Wasted Salt

by Sarah Houssayni

  The ileostomy bag was now poking out of her black T-shirt, like a kid’s inflatable toy. She needed to do this an hour ago, but she was in the slow van that stopped everywhere on the way. Zahra squatted over the hole in the ground, as best as she could, she had her thighs spread out around the drain opening. She hated floor toilets; they were messy no matter how she squatted over them with a bag. After her surgery and rehab the nurses asked Fatima to install a regular toilet, to make it easy for Zahra to empty her bag without splashing and having to clean the whole bathroom. Fatima told them those toilets would be unsanitary; she was a woman who washed herself for prayer and needed to keep her wudhu intact from toilet seats.

  Zahra always wondered why the Allah her mother worshipped was so harsh and inconsiderate of differences. Zahra thought that people made a god in their image, and went on forcing that god on everyone else.

  The dark hole in the white ceramic on the floor always reminded her of Nietzsche, ever since she read his, “When you look long into an abyss, the abyss also looks into you.” Nadim told her she would like the book. “Books are windows with excellent views,” he said.

  She was not going to be stuck in that house with no proper toilet; she was not going to let the abyss look into her. At Hajji’s house, Zahra had her own bathroom; all her ostomy supplies were on a table. When she came to visit her mother every once in a while, Zahra appreciated how much easier it was to clean her bag at Hajji’s.

  Zahra rolled her T-shirt up and tucked it under her brassiere; her stomach was hollow with pink scars running across it in every direction, like the chart of a busy city. She looked at the distended bag, rolled the end, and opened it over the hole. She watched the green slime go down and turned her face away to escape the splutter that she could feel on her legs and feet.

  “Kis ikhtak!” she cussed under her breath. She knew it was not the bag’s fault, it still felt good to curse it, calling his sister a whore. Zahra tried to reach to the side to get water from bucket to rinse her bag before rolling it back closed. The bucket was too far for her to reach, she cussed the bucket and got up holding the end of the bag upwards to avoid splashing herself with green feces.

  After she rinsed and closed her bag, Zahra splashed water into the toilet and around it to clean her mess. She then lifted one leg at a time and kept it above the white floor bowl as she rinsed it, she needed soap, but this would do for now, she thought she could wipe her legs and feet some more once she got to the room. She just wanted to get out of that small, smelly bathroom, even though the stink was all hers.

  She washed her hands at the fractured sink. Fatima never had any good soap. No matter how much money Zahra left to buy soap and detergent, Fatima insisted on buying the green cheap olive soap that was sold by the kilo.

  One more day, Zahra thought, and walked out back into the area where the two women were consulting their coffee cups.

  “Your mother has a fortune coming her way, a lot of money,” Oum Raja said to Zahra. Fatima smiled smugly as if on her way to cash the fortune check.

  “Mabrouk,” Zahra said, trying to make her congratulations sound as sincere as her sarcastic heart allowed her. She had congratulated her mother on many non-materializing coffee cup fortunes before. Those never quite actualized for Fatima, but still deserved felicitations for daring to appear in coffee grinds. It was better than green shit down the toilet.

  “Boukra habibti, you are leaving?” Oum Raja asked.

  “Eh, in the morning,” Zahra said.

  “Who is going to take care of the lady you helped for years? Ya haram she will miss you so much,” Oum Raja exclaimed.

  Zahra hated when people brought up Hajji, asking questions about a woman they didn’t know, most likely with the only purpose of feeling pity for her. Zahra never talked about how she spent her days. Every couple of months, her mother showed up unannounced at Hajji’s house, to make sure Zahra was there, working, doing what she said she was doing. When Zahra asked her mother why she was there, Fatima acted all hurt and said her job was to protect Zahra and keep other people from taking advantage of her.

  “She has her son,” Zahra said. She looked at her mother, hoping Fatima would join the conversation, giving Zahra some space to leave. Fatima looked at Zahra, her eyes hungry for a more elaborate answer. The two sitting women were still quiet, like good pupils eager to hear a story.

  Zahra felt her insides slosh; she had nothing to eat since she headed out in the morning.

