the street. Cars keep passing outside. How are all of us supposed to sleep in here? 
          My mother asks where the toilet is. 
          We lean out the window. It’s across the courtyard, downstairs, in the building opposite. First door on the left. My father explains that we have a key. It’s a squat toilet. For baths, we’ll go to the public bathhouse. “It’s like the hammam,” he says.
          I tug on my mother’s skirt.
          “So France is kind of like Tunisia?”
          She doesn’t answer. I ask again.
          “France is like Tunisia?”
          She just looks around the apartment. Then she sits down. Then she folds her arms. That’s all. I don’t ask again. When you’re seven years old, you can tell when someone isn’t going to answer.

          The teacher is talking to me, but I don’t understand a word. So I tell her. In Arabic. The whole class bursts out laughing. The teacher shakes her head and points to an empty desk. I do what she says. I feel embarrassed, though I don’t know why.
          I’ve been sitting there for a long time with my arms folded, doing absolutely nothing. The other children don’t look at me anymore. They’ve forgotten about me. The teacher has too. Nothing lasts for two whole days.
          My father says it’s because we arrived in April, near the end of the school year, and they just stuck me in whatever class had room. After summer vacation, he says, I’ll start real school. 
          I get bored at fake school.
          On the third day, the teacher remembers I exist. She puts a worksheet on my desk. I look down at it. I can’t believe it. She’s writing in Arabic! I look up at her and start talking as fast as I can because all the sentences are bumping into each other inside my head. I tell her how happy I am. I tell her she can give me work like this every day if she wants, because this, I know how to do. Every single day. Otherwise I’m bored, and I want to work. And since she knows how to write Arabic, does that mean she understands me when I speak? Does she? Right now? Can she understand me?
          The other children laugh. I wait for an answer. The teacher silences them. Then she turns toward me. Her face is stern. The finger she’s pointing at my worksheet says more than her words do. I’m supposed to be quiet too.
          So I am. I lower my head and start doing the arithmetic problems. But I’ll tell my mother. I’ll tell her the teacher speaks Arabic but doesn’t want anyone else to know. The proof is right there. The numbers are Arabic.

          The cafeteria is as big as a train station. After the tomato salad, a woman comes around carrying a tray. She gives everyone a slice of roasted meat. Everyone except me. I raise my hand shyly to ask for mine. She shakes her head and keeps walking. A boy starts making pig noises with his mouth wide open. He’s disgusting. Then he starts choking. Serves him right. 
          I’m not happy. My father let me taste salami once, and it was delicious. He specifically told me I was allowed to eat pork in the cafeteria, just like French people do.

          There are tall trees in the schoolyard. I stand against the one in the middle and watch the other children play. I know how to jump rope. I know how to play tag. But nobody asks me to join. It’s as if I’m invisible.
          I look down at my shoes. I’ve noticed something. If you stare at your shoes long enough, really long enough, you can go somewhere else. For example, I can go back home. Back to Tunisia. There’s a courtyard with a fig tree in it. I’d like to climb it and pick a fig. I can still remember what they taste like.

