A Word For Love Part 14

And Nisrine?

I woke often, now, to her light touch on my shoulder. And we would tiptoe again and again out to the balcony, the dawn sky before us, my cell phone in her pocket. Mist lay over the city like lace.

Nisrine had her own worries. She had a child and husband to love. She had to grow her heart to want to stay, and now she worried, too, about if Madame still wanted her. She couldn't lose this place, it supported her. She couldn't lose this place, it would be against her honor: We only work where we are wanted. She still had to save money, to build her house.

Because Nisrine and I were equally foreign in Arabic, I didn't notice her accent or her mistakes when she spoke, especially if it had to do with love, or cooking: in both these subjects, she had a vast vocabulary.

In English, though, I was the better speaker, and so unlike Arabic, in English I noticed when Nisrine put words in the wrong order, or when, instead of using an adjective for emphasis, she'd just repeat.

"I love Adel, but I very love my husband and child in Indonesia."

For this reason, because I was attuned to it, I heard the light shift in her speech, when it finally came. No longer, "I love him, but." Rather, and.

"I love Adel, and I love my child and husband." An inclusion. "I love them, I pray for them, and they love me."

I READ UP ON THE SHEPHERD.

The story goes that in the desert, Qais made friends with the other wanderers. He met a lonely shepherd who took pity on him and helped him find water. Qais recited his poems to the shepherd, and they became friends. And for the rest of his days, this is how Qais lived; in love with Leila, beside the shepherd, so in some ways (though, not in the same ways as Nisrine's and Adel's and my way), it became a love story of three: the yearning lover, the missed beloved, and the shepherd, who listened over and over to Qais calling, Leila! while he minded his sheep.

Before my next Arabic lesson, Madame told the children to dress, and we all went to the shop down the street to pierce my ears. Madame chose two tiny blue studs like eyes for me, to match my beady ones. The children were all dressed up, like this was an event. They stood around, watching, while the man took my earlobe in one hand and a gun in the other to shoot the studs in. When he was done, he rubbed in olive oil. Madame nodded in satisfaction.

"See, Bea, now you're a woman."

Lema said, "Bea's tutor won't recognize her, she's wearing earrings."

I was still used to thinking of Adel that way, not Imad.

But I said, "Yes, he will."

But Madame agreed with Lema. "No, before you were a book, you don't wear makeup. People can't love books, Bea. They love women."

On the way back, we saw Nisrine on the balcony. She was reaching up to the sky, as if she could touch it.

Madame said, "What's she doing up there?"

Now, she drew a heart in the air with her hand.

"Maybe she's hanging laundry."

"There's no laundry basket."

SMELLS.

IN THE AFTERNOON, I sat in the living room, reading and eating chocolates that Dounia kept serving me. We were playing a game. She had on a shirt and a hat that covered her eyes, and she was talking to me as if I were a crowded room, and she were the waiter. She wrote down the name of everyone who wanted a piece of chocolate, as if I were everyone and each one of me wanted chocolate, while I tried to study.

There was a smell of gas, so I opened the windows but it still stank.

Madame came out of the bedroom, where she had been applying face cream and listening to the news about the rallies. "It's that one," she said, meaning Nisrine. "She left the gas on."

Without our noticing, the smell of gas had crept over the apartment, and now it was everywhere. It seeped up from the soft carpet and heavy curtains.

Madame went into the kitchen, where Nisrine was working, and the smell of gas was wafting.

She said to Nisrine, "You're trying to kill us. Am I paying you to kill us?"

Dounia stopped her game, and she and I sat very still with the chocolates and my books in the living room, listening. We tried not to breathe. We tried not to die from the gas, or from angry Madame. There was shouting and banging. Madame came back to the living room, and the smell of gas in the kitchen was so strong, she was almost gagging.

"She has no mind, Bea. No mind!" Madame said.

Dounia and I sat still as the books and chocolate. I was sure it was an accident. Nisrine had been trying very hard with Madame. I was sure it could all be fixed, she had not left the gas on on purpose. I picked up my book, but the gas was too strong. I set it down again.

I said to Madame, "I'm sure it was an accident."

Madame wasn't listening. "You see why I don't leave the house? She could have killed us."

"Is Nisrine OK?"

Madame said, "I don't care if she's OK, she could have killed my children."

For a moment, Madame and Dounia and I sat thinking of all the people she could have killed.

It was Nisrine.

I said again, "I'm sure it was an accident."

Nisrine came into the living room. She blamed it on Abudi, but Abudi hadn't been near the stove. She'd turned the gas on for the tea. Then, she went out to hang the laundry. When she came back, the flame was off but the gas was still going. She said she was sorry.

