Three Strong Women Read Free

a vulnerable person of strong feeling, had lived all her life.
    And yet here she was, in her father’s house. When he’d called her, she had come.
    If she’d possessed less of this capacity for emotion which he so heartily despised (lumping together, with his own daughter, the entire limp-wristed, feminized Western world), she would have found any excuse to avoid making such a journey … “And you would do me a great honor and give me the distinct pleasure if you were able—if you felt strong enough—to leave your family for a time, even for quite a while, and come here, to your father, because I’ve important things to say to you …”
    Oh, how she already regretted having weakened, how she longed to return home now and get on with her life.
    At the tiny sink in the kitchen a slim young girl in a T-shirt and threadbare skirt was washing some cooking pots.
    The table was covered with dishes about to be served, Norah realized, to her father and herself.
    She noticed roast chicken, couscous, saffron rice, a dark meat in a peanut sauce, and other dishes she could just make out under their steamy glass covers. The profusion was staggering. It was beginning to make her feel queasy.
    She slipped between the table and the sink and waited until the girl, who was laboriously rinsing out a large stew pot, had finished.
    The sink was so narrow that the pot kept hitting the edges or the tap and, since there was no draining board, the girl had to crouch to set the vessel down on the floor, where she’d spread out a dish towel on which to dry it, a sight that once again exasperated Norah, who quickly washed her hands, all the while smiling and nodding to the girl.
    And when she’d asked her name and the girl, after a brief silence—as if, Norah thought, to give her answer a dignified setting—had replied, “Khady Demba,” her calm assurance, firm voice, and limpid gaze both surprised and soothed Norah, calming her jumpy weariness and feelings of irritation and resentment.
    At the end of the corridor her father’s voice rang out, calling her impatiently.
    She made haste to rejoin him and found him in a state of some annoyance, anxious to tuck into the prawn and fruit tabbouleh Masseck had served in the two plates set opposite each other.
    She’d hardly sat down when he started eating greedily, with his face almost in his plate, and this voraciousness, entirely devoid of polite pretense or small talk, was so much at odds with the old-fashioned manners of this rather affected man that Norah nearly asked him if he’d been depriving himself of food, thinking that he was quite capable—if his financial difficulties were such as she supposed them to be—of trying to impress her by loading this dinner with all the provisions of the three preceding days.
    Masseck brought out one dish after another, at such a pace that she couldn’t keep up.
    She was relieved to see that her father was paying no attention to what she ate.
    He only raised his head to scrutinize gluttonously and suspiciously what Masseck had just put on the table, and when at one point he looked furtively at Norah’s plate, it was with such childlike apprehension that she realized he was simply making sure Masseck had not served her more generously than him.
    That really upset her.
    Her father—normally so loquacious, so full of fine words—remained silent. The only sounds to be heard in the desolate house were the clatter of plates, the slip-slap of Masseck’s feet on the tiles, and perhaps the rustle of the poinciana’s upper branches brushing against the tin roof. She wondered vaguely whether the lone tree was calling out in the night for her father to come.
    He went on eating, moving from the grilled lamb to the chicken in sauce, hardly pausing for breath between mouthfuls, joylessly stuffing himself.
    For dessert, Masseck put a mango cut in pieces before him.
    He pushed one piece into his mouth, then another. Norah saw him chewing with difficulty, and