Part 9 (2/2)

”Maid?” he asked finally, when all other questions eluded him.

”I don't have a maid. My wife does.”

”My mistake,” Adel said.

There were officers above Adel who read his reports, and after Nisrine, they began to notice a change in Adel's writing. Adel had friends at the station, but even his friends, who believed in love, knew it was their duty to watch him, and as he fell more and more in love with Nisrine, they found Adel's back was turned to them more and more often. They went to the officers.

”Adel loves a foreign woman. He won't guard anyone but her.”

Because Adel was his father's son, the officers went to his father.

”Adel writes soft reports. He notes character and intelligence.”

Adel's father summoned him to the living room.

His father asked, ”Why are you a policeman?”

”To serve my country and my religion.”

”Why else are you a policeman?”

”To serve my family and my father; I am my father's son. I do not want my father's money, I want my own money. I must hold myself to the highest standard. I must carry myself so all will know I am my father's son.”

His father asked, ”Do you guard foreign women?”

”If they are in this country, I must guard them.”

”And only them?”

”No, everyone.”

”Especially them?”

”Especially citizens.”

”That's not what I've heard,” his father said. ”You are the son of a man, now act like one.”

Adel was indignant.

”I do,” he said, ”I do guard everyone! I guard the women and the children.”

For a few days after that, Adel guarded ten minutes toward Nisrine, ten minutes with his back to her. But, he loved her. In his love, he soon forgot this caution. He met her again in the garden. He watched Dounia run around them in circles while he made up stories to show he didn't care about social standing.

”In our home,” he told Nisrine, ”everybody's equal. The maid is equal. The gardener is equal. Even my father's driver, who's Yazidi, is equal. You know what that is?”

”They wors.h.i.+p fire.”

”They wors.h.i.+p the devil. But my father doesn't care. Except, we don't let him use the bathroom. You know what Yazidis do to wipe? They take their finger, and they rub it on the wall. You go into a Yazidi house, there're brown streaks all over the wall. But even in the bathroom, my father says, you have a choice: ya water, ya paper. No finger, that's for your own bathroom. Not mine, I'm Sunni. Understood? But the driver goes outside.”

She laughed at his equality. ”That's like saying a maid sleeps on the floor because she chooses to.”

He didn't mind. Love was laughing, and telling.

”I dream of where you sleep, Nisrine. You tell me a story.”

So, she began. ”My mother is never jealous. To a fault, even. Sometimes, my father wants her to be jealous. He believes if she's jealous, it means she loves.”

”You're not jealous of me,” he told her.

”I am.” She was not. She didn't have time to be jealous, her time was not her own.

”Once, my father put on his nicest suit that he only wears for weddings. He took the motorcycle and left without telling my mother where he was going. My mother fried rice in the kitchen. She read in the living room. We asked her, Mama, Baba left in his nicest suit, don't you want to know where he's going? Maybe he took some money.' My mother controls the money, but my father knows where to find it. My mother didn't say anything. She continued her frying. When it was dark, she got ready for bed.

”Finally, my father comes home three hours later. He's smelling of cologne he put on before he left. He asked my mother, Don't you wonder where I've been?' No, I trust you.'

”And because she trusted, he told her. He'd been over to his brothers', harmless. He beat them at cards, he handed my mother the money he won. You see, men think it is nice to be jealous, but my mother knew love is trusting.”

And caring, and telling.

”I trust you, Nisrine. I love you for your soul in pink pajamas.”

When she was on the balcony and he was far away, then he would raise one arm, and if she raised hers, it felt like the sky could connect them.

There were things he wanted: a stolen kiss, sweet words (he was the one between them who said sweet words), a peek, close-up, beneath her little white veil.

Nisrine was less sure in their love than he was. Sometimes she would be sweeping and, though she didn't mean to, she would forget him, drawn by the pull of her home. She worked against this; she would rather remember him, he was here before her, someone to make her happy; in the quiet dawn when he called to her, he thought he could hear her heart beating.

Adel understood why she forgot, and he waited patiently for her to remember.

He had always been a man who liked to be in the center of things. He liked the crowds of the city, big streets, and men in groups who took up the whole sidewalk.

But now, after Nisrine, Adel preferred the city from above; that was where real lives were lived, away from the spit and mucous of the gutters. He knew now that, like Nisrine, the real citizens of this city did not know the outside of four walls, except by a door's peephole, and this was a beautiful existence. He'd learned so much, loving her, about how faraway, up-above love worked, he knew he could go on forever if she would let him, he needed only a roof to stand on, a window to look through. She'd told a story about jealousy, but he trusted her, like she trusted him.

Then one day, she wanted to use his cell phone.

”What about Bea's phone?”

”It doesn't call internationally.”

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