Wasted Salt

by Sarah Houssayni

  “Would you go someday, just once to see what it is all about? It is an amazing experience,” Beth promised.

  Zahra had no intention of meeting Beth’s god or any god. She felt like her own argument against God was better than people’s argument for him. The only two people she ever shared that argument with were Nadim and Mustafa. Zahra’s God used to be a figure of authority that helped here and there when begged fervently. She was sixteen when she fired him after being hit by that bomb during the Israel-Hezbollah war in the south of Lebanon. She still got flashbacks of the salty water she was swimming in and the warm sand the bomb threw her into. The other memories from her teenage life were gone.

  She did give her God a few chances after the accident but nothing good ever happened no matter how much she asked for it. After the air raid, Zahra spent over a year in a hospital bed with her muscles cut by shrapnel, her bowels eviscerated by the blow. She had to learn to walk again at sixteen after being in bed and losing her muscle mass. The worst part of the bomb and of Zahra’s God leaving, were the thick brown scars that covered her middle and the clear bag that filled with excrement several times a day. She was reminded every day by the sight and the smell of shit against her skin that she didn’t get the privilege of a god like the others.

  None of that was Beth’s fault, though. Zahra was not going to tell Beth about it and so she kept nodding and agreeing to Beth’s painful stories about the believers and nonbelievers. According to Beth, the world consisted of two kinds of people: believers like herself and nonbelievers. The former group had an obligation to share salvation with the latter.

  “But a nonbeliever has to take that chance, grab the rope, so to speak,” Beth proclaimed.

  Zahra wondered if the only reason the church sponsored her as a refugee was to switch her nonbeliever status over. Zahra wondered what was different about First Baptist that its members cared about saving others. In Lebanon, Zahra had experienced religious people as not only not interested in sharing their certainty in heaven, but also glad to see the others not make the cut. There, the reward of zealous faith was as much the certainty of superiority as that of salvation. Zahra wondered if that was not a result of how much more populated Lebanon was. Maybe Americans like Beth had more space in heaven that made them more willing to invite others along. Perhaps there was a reward system for inviting a buddy along, Zahra thought.

  “Let’s show you how to order food at McDonald’s,” Beth yelled, full of excitement, almost more than the version she manifested with the “Lord” conversation.

  Zahra had no money to spend at McDonald’s, but she didn’t want to be rude, she would order water and it would be free. She knew how to order food at McDonald’s, but she didn’t know what else to do with her time. Noor would be in the room, on her computer, working. Diane would be smoking in her room with the door closed. The little sitting space outside her bedroom downstairs was dark and smelled moldy. McDonald’s sounded like the best option for her afternoon.

  Beth ordered the usual number one combo: Big Mac, large fries, and a large Diet Coke. She would tell Zahra about how she was “watching it” and point to people around the place who “just ate like it was kingdom come.” Zahra was not sure what a “kingdom coming” implied, but she worried the answer was in another church invitation, and so she didn’t ask.

  “Tell me about you! What was your life like? Isn’t it so wonderful to be away from all of it?” Beth’s voice was loud and her eyes were big again. She put a handful of yellow French fries in her mouth and held off chewing them until Zahra replied.

  “Yes.”

  “What did you do? I mean what was it like? I was told you got hurt in the wars over there! That must have been so hard! I am going to pray for you!” When Beth said “you” to Zahra, it always sounded like “yooooo.” With it came an outstretched palm, like the one people used to point to the winners of beauty pageants.

  “I was expecting you to be wearing the hageeb! You know, the cover for the head! I was surprised when I saw you that you didn’t cover your hair. Gorgeous black hair and such a beautiful face! You just need to get some fat on your bones! You skinny little thing!” Beth effused. Zahra figured that she meant hijab when she kept gesturing to Zahra’s head and doing circles with her fingers around Zahra’s face.

  “No hijab for me,” Zahra said.

  Beth nodded and beamed as she took a big bite of her Big Mac. She seemed very pleased with Zahra’s answer, she made a “thumbs-up” sign to Zahra and mumbled “good” through a mouth full of food. Zahra wondered in Beth’s world if a hijab was a worse curse than cancer. She hoped that she wouldn’t find out.

