A Word For Love Part 25

"Who will you be, Adel?" His father wanted to hear, A general.

But through his pain, all Adel could remember was a dark hip, a suprising feeling. He dug into this memory. He let it cover him.

"Nisrine," he said.

His father hit him again.

So, this was love. In the end, it was what you went to in your most painful moments, your darkest feelings. It lifted you, helped you to become another person, to know another side of yourself.

"Who are you, Adel?"

"Nisrine." He claimed her.

His father hit him over and over again, but Adel could only say her name.

I HEARD LATER that when it was done, Adel lay on his desk, unconscious. From the small window in the door, the other policemen stood watching.

Years before, when he was still a boy, Adel's father had taken his son up to their apartment roof and the two of them had looked out at thousands of stars like bright eyes. From his father, Adel had learned all the constellations.

Now, this same man looked down at his son on the desk. There was blood, and already Adel's face was turning a light blue-green riverish color. Adel's father stripped off his son's jacket; underneath was a policeman's vest; he stripped that off, too, until the young man lay small and boyish in his white T-s.h.i.+rt, like he had just gone to sleep.

Adel was a good height, but with a small chest, not as strong as a father might hope for. Still. On the desk lay Imad's interview, with the troubling information, and beside it, a poem. His father looked at the interview. He read it, then he read the poem, and pocketed them both.

He took his son in his arms and carried him home.

I might as well tell you now that Adel lay in bed for the next several days, while outside, worrisome events unfolded.

The first day pa.s.sed. He was partway unconscious.

He could not call my cell phone, he thought it was still broken. Nisrine and I didn't know where he was. His phone had been taken by his mother.

A second day pa.s.sed.

He should already have come for Nisrine, and in our apartment, the worst had happened. He did not know this, his mother wouldn't let him out of bed. She bathed his face and arms and, when he was awake, she sang to him.

A third, and a fourth day pa.s.sed. On the fifth day, he got up and found that while he slept, his policeman's vest and coat had been taken.

He went to his mother.

"Mama, where are my clothes?"

His parents were having breakfast. They rolled their bread in small ovals like scrolls and dipped the round pieces in what they wanted.

His mother looked at his father.

His father looked at Adel. Adel's face was still bruised, when he walked he held it carefully. On his cheeks and ribs were red marks like precious stones. His father said, "What are you, Adel?"

He was a lover. However, he had learned his lesson. "My father's son."

"What else?"

"A policeman-"

His father shook his head. "Not anymore."

FIRE.

WHEN MADAME CAME HOME, she was apologetic and no longer angry. "Why didn't you tell me you had cla.s.s, Bea? I could have stayed here. It wasn't important."

She let me wash my own juice gla.s.s, and then Nisrine's, because she was no longer treating me like a guest. She didn't remark on the fact that Nisrine was in the hallway, instead of the bedroom where she had left her. She fished in her purse and drew out my cell phone, which was fixed and clean. She made Lema show me the swimsuit they'd gone shopping for.

That night, there was a commotion at the police station, but we couldn't tell what it was about. Afterwards, Moni called to tell us there had been a raid on the Journalists' Club, where Baba's doc.u.ment was, but the doc.u.ment had not been found.

Nisrine and I looked at each other.

If Baba was in danger, Adel was supposed to send us a warning.

We looked for Adel, but he had disappeared from our balcony, and he hadn't reappeared on the roof that night.

Secretly, I used my cell phone to call Nisrine's emba.s.sy, just to see what the options were for a maid without a pa.s.sport.

A woman answered. She asked which family. I felt like a traitor. I wouldn't tell her.

She said, "Are they important?"

"Maybe."

She sighed very loudly. "Yesterday we got a call for three maids from an important family. You know, these people have so much money, and they just abuse them. Tell her to come to us, and we can help. But she has to come Sunday through Thursday, nine a.m. to two p.m. If she comes on Sat.u.r.day, no one will be here." When I hung up with the emba.s.sy I called Imad, but there was no answer.

I went back inside and found Nisrine in the kitchen. "You can go to your emba.s.sy Sunday through Thursday, and they will help you-" I told her.