          On March 13, 1969, I turned eight.
          My father gave me a goldfish. We put it in a bowl. 
          I watch it dance through the water.
          I won’t be dancing anymore. I’ve decided. It hurts, but I’ve decided. I’m not going back.
          My father had signed me up for dance classes through the town hall. The classes weren’t expensive. The costume was. So all I had was a leotard.
          The goldfish swims in circles.
          My leotard was black. The other girls had white tutus and pink tights.
          The goldfish keeps opening and closing its mouth. Maybe it’s hungry.
          I’d noticed that the dance teacher watched me all the time. At first, I thought it was because of the leotard. But then she started complimenting me too much. After that, the other girls hated me. They said I showed off when I danced.
          Fish food smells awful.
          I wasn’t showing off. I was concentrating. When I close my eyes, the music goes inside me.
          Then it feels like I become the music. Then the music starts dancing by itself. I don’t really know how to explain it.
          The goldfish won’t stop eating. It eats too much.
          The dance teacher wanted me to audition for the Paris Opera Ballet School. She told me to ask my parents for permission. 
          My father said no.
          Honestly, this fish eats way too much. Maybe it’s bored.
          The dance teacher was stubborn. She came all the way to our apartment. She was well-dressed and smelled nice. Her blonde hair was pinned up in a bun, and she wore pink lipstick. She carried a beautiful brown leather handbag.
          She saw where we lived. I was embarrassed. 
          My father wasn’t pleased. He told her I’d NEVER be a dancer. Women don’t do that where we come from. A woman who dances isn’t a respectable woman. That’s what he told her.
          The fish can’t eat anymore. It looks tired.
          The dance teacher said the Opera was perfectly respectable. She said he was confused. She said he didn’t understand anything. You should NEVER tell my father he doesn’t understand something. Even when it’s true.
          The little fish doesn’t seem interested in swimming around anymore.
          She said he really didn’t understand anything. She said I could become a star. My father shouted, “Are you out of your mind?”
          I never gave the fish a name. I think I’ll call it Star.
          The dance teacher’s face turned bright red. She kept squeezing her handbag. My father told her to get out of his house. 
          The fish is sitting at the bottom of the bowl. It isn’t moving.
          The dance teacher said it was a waste. And she looked at me as though I was the waste. That did something to me. Then she left.
          Why aren’t you moving, Star?

          I was ten years old when I got a new teacher. Her name was Miss Verdier.
          She picked up a piece of chalk and wrote her name on the blackboard. Then she told us to take out a sheet of paper and write down our first and last names, our parents’ address, their names, and their occupations. Teachers always ask for that on the first day of school.
          I would have liked to write that my father was an engineer. It sounds impressive. I didn’t. Not because I was more honest than anybody else. I was simply afraid someone would discover I was lying. I didn’t want to be embarrassed. So what can I say? I told the truth. On my information sheet, I wrote that my mother had no occupation and that my father was a painter.
          Miss Verdier collected the papers and stacked them on her desk. Then she swept her gaze across the classroom and announced that we were no longer babies and were now old enough to appreciate classical music. She informed us that every morning, before lessons began, we would spend fifteen minutes listening to classical music so our ears could become more refined. She added that we were expected to listen in complete silence and that anyone caught talking or doing anything else would be punished. That morning, she said, we would begin with Mozart and listen to a requiem. She wrote Requiem in D Minor on the board and pressed the Play button on the small stereo sitting on her desk. A sad piece of music began assaulting our newly refined ears. 
          Miss Verdier sat down and started reading our information sheets one by one. Every so often she would look up to see whether anyone needed punishing. We all understood that Miss Verdier was not someone you joked around with.
          The music stopped and silence settled over the classroom. Miss Verdier studied us for a moment before announcing that she would read our names aloud and that we were to raise our hands so she could identify us. 
          When she called mine, I raised my hand. She gave me a broad smile. Her eyes sparkled with delight, as though she were genuinely thrilled to meet me. I was still wondering what had gotten into her when I heard her ask in a sugary voice:
          “Is your father really a painter?”
          I said yes. Our new teacher seemed delighted by my answer. She smiled again and continued.
          “And what does he paint?”
          The question surprised me so much that I hesitated before answering.
          “Walls.”
          Miss Verdier’s smile disappeared.
          “You mean your father is a house painter?”
          I shrugged.
          “Yes.”
          Her jaw tightened. She pressed her lips together as though she were trying very hard not to scream. Her face turned crimson before her anger finally exploded in my direction.
          “You should have specified that! House painter! Your father isn’t an artist. His name isn’t Picasso, is it? You little idiot!”
          I hadn’t lied. And somehow I was still embarrassed. 
          But right afterward, it occurred to me that my father really was an artist. Because painting isn’t easy. Try painting a doorframe without getting paint where it doesn’t belong. My father showed me how once. I got paint everywhere. Miss Verdier would have too, if she’d ever tried. After all, she’s not Picasso either, is she? And I’m not an idiot.
          One day in October, Miss Verdier asked me to stay behind after class because she wanted to speak with me. I was a little nervous. She had spoken kindly to me, which wasn’t like her at all. When we were alone, she asked:
          “Now tell me again. Your father is a house painter, right?”
          That made me suspicious. Even so, I confirmed what she already knew with a simple nod. Miss Verdier leaned toward me. Her voice turned sweet as syrup.
          “You know, the classroom blackboard is in terrible condition. It really needs repainting. The school doesn’t have much money, but we’ve already bought the paint. Do you think you could ask your father to repaint it for us? It would be a great help. And the principal would be delighted to meet him and thank him personally.”
          I felt uncomfortable. I explained that my father worked every weekday. Miss Verdier always had an answer ready. She suggested Saturday morning instead. There would be no classes, which made it convenient for everyone. She said she would be delighted to welcome him. She added that it probably wasn’t much work for him, whereas it would mean a great deal to the entire class.
          My father agreed because he was flattered that someone important, like a school principal, might need his help. On Saturday morning, I went to school with him.
          He arrived full of importance, eager to show off his artistic side. Miss Verdier handed him a can of dark green paint, and he launched into a lecture about different kinds of paint, colors, and all sorts of other things designed to demonstrate the extent of his expertise. He rolled his r’s and mispronounced words. 
          I was a little embarrassed.
          Miss Verdier listened politely, but I could tell she couldn’t have cared less. She simply wanted him to do free work. My father explained that a proper job required two coats. The whole thing took the entire morning. By the time we got home, our stomachs were growling.
          My father never met the principal.
          But on Monday morning, Miss Verdier told the entire class how kind he had been to repaint the blackboard. Thanks to him, she said, we now had a beautiful new one.
          I was embarrassed. 
          Fortunately, nobody cared. She turned on her boring classical music, and everyone started yawning.
          At the end of the afternoon, Miss Verdier asked me to stay after school again. She had something else to tell me. I hoped she wasn’t going to ask for a third coat.
          With great mystery and ceremony, Miss Verdier slid open her desk drawer. Its squeak echoed through the empty classroom. She pulled out two packs of Montego cigarettes.
          “Here,” she said. “Give these to your father. It’s a thank-you gift.”
          My father stared at the two packs of Montegos sitting on the kitchen table. He slowly shook his head. He didn’t know what to say. Neither did I. We stood there for a long time, the two of us, looking at the cigarettes in silence. Then my father abruptly slipped them into his pocket. And we never spoke about them again. 
          I did my best to forget the Montego cigarettes. Except that every time I looked up at the green blackboard, I couldn’t help thinking about them.