  Chapter Seven

  It was six o’clock by the time Beth dropped Zahra off at the house. There was no sign of Diane on the main level. Her car was in the driveway, so she had to be home. Zahra was feeling faint from hunger, she walked to the kitchen and pulled the bag of groceries she bought a few days back from the refrigerator.

  Diane asked Zahra and Noor to keep their groceries in bags labeled with their names. She told then that she didn’t have too many rules, but that nobody touching her food was one of them—not having visitors was another, and keeping their mess to a minimum the last.

  Zahra took a slice of white bread out of the bag, some Laughing Cow cheese, and sat down by the small table in the corner to eat. She wished Noor would open the door to their room. Zahra needed to sleep. Nadim had warned her about jetlag, he said she would get very tired in the afternoon and wake up very early no matter how little she slept. Nadim gave her some Melatonin pills to take at bedtime that she left behind, somewhere in Hajji’s medicine cabinet. She tried to remember where the pills were, not because it mattered, but somehow knowing they were in a dark cabinet on a shelf was comforting to Zahra.

  The soft white bread tasted good in her mouth as it broke down to pieces and slid down her throat. Her mouth was still full of white bread when she leaned against the beige wall and closed her eyes. She saw the white pills in a clear bag on a brown shelf in a closed cabinet inside Hajji’s quiet house. It was early in the morning. The sun was not up yet in Hajji ’s world, on the other side of the ocean. Zahra heard the noises of the day disappear and felt a hypnotic dark take over her senses. In this half-sleep, Zahra walked into every room in Hajji’s house. She looked at the furniture, the windows, heard the car honks on the street even smelled the red geranium in the pot on the window. Zahra turned into a ghost in her dream. She walked around the place that felt like home for the last nine years. Did the apartment miss her? she pondered.

  Did the kitchen sink know someone else was washing dishes? Did the geranium wonder why she wasn’t watering it? Inanimate objects had no souls, no opinions or words, but if they ever did come to life they did in cartoons, Zahra speculated what those things would say about Hajji’s house with no Zahra.

  She woke up to the footsteps of Diane walking out of her bedroom and into the kitchen. Zahra usually avoided sitting in the kitchen when Diane was home, it was an unspoken rule that Diane got the upstairs and Noor and Zahra stuck to the basement.

  “Is your refugee buddy done helping you for the day?” Diane asked.

  Zahra nodded as she got up to leave the small kitchen. Diane’s kitchen matched the rest of her house in being poorly lit, cluttered, and painted a color as pale as Diane’s skin. Diane had thick salt and pepper hair that she wore as short as a man’s. She had big dark circles and bags under her eyes. Diane’s teeth were a shade more yellow than her furniture and her mood was a continuation of the dying lawn leaning toward her front door.

  Diane opened her refrigerator and got a bottle of wine, she poured the wine into a blue mug that she kept by the side of the sink. Diane closed her eyes and took a long sip from her mug. “So what do you think of this country?”

  Zahra started to head towards the basement, hoping it would make Diane think she didn’t hear her.

  “I mean those people from the church, they seem like they mean well,” Di
ane continued.

  Zahra stopped and turned around. It was obvious that Diane was waiting for an answer.

  “Yes, they are nice,” Zahra said. She was not going to answer Diane the truth about what she thought about America. Zahra knew that it was hard to judge the entire country from what little she had seen and the few people she had met so far from Wichita. Diane set her wine mug down and looked at Zahra with widened incredulous eyes.

  “Nice, huh?” Diane smirked.

  Zahra could tell that she was already half lit. Diane’s good mood rose as the night went on, usually in direct proportion with the amount she drank and pipes she smoked. By midnight, she was usually laughing loudly at some show on TV and talking to herself. Diane’s laughter typically ended as irrationally as it started with total quiet.

  “Black out,” Noor once observed and pointed upstairs toward Diane’s room.

