Wasted Salt

by Sarah Houssayni

  Zahra didn’t think about Mira’s motivation to ask her questions, but she knew that she didn’t like Mira, and had nothing to tell her no matter what the question was. Zahra nodded and no until Mira rolled her small eyes and left the room.

  Her gray roots were covered today by a recent dye job, dull brown hair with useless blond highlights. She looked unhappy to Zahra.

  Noor joined Zahra in the master bedroom after she finished cleaning the kitchen, which she called “greasy, grimy, and fit for pigs!”

  Noor checked herself in the vanity mirror across the room and smiled to her reflection. Noor’s hair was red and long like Ariel the mermaid, Noor’s favorite princess. She kept a toy Ariel on her nightstand and had an Ariel pillow on her bed. Mira showed up in the door again.

  Noor batted her lashes and pouted her lips, looked at Mira, and said, “Lots to do if you want us to clean the whole house.”

  “The basement is small, it shouldn’t take too long. I left some shirts that need ironed by the ironing table, too,” Mira said. She smiled from her beady eyes, turned around, and walked her thick hips away from the room before Noor had a chance to come up with something to say.

  Noor moved quickly from one wall to the other, picking up things, folding, dusting until the room was ready for the “shark”: Noor’s favorite vacuum that she dragged with her onto the bus. She had bought the vacuum cleaner last Ramadan at an estate sale.

  “One day I was cleaning in a really nice neighborhood, nothing like this house here! And the house next door was sold, not sure why, maybe the owners got divorced. That is something very common here!” Noor widened her eyes after her last sentence like one would after revealing a secret.

  Zahra nodded.

  “Estate sales are much nicer than a garage sales, you can find treasures that rich people are too spoiled to appreciate!” Noor got back to dusting. She smiled at the mental image of estate sales and treasures she was meant to find.

  It was noon by the time the entire mess was picked up and cleaned in the other rooms. The bathroom door that was still closed haunted Zahra’s stomach and throat. She grabbed the Fabuloso purple bottle and splashed the floors with the clear lavender soap and shut the door back as quickly as she opened it.

  Lavender piss, she thought to herself, and knew this was the last frontier before Mira handed them their fifty dollars. Noor was finishing up with the ironing. She heard her ask Mira if there was anything else.

  “Slap you, I am so going to slap you,” Zahra said to an absent Noor. She hoped they would find better clients—cleaner houses—after this one.

  “Three more weeks and Mira would have to iron her fat husband’s shirts and wipe her little boy’s piss off the toilet seats,” Noor commented.

  The cleaning was finally done.

  They walked to the bus stop by Dillon’s on 21st and Webb. Zahra was wearing Dollar Store flip-flops that whipped the sidewalk with every step she took. Her jeans were baggy and covered with a loose pink “Free Baptist” T-shirt that Beth gave her.

  Noor was quite a bit taller than Zahra. As they walked past a reflecting window, she made Zahra look very small. Noor’s face was beautiful but looked tired and flushed. The sun that was beating down worse than Mira’s cleaning requests.

  “28 more days and I get back to my job! I don’t clean houses usually,” Noor announced.

  Zahra knew that. Noor announced it every ten minutes ever since she met her.

  “Why can’t you keep your job in Ramadan?” Zahra asked.

  “Haram” and “no way” were all Noor replied.

  Zahra wondered what “forbidden” thing she was referring to exactly with her “haram.” Maybe after the month of Ramadan, Noor would tell her.

  The two girls were both quiet from hunger and exhaustion when the bus finally showed up. Neither one fasted in Ramadan, but Noor insisted that they turned down the water offered to them and tell people they couldn’t drink it. On the bus, they finally cooled off while they headed back to the house. Noor pulled out a water bottle and offered it to Zahra. The water was warm and Zahra spit the sip she took into a tissue. Noor giggled and slapped Zahra on her shoulder.

  Chapter Nine

  Diane cared very little about how Zahra and Noor spent their days, as long as they seemed to be leaving the house to go to some sort of a moneymaking job. She did ask Noor once a day, at least, when they would be able to pay “proper rent.”