  “Her son will figure out someone to take care of her. He can move back with her if it’s necessary,” Zahra stated as she walked past the women to the kitchen.

  “She helped them so much, it’s a pity she left without remuneration, she loved that old woman so much, my daughter didn’t care about the money,” Fatima declared.

  Zahra kicked the kitchen table and raised her fists up. Fatima was trying really hard to get her enraged by bringing money up.

  Nadim was very generous with the money he paid Fatima. He refused to give her any money initially, and insisted on paying Zahra herself. One day, Zahra asked him to give Fatima the money, that it would make it easier for Zahra who had grown tired of Fatima’s visits; if her mom had the money, hopefully then Fatima would lose her motivation to drop in on Zahra. She figured sending her wages in her place was a fair trade.

  Sure enough, as soon as Nadim started sending money to Fatima, her visits lessened and eventually stopped. Nadim insisted on paying Zahra too, even though she was content living with Hajji and having her wages sent to her mother. Nadim would not have it, and he gave her the option to leave or to stay and accept the money. She accepted the pay and saved all of it, over the following nine years. She saved it for the surgery that would rid her of her colostomy and scars in America. The doctor she visited in Beirut told her that the bomb has caused Zahra to lose most of her colon and that the risk of closing the colostomy was not worth taking. Zahra did not believe that doctor, she would prove him wrong. With enough money, there would be a surgeon somewhere who could help her.

  Chapter Four

  Mustafa, Zahra’s friend, beat the alarm clock. His three-knock tempo woke Zahra instead. She tiptoed around her mother’s sleeping body on the floor in the living room. Zahra was still half-asleep when Mustafa started to drag the bag towards the door.

  “It’s still early,” she whispered. Mustafa was halfway out the door with the luggage.

  “Early birds get all the seed, girl!” Mustafa said. He winked at her and gestured at the sleeping Fatima.

  He was wearing his tight jean pants, a red shirt, and his shiny black pointy shoes. Zahra smiled. She went to the bathroom, brushed her teeth, and put her long brown hair into her daily ponytail.

  “Please! Please! For once put something on besides a baggy black T-shirt!” Mustafa cried. Zahra brought her index finger to her mouth gesturing him to shush. She put her shoes on and grabbed her bag of ostomy supplies.

  “Go downstairs, I will be there in a minute. I have to wake her up,” Zahra directed, she gestured towards the door and flapped her hands.

  Mustafa put his hand on his hip, stuck his tongue out at her, then turned on his heels and walked out the door like a wind-up toy. Zahra slipped a white envelope under Fatima’s pillow and looked at her mother for a while.

  “Mama, yalla baddi rouh,” Zahra uttered as she gently shook her mother’s shoulder. Fatima snorted a sleeping breath and opened her eyes.

  Zahra smiled at her. She loved her mother the most when she was asleep. That was when all she could see was Fatima’s hardships and long journey. The old lady couldn’t hurt her with her disappointment and harsh words. When she slept, Fatima’s pain was her own to carry, none of it could spill into Zahra’s soul.

  “Zahra Allah yehmiki,” Fatima mumbled. Zahra didn’t need Fatima’s god to protect her or do anything for her; the biggest favor he could do her was stay right there in that small stuffy house.

  “Okay, Mama,” she said. She kissed Fatima’s forehead and
squeezed her one last time before springing up on her feet, heading out the door, and shutting it behind her.

  Mustafa was sitting in the driver’s seat of his black Hyundai. He had the windows rolled down and the music blaring Rami Ayach’s newest song. Zahra didn’t care for the artist, but Mustafa, who was a huge fan, played that song for her and danced to it every time he came to visit lately. Zahra got in the car and turned down the music.

  “Yalla!” Mustafa exclaimed. He had his arms over his head and was waving them to the tune.

  “People are sleeping! You want them to shoot you?” Zahra asked. She pulled his arms down and put them on the steering wheel.

  Mustafa started to wiggle his middle and shake his head, dancing as he started the car. He was as wound up as ever at four in the morning.

  “Zahra, promise to find me a boyfriend who looks just like Rami Ayach,” he pouted.

  “Look at you at four in the morning, Mustafa!” Zahra teased.