  “You are either lying to yourself or to me, young lady!” Diane said. Her eyes were clear despite her already drunk voice. Zahra looked away, the pain in Diane’s soul was echoing in the dim kitchen.

  “I always wonder what people really think of us Americans. The most powerful nation in the world, the giant that everybody sees from the corner of their eye, even if they are not looking.” Diane looked around the room as if the walls usually responded to her tirades.

  “Let me tell you a thing or two about America. You have not been here very long. You still have a hope of seeing through the fake props set up all around you!”

  Zahra nodded.

  “I worked at a factory that makes airplanes—twenty-five years I worked on an assembly line. That factory had good seasons and bad seasons. Sometimes we had a lot to work on, and others we didn’t. I always counted on showing up to work and doing what I was expected to do. Now, 32 years of assembling airplanes is a lot of assembled airplanes! Probably the airplane that brought you here too!”

  Diane was looking intently at Zahra’s face for a confirmation of the story. Zahra nodded again. She had no idea if Diane worked on the airplane that brought her to Wichita, she wanted to ask Diane if she worked on any military airplanes, ones that America sold to Israel along with the bombs the airplanes dropped on people like Zahra. It was too late, and Zahra was too tired to ask that question, so she squinted her sleepy eyes in a hope to keep them open until Diane made her point.

  “When I turned 50, guess what happened?” Diane asked. Zahra guessed Diane was probably fired for being a drunk when she turned 50, but something in Diane’s voice made Zahra wonder if she didn’t become a drunk after she was fired.

  “They finish your job?” Zahra said.

  “Damn straight! That is a good way to look at it! Finish my job is exactly what they did!” Diane laughed in an avalanche of hacking coughs. She slapped Zahra’s shoulder in a “way to go” gesture.

  Zahra smiled. She wished that she didn’t have to hear the rest of the story but Diane had pulled up a chair and seemed like she was just getting started.

  “Before I turned fifty, I hurt my back on the job. The doctor kept me out for three weeks and when I went back, I couldn’t lift heavy, or push, and so I had to work a different job from the assembly line. They put me on inventory. I thought I was going to get better and get back to the line, but the company went through work jobs and they eliminated my position at inventory. I asked if I could go back to assembly, and they said I would have to apply to that position. I was not a candidate for that position because I was too old to apply for it! So there you go! That is America for you!”

  Zahra didn’t dare ask if Diane ever tried to find other jobs, jobs that she was qualified for. She smiled to Diane, and stayed quiet.

  “You can work all your life, you can be the employee of the month once, twice, three damn times! It’s going to come down to you or the money, and the money will always win! Every single time! This country is great because it’s rich, and it’s rich because people do NOT matter!” Diane emphasized “not” by pointing her finger in the air and waving it in a back-and-forth “no” in front of Zahra.

  “We have a lot of things, objects we must have for holidays, vacations, births and deaths, most of those objects are made in China! China makes the plastic and we cover our lives with it, because it’s pretty and fun! This country, Zahra, is about being happy and fun which looking at you kid, you can do a lot better at being both!” Diane laughed so hard she was wheezing.

  Zahra didn’t know if Diane’s story was over. She had nothing to say about Diane telling her that she was neither pretty nor fun. After everything Diane just told her, Zahra felt a sadness for her—a concern for the following nights that Diane would not have anyone to talk to about America, because Zahra would be in the basement and, someday, out of this house.

  “I am sorry that happened,” Zahra said, as she kept walking toward the basement stairs.

  If Noor was still in the room, Zahra was going to knock and ask to go to sleep. Soon, Diane would be laughing at her shows, and the next thing would be sunlight waking Zahra up.

  Chapter Eight

  “You are not a person!” Noor preached in Zahra’s ear on the bus they were taking to their first job.

  It was the first day of Ramadan. Noor woke up singing songs for Ramadan and Mohamed and clapping her hands. She seemed relieved to have a month where she had to worship and follow rules. Noor didn’t wear her usual pink frosty lipstick. She explained to Zahra that makeup on the lips was Haram during Ramadan.