  Noor called Diane greedy and selfish when she was not around, Diane shared an equally unfavorable view of her tenant. The two women had brief and gruff exchanges that left Zahra feeling discomfited and a little sad. Most of the time two doors, at least, separated the two. Zahra was often outside both doors, sitting on the sofa in the basement or the chair in the kitchen, waiting for Noor to take them to a cleaning job or Beth to show up in Jelly Belly.

  Most of Zahra’s orientation to “the system” was done. Very little clarity came of it. Zahra blamed it on English slang that left her confused most of the time. Beth’s devotion to talking about Jesus, McDonald’s patrons, and her ex-husband didn’t help either.

  For a woman used to spending her days sitting in a half-lit room with a demented quiet elder, Zahra found Diane’s home lonely and boring. She looked forward to scrubbing sinks and making beds. Anything was better than thinking about Hajji, Mustafa, and Nadim.

  She imagined them going about their days: Hajji staring into her television, Mustafa cutting women’s hair, and Nadim talking to his patients. Nothing around Zahra felt real, not even the scalding tea that burned her tongue. She was a ghost floating through the streets of a foreign town with foreign people speaking a foreign language. Nadim asked Zahra to get a cell phone and start texting him every day.

  “Download the free app, I can send you WhatsApp texts,” he had offered.

  She didn’t ask Beth to take her to the cell phone store. Zahra had money for a phone and money for a one-bedroom apartment, even money for a car but that was her surgery money. She kept her ten thousand dollars wrapped in a thin cotton cloth that she wore on herself, tied to her middle, above her hips and just below her colostomy bag. Her baggy black T-shirts hid the bag and the money well. Zahra had plastic wrap around the money to keep it from ever getting wet.

  Noor had not given her any money from the first days of house cleaning, and Zahra was too embarrassed to ask. She figured that the money was going to Diane for the rent. Noor always paid for groceries and bus rides, she seemed to really care about Zahra. Without Noor, Zahra would be in no position to work, since her work permit had not been mailed to her yet.

  “The Arab women are used to hiring Mexican workers and paying them cash, we will ask for cash and promise them better work,” declared Noor.

  She told Zahra that she knew exactly what would happen once they cleaned one house well, the remaining houses would follow. Noor had the house cleaning idea all figured out. She knew some of those women from Ramadan of the previous year.

  The following two days were very similar to the first house they cleaned. The only difference was that the women they were cleaning for became nosier as the week went on. The conversations were mostly about the houses from the previous days: how much they got paid, how long they worked, anything special that the lady of the house was preparing for. Zahra kept to cleaning while Noor seemed endlessly entertained in making up stories about the previous days.

  “So tidy, that Mira! I don’t even know why she needs us! Habibti, don’t get me wrong, I am very happy to have the job! Nothing better than cleaning except a nice generous boss to clean for!” Noor said.

  She giggled and seemed so pleased with her story that Zahra wondered if Noor didn’t believe her tales a little bit. Noor even turned jobs down as the week went on.

  “We are booked for the next three weeks, habibti Sawsan, Zahra can help you after Eid but I have to go back to my modeling job!” Noor told someone on the phone.

  Zahra was sitting on the bed across from Noor, reading How to S
ucceed at Anything. She found the book at the Salvation Army store on her way back from cleaning houses that day. Noor insisted they stop there one day after they had cleaned a house on the same block as the store. Zahra only found disgusting smells while Noor giggled and sang to herself as she dug in piles of things.

  The books on the crooked bookshelf in the back of the store were tattered, faded, and irrelevant. She had change in her pocket today, and she felt sorry for the book that claimed such a delusional goal as success at everything. The book was marked for a dollar and then marked down to fifty cents. Noor was very pleased with herself when she saw Zahra at the cash register with the book in her hand. She winked at her across the store and nodded with approval.

  That day at the thrift store, Noor found earrings, a sexy tank top, and high-heeled shoes in size eleven. Zahra was only interested in finding a good book, to read but the old books on the shelves all seemed boring. Zahra brought one book to America with her and she couldn’t bear to start reading it. It was the book Nadim gave her the last time she saw him.

