A Word For Love Part 3

In Qais's time, love poetry was dangerous, it was a threat to morality. When Leila's father found out about Qais's poems, he married his daughter off to another man far away, and Qais was banished to the wilderness. For the rest of his life, Qais wandered the desert; he still wrote poems for Leila, and he missed her so much that he forgot his own name, and would only answer to Crazy for Leila. He lived by his lover's name.

I always liked Qais's story for the romance of it, and the way names worked. Qais lost his lover's body, but he gained her name. I had never had a romance like Qais's, but as a foreigner, I understood the feeling of being outside yourself, of looking in the mirror and wanting to belong to someone else. I wanted that, sometimes, too.

In the bedroom, we were twirling. Nisrine put a hand on Dounia's hip. Then, after a moment, she put a hand on my hip. Her hand was cool like onions, or green tile. It's OK for now, her hand seemed to say. We haven't really made up.

"I'm sorry, Nisrine."

"I know."

His name is Adel.

I had an Arabic teacher in America named Adel. My teacher's name came from the root ayn-dal-lam, which meant balanced, or fair. For Americans, it is a hard name to p.r.o.nounce because of the letter ayn: you have to feel your throat click when you say it. But my Arabic teacher in America always said I got his name just right.

At Madame's, we did what we were told. Nisrine had not wanted me to cut her hair, but she had allowed it, because she didn't feel she had a choice.

I had not wanted to do it, but I did.

The room grew wide, and then close, and Dounia blended with Nisrine, and I blended with Dounia- "Nisrine, you're so pretty!"

"I'm pretty? Your eyes are the pretty." Which was a saying, about the subjective nature of beauty. Like the name Adel, which meant balanced, this saying added fairness to beauty. It meant, I'm pretty because you see me as pretty, I wouldn't be pretty without your eyes- Adel. I'd always liked that name.

BORDER GUARD.

BABA WAS RIGHT, everyone did know about Adel. Now, it's hard to remember a time I didn't know about him, too. But over the next weeks, when I asked Baba, or the children, or women in the garden, they all told the same story. What they didn't tell, this box of Adel's doc.u.ments before me has since helped me to imagine.

BEFORE HE WAS A POLICEMAN, Adel was in the military. This country required two years of service from its men, but Adel didn't feel forced, he wanted to go. He wanted to fly in the air force; he was strong and good-looking and had romantic ideas of service.

Instead, he was made a border guard. There were wars in the neighboring country, and refugees were moving in. They made long lines before the guards at the border. They brought their foods and their bread, and all the unfinished apartments in this city were finished very quickly, because the refugees needed homes to live in. The locals complained about rising prices. Locals here never had money. The young men, Adel's friends, complained mostly, because they wanted to buy apartments and marry, but all the apartments were going to the refugees.

Adel was a native of this country because his father was, even though his mother, while still Arab, was foreign. She was from the neighboring country, and after thirty years she still spoke with the neighboring country's accent, which she gave, despite himself, to her son. Growing up, Adel tried hard to be rid of the accent. Through school and with women, it brought him teasing. He felt not at all foreign, he felt deeply of this place, and in his head he could hear so clearly what it sounded like to be of this place. Yet, he still retained traces of his mother's throaty vowels and round g sounds, especially when he was emotional or had been drinking.

I suppose for someone from the United States, this might be like growing up in the North, but inheriting from your parent an accent of the South.

ON THE BORDER, Adel stood around with the other guards and checked the refugees coming in. A man got out of the car and put a steadying hand on his belongings. He motioned his wife and children to face the window so Adel could count them.

"Children, how many?" Adel asked. It sounded foreign. He should have said, How many children?

"Five," said the man, and it sounded foreign, too, just like him.

Adel looked around to see if the other guards had noticed.

"Five?"

Like his father, Adel was of this place.

"Five." But his voice sounded just like them.

Adel felt the sun behind him.

"Allah khalik," said the man, which was a foreign saying.

"Pa.s.s through," Adel said. And because the words "pa.s.s" and "through" had no telltale g or full vowel sounds, he repeated them again. "Pa.s.s through, pa.s.s through," he said, instead of G.o.d be with you.

There was a tin barracks from World War I to one side of the border control, and it was always rusting and baking, and no one leaned on the walls because they got hot in the sun and burned. The guards slept in the tin barracks. Inside, it was long and narrow and windowless. From his bed at one end, Adel looked out over fifty beds to the other end. It was not wide enough for two beds in a row, so they slept lined up, head to toe, one by one by one, with an aisle to the right for pa.s.sing. In the night, the air came through to chill them.

The other guards were Adel's friends. In the evenings between their s.h.i.+fts they terrorized the duty-free, which had all the foreign brands. When they came in, the clerk always got out Trident gum and shared it around with them. There were commerce laws; the border guards weren't allowed to buy anything.

Adel and his friends wandered around the empty store to the cigarette aisle. Adel's mother liked Gauloises. He opened the s.h.i.+ny cardboard box and took out a pack for her. He felt his money in his border guard's pocket. They wandered through the perfume aisle, and took the long way to the checkout line.

The clerk didn't want to sell him anything.

"It's not legal."

His friends said about Adel, "He is the law."

"He'll step over the border and come back, haha."

