How It All Goes Down
- Mallory re-appears in the hospital room. She seems mainly concerned with Hassan's bandaged hands and leaves shortly afterward; Hassan understandably can't really forgive her yet, and is glad when she's gone.
- Mallory returns to Le Saule Pleureur and sees her own restaurant in a new light. A good light.
- She goes to a foie gras farm with Leblanc to collect Christmas dinner.
- Mallory sits with Madame Degeneret, the owner of the farm, while she force-feeds her ducks.
- While they talk, Degeneret sets a duck free because it raised a group of motherless ducklings as its own, in an act that she describes as "'showing more kindness than a human being'" (11.41). It's certainly kinder than we've seen Mallory be…
- Hassan comes home from the hospital to Mallory waiting for them, asking forgiveness. Papa is—of course—angry.
- Mallory refuses to let Papa have the last word, though, and she takes a chair and a blanket and parks herself outside their house, refusing to move until Papa agrees to let Hassan come and work for her.
- Hassan retires to his room to get away from the scene outside. He watches Mallory through the window with his little sister, Zainab.
- Mallory has caused a sensation. Townspeople gather outside the property to watch her, and they're rallying against Papa for keeping her out there.
- Her protest begins to work on Hassan, and several days later Zainab plays the winning card when she tells Papa "'Mummy would want us to stop running'" (11.140).
- At these words, Papa's heart melts, like melting fat in a pan. Yes, the food analogies just keep on coming.
- Hassan responds to this decision with enthusiasm, and the freezing Mallory is hoisted from her seat; it is settled that Hassan will join her.
- Title alert:This small journey across the street seems to Hassan to be as long as the universe. It is, ahem, his hundred-foot journey.