Part 11 (2/2)

BUT WE WERE NOT DONE with worries.

The winds blew up from the north and over our small mountain, and brought Baba home, worried: new friends had been taken. He couldn't meet anymore with other men in dark parlors, there weren't enough of them left.

”I think there's a rat,” Baba said. He meant an informant.

I knew about informants; they were the reason we didn't talk in taxis, or to bus drivers, because the bus drivers and taxi drivers often talked to the police.

Madame had once told me a story about how her mother had almost gone to jail because of an informant. Her mother studied to clean this country's first airplanes, but she fell in love with a man who hung on her every word, and so repeated everything she said to his policeman friends. It turned out, some of her words were dangerous.

”What happened?” I asked.

”They took her for questioning, and when her lover realized what he'd done, he was so upset, he wanted to die, he hadn't meant to inform on her. In the end, my mother was released. She never talked to him again.”

I thought about this story, and how here, talking could get you in trouble. Baba and his friends were secretly writing their free elections doc.u.ment, but they could not write it and finish it if one of them was a rat, or the government would find out before they were done. I imagined them publis.h.i.+ng that doc.u.ment; if you could go to jail for talking, then what might writing about elections do?

Whenever I thought about these things, I felt a small tug at my heart for Baba, who did what he wanted despite the danger.

Like Madame and Lema, I was both proud and fearful for him: proud that he was creating a brave doc.u.ment; fearful of what that might mean for him, and us. Just as I could not imagine life without Nisrine, I could not imagine this house without Baba.

And yet, in his own way Baba was also an informant; an ex-prisoner, he had his interviews with the police.

”Yes,” Baba said when I asked about this, ”but everyone knows this about me. They know when my interviews are and what I'll say. I'm not the dangerous kind. What's dangerous is not knowing.”

”Not knowing?”

”Sometimes, people can be rats without wanting to be, because they slip up at the wrong time, or they're friends with the wrong person.”

Like the man who informed on Madame's mother because he was blinded by love, an accident.

”This is the most terrible part of our country, Bea,” Baba said. ”That it is possible to be a good, brave person, and still also a rat without knowing it.”

AFTER THAT, Nisrine and I tried very hard with Madame. Neither of us wanted to be rats. She sang to Dounia and braided her hair every morning, while I made the beds.

There was an attic above the kitchen that you needed a ladder to get to. Nisrine didn't like small s.p.a.ces, and she didn't like ladders, but she followed Madame up to sort the jars in it. They squatted inside, backs hunched, and separated the olive oil from the jam. (Nisrine muttered, ”I will not have an attic in my house.”) I stood at the bottom of the ladder, and sometimes they handed me down a jar. Nisrine's hands shook when she did this, because of the small s.p.a.ce. Sometimes, though, from up above, I heard laughter. They talked about boyfriends. ”Who was your first?”

”I was thirteen, the neighbor.”

Nisrine said, ”My husband is a rooster. He likes too many women. When he liked me, he left a rooster in my yard to crow his love. All day, I sat inside with my mother and listened. I thought it was very romantic. I should have known, once a rooster, always a rooster.”

Madame said, ”The first time Ha.s.san saw me, he said, You are like wine.' He had come to give me sad news. I was good, I didn't drink wine, I'd never tasted it. I thought, G.o.d is Great and against drink, but now I have to taste it, Ha.s.san said I was like it. After a while, I decided I could love Ha.s.san like he loved wine.”

After the attic, Nisrine cleaned inside all the other cupboards. She took a ladder and a cloth to dust the ceilings. Still, Madame walked in to find the freezer door open and Nisrine's face pressed against the window.

”What are you looking at?”

”Toward the river.”

”The river's the opposite direction.”

MADAME WASN'T THE ONLY ONE who suspected foreign women of having lovers.

At the end of the week, my student ID expired, so I went to the library to get a new one. At the security window before the entrance, a young policeman attended me.

”Name.”

I gave him my name.

”Address?”

I gave him my address.

He looked up.

”Across from the police station!” he said about my address.

”Yes.”

He looked me over. ”They say the policemen there like foreign girls. Where did you say you were from, again?”

”America.”

He shook his head in admiration. ”America!”

I said, ”I think you're mistaken. The policemen don't like me, they like a different foreign woman.”

But, this policeman couldn't be convinced. He stamped my papers and told me to come back for my new ID in two weeks.

”Two weeks? Can't you make it sooner?”

He smiled, shook his head again. ”America,” he said, ”you have policemen lovers. If you want a fast card, ask them.”

I tried to stamp out the blond one from my heart. I was always on the lookout for him; when I saw him, I turned my back.

I loved Nisrine for her singing; for her determination, and her jokes. We were working together, to try harder so Madame would be happy and not suspect, but I still envied Nisrine her shoulder blades, like two birds kissing while she folded the laundry.

Nisrine tried to include me.

She guided my arm back and forth before the window.

”Wave, Bea. He'll wave back.”

When I first met Adel, I was told he was a real Qais, which meant a deep romantic. I had first liked him for this image, even before I knew him; before I read his perfect poems and understood how he loved words and meaning, just like me.

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