Part 4 (2/2)

”My Dounia,” Nisrine said. ”My baby, my baby, my baby.” She took a teaspoon and fed Dounia the milk. ”One gulp, one suck, Dounia. One gulp, one suck.”

Madame came in. She said, ”Nisrine, you're spoiling her.”

We carried Dounia to bed. Nisrine took her hands, I took her feet to swing her, in fun.

Abudi was already tucked in. He filled the room with the soft smell of sleeping.

”b.o.o.by.”

Because it was late, there was no noise outside on the street. We listened a moment for a car, but there was none.

Nisrine had mostly forgiven me for her hair, but there was still sometimes a strangeness between us.

I wanted to ask if she was worried about Baba.

She cuddled Dounia. When the little girl wouldn't go to sleep, Nisrine cooed, and told her a story. It was about the young heroine who could change into a bird.

By now, Dounia knew this story. ”Tell me a different one.”

”A different one?” Nisrine thought for a moment. Then, she said, ”We had trouble in Indonesia when I was young, just like here. We had car bombs, too. And riots in the streets. One day, I woke up and our door was burned down.”

”What did you do?”

”My father is a smart man. Like our Baba here, he's very intellectual. He went out and bought my mother flowers. He told me don't tell, it was his surprise. When he got home, my mother was sleeping. He snuck them through that burned door and put them in her wedding vase on the table, then he went to take a nap. My mother woke up and she didn't see them. She made dinner in the kitchen. She read on the front steps. My father woke up and she still didn't see them, until she set the table. Oh, there're flowers here. Who did that?' My father was in the bedroom, but they were his flowers, so I didn't answer. My mother said, Nisrine, who put these flowers here?' Like he'd never done that before. My mother went to the bedroom. Salem, there're flowers on the table.' Well, yeah,' my father said. My father is like that.”

I imagined Nisrine: young, with a vase of flowers, an accomplice to her father.

Dounia didn't understand. ”Why did he buy flowers?”

”To give us something to love,” Nisrine told her. ”He knew, even with a burned door, if he bought flowers we would have something growing. It's important to have that. Within you, too. That's why, here, I'm still trying to grow my heart.” She gave a little laugh.

”Isn't your heart big enough already?”

”No, it won't grow. I keep trying. I need something to ground it.”

”Like what?”

”A plant.” She laughed again. ”My father's flowers. Or, a man. Something to care for.”

I asked, ”What about Dounia?”

”I care for Dounia, don't I, Dounia?”

Dounia was almost asleep. Nisrine quietly kissed her.

What about her husband?

This question went unasked, and unanswered.

But, as if Nisrine could read my thoughts, she said, ”You know my husband has funny feet? I remember when we were married, we both sat on the lap of my father; I looked down from my father's knee, and I saw my husband's feet stuck out in a funny position. I asked, Were your feet always like that?' I had been so busy looking in his face, I never noticed them before.”

”Blinded by love!” I joked, which was sometimes how my mother explained the years she spent with my father.

Nisrine shrugged. She had loved her husband from a look. She was a maid in a house, he came to deliver a package. She saw him at the door and knew he was her fate, so she looked at him, and he loved her. Though, later there were problems.

”You loved just from a look?” I'd asked when she first told me.

I had never met anyone who loved just from a look.

I had read stories about heroines who loved that way.

I looked out at the police station.

Nisrine sighed. ”I miss love, Bea. It's good to love, it makes you feel a part of something.”

I had never been in love. I had liked men, but the ones I liked didn't always like me. I sat on the bed and thought about this fact, and about Nisrine, far away from her husband, in a house working for revolution, trying to grow her heart. I thought it had to do with how much she missed home; trying to miss it less, and care about here more. That way, she wouldn't lose a sense of herself while she was away. Like me, I thought, Nisrine wanted to feel deeply.

”Nisrine, how do you grow your heart?”

”I don't know.”

In the dark bedroom, she and I both leaned against the headboard, feeling for our hearts. Then, Nisrine took my hand and put it over hers.

”I can't feel it, can you?”

So, through her hand and her chest, I felt for Nisrine's heart. It was true, the beat was hard to find. We both knew it was there.

”It's because here is so small, every day is the same.”

”Do you think you'll find a way to grow it?”

”I don't know, I hope so. I have to, to want to stay.”

I hoped so, too. Nisrine had a contract; it seemed to me, she had little choice in when to leave, and she was saving up money to send her child, and for a house. Still, I hoped she and I would both find reasons to stay, and large hearts.

IN THE MORNING, Baba was still gone, and so the walls of the apartment closed in on us, one by one. First it was the fake window in the bathroom. There were no windows in the bathroom, but we'd hung a curtain over the water stain to pretend. First that got to us. Then slowly the ceiling and the squat door frames, until we smirked sourly like Nisrine smirked when she was mad at Madame, as if at our own terrible, private joke that was not at all funny but we laughed anyway, until finally after breakfast we really laughed, because Baba came home.

A GROWING HEART. I set out to find a way to grow my heart; that is, to feel more, and to find more things to love.

I looked for this first in the small things. I took time to appreciate the Milo we drank in the mornings, the richness of the chocolate and cream.

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