  She shook her head and couldn’t hold back her smile. She was kidding with him—she knew he meant an American boyfriend. That was all he talked about, ever since she told him she was emigrating. “How in hell am I going to find you some guy and then convince him that a Lebanese boyfriend is just what he needs?!” Zahra used to tell Mustafa every time he asked her.

  “You figure it out! Your problem!” Mustafa would respond, and they would both laugh. “Let those idiots here realize what they missed out on!” Mustafa would always conclude as he pointed to himself up and down with fluttering eyes.

  His eyes were big and brown with long dark lashes. Mustafa always dressed nicely, fashionably, no matter how broke he was. His wavy hair was usually gelled to perfection and parted to the side. His high cheekbones and chiseled jawline drew attention to him anywhere they went.

  “Can I have my face back?” Mustafa always said under his breath when people stared at him, although he knew that his good looks were his biggest asset.

  Mustafa tried to style Zahra’s hair, but she always put her hair up in a ponytail no matter how perfect he told her the cut was. Mustafa told Zahra that she was gorgeous, that her long thick hair was enviable, but she never saw beauty when she looked at her own face. It was a lot easier to see Mustafa’s.

  Mustafa came to visit Zahra every Thursday, his day off. Hajji seemed to like him. He danced for her and even got her to clap for him a few times. He always stayed with Zahra and Hajji for lunch, and left late in the afternoon.

  “To do laundry, since my mom knows not to touch my clothes! Too delicate for Oum Issam’s barbaric laundry ways,” he pointed out.

  Zahra met Mustafa when she was sixteen, before she got injured. Mustafa was the brother of Issam, a man Zahra was engaged to for a couple of days before the injury. Afterward, Issam’s mother, Oum Issam deemed Zahra was not “suitable material” for a future daughter-in-law, and the engagement ended. That was the only good thing that came from her injury, Zahra thought.

  Mustafa kept showing up at the hospital long after the rest of his family had stopped. Zahra didn’t care for him at first, but Mustafa eventually grew on her. He became her best friend, the one who knew everything about her, not that there was much to know. He told Zahra all his secrets, his disappointments and victories.

  Mustafa drove them out of the neighborhoods to Tarik el Matar, the airport road. The neighborhoods looked nicer, the buildings newer and taller the further they got away from Zahra’s neighborhood. The sidewalks were wider and cleaner. Green-clad Sukleen workers were emptying trash dumpsters and sweeping the sides of the roads. Mustafa drove them by large billboards that advertised “diamonds to charm her heart” and “swimsuits everyone will envy.” The women on the boards looked European, with little noses and blue eyes. The ads were for tourists and wealthy Lebanese people driving to and from the airport.

  Mustafa hummed to the song the entire way. Zahra looked at the road and wondered if she would miss anything about it, about the buildings, the heat, and the blonds on the billboards. The day was breaking over the mostly empty road. The cars driving by were either cabs or sleepy travelers going to the airport.

  They pulled into the underground parking lot next to the elevators. Mustafa carried the luggage and Zahra walked behind him. The parking lot smelled like cigarette smoke, Mustafa coughed and fanned his face with his hand. Zahra had never been to the airport. In fact, she had not even seen most of Lebanon. After her accident, she mostly stayed with Hajji.

  Nadim sometimes insisted on taking them either to have ice cream or go for a car ride. Hajji didn’t do well with long trips; neither did Zahra’s colostomy. Nadim told her that Wichita was flat, much bigger and more spacious than Beirut, and that it had no traffic. She tried to imagine Wichita, but she couldn’t. She looked it up online and the pictures were just as foreign as her empty imagination for it.

  “You packed all your black T-shirts and black sweatpants! I was hoping you would leave some for me to wear!” Mustafa joked.

  He always picked on her clothes, his choice of color and style was as grand as his ego; having an “unstylish” friend, as he called her, affected his social image! Zahra often reminded him that the only society witnessing their friendship was Hajji, who didn’t know black from blue.

  Mustafa assured Zahra that he knew his way around airports. He explained the entire process to her about three times, until she begged him to stop repeating himself. Between Mustafa and Nadim, Zahra could get to Wichita in her dreams.

