"It's not a kite, it's a fish!"

"It's not a fish, it's a heart!"

"A broken heart!"

We pulled the bag up. It came away in two pieces, unhinged. Abudi took them both and ran inside.

The blond policeman was still waving.

Nisrine and I stood on the balcony. When Abudi had gone, Nisrine brought a rug to shake.

He was still waving.

I waved back to him, but he didn't seem to notice.

Nisrine beat the rug.

Waving, and waving.

She hung it over the balcony rail and squinted out at the policeman, who was watching. He had spent months, waiting.

Finally, she sighed and pointed to herself. "Is he waving at me?" Her finger touched her heart and as suddenly as it had begun, the waving stopped. He stood very still in the setting sun, hair shining. Slowly, while I watched, his hand slid down from his wave, over his shoulder, onto his heart. And, if there was strangeness left between us, then this is how Nisrine and I finally, really made up.

She turned to me. "You don't mind, do you, Bea?"

I minded. I was trying not to mind.

Her eyes were shining.

"No."

She said, "Don't tell anyone."

Nisrine was a maid who wanted to grow her heart, so she wouldn't miss home. I was a student who wanted to read a text, who wanted to grow my heart, too, who wanted to feel, deeply.

I had cut Nisrine's hair, but she had no choice now, except to trust me. And I had no choice now, except not to mind. Because, even though I had liked him first, we both knew who the policeman's poem was about.

Adel was touching his heart.

Nisrine was touching her heart.

She put a hand on my hand like she'd done once before, and put it over her heart, to show me-"Can you feel it, Bea?"

It had begun to grow.

LOVE BEGINS.

(RECONSTRUCTED WITH THE HELP OF ADEL'S LETTERS) ADEL CALLED AGAIN AND AGAIN to the house phone while Madame was out.

Nisrine played coy.

"h.e.l.lo, dear, how are you?"

"Fine." (Giggling.) "Where are you? I miss you!"

She looked at me. "With people."

"When can I see you?"

"I don't know. Maybe later."

She took the children down to play in the garden, where Adel was waiting. Madame could see from the window it was empty except for a policeman, that was why she let them go. "Don't talk to anyone," she said, as she always did. "Come back up if there are too many children."

But there was just a blond policeman, who took a seat on a bench facing Nisrine. A wisp of hair had escaped from under her white veil, and he wanted to touch it. So he said instead, "Why don't you straighten your hair?"

"I don't like to, you like it better straight?"

"Honestly, Nisrine, from the moment I saw you I loved you."

They were two heads, close together by the bushes.

The children ran around the swing set once. Above them, Madame and I at the window were watching.

"How old are you?" Nisrine asked.

"How old do you think?"

"Don't lie."

"Nisrine, I love you. I wouldn't lie."

"Then, how old are you?"

"How old are you?"

"I asked first."

"I'm twenty-one."

"You're lying."

"I'm not, do you want to see my ident.i.ty card?"

"Yes."

"I don't have it with me."

She looked at him. Her eyes were clear and black, two sides of a dark desert.

"Fine, I'm twenty-three."

He laid his hand beside hers. Two years between them.

He said, "That's good, then."

They did not know where this left them. He watched her sweep, her heart-shaped b.u.t.t.

He called again and again until Madame answered, then he hung up.

Later, Nisrine said, "Don't call me, silly, you'll get me in trouble!" Laughing.

They tried again, a second time in the garden. This time, Adel was ready.

"Nisrine, do you know the desert?"

She knew the desert.

"My grandfather is from there. He says there is one flower that is more beautiful than all the others, that blooms only once every hundred years. I think you might be that flower."

"I might?"

"I think so. My grandfather is an important man, he fought for the president. He was captured by the enemy."

She said, "My grandfather knew the ocean. He once beat back a flood with a stick."

He said, "Your grandfather had magical powers!"

She liked this. "Your grandfather sounds very brave."

They sat a moment in silence. That wisp of hair was blowing about her veil again, wanting him to touch it. He said instead, "That's good, then."

THERE IS A LANGUAGE that develops in love. When the circ.u.mstance is extreme (looking out from a roof, over a balcony, high above the world), then so can be the language. Theirs was of epic proportion.

They talked with their hands across the street and the garden. He stood on the rooftop, she on the balcony. Because they were far apart, it was a language of large movements. Of arms flung wide open, chests out, legs spread to express great meaning. Years later Adel would remember this, and it would still give him goose b.u.mps, even after all that had happened.

She leaned over the balcony, palms up as if to catch him. He touched his eyes with a long arm. It meant, Anything you need, I'll give it to you. It meant, Even my eyes are yours alone, I've saved you even my eyes.

In the evening, Nisrine ironed with the blinds open. Dounia and Abudi played Let's Go Hajj by the table. They put a box in the center for the Kaaba stone. They ran around it seven times. They leaned their heads out the window to feel the desert, facing the mountain.

Nisrine took off her outer veil and laid it aside on the counter. She took off her inner veil and laid it on top of the outer. She undid the clip at the back of her head, and let her hair hang as she ironed.

On the roof in the darkness, she could feel him watching.

The children and I sat all around her, drinking water, not helping.

She looked at the children. "Baba's not here, is he?"

They didn't answer.

Her hair had grown. She must have fixed it herself, it was no longer uneven. It fell in wisps around her neck, like smoke.

She looked at me. "You don't mind, do you, Bea? It's hot in here."

Adel went back to his friends on the rooftop.

"I'm in love with a foreign girl," and he pointed to the maid with the children, and the American beside her in the window. They looked out to where he was pointing, through the dark to a bright yellow kitchen. They watched the blur of the running children. They watched Nisrine's back as she ironed.

"Adel's in love with a foreign girl," they teased, "he won't guard anyone but her," and they meant me, the American. They laughed and looked over at my bright hair through the window, because Nisrine was a maid with her back to them, they couldn't see her beauty. An American was foreign.

HE WROTE HER POEMS. He wrote them on tissue paper, one copy for her, one for him, and stuffed them in pink plastic bags we used for the bathroom, tied up the bags, and threw them onto the balcony where she would find them. When he learned she didn't read poetic Arabic, he memorized his poems to recite to her. He included long, annotated, simple Arabic translations, and when she didn't understand, he went through the poems line by line and explained them, so she would know what his love meant.

To a Flower, Even Prettier than Jasmine.

I love jasmine flowers, explained the simple version. Really, I love jasmine. And you're more beautiful even than the jasmine.

And She Will Know Inshahallah, That after Her there are no Women.

And before her only Dust.

You are the only woman for me. I will always protect your honor, and I will always tell you the truth. And I tell you, anything you want, I'm yours, it's before you. I've talked to you for three days, and I've known of you for two months. If I've lied to you one word-this is in writing! Let me record it in writing! If I've lied to you, tell me in front of everyone, You're not a man! I don't have a reason to lie to you.

For in the Desert, She Is All Water In Her Arms I Rest from Thirst.

You are my everything. Doesn't a man in the desert thirst just for water? And if he has water, doesn't that sustain him? I'm an open book, Nisrine. Pick a year and I'll tell you. I'll help you. Ninety-four. I was nine. My first love. Pick another. Please, Nisrine, pick another. It is beautiful when a woman questions and a man answers. I tell you everything. I relax when I tell you, I relax when you know.

And like the White Flower Alone She Sits, Shining in the night.

Point to the jasmine, Nisrine. No, point to the jasmine. Who's my life? Eh, who's my life? That's right, Nisrine Kusnadi, she's my life.

I have not talked about my own feelings, or Nisrine's, these will come later. For now, I give you Adel, who could talk and talk about love, and write poems and poems of jasmine.