Part 16 (2/2)
”Well, we need a couple ourselves to eat from.”
All afternoon, from our neighbors' apartment we heard chanting. It started as a low, hollow sound and slowly grew-There is no G.o.d but G.o.d, Muhammad is the prophet of G.o.d-until our hall ran with it, and it shook the embroidery and the religious sayings in their frames.
”Oof,” Madame said, ”death, must everyone know about it?”
We waited until evening, and when the spoons still had not been returned, Madame sent me over to get them. I waited patiently at the door for them, and when I brought them home, Madame counted them carefully and we washed them again, even though they'd come back clean.
IN MADAME'S APARTMENT, there were also two sides now, either Madame's side or Nisrine's side, and if you talked to Nisrine, then you were not on Madame's side, and you could not be part of the family. Dounia tried to bake cookies with Nisrine in the evening. She was wearing Nisrine's ap.r.o.n, and they were both laughing.
Abudi came in and said, ”Nisrine can't do anything right.”
Dounia and Nisrine ignored him.
So Abudi hit Dounia.
”Stupid Indonese.”
Nisrine kept trying. She took a cloth to the inside of the oven.
To a.s.suage her honor, she thought up other plans to make money.
”Bea, do you know an American oil company?”
”No.”
”Maybe you could find yourself one. It's good business. Adel has a cousin. He said if we find him an oil company to sell, he'll give us two percent.”
I didn't like these plans, which involved her leaving. ”I'm a student, I don't know anyone in the oil business.”
”Maybe I could talk him into giving us three percent. On one million, that's thirty thousand.”
”But I don't know any oil companies.”
So, she tried again with something else. ”Do you have a big bag?”
She knew I had a big bag.
”I have too many clothes.” She had had to leave some behind, during the gas scare. ”I need a big bag, for when I leave, to put them in.”
I was frustrated with Nisrine. I wanted her to try with Madame, not big bags.
Still. When Madame went to the bathroom, we got out my big bag from the closet and wheeled it quietly into the children's bedroom, where Nisrine slept, for when a miracle happened and she could leave.
WHAT SAVED NISRINE was the house she would build. Through it, she still loved this one, and her love made me see it differently: the beauty of our green tiles, like cold oceans; the width of our windows-from them, lying at any angle, you could always see the sky.
I imagined this must be how Baba had seen his house, with eyes full of wonder, when he first got out of jail.
Nisrine went from room to room as if she had been gone longer than two hours, touching our walls as if she were remembering them, long white roads that might lead her someday to her own home, that she took a bucket and a rag to each month.
She borrowed Adel's cell phone to call her family. I watched her from the kitchen, her shoulder hunched up to her ear to hold the phone. While she talked, she swept one-handed.
”What did they say?” I asked afterwards.
”They want me to be happy. They need money.”
After that, for a time she didn't talk any more about leaving.
AND YET, there were still days of beauty. Madame got out her wedding video to show us. All of us had seen it. First, there was a still picture of Madame, fifteen years ago. She wore a pink dress. Its skirt flowed off the screen, over Baba's lap. Baba sat very straight and still in the video. Even fifteen years ago, he looked awkwardly tall next to Madame's flowing skirt and perfume.
”Which is prettier?” Madame asked us. ”Me now, or me then?”
”Who is that girl in the picture?” I teased. ”I don't even recognize her.”
”I look different with makeup on, no? Which is prettier, now or then?”
”Both.”
”No, choose one.”
”Now, without makeup.”
Madame nodded. ”Ha.s.san thinks so, too.”
The film cut to the party. The couple was given a single gla.s.s of juice and two straws to drink from. The music blared, even through the TV screen.
Madame said, ”Don't ask me what kind of juice it was, I don't remember a thing about it.”
She looked over at Baba, who read by the window.
”Do you remember what kind of juice it was, Ha.s.san?”
”No.”
We fast-forwarded to the dancing. On the video, some women had dragged Baba to the dance floor. They made a circle around the new couple. Madame was dancing. She didn't look at the camera, she looked at Baba, dancing. There was glitter in her hair and it sparkled in the light on the video, as she slid toward him and away. She shook her chest at him.
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