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najat el hachmi
than kneeling like that with my
toes firmly gripping the floor.
However, it’s not an invention
of mine, that’s how I’ve always
seen my mother make bread.
And all the women over there,
whether or not they had a
table in their kitchen.
As the coffeepot began to
bubble up, mother’s voice
suddenly scared me with
her usual morning greeting.
I quickly broke off my inner
musing, so abruptly I was
exhausted. We don’t greet
each other with kisses,
we don’t do that. When I
remember her down there,
in our village, waking up in
the grandparents’ house and
greeting every single woman
with a few kisses on the cheek,
or head if it’s grandmother, or
hand if it’s grandfather, I can’t
pretend these scenes didn’t
feel uncomfortable. Especially
as the other women kissed
me, although my mother
never kissed me like that, all
of a sudden, for no reason
whatsoever, nor I her. She
and I never kiss each other.
We don’t kiss today either,
naturally, today changes
nothing. I’ve switched off the
burner and poured the two
hot liquids into the teapot for
the coffee. Teapot is hardly the
word, but neither is coffeepot.
For a few seconds I dither
over this translation: what
should you call the teapot for
coffee.
Thaglasht, abarrad,
so dramatically different in
our-her language, and I am
unable to find the right word.
All of a sudden, this banal,
insignificant lexical slippage
reminds me how distant I
am from her, from her world
and from her way of seeing
and understanding things.
However hard I translate,
however I try topour thewords