you about.
I wonder what that’s like. There have been times when I’m sure I’m dying: when my heart flutters in the middle of the night for no reason, when a loneliness or craving is so strong it nauseates me—but of course I’m not. I wonder if living close to the edge of desperation like that makes you feel more alive. It’s a cliché, I know, but most clichés have a core of truth, don’t they? One time I tried to ask Nadia about it—whether she’d felt more alive back there in her homeland with death all around. She didn’t seem to understand the question. She didn’t see a difference between there and here. As if for her it was all the same: Life was perilous everywhere, a teetering tightrope walk from one minute to the next.
We wondered what would happen to Joel and Nadia. Surely they couldn’t go on together? How could he explain it? Even if it wasn’t her daughter, how could he have done such a thing? She wouldn’t be able to stay with him. How could she? She might even go back. Maybe she’d realize that her kind of people demand a sort of heroism she won’t find here.
We felt certain Joel wouldn’t have hidden behind the bodies of our hypothetical daughters. He would have taken a bullet, rather. We all knew this. Nadia and her kind were different, they counted less. They were one degree closer to being objects, to his mind. He might deny it, but actions speak louder, don’t they? In moments of panic, the true self comes to the surface.
And she had abandoned her own daughter. How could they stay together, knowing these ugly truths about each other? So much for frankness.
To be rid of Nadia. Hadn’t that been the intent all along? No one wanted to say it outright, but I will. Yes, it was. But now the prospect of a solitary Joel was no longer appetizing. We knew that, despite the avoidance, Joel was in need of our friendship and pity, probably for the first time. But now we didn’t feel like giving it to him; we wanted to lavish it on someone more worthy.
Suddenly, we didn’t want Nadia to leave.
“Have you seen Nadia?” we asked each other. “He doesn’t let her out,” we said. “He’s holding her hostage in that miserable house.”
We organized a rescue mission. “We’ll break the door down if we have to,” we said. Of course we didn’t have to. Joel opened the door with bowed head. “Where is she?” we said, pushing our way in. We were momentarily distracted; Joel looked like he might tolerate, for once might even welcome, a hug or a kiss on the cheek. We steeled ourselves and pressed on.
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