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Nill never had such fancy dresses before she came to the church. Bishop tells her that they're pretty, that she looks pretty in them, but that's a word that doesn't feel like it belongs to her. It belongs to loud, pushy men who have the kind of smile she doesn't like, the kind of smile that says they're pleased that they're doing something wrong. (Heine makes them stop. Heine always makes them stop. But it's a bad smile anyway, even if she trusts Heine.)
So pretty isn't a word for Nill. She doesn't want it, doesn't think she has a use for it. She has other words for the dresses, because she does like them too. She thinks about how soft they feel, or how smooth they are. (Real silk, Granny Liza said once, when she was marking a hemline with pins. Where he found something like that, I have no idea. She looked up to meet Nill's eyes then. He may be a stray dog and too quick to bite, but it's clear he wants to care for you, girl.)
That part makes Nill feel good. She has these soft things, these smooth things that feel good against her skin, because Heine wants to take care of her. Sometimes she'll catch the hem of her dress between her fingers, folded over once, and just rub the material against itself. It slips, slides, an easy motion back and forth. It's comforting, that feeling. Something smooth and gentle and good, when so much of what happens outside isn't like that at all. If she's worrying about Heine and can't sleep, she sometimes brings one of those nice dresses to bed with her, holding onto its softness, pressing it to her face. The softness is a promise, and a secret about Heine that most people never know: they see only his sharp parts, not his soft ones. The silk brushes her cheek and it's a comfort, something soothing.
When Heine comes to the church to see her, she does her best to take care of him, too, even though she doesn't know if it really helps. (Bishop says she's good for him. Bishop says she's saving his soul.) She can listen to him, and Heine will talk to her, the way other people talk to Bishop when they're shut up in the little box of the confessional. She can't tell him things will be all right (and she knows that's not true, anyway, just like he does) and she can't tell him how glad she is that he's there for her (and maybe that's better, anyway; maybe that's part of why he can talk when she's the only one around)—but she can show him that she's listening, and that he matters to her. Nill reaches out and cups his face in her hands, and she puts all the force of her wishing, all the words that stay trapped inside her heart, into giving her hands the same softness as the silk. She wants to give him that same feeling: so much of the underground is rough and loud and sharp, but here is something soft, something gentle. A wish for something good.
The hardness goes out of his eyes for a second and he gives her the tiniest possible smile, leaning into the softness of her hands. He knows what she means. He knows.