Part 13 (2/2)

”I'm glad you came today.”

I said, ”What else would I do?”

”I just want you to know how glad I am.”

IMAD HAD SUNG ME A SONG in which the prisoner who is far away writes his love onto his bare chest. He has neither pen nor paper to move her, only his imagination, his memory, his arms. And so, he makes himself the text.

That night, Adel taught Nisrine to write Arabic. Because he was far away, he enlisted my help.

”Ayn,” he called over from the rooftop, and on the balcony I drew the letter ayn, a long half-oval shape, with a curved little tip on the end.

”So this is you?” Nisrine asked him. ”This is your letter?”

”Adel” started with ayn.

”Yes,” he told her.

She traced the letter, learning it, letting her finger linger along its oval part, rub up against the tip.

She made an unexpected joke. ”Are you curved like that? A woman likes a curve like that.”

I thought of kisses, and Qais and Leila.

Behind us, the sun was setting. Before us, Adel's face grew red as the setting sun.

Sometimes, I still felt him like arak.

Nisrine and I laughed.

Nisrine was still trying, and I was still helping her try.

When we came in from the balcony, Madame was in the kitchen. We hadn't noticed her.

Madame said, ”The tea boiled. You were nowhere.”

”I was sweeping.”

Madame didn't say anything.

Nisrine took the pot, dumped out the boiled leaves, and began to make new tea. She hummed a song in English.

Madame said, ”That's a love song. I know it from the radio.”

All the radio's songs were love songs. Madame didn't see it that way.

Sometimes, my trying with Nisrine got in the way of Madame and me. At breakfast, Baba reached out and touched my cheek.

”Bea, you have a zit.”

Madame said, ”Bea eats too much chocolate. That's why she has zits.”

Here, I rarely ate chocolate. But, we were no longer talking about zits.

Madame said, ”She should know better, shouldn't you, Bea?”

For a while, Nisrine tried to keep her distance from Adel. She turned her back, the way he once had when he worried about his father.

I found myself trying both with Nisrine and with Madame; trying to both help Nisrine, and keep my own distance.

And yet: She came out to the balcony early in the morning, and she was right on time, but he was already on the roof, waiting. He smiled when he saw her. They both stood on their opposite corners, toes dangling.

I looked up from my studies, and saw them draw their love out of the air. The length of Nisrine's arms when she called to him. The curve of her neck, which was just like the curve in my book of the Arabic letter ya.

Adel opened his arms, showed her his eyes. Though I have not talked of it, these were beautiful days for him, too; his poems tell me this. After Nisrine made the joke about the shape of his letter, ayn, it stayed lodged in his stomach.

Theirs had always been a faraway love; she had taught him the beauty of two eyes, ready, waiting to be given.

He watched her veil, the way it swept down over her forehead, caressed beneath her chin. What if I were that veil? he thought. What if I lived there, in the folds beside her cheek, where I could always reach her neck, always kiss her skin?

Nisrine came to him, sometimes serious, sometimes joking.

”Run away with me?” she called, and he knew it was a form of playing. He closed his eyes to imagine running: the thud on cement, the light sway of her b.r.e.a.s.t.s, her hand on his arm like silk.

There was another consideration for Adel; this was his father. He still had not told his parents about Nisrine-it sat, a light silence, like her husband, between them. They both had reasons they couldn't run. Still, they played at the image.

”Anytime you want, darling.”

”And the money?”

”We'll get an oil contract. Do you know any American oil companies, Nisrine? I have a cousin.”

On the roof, he would do anything for her. He gave her his chest, his mouth, by touching them.

”You want my soul?” He touched his throat. ”Anything you want is yours.” As if to take it out, he made a cutting motion.

He thought of his father: You are the son of a man.

”When you are sad, Nisrine, go down to the river. Look out and think, I was loved by a man.”

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