A Word For Love Part 16

But, I had no lover. I was a young woman, alone, with love all around me; with Nisrine, and Baba's family for company. They did this. They had grown this.

"Try, Nisrine. Try a little more. We'll try together." Her hand on my heart. "This is where you are," I said.

TROUBLE.

OVER THE NEXT WEEK, we at Madame's, and Adel through the window, all watched while Nisrine forgot her Arabic. Before, she had been distracted by love, and so called the frying pan "A Hot One." Now, she was distracted by her situation, by the trouble of trying hard in a home where she wasn't wanted. She simply forgot the word for frying pan, she called it nothing. She couldn't remember the word for cold. Nisrine, whose policeman loved her for her cooking, got sloppy with the dishes. She leaned against the sink and let the water soak her waist.

She forgot things, not only language. Madame found the milk boiled, and Nisrine nowhere. She left her hair bands in the bathroom. She left the freezer door open and last summer's strawberries spoiled.

Madame said, "I taught her cooking, cleaning, everything she knows is from me. And for this I pay her. Haram," and she forbade Nisrine from going out.

Nisrine had rarely been out.

Madame took all the dripping strawberries out of the freezer and dumped them in the wastebasket. "People come here from all over the world to study because here we have religion right. Not like in Indonesia. But I'm very nice, I can't beat her."

Madame forbade Nisrine from speaking English, and from touching the children, but then Dounia's hair was always undone, so she asked Nisrine to braid it.

Nisrine repacked her just-unpacked bag, and stood before Baba. "Return me. I don't stay where I'm not wanted."

In part, she was bluffing. She needed us still, she needed this job.

Baba looked at her. "We want you, Nisrine. I want you." And we did, we did! We needed her like she needed us. We followed her around, picking up her lost hair bands.

Nisrine had once told a story about a woman who loved the rainbow, so she turned into a bird and flew away. She started looking more and more out the window, as if she were seeing a rainbow. I whispered, Try, Nisrine, try. Because, I wanted her. It repeated itself like a song inside me.

She watched the V's of the mosque's doves.

But we had other things, too, to worry about.

There were rallies every Friday now, and in response, sandbag blockades went up all across the city. They sat plump and secure like fat ladies and the police hid their weapons behind them.

We heard about an international investigation, and secret protests. There was a new list of things from the government we could not do: Speak on our cell phones on Fridays; we might be inciting unrest.

Gather in groups at night; it might lead to a protest.

Forward any political e-mails; the government was watching, our friends would block us.

Go down to any protests; these were for young men, they were using live ammunition.

In this city, there were two sides now, with the president or against the president, and you must choose which side you were on.

Of course, Baba was against the president. He had written a secret free elections doc.u.ment. We felt more and more how police watched him.

One day, Baba came home to announce the doc.u.ment was done. Now, all that remained was for each man to sign.

At Madame's, we panicked. We had thought the men would take longer to create it; we had thought we'd have more time to convince Baba not to.

Madame said, "You haven't signed it yet, have you, Ha.s.san?"

He hadn't. He wouldn't, he mustn't.

Baba said, "Amal, we can't live in fear. We must work for better."

"What about your children?"

"Amal."

"What about them?"

Baba was torn. He knew Madame had a point. Outside, politics were becoming more and more dangerous.

Over and over, we heard the same late-night discussions.

"Don't, Ha.s.san."

"I would have already, but I worry for you."

I agreed with Madame. I admired Baba for his bravery, but between jail and not signing, I would rather not signing. So would the rest of the family; Baba was the only one for whom this presented any dilemma.

We waited while he carefully weighed politics against family; bravery, against his love for us.

THE DEATH NOTICES were long sheets of paper, posted quickly after a death, but then rarely taken down, so they filled the city's walls right at eye level. One was even posted on the corner stop sign. It was spring now, almost summer, but it had been there since December. It hung across the red sign's paint, smoothed flat with glue. The air bubble in the middle obstructed the age of the deceased but not his name, not the large print announcing, as the cars slowed down, that he was Brother and Son, and now he was gone.

On our building, a new notice went up.

It was the death of our neighbor. He was on the side of the president.

His daughter, who was Lema's age, ran out into the hall, screaming. She tore her veil from her head, there in the hall, crying, and Lema went out to comfort her and began crying, too, in sympathy, even though they'd never gotten along.

