Part 21 (1/2)

Madame talked only to me. ”You don't have to do that. I'm in charge of her. I can buy her a big bag.”

”It's OK, I wasn't using it.”

”I'm in charge of her. I was going to buy her a big bag next year, when her contract is up. But, here it's in the way. The children can't get to their closet.”

I went with Madame to drink water from the bottles that we had filled before bed. In the hallway, the ironing sat in piles, and the iron balanced neatly on its board, where Nisrine had left it.

Madame gave me her bottle to hold. ”Look, Bea, it's still plugged in, do you see that? She's dangerous. She wants to kill us. First the gas, then this.” She unplugged the iron.

I said, ”It was off. It was plugged in, but it was off.”

”You don't understand because you don't have children. Maybe someday you'll understand. I have a responsibility to be safe. You see how before we eat, I wash the parsley with iodine? That's to kill the toxins, to be safe, they put sewage on the parsley, they irrigate with sewage here. I don't know when I'm not looking if she really washes the parsley, or maybe sometimes she mistakes iodine for bleach, I don't know with her anymore. I can't trust her.” Madame shook her head. ”You don't have children, Bea. You don't know what it takes to build a family, and then some stranger comes and messes it up.”

Madame had wanted Nisrine to leave. She had complained ever since she and Baba brought her back. But, she wanted Nisrine to leave on her terms.

Nisrine had loved a policeman, and he had fought Baba, and this, we worried, had been the last straw, it decided Baba about the doc.u.ment. If he was going to fight, then it would be for signing, something he was proud of.

Madame found she could do nothing about this. Adel had fought because Nisrine wanted to leave, and now Baba had gone to sign, which meant he would be in more danger.

It was not just Nisrine's fault: if Baba signed, that was his choice, not hers, not mine, not Adel's.

About a bag, Madame could do something.

I helped Madame drag my bag back into our bedroom and put it high on the top shelf, where you needed a ladder to get to it, for next year, when Nisrine's contract was up and she could leave.

WE DID NOT TRY to talk to Adel; Madame was watching. Though I wanted to, I did not try to talk to Nisrine.

That night, I dreamed of Imad. In my dream, we were both in America, where Imad fit in and spoke perfect English. Here, I stood out with my messy hair and loose jeans, but not Imad. He dressed perfectly and, as I dreamed, he grew with my culture, like Qais who grew into the name Crazy for Leila, or like the small scar on my finger that I got from a scissors when I was young: separate, but a part of me.

I woke in the middle of the night to Baba's hand on my shoulder. ”Bea, phone call.”

So, he had come back to us. He smelled of smoke and old men.

I untangled myself from Lema's legs and followed Baba, soft as dust, down the hall to the living room, where he handed me the house phone. My father was on the line. He'd tried my number and couldn't get through. He didn't call often. He didn't realize that here, it was two a.m.

On the phone, my father said, ”How are things, Bea?”

”Fine.”

Baba sat down across from me. In the dark, his hunched back looked like a lone mountain.

My father said, ”Your mother says you're thinking you might come home early.”

I had been thinking about it. But when he said it, I suddenly didn't want to admit this to him. ”Well, there's that reunion.”

”That might be a good idea. It sounds like your mother wants you to come home.”

I sat near Baba in the dark living room with my legs curled under me. In the United States, my father was making dinner. I could hear him slice tomatoes and grate cheese. I couldn't remember the last time I'd had tomatoes with grated cheese. I closed my eyes and tried to pretend I was in the United States, with my father. I tried to listen past his words, to the sound of the grating.

He asked, ”Why so silent tonight? Is everything OK, Bea?”

If I wanted, I could describe every move my father was making as if I were standing next to him; I'd spent every summer since I was small with him, and I'd watched him make dinner a hundred times this way. But he wanted to talk about how far away we were from each other, and did I miss home? He missed me, did I miss him? So, I stopped pretending we were close and there were no countries between us, and instead I sat on the sofa knowing I was speaking to my father out of nowhere, because he had no idea what this sofa or this city looked like, he would have no idea about what to do with a maid who was unhappy, or a policeman, or a doc.u.ment calling for an end to censors.h.i.+p and free elections; he wouldn't understand these things, like he didn't understand this city.

When I hung up, Baba said, ”You're going to leave us, Bea?”

I didn't know what I was going to do. I wanted to ask Baba if he had signed.

I opened my mouth, but he said, ”Amal wants me to leave.”

”She does?”

”She's worried about my interview. She thinks I went too far, I insulted a policeman.” He didn't mention Nisrine's and my connection. ”I go to the Journalists' Club; this, too, is dangerous-it's a place for resisters, where we keep the doc.u.ment. Amal worries the police will find this place, I might be taken. I have a sister up north who said I could stay.”

North, the place where they had once burned a river.

”Will you go?”

”Here are my people, I stay with my people.”

Silence. All around us were dark blobs, the signs of disorganized life at Madame's. Crumbs like black dots on the end table, a pile of laundry, two tea gla.s.ses not in the sink. These were such small, ordinary objects to surround us. They felt like charms. With a pile of undone laundry beside us, how could Baba ever be forced to leave? I closed my eyes, and hoped to charm away trouble.

I thought, Maybe Adel can still help. Maybe there's still time.

Baba said, ”You don't talk much about your father, Bea. What does he do?”

”He works in a bank. My mother's a veterinarian.”

Baba nodded. ”I like animals. Amal doesn't, though.”

I already knew this. Madame was always complaining about stray cats that got in.

Baba said, ”You know Amal was engaged to my brother?”

”She was?”

Baba nodded. ”When I went to jail, he took over my business, but he was a profligate. G.o.d provides for us. When I came back, he'd ruined my business, and he liked many women.”

”So, what happened?”

”G.o.d sees everything.”

I didn't understand.

”He was young and liked women. Forty days after I came back, they took him to the hospital and he died.”

”G.o.d rest him,” I said.