I fell in love in Nancy. She was a blonde, with blue eyes and a captivating smile. Her name was Hanna, and she was 11 months old when we met.

Hanna and Said pass time with music.

Hanna is the child of Said Labidi, a 34-year-old French-Algerian journalist, and Katalin Lukacs, a 28-year-old Hungarian travel writer. They had recently moved into a beautiful house in the Nancy suburbs, and their months of total baby priority were about to end. Hanna was now almost able to walk on her own, eat on her own and play on her own. It was about time: Both Said and Katalin had months of sleep to catch up on.

The couple had met five years earlier, when both were on a business trip to Turkey. A framed photo of them dressed as the sultan and his queen, shot in Istanbul, adorns the bookshelf in the living room. Katalin moved to France about three years ago and took an intensive one-year course in French to be able to talk to Said comfortably. For him to learn the hellishly difficult Hungarian language was all but out of the question.

I couldn't help but look at this couple as a symbol of European unification. Hungary, a small and weak Eastern European nation, made a major effort to unite with Western Europe. Hungary strove for years to make it happen, its efforts ultimately resulting in a celebratory admission. France, meanwhile, did a lot to smooth transition in the West. On May 1, 2004, when Eastern Europe officially became part of the political Europe to which its geography and history were tied, events had only caught up with the reality of these two people and many others.

I have no idea how many East-West couples there are, but I do know that they feel right. Kevin and Alina, my friends in Bucharest, are in much the same shoes: Kevin is French, Alina is Romanian, and they are as happy as any couple I know.

Hanna Labidi, the 11-month-old daughter of Said (French) and Katalin (Hungarian)

Said and Katalin could be the living proof that Old Europe and New Europe are only entries in the Rumsfeldian dictionary. But when we started to disrupt the tranquility of the afternoon by talking about politics, Said's words made me realize that France doesn't share the gratitude Eastern Europe feels toward the United States. Neither does it share the humility.

Said was fuming with anger when he talked about the Iraq campaign, for example. "This is not a problem of terrorism; it's a problem of colonialism," he argued. The United States does exactly what Europeans did during colonialist times. Americans go around the world and treat it as theirs, caring even less about locals than Europeans did. The United States spreads democracy and believes everyone wants its freedoms, he said, but do they really?

Of course, many of today's problems are the result of the previous colonialist powers, we concluded. The Middle East is a powder keg because of the way the British left it after World War II -- drawing borders that guaranteed conflicts. In two obvious but far from isolated examples, they deprived Palestinians and Kurds of a homeland. Americans arrived on top of that gunpowder barrel and didn't -- and don't -- exactly watch their steps.

The European family in the garden of their new home in the Nancy suburbs

Said, as an Arab Frenchman, is infuriated by what he sees as America's tendency to lump all Arabs together.

"I have about as much to do with Bin Laden as Katalin has to do with Hitler," Said said.

"If I'm this angry, imagine the millions who live in the Arab countries, how angry they are," he continued. "America is creating a breeding ground for terrorists. Before, Iraq wasn't a particularly anti-American country. Look at it now."

He was raging. If it hadn't been for Hanna's blue eyes, it would have taken him hours to calm down, it seemed. But seconds after his baby walked into the room, Said melted. He picked up his guitar and started to play Bob Marley's "Redemption Song" to her. "Won't you help to sing / These songs of freedom?"

He was a proud and happy father -- in a new Europe.

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printable version of "EUROPE: The Re-Orient Express"