  She promised herself that she would read that novel after her surgery. She would read it again on the airplane on her way back to Nadim without a colostomy bag. She would have fluent English and stories about Wichita. By then, Zahra figured, she would surely have found opportunity to go to college. She wanted to become someone who didn’t hide in baggy T-shirts and cleaned houses or babysat people who lost their minds long before they met her.

  “I told you we would be so busy we’ll turn people down!” Noor said, after putting her phone down on her bed. “I told Sawsan you would help her! She heard about how good of a job we are doing!”

  “You told her we were booked, Noor, we only have three houses to clean all week!” Zahra said.

  “Oh, habibti, I know exactly what I said. You just watch me convince them that it’s best to call and reserve us now! To get the big fish, Zahra, you have to use the small ones as bait.”

  Noor threw her hair back and puffed out her lips like a fish in front of her phone screen. A camera click sound followed and then Noor shook her head “no” vigorously and clicked another picture.

  “You wonder why I take so many selfies! I know you do!” Noor giggled.

  Zahra smiled to her and got back to the “success” book. It was now talking about how “everything that happens, does for a purpose and making that purpose your purpose is the way to ride the wave of success.” Zahra found that as crazy as Noor, and the rest of her life. Clearly, the writer of this book was not injured when he was sixteen. He didn’t spend any time wondering about the purpose of bombs and wars. He was probably American, Zahra thought, and his country made bombs and sold them while people like her spent their life hoping their colostomy bags didn’t smell.

  “Teach me what you learn from this book,” Noor requested. She laughed and continued messing with her phone.

  Zahra rolled her eyes and kept reading. She loved philosophy books because philosophers attempted to understand situations—not to tell everyone what to do. Jobran, Camus, and Nietzsche always helped Zahra forget about her discomfort, at least for a short time. She kept reading because the books brought temporary relief and that was better than none. The first book she read belonged to Nadim. She was in the hospital and he had been sitting next to her reading. When she woke up Nadim was gone, but Jobran was there. She asked the nurse to hand her the book and before nightfall she had finished it. That day was better than all the ones that preceded it. Zahra felt less pain and more hope than she had in a while. After the Jobran book, she asked Nadim to bring her another one, and she never stopped reading since.

  Zahra hoped Noor would take her to a decent bookstore and Zahra could buy a good book. Reading the silly faded book about success made her miss good stories—stories that didn’t explain the world in simple terms of never and always.

  Loud music coming from Noor’s phone startled Zahra. She looked up and Noor was making dance poses in front of the mirror and laughing with every pose.

  Noor ran across the small room and grabbed How to Succeed at Everything out of Zahra’s hands and threw it across the room. It landed open by the pink bedspread, where it looked even more grotesque than on the shelf amongst the beat-up romance books.

  Noor pulled Zahra toward the mirror, while still dancing. Zahra resisted some then let herself get pulled upright. Noor’s big hands had shiny red polish on the nails and felt as strong as a man’s grip. She shook Zahra like a doll in rhythm with the music.

  “We nadi al saidi, wil shabab elborsaidi!”

  The song called Egyptians from all cities and towns to vote and Noor shook her head and clapped her hands to the rhythm of the drum, the guitar, and the backup singers.

  “Hey! Hey! Hey! Hey! Hey!” Noor clapped, shook her middle, and arched her back, then moved back and forth in a circle with her serpentine body. She lifted her chest upright and threw her arms in the air and waved them side-to-side to the rhythm of the song. Noor threw Zahra a kiss and a wink as she flipped her hair.

  Their reflections on the old mirror made Zahra feel like a sandcastle hit by a wave. A salty cold swell hit her heart out of nowhere and her chest shook in sobs. The song talked about Egypt finding her voice and hope for her people.

  Something about the thin voice of the man and Noor’s dance and her hopeful eyes broke Zahra’s heart. In the mirror, Noor still danced. Zahra stood still. It took a few seconds before Noor realized that Zahra was crying. She stopped dancing mid-movement and grabbed Zahra in a big hug.

