Wasted Salt

by Sarah Houssayni

  He told Zahra that he felt God like someone feels a cold breeze on a hot day. Zahra told him that her days were all hot and no breeze. To Zahra, life was governed by random laws and stupid regulations. The world convinced her a little more every day that there was nobody behind the absent order.

  Beth seemed relieved once Zahra walked out the door. They got into Jelly Belly and drove away. Noor still stood in the door. Zahra stuck her head out of the window and took a deep breath.

  It was going to be another hot day. The small lawns along the block were mostly dried up and yellow. Some houses had kids’ toys scattered in front of them, but no kids playing. In the nicer neighborhoods, the ones where Zahra and Noor cleaned houses, the lawns were green, the cars were parked in garages, and kids’ toys were neatly put away in bins, never in front of the houses. The morning humidity reminded her of Beirut, she closed her eyes and pretended she was in a cab, on her way to see Nadim at his clinic. He always insisted on buying her lunch, and she always insisted on not eating it. She took it home and ate the food with Hajji in the dim living room in front of the soap operas on TV.

  “Your friend Noor is not very happy today,” Beth commented. It sounded like “Nooo” when Beth said “Noor.”

  “She is worried about being late to the cleaning job,” Zahra alleged. “We are trying to get more houses.”

  “Her dressing like a stripper is not going to help! Her red hair won’t either! If she looked like you, Zahra, people would want to hire her. I don’t have a husband at home and I still would not hire her. Honestly I don’t like you living there. I hope that situation changes for you someday.”

  Zahra nodded, and kept looking out of the window. She felt her cheeks flush in displeasure, but didn’t say anything to Beth.

  Noor was a good friend, the only friend she had away from home and the only one she could speak to in Arabic. Zahra got tired of having to think before every sentence after hours of speaking English to Beth. The longer the day had been, the harder it was for Zahra to find the right words in a language that she had only heard on TV shows with Arabic subtitles that clearly translated whatever was happening on the screen.

  Noor had lived in America since she was fifteen. She told Zahra that they moved after her father won the “Green Card Lottery.” Noor seemed to enjoy being in America. She loved visiting Egypt but was always gladder to return home. Zahra wondered if America would ever feel like home, if having two homes was possible, unlike having two hearts.

  Noor stopped wearing her tight tank tops and short skirts on the first day of Ramadan, she told Zahra that no matter how indecent a person was, she got a chance for forgiveness during the Holy Month as long as she followed the rules.

  “People have to want help to get help. The Lord says ask and you shall receive!” Beth was still going on about Noor.

  Noor had applied to be a receptionist at Green Meadows landscaping company. The owner was a member of First Baptist who wanted to help Noor. However, Noor ended up leaving the job a week later. In Noor’s version of the story, the boss asked Noor to change the way she dressed and to stay off her cellphone. She told Zahra that she didn’t enjoy the job and made more money modeling online.

  “Mosh liyya,” she told Zahra, who could see indeed how that job was not for Noor.

  The Social Security office had a line of people that extended all the way to the sidewalk. People were waiting before the doors even opened. Zahra was more worried that she wouldn’t make it to the nine o’clock job on time. She imagined Noor pacing the living room while Diane smoked in the kitchen. Beth got in line behind an elderly man who was speaking to his daughter in Spanish.

  It didn’t take long for the doors to open and people to enter the room. Everyone took numbers from a machine that beeped and spit a new number every time someone pulled a stub from it. The walls were a dull beige color, one that matched the expression of people sitting on the gray metal chairs. Zahra sat on a chair next to Beth who pulled out a book with a black cover and BIBLE written on it from her bag. Inside her book were highlighter marks of previously read passages, yellow and pink fluorescent lines ran across the pages. Beth didn’t tell Zahra her usual stories, instead she kept reading in her book until Zahra’s name was called.