But just then, Abudi ran in to tell us a building was burning down the street. We stood at the kitchen window, watching the fire grow, and shook our heads at how long the fire trucks were taking. It grew and grew; Madame had been airing the house, and we rushed around closing all the windows so the smoke from the fire couldn't get in.

Madame called, "Look, look! It's spreading, it's not dying!"

We ran back to stand beside Madame at the window and watch the dogs and stray cats running out into the street from the buildings and the garden.

"Oh, how sad," Madame said. "How sad, how sad. It's spreading. Oh, it's spreading!"

I thought, If there were a fire here, we would all die because the door was always locked against Nisrine getting out and strangers getting in, and Madame could never remember where the key was hidden. I tried to decide if we could jump from the balcony, like Adel had. I thought about jumping from the balcony to save ourselves, now, often.

Nisrine and I moved about the house like careful ghosts, and we kept finding small evidence of the afternoon-a bookshelf, neat but not in order; a loose rung on the balcony rail. When we noticed these things, we quietly tried to fix them.

Madame came upon me.

"What are you doing in Lema's drawer, Bea, did you lose something?"

She went to hang the laundry, and found the balcony rail was loose.

"Come here, Bea. Did you see this?"

Adel had kicked the rail on his way back to the station.

I said, "I think it's been that way for a while."

Madame wiggled it. It swayed with her wiggling.

"It has? It's dangerous. It needs to be fixed."

We waited for Baba to come home, and Madame to find out, and Adel to come back. And the whole time, Nisrine was quietly glowing. She danced around the house, righting the mess I had made earlier, smiling to herself in the hallway.

For a joke, Abudi locked her in the parlor; she yelled and knocked determinedly, until he let her out.

I asked, "What was it like?"

"What? Love? Oh Bea, you'll feel it. It gives you hope."

Hopeful, we waited for Adel to show himself.

In the meantime, I was again part of the family. I counted for Dounia's jump rope. Abudi played games on my phone. Smoke hung like lace over our windows, obscuring our view so that our apartment floated high above, no longer part of the city, and this made me lonely.

I called Imad again and again, until finally he answered very politely, as if we were strangers and he hadn't been ignoring me.

"Do you need something, Bea?"

I asked, "How was Security?"

"They kept me an hour. I was late for my students."

"Did they take your license?"

"I kept my license."

Pause.

"Look, Bea, I have to go now. I'll talk to you later, OK?"

I asked, "Do you want to meet tomorrow? I can get out tomorrow."

"I'm busy tomorrow."

"When do you want to meet?"

Imad said, "I'm sorry, I'm feeling very strange from that interview. I'll call you sometime, OK? And we can start again."

We hung up. I concentrated on feeling angry, not sad. We'd only kissed twice. Lema had been standing in the doorway, listening. She said, "Forget him, Bea. Don't worry. Matt mat. Haha. Allah yerhamo."

Madame came in. "What's the matter? Bea looks sad."

"I'm not sad."

Lema said, "Matt mat."

"Matt mat? Good riddance. Men, who needs them? You're better off without him, Bea."

WHEN WE WERE GETTING READY for bed, Baba came home in a rush, grabbed the TV remote from Abudi in the living room, clicked off the cartoons, and turned to the national channel.

"Open the window," he said, "open the window! Is there rain? See if there's rain."

On the TV, there was a mosque filled with men. They were praying for rain. Winter had gone and spring had come and there had been no rain since December, only fire and heat. They lifted their palms skyward, and the mosque looked thick with hard men's hands.

Madame and Nisrine and the children and I sat with Baba before the TV screen, watching the air out the window, feeling the warmth of Baba and the fire around us as we leaned out to see, beneath the burnt cooking oil and carpet smoke and car oil, if we could smell rain. When a few drops fell, we smiled.

THE POEM ADEL'S FATHER FOUND

To My Flower, the Jasmine. Written 25 April, by this poet-policeman, after the most beautiful of meetings. Amended after reading an interview with a tutor of Americans, to serve as a warning.

*Note: Nisrine, the poem is in blue. The explanation is in red pen beneath.

To My Flower, the Jasmine: My heart is an occupied place.

You've occupied my heart.

And Lover, is the true t.i.tle of those who love.