  Zahra let herself sink into her friend’s strong, wide shoulders and rest against her chest. She heard her own sobs like one hears a stranger crying. Zahra was shaking against Noor’s embrace. The tears spilled from of her eyes, despite Zahra fighting them.

  Noor let go of Zahra to grab the phone and turn off the song. She held Zahra again in the now quiet room. The silence made the tears sound and feel more real. Noor stood there embracing her and patting her on the back every once in a while, like one would a baby in a tantrum. The tears stopped after some time.

  Noor gently moved Zahra away from her embrace to look at her face, as if to verify that the storm had passed. She took a corner of her nightgown and wiped Zahra’s face, while still holding Zahra’s hand with her other hand.

  Zahra looked at her own fee. Mustafa would tell her that her toenails needed a pedicure if he saw them. He would tell her “shou hayda!” exclaiming at the state of her “ijren shattafeh” feet of a maid. She was a maid and her feet looked like those of one.

  Mustafa would have grabbed some lotion and nail polish and changed the situation right away.

  The two women sat on the bed, quiet and sad. Noor didn’t ask and Zahra didn’t tell her how much she missed home, or about how she felt completely lost in a land that had heat, dust, and strangers for miles on end.

  “Tomorrow, we have no houses to clean, and I will take you to the cinema. It will be a great day!” Noor said.

  Chapter Ten

  Beth showed up at seven thirty to take Zahra to her Social Security appointment. It was Thursday morning. Zahra and Noor had a house to clean at nine that day—the mansion of a rich widow, according to Noor. Noor seemed right about her strategy to attract more business. After the day off Noor made them take, calls seemed steady and Noor was even able to choose which customers were higher paying and easier to work for.

  Noor attributed the good luck that befell them to how much Allah and His Prophet Mohamed loved her. She told Zahra it was the reward Noor got from heaven for taking such good care of a friend during the Holy Month. Zahra was amused by Noor’s convictions, although she did appreciate Noor taking her to the movies that week and paying for everything, including the soda that Noor allowed them to drink in public despite it being Ramadan.

  “I don’t know if she will be done in time for your morning appointment,” Beth said, her voice high and curt.

  “She has to be done on time, I am going to wait for her,” said Noor.
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  Noor had opened the door before Zahra got a chance to it. Noor with her long hair and her morning-pale pretty face sprung out of bed towards the upstairs beating Zahra to the door. Zahra grabbed the folder Beth gave her a week ago to keep important papers in and headed up the stairs.

  When Zahra got to the door, Noor was leaning in it with her arms crossed over her full chest that showed through a pink tank top. She sported baggy pajama bottoms with prints of colorful butterflies. Zahra walked by Noor through the door and Beth followed her down the narrow driveway.

  “Bye, Noor, shoofik bad shouway,” Zahra said, without looking at Noor.

  She hoped it was true, that she would see her soon. Zahra didn’t want to think about making Noor late to clean the dream mansion. Besides, the faster Beth took her to the Social Security office, the sooner it would be over with.

  Noor disliked Beth as much as she loved being right. Her opinion about Beth was established, just like her opinions about other people. Earlier that morning, Noor went into a tirade about Beth’s “bad” intentions for Zahra.

  “Beth wants to convert you to Jesus. They worship Jesus instead of God! You are a goat—one they think is lost and needs help. Didn’t she already tell you about Jesus waiting for the goat to return?”

  “She has not said anything about me being a goat,” Zahra replied.

  “Maybe it’s a sheep or a lamb, something like that,” Noor offered.

  “She didn’t say anything about a sheep or a lamb either. Her job is to get me all those papers, and hopefully she will help us get customers from her church, like she said.”

  Zahra did remember the invitation to meet Beth’s Lord, but didn’t feel like watching Noor get more self-righteous that morning. Besides, Noor was just as convinced about her way to a god as Beth. Zahra could care less about either god. The mention of any god, any religion, left her with a sick feeling and thoughts she was sure not to share with anyone except Nadim, who was smart enough to know better but still chose to believe against logic and common sense.