  The two women walked up to the window where Beth asked Zahra for her passport and refugee documents and handed them to a woman behind a desk, with “Officer Gerald” written on a small white sign on the table. Beth became animated telling the woman behind the counter about Zahra’s journey as a refugee, something about war, about being injured and in the hospital. Zahra smiled and nodded every time the woman looked at her in disbelief. The officer shook her head in dismay at Beth’s stories and eventually was just nodding. Beth kept talking and the woman filled out a form on a computer screen in front of her.

  “Alright darling, you should receive your Social Security card between two and four weeks. It will come in the mail to the address on your immigration forms. There is a one-eight-hundred number on this form, you got questions, you call it.”

  “Thank you,” Zahra said and followed Beth back to the car.

  It was ten past nine on the wall clock at the Social Security office when they left. Zahra felt sad for Noor, she hoped she left without her.

  Beth seemed in no hurry to get Zahra back to the house.

  “Would you like to join the young singles group at my church? Lots of great friendships there, I hate to see you so alone.”

  “Yes, thank you.”

  Zahra hoped Beth would forget or an excuse would come up. She hoped some cleaning jobs would come up that would spare her from the young singles at Beth’s church.

  Noor was jumping up and down in the driveway when she saw Zahra in the red car from a distance. Noor was wearing skinny blue jeans and a purple T-shirt, loose enough to keep Beth’s comments at bay. Once they got to the driveway, Noor ran to Beth’s window and asked her to give them a ride.

  “If you drop us, we can still make it on time, you made her late, don’t make her lose her work for the day!” Noor said, her words were as agitated as her gesturing hands.

  “If you ask me nicely, I will take you, I would do it, so Zahra won’t have to work on Sunday,” Beth declared.

  “Noor, Khalas!” Zahra said, asking her friend to stop being rude to Beth.

  “Okay, please! Please! Please?” Noor said with an affected smile.

  Beth gestured to Noor to get in the car and in a second Noor was in the back seat with her vacuum cleaner and basket of cleaning supplies. She clapped her hands like a kid.

  Jelly Belly stopped in front of a green lawn with colorful flowers and a huge house. It was nicer than any house Zahra had seen even in movies.

  “Fancy!” exclaimed Beth.

  “My friend is the hairdresser of the lady who lives here, he fixes her hair every day, EVERY DAY! She has a full-time housekeeper who lives here but she is on vacation in a Mexican country. It’s possible that housekeeper will come back and not find her job!” Noor pronounced, pleased with herself.

  Chapter Eleven

  A slender old woman with silver hair, a slightly hunched back, and olive skin opened the door.

  “Hello, Mrs. Jeha, I am Noor, and this is my friend Zahra.”

  The woman studied Noor and Zahra for a moment, then without a word gestured them inside her house, her thin forearm heavy with a multitude of diamond bangles.

  Zahra was trying hard not to gawk at the spacious living room she could see through the atrium. Silky Persian rugs covered some of the shiny marble floors. From the ceiling over her head hung a chandelier with sparkling crystals dangling a stretched arm away. There were paintings on the walls of belly dancers and hookah smoking men wearing traditional embroidered outfits. The biggest painting seemed made of gold and precious gemstones that displayed a crucified Jesus. It sat on a mantle under a spotlight that made the colors shine even brighter.

  The house did not look in need of any cleaning. Zahra had never seen a cl
eaner house in her life. Furniture, light fixtures, and area rugs seemed part of a grand plan of extravagance and perfect order. Zahra felt a ball in her throat; she was scared to move in that house, let alone clean it.

  She thought about Mustafa, how he would be jumping up and down and flapping his hands in excitement if he stood here with her. Mustafa used to show Zahra and Hajji Television shows about mansions in Hollywood. Neither Zahra nor Hajji ever cared about the mansions, but Mustafa went on and on, comparing out loud the celebrity homes to his disinterested audience. Here she was, standing in one of those homes, wishing it was Mustafa instead of her getting intimidated by all that wealth.

  Noor cleared her throat and put the vacuum cleaner next to the entrance door, as if it was not invited to the event.

  “You can leave it outside, I have one that is gentle with the rugs.”

