Part 12 (1/2)

If Adel was Qais, then that made Nisrine Leila. I had once dreamed of being Leila. I looked over at her now: her straight back, the long curve of her neck. Nisrine made a beautiful Leila. She didn't seem to notice. Her beauty was a part of her like any; like her smile or her thoughts, not the only one. I loved this about her, too, and I wanted to think like her, I didn't want it to matter. Her hand on my arm, making me wave, I thought, I could stay right here forever.

But, at the same time, I wondered, if he was Qais and she was Leila, then who was I?

Wave, Bea, he'll wave back, and he did.

Because she had told him to.

While I waited for my ID, I went through the roles in my head. Leila's father: was suspicious of their love. Leila's new husband: was her punishment. I couldn't think of a role for me.

I tried again at the National Library. This time I went, determined to flirt my way to the astonis.h.i.+ng text, like Nisrine.

At the library, there was a man and a woman behind the desk. I went up to the man. He was wearing the long beard and white robes of a religious scholar. I didn't care. I arched my back.

”Can I have a text?” I flirted.

The man looked up. He glanced at me once, then, with his eyes on the floor, he went to his female colleague. She came over. ”Can I help you with something?”

”I wanted a text.”

She told me I could wait in the cage for it.

I said, ”That man was helping me, he was going to get it.” She looked over at her colleague, who sat in the corner, his eyes trained studiously on a blue computer screen.

”That man is religious and a faithful husband. Here, we don't flirt with faithful men.”

At my next Arabic lesson, Imad had a new workout machine and his idea was for Maria and me to run on the machine while we were reciting Arabic. To make it more natural, he said. To make it so we didn't think before we spoke. The verb for using a machine in Arabic is laub, which means to play, so after that, in our lessons Maria and I said things like: I want to play on this machine now, and the sweat was coming off of us; I want to play on this machine, are you done playing on the weights, Maria? I wanted to play on the bike. The sweat was coming off of me.

Imad said, ”Say something in Arabic, Bea. The first thing that comes into your head. Say it with voweling.”

But all I could think was, I wish some policeman would write poems for me.

On the phone with my mother, I complained: Nisrine couldn't stop talking about a policeman, as if we didn't have enough to worry about with Madame's suspicions, and Baba's revolution, and my studies.

I asked again and again, What about her husband? Until Nisrine turned around: ”Stop, Bea.”

But then one morning, I felt a hand on my shoulder as I was sleeping.

”Bea, I don't know what to do, I love Adel, but I love my child in Indonesia.”

I tiptoed through the silent house, Nisrine giddy as sunlight before me. We pa.s.sed the living room, and did not wake Baba, who was asleep calmly. We pa.s.sed through the kitchen; Nisrine took my hand and pulled me out, onto the balcony.

”We had trouble in Indonesia, just like here. Before my child was born, we had storms, and on the other side of our country, a tsunami. I was very pregnant with my child. The winds came and beat our little house; outside, you could hear motorcycles banging. My husband had hung wind chimes all around our house. We had taken in the flowerpots and bicycle, but no one had thought to take the wind chimes in; they blew around, and they chimed so loudly we couldn't sleep. All night through the storm they clanged, but no one wanted to go out in the rain to take them down.

”In the middle of the night, we woke with a start. There was a crash. A tree had fallen over half our house. My husband opened the door of our bedroom, and rain and torn-up leaves came in. But, where were we to go? We closed the door again, and got under our bed, so if another tree fell, the frame might protect us, and listened to the wind. It howled outside our door; the rest of the night we stayed like that, and my child felt my worry. He was awake in my belly the whole night, his little legs moving.

”In the morning, there was water and a wasteland. From our house where the tree fell, we could see all the way to the ocean.

”I walked out with my child in my belly. My husband went to see about staying with his family, and to get food. When he came back, I was still walking. The landscape was so different, I didn't recognize him in it. He tried to kiss me, and I lowered my head as if I'd just met him, so he kissed the top of my head. He said, There is so much ocean here, even your head tastes salty.' After that, we went to live with my husband's family. I took care of his mother and aunts, the old women, and they all touched my belly, they said, This child survived a storm, he is already lucky.' Let him be good, I prayed, and he was, from the moment he was born, he was. But my husband couldn't find work, he didn't rebuild our house, he wasted our money.”

In the morning light, a lone wagon moved along the sidewalk, behind the garden, out of sight.

”I love Adel, Bea, but I miss my husband. He gave me a child.”

Nisrine was a maid with a growing heart. She had left a family that she loved, and now she worked to build a new home, to replace the one that had been broken; to send her family money, to start a new life. And yet, to be happy in her work, she had to find other loves; this was her dilemma-how to love here, and love there; to work for one love, she needed the excitement of the other.

We leaned out over the railing, arms crossed, feeling the air on our faces, feeling policemen in the air.

Then, from the edge of the rooftop, we saw a hand waving.

”It's him!” Nisrine cried.

The hand stayed there for a moment, waiting. Then, slowly, as Nisrine uncrossed both arms to wave back, Adel appeared. His hair was golden. There were bra.s.s medals on his chest.

She used my cell phone to call him.

”You talk to him, Bea.”

”I don't know what to say.”

”You talk to him. He knows I very love you, Bea. I very very love you, you know.”

I said, ”h.e.l.lo?”

”h.e.l.lo, Bea! Does your father have a car? My father has that one, in green.”

There was a red car driving below us.

Nisrine took the phone.

”Hi, habibi, you love me?”

I could hear him on the other end. ”It is beautiful when a woman questions.”

She kissed my cell phone at the mouthpiece. ”Bye-bye, go on now, bye-bye, this is Bea's phone. Say good-bye to her, you love me, bye-bye.”

”Your face glows like a star. I'm an open book. Ask me anything.”