"I can't just sell to anyone."

Adel, border guard, chewed his free Trident gum. At home, his mother liked new appliances from Europe.

He placed two bills on the counter.

"I don't accept local money. Dollars or euros."

"They're for my mother."

"Look," said the clerk, "you want more gum? Here's another pack. Take one home to your children. Look, here's another for your mom."

"I'm an honest man," Adel said, and walked out. His friends followed him. It was the first time he had done something like this. On the counter were his money and the gum. His mother's cigarettes were in his hand.

At night, the guards lay head to toe in their barracks, talking.

"Adel loves the foreigners," said Adel's friend.

"Do you love the foreigners, Adel?"

"No, I don't gov the foreigners."

"Yes he does. Say love."

"Gov."

"I'm going to hit you every time you speak like a foreigner. Maybe then you'll learn."

Adel said, "I don't love them."

"Very good. You see? He doesn't love them."

But he spoke like them.

"Do you know who my father is?"

Adel's father was of this place. Adel was, too. But, he spoke like them.

Adel lasted two months. He had dimples of confidence, and a voice that made others listen. He was not so tall, but he walked tall, and with precision.

In his youth, he had liked to look out over the desert, and imagine what lay beyond it. Then, the border happened.

His voice became gruff and quick. His smile embarra.s.sed him. Even the refugees distrusted him.

So, he called his parents.

"What, Adel," his mother asked, "they don't like you?"

"They love me. They think I'm a refugee."

"What's the matter, Adel?"

(And here, I begin to see where poetry, the real Qais, comes in.) His mother was far away, the whole desert lay between them. He looked for a connection.

"Mama, are you looking through the window? Look at the sky. You have the sky in your view?"

"Adel, if you're unhappy, you can tell me."

Through the phone, Adel made kissing sounds.

"Did they make it?" he asked. "I'll try again. Kiss kiss. Did they arrive?"

His mother said, "You want me to talk to your father?"

"I'll try again. Did you hear them? Kiss kiss. For your right cheek. Kiss kiss, for your left. Here's for your forehead, Mama, did you hear it?" A whole country divided them, but the same sky was above them.

His mother said, "I'll talk to your father."

Adel said, "If you heard it, then it arrived."

After two months Adel's father, who had connections with the government, paid 28,000 lire and Adel was transferred to the Central Police Station to serve out his time. Here, there were no tin barracks that shone and baked in summer. There were no runs, except for cigarettes and errands. A policeman during the day, Adel came home the first night to his parents' house, and doubly loved his mother's cooking.

"Taqburni hayati," his mother said, which was a local saying. A mother said it when she especially loved her son. "Taqburni hayati," she said again, and kissed him on both cheeks. It meant, I love you so much, you are my lifeline. I love you so much, I hope you will be the one to bury me, when I am gone.

AT THE STATION, Adel paced the roof the way he must have paced the halls of his own home, as if everyone liked him. He looked down over dusty streets and a little garden. Just as police were guardians over the peace of this city, so he was guardian of these streets and this garden.

Beside the garden was our balcony and behind it were our windows. If Adel looked down from his post, he would see Dounia playing in the kitchen. He might watch to see she didn't fall onto the hot stove, or hit her head. He would see me with my book at the table and behind me, Nisrine, chopping our parsley. The green of the parsley came away on her fingers, like spring.

From the way he smiled at us through the window, I thought his job must please him. Everything below was his to guard, and that guarding had a special meaning. As if all this were his because he looked down on it from the rooftop. As if we, too, were his to watch over, to protect and keep.

LEARNING.

AT MADAME'S we were always cleaning, because there was always dust. The dust blew in from the deserts and the salt mines to cover the streets. In the winter it got cold, but the cold didn't seem to settle the dust. In the spring there were hot, dark winds that beat the trees along the broad main streets and blew the dust up. The hot winds could make you sick and superst.i.tious. They blew in enough sand to settle on the city and last until next spring. The sand coated your shoes. If you went without socks, it got between your toes and coated your ankles. It was the reason there were indoor shoes and outdoor shoes, and indoor sweats and outdoor jeans, and the outdoor shoes and the outdoor jeans stayed at the door so they didn't track in dust.

Madame handed me a porous rock. "Go wash your feet." And I sat with the children on the balcony running the hose, the porous rock in one hand and the soap in the other to wash our feet, but the dust wouldn't come off. We washed and washed. Nisrine came out and took the rock from us and rubbed our feet, but even she couldn't get it off.

So Madame discarded my flip-flops. They were low cla.s.s, anyway. They encouraged dust. It would be better if I didn't take the bus, because the bus was full of dust. It would be better if I didn't leave the house, except when necessary, because outside was so full of dust.

IN FEBRUARY, there were rallies. This country had occupied its neighbor for some time. Now, citizens of our neighboring country were protesting; they wanted independence, their own democracy.

In response, the government held its own rallies, in support of the president. We knew they would happen because we received text messages on our mobile phones: CONCERNED CITIZEN.

SHOW YOUR SUPPORT FOR YOUR COUNTRY IN A RALLY.

10 AM, MARTYRS' SQUARE.

ALL SCHOOLS AND GOVERNMENT OFFICES CLOSED UNTIL AFTERNOON.