  Noor laughed nervously. Zahra saw fear in Noor’s face, and it suddenly made her realize how much she cared about her friend. Her own fear gone, she walked to the door, opened it, put the vacuum cleaner outside, then closed the door gently. The woman gestured towards the cleaning supplies in the basket carried by Noor and Zahra took the basket from Noor and set it outside the door next to the vacuum. She locked the door this time and walked past the atrium into what looked like a dining room to the right.

  “All the cleaning supplies are inside the utility room, I need you two to clean all the windows, dust, vacuum the floors, then use the special marble detergent to mop the main level.” Noor and Zahra shook their heads in unison and walked toward the utility room as if hit by the same spell that made the rest of the house obey Mrs. Jeha’s requests. The only exception to the gray woman’s order was the crucified Jesus above the mantle, who seemed too preoccupied with what the men in the picture were doing to him to mind the stern homeowner.

  The work requested by Mrs. Jeha took most of the day. By the early afternoon, Zahra felt dizzy and hungry. The glass vases, porcelain eggs, and bronze statues she was dusting felt like an endless punishment. Noor swept, vacuumed and mopped. They tackled the windows together.

  Noor and Zahra were carefully putting up the cleaning supplies, brooms, mops, and vacuum back in the closet when Mrs. Jeha reappeared with her stone face and wiry manicured fingers holding cash. Without a word, she extended the money towards Noor, the way one feeds an animal across a wire fence.

  “Thank you very much! We can come back anytime you need us! Just call me!” Noor said.

  Her voice was shaking again. The woman walked towards the door and Noor followed her. There was an awkward silence that ended when Zahra and Noor were reunited with the vacuum cleaner that waited for them outside the door like a good friend.

  “Let’s stop at McDonalds and eat everything they have! I am starving, rah moot!” Noor threatened that she was dying but her voice was happier than it had sounded all day.

  She flipped her long wavy red hair and pulled the vacuum cleaner behind her, filling the fancy neighborhood with heel clacking and vacuum clunking against the sidewalk.

  “Tomorrow, we go clean Mrs. Jeha’s daughter’s apartment. Apparently the daughter doesn’t even live there but the apartment needs cleaned! That’s the thing about rich people, Zahra, they are wasteful enough to give the poor a bite, but never a bite big enough to fill you up.”

  “So in your story, I am the poor?”

  “You and me both, girl! We are salt beggars! Without salt you die, yet to get it you must die! A slow death shining clean windows!” Noor laughed and swung her plastic basket back and forth. The detergent spray bottles shook in sync with Noor’s colorful silver bangles.

  Chapter Twelve

  The apartment they went to clean on Friday was vacant as Noor promised the previous day. The concierge opened the door and gave Noor his number to call when she was done cleaning so he can lock up after them. Noor batted her eyes and flipped her hair and giggled the entire five minutes the man was letting them in. When he left, she winked at Zahra and gestured towards the door he just exited.

  “He likes me! And I have his number now! Did you see how he gave me his number! He wanted me to have his number!” Noor seemed convinced of the story she was telling.

  The man seemed pretty serious, and quite old for Noor. Zahra was relieved that it was the concierge and not Mrs. Jeha letting them into her daughter’s apartment. That woman made Zahra’s insides freeze, the mere promise of not facing her stern eyes again put Zahra in a good mood.

  “This is the nicest apartment building in Wichita!” Noor exclaimed. “Unlike Beirut and Cairo, where people live in apartments, here most people live in houses, the exception is the young and the poor. But not this apartment, this is a luxury building, people pay cash for those big apartments. It is a prestige thing!” Noor was on a roll, she talked fast and gestured to the windows and the rest of the apartment.

  “In this building you can’t rent, people pay in cash for the apartments, in cash, and it’s not cheap! It’s mostly retired people, high security for the old people who lose their minds, like your boss in Beirut!” Noor said.

  She laughed as she gestured to her head and made a circle sign with her right hand by her ear. Zahra giggled and started to dust the large room with leather sofas and wooden shelves. There were long windows that showed the city as far as the eyes could see. Downtown was on the far right with its buildings. Zahra recognized some of the buildings she went to for her immigration papers.