  “Don’t forget to look at the monitors and the signs, the toilets have a blue sign of a woman,” Mustafa said. Zahra nodded. She could feel her bowels getting more active; anxiety always won when it competed with her guts.

  “Mustafa, this is for you. It’s for you to rent your salon. It will give you a start, you do the rest,” Zahra pronounced and handed him a white envelope.

  Mustafa started to cry. He shook his head “no” and kept crying as she kept pointing the envelope towards him.

  “Mustafa, you will pay me back. You can’t live forever talking about your salon—it’s time.” Mustafa was weeping silently, looking at his feet.

  Zahra was not expecting this much sadness. Mustafa was dramatic but this was bordering tragic, worse than she had ever witnessed when her friend cried. When Mustafa dated Aziz, his married boss, for six months, then had his heart broken when he went after some other guy, Mustafa cried for days. A while later, he showed up all bubbly with a story of a new crush.

  Mustafa’s tears today seemed bitterer. He appeared increasingly upset as Zahra got closer to leaving. Zahra wondered if she should have left the money in the car, instead of having to witness Mustafa’s tears so close to her departure.

  “I have to go, I need to have plenty of time to change and clean my ostomy once more, this morning is making me nervous, you know how bad that is for me!” Zahra said, her voice teasing him, hoping to get her cheerful friend back.

  Mustafa wiped his face and sniffed a couple times then grabbed Zahra’s arm and walked with her to the Middle East Airlines counter. He had an ex-boyfriend who worked there. He told Zahra fifteen times how the guy had texted him to be sure he was coming with Zahra today.

  They waited behind a couple of families with many suitcases. Mustafa jumped out of line and made a beeline to a bald guy in an airline uniform who came out of the back to help behind the counter. The father of the family in front of them began to protest. Mustafa swung around and assured him he was “not going to affect the rest of his life,” and to “please relax, his friend needed extra assistance.”

  Everybody in line turned around and looked at Zahra, who glared at Mustafa. Mustafa was behind the counter now with a hand resting on the bald man’s shoulder. Both men had wide grins and animated expressions as they talked for a bit. The airline guy nodded and occasionally erupted in loud chuckles to Mustafa’s outburst of stories.

  Mustafa grabbed Zahra’s bag and snatched her passport from her hand with a wink as he handed it to the airline guy. The p
eople in front of them were now being checked in by the other open employee and, instead of giving Zahra their hateful looks, they were arguing with the woman behind the counter about the extra weight of their bags. When Mustafa finished checking Zahra in, he returned, fanning white papers with the Middle East logo on them and pushed them in Zahra’s direction.

  “He upgraded you to business! Business habibti, that’s the life!” Mustafa exclaimed.

  Zahra took the papers and slapped him on the head with them. Mustafa ducked and chortled his effusive laughter. Mustafa waved to his friend behind the counter and then walked Zahra to the security checkpoint. As Zahra started heading towards the airport officer, Mustafa’s tears returned.

  “It’s okay, Mustafa, I will call you when I get there,” she crooned.

  He nodded, pulled her toward him, and squeezed her for a long time. He was still sobbing when let her go.

  Zahra was finally at the gate, bag cleaned, boarding passes in hand.

  “Check monitor, follow signs, bathroom is outline of woman in blue,” she repeated to herself.

  It was time to board before too long. Zahra followed people into the line. A woman in red and navy scanned her boarding pass and Zahra walked into a long hallway with no windows that ended at the entrance of the plane. Another woman in uniform gestured Zahra to her seat. It was a blue padded chair with buttons on the side and a footrest in front of it. A dark-haired woman in red and navy blue came by Zahra and buckled her belt.

  “Champagne, Madame?” the hostess asked.

  Zahra shook her head no and looked out the window. Soon after the hostess went over safety instructions, the hostesses sat down for takeoff. Zahra felt her insides separate and her heart dig into her ribs when the airplane sped on the runway and lifted into the air. It wasn’t until her head stopped sinking backwards into her chair that she dared to open her eyes. Her tongue was hurting—she had bitten it hard when the airplane aimed for the sky.