She burst into tears at unpredictable times. She needed her own bedroom, so he cleared out his home office for her. We saw her bed, a child-sized cot.
We began to suspect that he had done it all purely out of kindness, that he had wanted to rescue someone and give her a better home, a new life. He wanted to be a savior, not a husband. “Why didn’t he just adopt a child, then?” we asked each other.
I thought, Maybe I should adopt a child. I ought to have one of my own; people are always looking at me and saying “childbearing hips” as if it’s a compliment. But then I think of the rabbit my sister had as a pet when we were little girls. I remember holding him tightly to my chest until he stopped kicking. I was keeping him warm, but when I let go he was limp. We put him back in the cage for our father to find. I still dream of white fur, one sticky pink eye. I worry I might do the same to a baby. I could adopt a bigger one, a toddler. Not too sickly. But what if it doesn’t understand English?
Of course you want to help, but what can you do? We did what we could: we gave money to feed overseas orphans, money for artificial limbs and eye operations; we volunteered at local schools; we took meals to housebound invalids once a month; we passed out leaflets on street corners. A friend of mine volunteers to escort women past the protesters into abortion clinics and has invited me to join her, but it’s never a good day for me. We recycle. We get angry and self-righteous about what we see on the news. When I see a homeless person on the street I give whatever’s in my pocket.
It’s not enough. But what can you do? What can you do?
Joel had a friend, Malcolm, he was always promising to introduce us to. Malcolm worked for some global humanitarian organization. We saw him on television occasionally, reporting from some wartorn, decimated, or drought-stricken place, hospital beds in the background, people missing feet with flies clustered on their eyes, potbellied children washing their heads in what looks like a cesspool. Malcolm was balding but handsome in a weather-beaten cowboy way. His earnest face made you want to reach for your wallet. “That guy, he can relief-effort me any time,” we’d say to Joel. But we hadn’t met him yet. We were beginning to suspect he existed only inside the box and was not allowed out.
As for Nadia: “Where’s she from, exactly?” we asked Joel.
“A bad place,” he said, frowning. “Her village is right in the middle of contested territory, every week a new name. Don’t ask her about it. It makes her sad.”
“All right,” we said, but privately we wondered at his protecting her feelings like that. No one we knew had ever stopped talking about something because it made us sad. No one. Not even Joel. Was it because we were fat happy Americans, incapable of real sadness? Was it because he thought we had no feelings, or because he thought we were strong enough to bear sadness? Unlike poor delicate Nadia with her pink-rimmed eyes, Nadia who bought her clothes in the children’s department because she had no hips. She said she did it because the clothes were sturdier, better quality, would last longer.
Last longer? How much longer will she need green corduroy overalls, or narrow jeans with unicorns embroidered on the back pockets? How much longer before her hips swell and her legs thicken and her collarbone stops sticking out in that unbecoming way?
Her legs are not like American legs; they are pieces of string, flimsy and boneless.
“We’ll take her shopping,” we told Joel. “We’ll show her the ropes.”
“She’s doing just fine,” he said. “I’ll take her.”
I said, “You should be careful. I’ve heard, people like her, the first time they go to an American supermarket, they have seizures or pass out.”
“Why?” he said.
“They just can’t take it,” I said. “They’re not used to it. The … the abundance or something. Overstimulation.”
“Thanks for the heads-up,” he said, but he wasn’t looking at me. Nadia stood at the other end of the room, before a window, so that sunlight set her hair afire and shone right through her pink translucent ears. Her ankles were crossed, her arms folded, a cigarette hung from her fingers. The skin on her face, her arms, was so milky-white her ears didn’t seem to belong to her. Around her people moved in shadows.
“Do you know,” he said, “she lets me hold her hand. In public? Just walking down the street? All the time.”
He was beginning to talk like her, question marks in the wrong places.
“I love her,” he said, in a stupid way. He was talking like one of his moony students. There was something black floating in his drink, next to the ice cube, and he didn’t even notice.
“How do you hold hands?” I said. “Like this?”
“Well … no,” he said. “Usually.… I take her by the wrist. Or grab her thumb. But she doesn’t pull away. She lets me. She likes it.”
“Like this?” I said. “Or like this?”
“Not exactly,” he said. “Her wrist is so little, my fingers go right around … like this, see, only hers are even smaller. I can hold them both in one hand.”
His palm was the same, still warm and damp, fingers long and blunt-tipped, hair on the backs. The hair almost hid the new wedding ring. There were bulgy things in the breast pockets of his shirt. The toe of my shoe was almost touching the toe of his. I wondered if she would look up and see us holding hands like this.
But she didn’t. She was absorbed in her cigarette, her halo of sunlight.
Joel was a high school teacher. He loved kids. People always said that about him, first thing: “He loves kids. Such a nice guy” We had always thought it was a wonderful thing about him; it meant he was caring, he was generous, he was nurturing, he was fun. He would be a terrific father. He taught chemistry; he coached the soccer team. He had won the Teacher of the Year plaque three different times. Kids came to him in tears, they trusted him that much, and he’d let them cry through a box of Kleenex and keep his mouth shut and the classroom door open, and then hand them over to the proper counselor or police officer or health-care worker. There had never been a bit of trouble. Not with the girls, not with anyone.He had perfected the art of the friendly distance, the arm’s-length intimacy. We had always known his girlfriend or wife would never have reason to worry about cheerleaders or teen temptresses. Joel was better than that.
At least, we had never suspected anything of him until he brought home this child bride, who must have weighed half of what he did, who sometimes wore her hair in two long braids. Then we had to wonder. Before, we liked to hear him talk about his students. Now there was something off about it, a sour note. “My kids,” he would say. “I love those kids. Do you know what they did? Stephanie Riser and Ashley Mink? Listen.…”And we would listen, but there was something tainting it now, a thin black thread.
“Don’t you think she’s a little too young?” we said.
“Nadia? No! She’s thirty-three.”
“No!” we said.
‘Yes,” he said, looking pleased.
“She must be lying,” we said. “She can’t be.”
“It’s right on her papers,” he said.
“As if that proves anything,” we said. But we said it nicely.
They bought a house together. What does that mean? He bought the house. It was his money. She contributed nothing. What did she do with herself all day? “She makes me happy,” Joel said. Her?
“She’s trained as a doctor,” he said. “She has to pass a test before she can practice here.”
“What kind of doctor?”
“It’s a source of great frustration. She has to relearn things she studied years ago, chemistry, anatomy, in a new language. You should see the size of these books.”