After his death, our neighbor's family made food for everyone in the building. The guests poured in to be served coffee and sweets. Madame, who even before the unrest never liked the neighbors, accepted flaky pastries at the door from the same daughter who was crying in the hall, and lent them her teaspoons.

The daughter stood waiting while we hunted for them.

"Is this all?"

"Those are all the clean ones."

"I can wash them."

"Well, we need a couple ourselves to eat from."

All afternoon, from our neighbors' apartment we heard chanting. It started as a low, hollow sound and slowly grew-There is no G.o.d but G.o.d, Muhammad is the prophet of G.o.d-until our hall ran with it, and it shook the embroidery and the religious sayings in their frames.

"Oof," Madame said, "death, must everyone know about it?"

We waited until evening, and when the spoons still had not been returned, Madame sent me over to get them. I waited patiently at the door for them, and when I brought them home, Madame counted them carefully and we washed them again, even though they'd come back clean.

IN MADAME'S APARTMENT, there were also two sides now, either Madame's side or Nisrine's side, and if you talked to Nisrine, then you were not on Madame's side, and you could not be part of the family. Dounia tried to bake cookies with Nisrine in the evening. She was wearing Nisrine's ap.r.o.n, and they were both laughing.

Abudi came in and said, "Nisrine can't do anything right."

Dounia and Nisrine ignored him.

So Abudi hit Dounia.

"Stupid Indonese."

Nisrine kept trying. She took a cloth to the inside of the oven.

To a.s.suage her honor, she thought up other plans to make money.

"Bea, do you know an American oil company?"

"No."

"Maybe you could find yourself one. It's good business. Adel has a cousin. He said if we find him an oil company to sell, he'll give us two percent."

I didn't like these plans, which involved her leaving. "I'm a student, I don't know anyone in the oil business."

"Maybe I could talk him into giving us three percent. On one million, that's thirty thousand."

"But I don't know any oil companies."

So, she tried again with something else. "Do you have a big bag?"

She knew I had a big bag.

"I have too many clothes." She had had to leave some behind, during the gas scare. "I need a big bag, for when I leave, to put them in."

I was frustrated with Nisrine. I wanted her to try with Madame, not big bags.

Still. When Madame went to the bathroom, we got out my big bag from the closet and wheeled it quietly into the children's bedroom, where Nisrine slept, for when a miracle happened and she could leave.

WHAT SAVED NISRINE was the house she would build. Through it, she still loved this one, and her love made me see it differently: the beauty of our green tiles, like cold oceans; the width of our windows-from them, lying at any angle, you could always see the sky.

I imagined this must be how Baba had seen his house, with eyes full of wonder, when he first got out of jail.

Nisrine went from room to room as if she had been gone longer than two hours, touching our walls as if she were remembering them, long white roads that might lead her someday to her own home, that she took a bucket and a rag to each month.

She borrowed Adel's cell phone to call her family. I watched her from the kitchen, her shoulder hunched up to her ear to hold the phone. While she talked, she swept one-handed.

"What did they say?" I asked afterwards.

"They want me to be happy. They need money."

After that, for a time she didn't talk any more about leaving.

AND YET, there were still days of beauty. Madame got out her wedding video to show us. All of us had seen it. First, there was a still picture of Madame, fifteen years ago. She wore a pink dress. Its skirt flowed off the screen, over Baba's lap. Baba sat very straight and still in the video. Even fifteen years ago, he looked awkwardly tall next to Madame's flowing skirt and perfume.

"Which is prettier?" Madame asked us. "Me now, or me then?"

"Who is that girl in the picture?" I teased. "I don't even recognize her."

"I look different with makeup on, no? Which is prettier, now or then?"

"Both."

"No, choose one."

"Now, without makeup."

Madame nodded. "Ha.s.san thinks so, too."

The film cut to the party. The couple was given a single gla.s.s of juice and two straws to drink from. The music blared, even through the TV screen.

Madame said, "Don't ask me what kind of juice it was, I don't remember a thing about it."

She looked over at Baba, who read by the window.

"Do you remember what kind of juice it was, Ha.s.san?"

"No."

We fast-forwarded to the dancing. On the video, some women had dragged Baba to the dance floor. They made a circle around the new couple. Madame was dancing. She didn't look at the camera, she looked at Baba, dancing. There was glitter in her hair and it sparkled in the light on the video, as she slid toward him and away. She shook her chest at him.