But Baba was already looking for his gla.s.ses. He searched the sofa. He searched a pile of fresh-bound books.

Madame sighed. "We are such cowards," she said. "Everyone heard gunshots, and no one even went to the balcony to look. We just stand around in the hall, where we can't see anything and the police can't get to us. Except Ha.s.san. Ha.s.san's the only donkey stupid enough to move himself tonight. The neighbors are all asking one another and no one knows what happened because no one will poke their head outside to see."

After the gunshots, there were more pro-government rallies. They followed early in the morning. But this time, fewer people came. We weren't allowed to talk about politics in front of Dounia: schoolchildren were talking, and their parents were being arrested. You could tell which side the parents were on by the children's games of tag: one side was the president's, the other was democracy.

At my next lesson with Imad, Maria and I both showed up early, because there were pro-government rallies scheduled for the afternoon, and the buses would all be diverted. We didn't want to end up on a bus accidentally bound for the rallies.

At our lesson, Maria was sulky and didn't want to play on the workout machines. She watched Imad and me pedal the bicycle and do sit-ups.

"I miss Starbucks," she said. "Don't you miss Starbucks, Bea? I miss donuts. And United Colors of Benetton. I want to go into an air-conditioned mall, and know they'll have a United Colors of Benetton."

Imad said, "With voweling, Maria. Repeat that with voweling."

But today, Maria wasn't interested in voweling. Today, she was interested in the gas sanctions and night gunshots, how it all made her tired of being here.

She kept having to blow her nose, so Imad kept stopping the machine to hand her tissues, and when he did, his arm pa.s.sed right next to my ear.

After a little while, Maria decided she couldn't study today, she was too distracted, so she got her purse to leave before the rallies began.

On the workout machine, I was struggling like Maria. I couldn't help it. I kept thinking about gunshots, and Nisrine, who I was trying hard with, and American drip coffee.

When Imad returned from walking Maria out, he held a tissue for me.

"Your eyes are puffy," he said.

"Really? That's so strange! It must be allergies."

I went to the mirror to look at my eyes. Imad followed me. In the mirror, I could see his whole apartment. It was all straight lines and empty s.p.a.ce because he lived alone. Not like Madame's. At Madame's, there were sofa covers and floral prints and on the walls were the round curves of embroidery.

Imad asked, "Is everything OK, Bea?"

"Of course."

I was here to study. There were gunshots in the street, Baba might sign a free elections doc.u.ment, I couldn't access the astonishing text, and I was here to study.

Out the window, we could hear the beginnings of a rally. Imad went over and fiddled with the radio to drown out the sound, but the radio stations all played folk songs for the rally. I was used to this.

When he couldn't find any good stations, Imad turned the radio off. "I'll sing to you instead," he said. "Do you know a.s.sala, Bea?"

I didn't.

"Do you know Warda?" Imad asked.

Everyone knew Warda. So Imad sang me a song by Warda.

"I ask you, what would I do if you left me?" he sang. "You say, love another. But I can only love another if he looks like you. I can only love two men if there are two of you."

His voice was low and soft the way a forest is low and soft and far away from this city, which made me love his voice, the way I loved faraway things right then: the calm of land and s.p.a.ce out a back window. Madame's apartment only looked out the front.

When Imad was done, he went to his window. "I hope it rains soon," he said. "Do you like the rain, Bea? Here, we love rain. Rain is like blue eyes, we think it's special."

I said, "My mother used to sing to me."

Imad said, "Consider me your mother."

After a moment, he said, "You want to know what I sing to my mother? She will be with me all my life, my woman . . ."

It was a nationalist song. The woman was the country. It sounded like a national anthem. When it was done, he sang a song about a man who was imprisoned in the Golan, so the man made his body a blank canvas on which to write his love. A text of love. It reminded me of the astonishing text, which had the power to move even scholars and old men. I still felt I must read that text. I kept trying, and the days in which I didn't read it kept pa.s.sing, and as I studied more and more, it had begun to take on a sort of background urgency, a small ache at the back of my heart, where Nisrine and Adel also were.

Imad asked, "Do you have any jokes, Bea? To make the time pa.s.s, until the rallies are done."

I had jokes. But they were ones I'd heard Baba tell his friends against the government. I didn't think I could repeat those, even to Imad.

So I told him one in English, instead. "What did the girl olive say to the boy olive?"

He didn't know.

"Olive you."

Imad liked that one.

He said, "A man has never slept with a woman before, and his friends tell him, Come on, let's go find some girls.' So they find a nice cat-that's slang for girl, Bea-and they leave him alone with her. And she asks him, Is there anything I can do for you?' and he says, I'd like a cup of coffee.' She makes him the coffee. She says, Is there anything else I can do for you?' He says, I'd like some dinner.' She makes him some dinner. She says, Is there anything else I can do for you?' He says, No, I don't think so.' She says, All right, then.' He says, What are you?' She says, I'm a cat.' He says, And I'm an a.s.s.'"

Imad laughed very hard at his own joke. He asked me for another one. While I was thinking, he sang me another Warda song.

"I love you leila and nahari (night and day)." Leila means night in Arabic.

I thought about this fact, and about the suggestive joke Imad had told. Qais and Leila never kissed, they didn't have the opportunity, they only loved from afar. As I thought of this, I realized Nisrine and Adel had probably never kissed. They blew kisses, imagined kisses-did they miss the real ones?

This whole time, I had been dreaming of a love like theirs.

Outside, the rally was pa.s.sing. Behind it came a man leading his goats, and the man and the goats were herded off to the side by policemen. The land swelled up around them, rocky and ugly and cement ridden.

Imad said, "Where have you gone, Bea? To America and back?"

"No, I was listening."

So he sang me another song. And as Imad sang, the rally disappeared down the street, and again we could see the empty city, sprawling up the hillside, and it was also ugly, and Imad's voice filled the room, and I realized he had sung me all the way until the rally was done, and I could go home. He had a beautiful voice.

At the door, Imad kissed me on both cheeks, like the French did, even though neither of us was French.

"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."