          Montego cigarettes took my father in 1993.
          I had only one consolation: he got to see me on television. My sisters read him the glowing newspaper reviews of my comedy shows. In my own way, I had become a bit of a star. He had time to be proud of me.
          Still, it wasn’t what I had imagined. Originally, I wanted to be a movie actress. By day, I worked whatever job paid the bills. At night, I attended stammer factories where actors who had never made it taught lessons in success. I let myself be fleeced by one amateur photographer after another, each more mediocre than the last, each promising that his work would be better than his predecessor’s. I went from production company to production company carrying my wonderful press kit, full of photographs and empty of experience. The answer was always the same:
          “No, thank you. We already have what we need.”
          And the door would slam in my face. 
          I chased every casting call I could find. I applied for everything and never fit anything. One day, I showed up uninvited at the offices of a television network. I knew they were holding auditions for a long-running series. I started up the stairs toward the casting room. A tall man coming down stopped me. He planted himself directly in front of me, one step higher. I looked up at him and, with all the spontaneity of my twenty-year-old self, tried to charm him into letting me through. He refused. I insisted. I wanted to understand why he was so determined to stop me. He gave me a contemptuous look and answered in a low voice:
          “This story takes place in Brittany. In Brittany . . . Do you get it, or do I need to draw you a picture?”
          So I did what I knew how to do best: observe and hold a magnifying glass over whatever struck me as absurd, grotesque, or pathetic. I put it on paper. I performed it on small stages before moving on to bigger ones. One day, I was invited onto the set of a hit television show featuring a lineup of celebrities. I felt completely at ease, even among singers and actors I had known since childhood only through a television screen. The show was hosted by a journalist. He introduced the guests one by one, looking straight into the camera. For each of them, he read a few pleasant, flattering lines from the note card in his hand. When he got to mine, he launched into a string of jokes about my North African origins. Suddenly, I was nothing more than the immigrant on the panel.
          Whenever I complained to my publicist, he would reply:
          “Who cares? The important thing is that they’re talking about you.”
          As for my producer, he encouraged me to lean into it. He suggested I become the standard-bearer for my community. 
          I didn’t want to lock myself inside a community identity. I wanted to choose my own place. I lived in Le Marais, just a short walk from Victor Hugo’s house.
          I put my career on hold.