  In the middle of the large living room stood a glass statue that looked like a tree with colorful shapes sticking from its sides.

  “A five-year-old can make better art!” Noor gestured towards the statue and paintings hung on walls around them.

  “You want to know why nobody lives here, don’t you?” Noor asked.

  “No, not really.”

  “Of course you do! You are curious! Everybody is!”

  “I am curious to know how many times we will clean this clean, vacant apartment before she realizes that she doesn’t need us,” said Zahra.

  “Zahra habibti, you clearly don’t get it! They need us to clean so they can be assured that their things are nice, that their houses are pretty. They don’t look at their things, they don’t use their space. If they did, we wouldn’t really be here! Having maids is one of the things that remind them of their wealth!”

  On the shelves there were framed pictures, one of Mrs. Jeha and a man who could have been the deceased husband, another picture showed Mrs. Jeha and three women. They had her thin hair, small eyes, large noses, and thick brows.

  “Equally unattractive and sad looking,” Noor pointed to the picture.

  “Those are her daughters. No sons. Shame. Sami told me that she wanted a son but couldn’t have one. She was always very jealous of women with sons. Sami, my friend, her hairdresser, says she is disappointed with her daughters.”

  Noor picked up the photo frame with the mother and three daughters and was pointing to it. Zahra felt bad talking about the people who were paying them for not one but two places to clean. She hoped that staying quiet would make Noor stop her gossip rant.

  “The girl who owns this place! She never had to work a day in her life! She starts those business endeavors that always flop. Now her lover in Beirut is the latest and greatest adventure.”

  “Good for her! She can afford to lose money,” Zahra said. She looked around at the quiet space as if Mrs. Jeha was hiding in a closet ready to confront both of them for gossiping about her daughter.

  “Sami told me that the daughter is in Beirut because the man is trying to run away from her. He does not want her! But she wants him and so she just moved over there! She is sponsoring his project! He is building apartments with her money!”

  “Noor! What they do with their money is none of our business!”

  “Do you blame him?! If I looked like her, I would have to buy love too!” Noor said.

  “Can you play us some Nancy Ajram, Noor, dakhilik, please?!”

  Zahra loved when th
e music played and they quietly cleaned. She would even settle for Noor playing her music in her headphones and leaving her alone. She wanted to finish this place and go to the store. Noor promised they would take a different route home and stop by Wal-Mart, where Zahra could buy a phone. She missed Mustafa and Nadim. They had both called Mary twice since Zahra got to Wichita. Mary was the contact person for Zahra when she first arrived to Wichita, even though she had never seen her again since Mary gave her a ride from the airport. Mary, like Beth belonged to “First Baptist.” She saw Beth on Sundays and that is how the message on a small piece of paper got to Zahra.

  Two men called, each twice to check on Zahara, their names are Mufasa and Nadi. Read the message.

  Beth was very curious to find out about who those men were. When Zahra said “friends,” Beth raised her eyebrows and smiled more than usual.

  “Maybe it’s time you call them, it looks like they are really worried about you,” Beth said.

  Zahra would text them today after she got her own phone. Noor seemed to be certain that it could be done. Zahra moved fast. The songs on Noor’s phone made both women move a little faster. Noor stopped every once in a while to lift her arms up and move them together in rhythm with the music. She waved her waist, threw her hips from side to side while shaking her chest and clapping her hands. Zahra laughed and went on cleaning. The place was cleaned in less than four hours; they opened every kitchen cabinet, emptied it, cleaned it, and then put the contents back, as Mrs. Jeha had instructed them to do. She wanted the apartment “deep cleaned.”

  “Call your boyfriend! You have his number! Let’s go!” Zahra said.

  Noor laughed and slapped Zahra’s shoulder.

  “Not my boyfriend! I only have one boyfriend! Hussein, habibi! The man I will marry some day! This guy is good for fun though! Maybe he can even get us some more apartments in this building to clean! Maybe another apartment nobody lives in, just like this one!”