Free Hope & Other Dangerous Pursuits by Laila Lalami

so he didn’t mind the competition from the other phone-card sellers, whether men, women, or children.
    â€œIt’s different for you. You’re single.”
    â€œThen why did you get married?”
    â€œWhat?”
    Lahcen pulled on his cigarette. “If you hadn’t married, you wouldn’t have to do this.”
    Aziz clicked his tongue. “Leave my wife out of this.”
    â€œI’m just saying.”
    â€œWhat do you want me to do? Sell minutes like you?”
    â€œAt least I’m doing something. And I don’t even have a diploma, like you.” The diploma in question was a piece of paper that lay in a folder by Aziz’s bed, gathering dust. Both Lahcen and Aziz had flunked their high school exams a few years back, and so they’d been unable to get into a university. Lahcen had started his phone-card operation, but Aziz had gone to trade school, and after two years he was given a degree in automation—which basicallymeant he could work as a repairman. He hadn’t found work.
    â€œDiploma or no diploma, makes no difference.”
    â€œYou talk like that because you have one.”
    Aziz sighed. “What is it with you today?”
    â€œI should be asking you that, my friend. You come to me, telling me you’re going to get on a boat, risk your life to go to Spain, where you’re probably going to get caught anyway, and you want me to congratulate you?”
    This version of Aziz’s future was one he’d heard before from his parents. They’d warned against the best (a farm job for slave wages!), the worst (a horrible death!), and everything in between (a life of inescapable delinquency!). But he had weighed their warnings against the prospect of years of idleness, years of asking them for money to ride the bus, years of looking down at his shoes or changing the subject whenever someone asked what he did for a living, and the wager seemed, in the end, worthwhile. “Do you have an extra cigarette?” he asked.
    Lahcen handed over his pack of Olympique Rouge. “Look, maybe I can help you.”
    Aziz lit his cigarette and took a long pull. The creaking sound of the door being opened behind them made them turn around. Hakima poked her head out and askedif they were coming in for dinner. Lahcen waved at her and said they’d be in soon. “Go get some bread,” Hakima said. “We’re out.”
    Lahcen and Aziz got up and walked to the store, dragging their feet. It was cloudy outside and the wind had picked up. They crossed an empty lot where children played football under a rising cloud of red dust. The piceri had sold most of its bread for the day and had only a few loaves left. Lahcen carefully selected the best-looking one and handed a bill to the cashier, who looked back and forth at the two men, gave them a nasty look, but took the money nonetheless.
    â€œWhat’s his problem?” Aziz asked when they left.
    â€œHe’s a strange fellow,” Lahcen said. “He doesn’t like people from outside the neighborhood.”
    â€œYa, what a donkey,” Aziz said. This shopkeeper reminded Aziz of his grandmother, who always seemed to find fault with people she barely knew. She found the mailman, a ‘arobi from the countryside near Casablanca, to be uncultured and uncouth. To the tailor, a Shamali from the north, she granted slightly higher status, but she often commented that he was too crafty to be up to any good. The Chleuh who sold her mint at the market was often the subject of her invectives about avarice. It had gotten to the point that Aziz had started to have some affectionfor the very people his grandmother would have disapproved of. Aziz told this story to Lahcen, adding a joke or two to cheer his friend as they headed back to the house for dinner.
    â€œH E’S NOSY ,” Z OHRA said, frowning. They were walking back home to the medina. Around them, shopkeepers were locking up