          Around that same time, Ray proposed.
          We had already been living together for a year in a charming top-floor apartment overlooking the rooftops of Paris and the Place des Vosges. I knew Ray wasn’t a romantic. Still, I hadn’t expected a proposal of such importance to be mumbled over cheese and dessert, completely out of the blue.
          “Hey,” he said, without interrupting his chewing, “how would you feel about getting married?”
          Apparently, nobody had ever taught him not to talk with his mouth full. Once my surprise wore off, I asked him, half amused and half annoyed, to confirm that this was in fact a marriage proposal. He looked surprised in turn.
          “Well, yeah. Why?”
          I turned him down. I didn’t explain why. It was only a year later that I finally said yes.
          Ray eventually convinced me that a large wedding ceremony was expensive, complicated, and entirely unnecessary. A small civil ceremony, with only our closest relatives and friends, would be much more relaxing and enjoyable, especially if it ended with a simple lunch at his mother’s country house less than an hour from Paris. I respected his choice. He suggested that we spare ourselves all the fuss of a wedding dress and a three-piece suit topped off with a ridiculous bow tie. I saw no reason to object to his desire for simplicity. I owned an off-white skirt and blouse set that would do perfectly well. I did, however, ask him when he wanted us to shop for wedding bands. I had always liked Cartier. He replied that buying wedding rings was neither necessary nor obligatory. I was taken aback. I asked whether he was absolutely sure. He said he was. And I believed him.
          A few days before the wedding, doubts began creeping in. Nothing about this wedding really looked like a wedding. I kept trying to convince myself that this stripped-down ceremony, with absolutely nothing, not even a bouquet of flowers, would ultimately be the most rock-and-roll wedding of all time because it ignored every convention.
          Then came the fiasco. The mayor of Paris’s Fourth Arrondissement naturally asked us to exchange rings as part of our vows. Embarrassed, I whispered that we didn’t have any. The confusion on his face was immediate. He stiffened. Then he all but ordered us to find some. For the first time, even Ray, who was normally unflappable, looked rattled. Our witnesses came to the rescue. A friend’s wedding band for him. A hideous oversized costume ring in yellow and red for me. I caught a flash of contempt in the mayor’s eyes.
          And I was ashamed.