  “I don’t fast. I tried and it made me so sick so the doctors asked I to stop, but I am not a kafira, I still follow the rest of the rules,” Noor said, looking at Zahra to reciprocate with the ways she avoids being a heathen.

  Zahra had nothing to say, so she got ready and headed out the door.

  “You can be a rag, you can be the purple lavender detergent.” Noor pointed to the bottle of Fabuloso in the tote. She seemed confident nobody could understand her Arabic on the bus.

  “If you can’t see, if you can’t smell, if you can’t hear, then you can do this job. People leave messes behind, although I honestly think they carry their messes with them! Everywhere! I mean, how can you be so dirty for a week and then cleanup for one day?”

  Zahra put her head down. She was hoping that Noor would stop her motivational rant. It was not helping. Besides, what if anyone understood Arabic on that bus besides the two of them?

  “Just pretend you are not real, and they are not real. It’s better if you are a thing cleaning things!” Noor probed Zahra’s face for approval after she stopped talking.

  Zahra kept looking at the bus floor until it came to a stop. Noor handed her the blue tote of cleaning supplies and dragged the vacuum cleaner behind her like a disobedient dog. Off the bus steps, the sidewalk met them with a hot sun that felt insolent and precocious for nine in the morning.

  “The house is just down the sidewalk,” directed Noor.

  Zahra nodded and followed. Noor had told Zahra, the previous night, about the woman whose house they were going to clean. Zahra didn’t want to know, but Noor gossiped away as if her life depended on it.

  “This one is a Christian, Ramadan is not even something she knows about, but she is Syrian and she wants her own personal slaves! That is why you and me, friend, have a job today!” Noor was talking in front of the house’s door.

  Zahra gestured her to stop just before the door opened.

  “Di, Zahra,” Noor said, and pointed to Zahra.

  The woman looked Zahra up and down and nodded before walking away to her kitchen.

  “We will start, same as usual, just like last year!” Noor yelled over to the homeowner. The latter was on the phone.

  “Ijit el khadmi,” she said to the phone.

  Zahra felt her face burning and her middle cramp. She had just gotten called a maid. She looked at Noor to see if she was hurt too, but her friend was headed towards a closed door. Noor opened the door then slammed it shut and made a disgusted face.

  “It’s the first da
y of Ramadan! Let’s start by cleaning the bedrooms, instead of dealing with the crusted urine and soap scum that had been waiting for me since the last time I cleaned this damn place.” Noor was as loud talking about the filth in the house as the woman had been about saying that the maids had arrived. Noor didn’t seem intimidated by the woman.

  A gag rose in Zahra’s throat, she looked around for something that would distract her away from the stink that stuck in her nose. Everything around was dirty, cluttered, unattended to.

  She followed Noor to the next room. A green comforter with pink flowers was on one bed, a blue superman blanket on the other. Neither bed was made. She wondered if they lived like this until someone came to pick up their things and clean their toilets.

  “Animals with housekeepers,” she said to the toys thrown all over the pastel squares of the area rug.

  In the kitchen she could hear Mira, the lady of this messy hole, talking to Noor. They seemed to know each other.

  “The Mexicans and the Arabs work hard and fast and clean right with soap and water, that is! Not just some detergent sprayed and wiped off everything,” Mira said.

  Zahra hoped Noor was moving and not just standing there running her mouth. Zahra felt a hate for Mira that rose out of her feet to her head and made her face red and hot.

  “So what did you girls do over the weekend?” Mira said.

  She was now standing in the door of the room talking to Zahra. Her unexpected appearance startled Zahra, who was making one of the beds. She saw a self-pleased grin on Mira’s face.

  “Nothing!” Noor yelled from the kitchen.

  Noor would later tell Zahra that they owed those women clean houses, not a report about their whereabouts.

  “She has never met you, but she wants you to provide her with some gossip. We are not human to her, but our stories are worth being entertained with! You know what she will do with your answer? Call her friend back and tell her our business! Maybe if they cleaned their own houses, they would be less bored!”