Free The Penguin's Song by Hassan Daoud, Translated by Marilyn Booth

something embarrassing. Or he would keep his gaze fixed on her face, looking at her silently as though reminding himself of something.
    But the way I saw it, of the three of us she was the only one who actually might be capable of receiving a guest who just might come to visit us. What did not please my father about her pose did please me. Or, it began to please me once I started to think that she must go down to their home—down there, just below us—to visit them. There, in their sitting room or on their balcony, she would look fresh and well put together. Down there, they would see her meaningless smile as a sign of how pleased she felt about them and how delighted she was to be among them.
    Something about the way we live here has to change, I said, standing up and leaning on the balcony railing. I wasn’t speaking to anyone in particular but my father looked at me, craning his head forward and even projecting his ears as though to make certain he missed none of the words he expected me to add to what he’d just heard. As for my mother, she raised her eyes to me but only so she could say that this life of ours was one that no one could bear. She went on looking at me—they were both staring at me—as if urging me on to complete what I had begun. I said to them that I must go to work, which doubled their astonishment.
    Now this was something for which neither of them could have any rejoinder. My mother went back to her needles, rescuing herself from any chance that she might say something she’d regret later. But I know she had been waiting. She’d been waiting not simply to hear me say this, but indeed for me to do it. We’re living off our savings and we’re eating them up, she’d frequently said to my father, for whom work was no longer possible. But time had passed since I had heard her say it. No doubt by now we had eaten up quite a lot of the savings that would have allowed my father to open a new shop.
    What work will you do? my father asked me, adopting an exaggeratedly serious look on his face. I’ll work at something I’m capable of doing, I responded, making him so uncomfortable that his face froze into that solemn expression.
    Something about the way we live here has to change, I said turning toward my mother. I had calculated that all she would need to take the first step was for someone to say something about it. She was gratified to find me singling her out rather than my father and was on the verge of saying so, were it not for the critical position in which she found herself, which she tried to hide by bringing the tiny stitches closer to her eyes and seeming to stare at them. All she needed was one little gesture to make her feel her distinction from the others who lived here, even though she seemed completely unaware of how to act appropriately for a woman of her age. She so loved to exhibit that femininity of hers. I supposed that she was imitating the emotions of girls who have not yet matured. That’s why she would smile to herself like that, in those moments in the late afternoon, and why she put her hair up in styles that were only suited for young girls.
    But she will know how to act when they open the doors to their home and find her there, expecting to visit them. Once inside, she’ll know how to behave when they ask her to sit down in what I imagine is their sitting room. It is directly below the large room my family had designated for me. They’ll be happy with her there, and she will not allow their time together to pass slowly and tediously. The way she sits with us, with me and my father, so well put together and smiling to herself, I think, is simply practice for the possibility that she will receive visitors who might come to our door, or that she might visit people who will welcome her into their homes. She will not annoy them there, in their sitting room above which rises the window I stand behind in order to watch the one