          Melody’s birth transformed my inner world.
          I found myself asking every possible question about what I would pass on to her. What should I tell her? What should I leave unsaid? And for how long? I thought that one day, when every word carried meaning for her, I would tell her about the sweetness of my childhood. I would say:
          “My native land is in Africa. A continent of scorching deserts, red-earth savannas, hidden oases, and wild rivers. In the north, Berber peoples built whitewashed villages. The Mediterranean still laps at them with its turquoise tongue. I was born in one of those villages, where the houses were coated in limewash and trimmed with blue shutters. Hammam-Lif is nestled between the bay and a low hill covered with Aleppo pines, at whose foot stood the former palace of the last Bey of Tunis.
          “The front of our house was draped in pink and purple bougainvillea. I can still imagine the scent of the jasmine flowers my mother planted in our little garden. I had helped her, caught somewhere between curiosity and disgust because of the earthworms wriggling beneath my fingers stained with brown soil. I can still see my mother’s face, beautiful and solemn. How many times did I let her call herself hoarse looking for me, that anxious mother who was forever convinced she had lost me while I hid behind the sheets drying in the sun on our terrace.
          “Inside, the house was simple, cool, and spotless. We had three bedrooms, a living room, and a kitchen that opened onto a tiled courtyard. In the middle of the garden stood a fig tree. Once a year, my older sisters climbed into its branches to pick the sweet green figs. I was too young, not nimble enough to go with them. Instead, they gave me the honor of delivering them to all our neighbors. I carried out the task with great pride. Sharing was a tradition in our little village. I knew every corner of it and every boundary I never crossed; beyond the last houses lay nothing but bare land scorched by the sun, dotted with cactus plants where tiny lizards hid. And yet Tunis was only ten miles away. One day, I accompanied my mother into the city. It was the first time I had ever ridden a train.
          “In summer, my childhood revolved around only a few things. In the mornings, my mother took me to the beach, just two blocks away. In the afternoons, she made me take a nap. My older sisters were subjected to the same treatment. We stretched out on mattresses laid directly on the cool zellige-tiled floor. My mother kept me beside her. She pushed the hot air away with broad sweeps of a hand fan. I rarely fell asleep. In the evenings, after dinner, we strolled along the seaside promenade. Colonial houses, their faded ocher and red paint weathered by time, still stood there, abandoned by the French. Vendors sold breadsticks, candy, and roasted almonds. My mother bought us water ice flavored with grenadine syrup. Red dye ran down my elbow. Tunisian politeness required frequent stops to greet this person or that one amid the racket of transistor radios, the wooden carousel, and the laughter and shouts of children. Often, my mother spread mats on the sand. Friends joined us there. We drank orgeat syrup mixed with water and played games. I would fall asleep with my head in my mother’s lap, lulled by the sound of the waves.
          “On winter evenings, we stayed home. The coal stove gave off a gentle, enveloping warmth. The scent of mint tea tickled my nose. My mother prepared it over the embers of a clay kanoun. We propped ourselves up with large cushions and lounged on sheepskins. They still carried the smell of the animal. We listened to radio dramas. Our radio was a temperamental wooden antique; whenever it decided to remain as silent as a tomb, my mother would begin telling a tale from One Thousand and One Nights. There were captive princesses and magical rings, winged horses, djinn, curses, and cruel or unhappy sultans. Sometimes I imagined that inside the abandoned palace of the Bey, walls covered in gold still remained.”

          Melody was barely three years old.
          When the weather was nice, we had fallen into the habit of spending our weekends in the country at my mother-in-law’s house. The village was tiny. Its name was Mesnil-Racoin. It was far from everything. There wasn’t even a bakery. My mother-in-law, a retired French teacher, spent five months a year there, from May through the end of September. It seemed perfectly natural to me that we should share that time with her. In the culture I came from, elderly people were never pushed to the margins of family life. Quite the opposite. Besides, my daughter could enjoy the fresh country air, play in the garden, pick flowers, and nibble raspberries straight from the bushes. She often accompanied her grandmother when she went next door to collect eggs from the neighboring farm. There were chickens, rabbits, and a donkey who was more affectionate than stubborn.
          One day, at the end of lunch, while we were still sipping our scalding coffee, my mother-in-law announced that she had “reserved herself a spot” in the village cemetery. The process had been simple. She had gone to the town hall, and the good news was that the burial plot could accommodate up to three people. She wanted to know whether her son and I would agree to be buried there with her one day. We needed to give her an answer quickly so she could take advantage of the opportunity while it was still available.
          “What do you think?” she asked me quite casually as she bit into the square of dark chocolate that traditionally accompanied her coffee.
          I was stunned into silence. I looked at my daughter, so small in my arms. Then I slowly turned toward Ray. His mother’s question echoed once again:
          “So, what do you say?”
          I stammered awkwardly.
          “I’m sorry, but . . . I don’t want to be buried in Mesnil-Racoin.”
          Then my husband, the father of my daughter, turned toward me with a mocking smile and said:
          “And why not? It’s still better than being buried in Hammam-Lif!”
          My mother-in-law let out a little laugh before calmly swallowing the last piece of her chocolate.
          And I was ashamed for them.

(translated from the French by the author)