"No good, no good," she said about herself, and Abudi. "I'll do better, Mama, I promise."

But, Madame wasn't listening. "This one is twenty-three, Bea, twenty-three," she said, as if Nisrine was not there. "She should know better."

Nisrine didn't say anything. Her eyes were red and squinting from the gas.

"And those eyes, those eyes. I don't like her, she looks at you screwy, G.o.d, those eyes!"

Nisrine got a very still look on her face. She hesitated for a moment, then walked back toward the kitchen.

Madame said, "I don't like her anymore. I want a different one."

I got up to follow Nisrine, but Madame grabbed my hand. "Stay here with me, Bea."

She sent Dounia to go check on Nisrine, and see if she was doing the mopping. "Go see where she is, Dounia. I can't bear to look at her."

The gas crept over our apartment and got into all the furniture. It seeped into the afghans. It clung to the embroidered wall hanging: G.o.d Save This Home. It seeped from the moist bathroom. It lingered in the closets and the fresh pillowcases: She could have killed us.

It was Nisrine. It was an accident, it could have happened to anyone.

Nisrine drew hearts in the air on the balcony, Madame had seen her.

She could have killed us, the gas seemed to say.

When Baba came home from work, Nisrine had packed her bag. The children and I were still up, so Madame herded all of us out the door, into the car where Baba was waiting. Nisrine sat on one end beside me and Dounia didn't sit on her lap, Dounia sat on Lema's lap. There was a traffic jam.

"Are you OK?" I asked.

Nisrine didn't say anything. She hadn't said anything all day, since Madame said she wanted a new one. I had tried to think of things to make it better. I had said, We don't want a new one. Neither Nisrine nor Madame was listening.

We sat very still in the car, until Abudi remembered he had an appointment with the dentist to tighten his braces today, and we had forgotten to take him. There was a flurry while everyone tried to decide who to blame.

"Now you remember? Now you remember?"

"What kind of mother are you, anyway?"

"Abudi Kareem, you have a cell phone. Program your cell phone."

Nisrine sat quietly, with a determined face. The traffic moved very little. When we were close, Baba double-parked and he and Madame got out.

Madame said, "Don't worry about the rest of your things, Nisrine. I'll bring them to you tomorrow. Just take your pajamas to sleep in."

Nisrine didn't move.

"Where's she going?" I asked.

Madame said, "Hurry, Nisrine."

"Nisrine, where are you going?"

Baba opened the back door so Nisrine could get out. He reached down to take her bag in one hand and carefully closed the door behind her with the other.

Nisrine said, "You are like my father." He was facing the children and me through the car window.

"You stay here," he told us. "Bea, watch them." He made sure the doors were locked from the outside.

Nisrine said, "I love your children like my children."

Dounia and Lema and Abudi and I watched out the back window as they left. None of us knew where Nisrine was going. None of us knew if she would be back. One minute, we had been eating chocolates in our living room. The next, we were here; it all seemed very sudden.

We watched her small back bob between Madame and Baba. Normally, Nisrine was very strong, she lifted large pots of boiled meat by herself, but her suitcase looked heavy for her. Halfway to the building, Baba stopped and tried to take it, but she wouldn't let him.

In the car, Lema's hair kept coming undone beneath her veil.

Lema said, "Dounia, help me do my hair." You could see the ends of her ponytail sticking out.

Still looking out the car window, Dounia stuck Lema's ponytail down the back of her shirt.

"Not like that," Lema said. She pushed Dounia's hand away. "Stupid."

Lema took off her coat and threw it over her head, to fix her veil in secret. Dounia tapped the coat. "Is it fixed yet, Lema?"

"Leave me alone!"

Dounia and Abudi both pounded on the coat.

"Is it fixed yet, Lema!"

"Ooh, you're so stupid!"

In my head, I made trades. All the vocabulary words I knew, for Nisrine to come back. What did vocabulary matter? It could be learned again. There was no one like Nisrine.

Lema came out from under the coat. Her veil didn't look any different, except there was no hair coming out the bottom now.

Nisrine used to fix Lema's veil. She once sewed a miniature white one for Dounia's Barbie.

I thought how hard she had been trying. I thought of Adel. I tried not to think of Adel. I thought of us linking arms, waving.

She'll be back, I thought, to rea.s.sure myself.

Abudi said, "Let's open the door and close it again."

I said, "Leave it alone, Abudi."

She'll be back, she'll be back.

Abudi climbed into the front seat. We looked for Madame and Baba. The cars were going around us, because Baba had double-parked, and he was taking up a driving lane.

Eventually, she did come back. She still had her black bag, and she walked between Madame and Baba. Baba was smiling. Madame wasn't.