We go back to our room. He takes off the robe and gallabiya. He turns away from me and takes off his woolen shirt, showing me his bare back. He asks me to scratch it. I put on my glasses. I scratch around the three blue pimples spread across his back. His body is white, just like his face and his arms up to the elbows. He tells me to look for the lice hidden in the seams of his shirt. He points me to the crevices in the seams on each side and asks me to look closely at them. I find one fat white louse. There’s a black spot on its back. I like that kind better than the thin black ones. I put it on my left thumbnail and I press against it with my right thumbnail. I listen to its splat. He hangs up the shirt, saying: “That’s enough.”
He picks out clean clothes from the dresser. He says in a hushed tone: “Watch out for Um Nazira.” I follow him to the door of our room. Um Nazira sits at the table in the living area whittling the skin off bulbs of taro.
I sit at my desk. I get up. I steal a glance at Um Nazira from the crack in the door. She slices her knife through one of the bulbs and begins to cut it into small cubes.
My father comes out of the guest room wearing a clean gallabiya. He tells Um Nazira to throw out the dirty water and dry off the floor of the room.
She says: “After I’m done with this.”
He says the floor has to be dried right away before water gathers in the crevices of the hard wood flooring. She’s mad as she gets up and goes past him to the kitchen. She takes up her mop rag and bucket and goes into the guest room. She comes out after a little bit with the bucket and goes to the kitchen, then she comes back in and sits down. He tells her to go back and wash her hands. She goes to wash them. I tell him in a hushed voice that she didn’t wash the taro after peeling it. She comes back and sits down and starts cutting again. He asks her if she washed it after peeling it. She says she’ll do it after she finishes cutting it. He yells at her, saying: “Didn’t I tell you to wash it first and then dry it with a towel?”
She says: “It doesn’t matter.”
He says: “Do what I say.”
Her lips tighten and she goes on cutting the bulbs without saying anything.
He takes a razor out of his shaving kit. A little box to hold cigarettes made of cardboard. He unfastens the case for the razor that has a picture of a crocodile on it. He puts his right foot over the edge of the bed. He bends forward and slices off the corn on his little toe. He says it’s from the pointy toed shoes that he wore as a young man, after the style of the day. He cuts a corn off his left foot and puts the blade back into its case. He takes out little scissors. He cuts at his hardened toenails with some effort. Leaves the room to wash his hands. He comes back. He puts on socks made of wool.
The sound of the Friday sermon comes out of Um Zakia’s radio. She lives on the first floor of the house next door and her window looks down over the skylight. Father gets up off the bed and stands straight up. He walks over to the wall. He places his palms on it then brings them to his face and wipes it with them both while he mutters little prayers begging for God’s help. He finishes with the ritual and starts to get ready for prayer. I stop my red car at the door of the dining room with my hands on the steering wheel, waiting all in a hurry with my eyes focused on his frowning face. I pretend I’m like the drivers waiting at the traffic light. The imam finishes the Friday sermon and starts to ask blessings on the king. My father unfolds his rug in the guest room. I am bored as I wait and so I start to count how many times he bows. He turns his head to the right to ask peace on the guardian angel on the right shoulder, then he does the same to the guardian angel on the left shoulder. Before he gets up and folds his rug, I’ve shot off.
He prays on the bed. I go out to the living area. I take a plate down from the sideboard. I pour some molasses on to it, and study it closely to make sure there are no ants in it. I add some tahini from a jar. I get a loaf of bread and have to work hard to balance everything. The plate wobbles and a few drops fall to the floor. I put the plate down on the table. I lick a drop of molasses from my finger. Um Nazira spots the drops of molasses on the floor and says angrily: “I’m not going to mop again.”
The prayer ends and father appears in the doorway. He asks her what she’s screaming about. He is mad as he tells her that he will not let her raise her voice to me. He orders her to wipe up the bits of molasses. She gives in gloomily. He waits until she’s finished and gets up to go back to the table, then he tells her to wash her hands with soap.
We go back to our room. I am waiting for him to scold me, but he doesn’t. I take my place behind my desk and open the math notebook. He tells me to keep an eye on Um Nazira to make sure she doesn’t drink all our ghee. He sits cross legged on top of the bed. He takes hold of a long string of dark wooden prayer beads. He starts to count on it, muttering to himself in the name of “the Gentle.”
I steal a glance at Um Nazira through the crack in the door. I see her carrying the pan of taro, headed toward the kitchen. I follow her. I glance sideways at the bathroom. I come closer to the kitchen door softly. I stop and cling to the wall. I pull my head back a little for fear that she might see me.
She puts the pan on the stove and adds water to it. She peels the garlic and chops it into small pieces with her knife. She throws it in with the chard in a metal skillet with a long handle. She grabs the jar of ghee and takes a spoonful. She throws it into the skillet with the garlic. I hold my breath when she sticks the spoon back into the jar. She fills it again. Is she going to eat it herself? I watch her hand as it moves toward the skillet.
I feel movement behind me. Father is coming up sneakily. He puts his hand on my shoulder. He cranes his neck to try to see her. She grabs the pot of taro with a towel and picks it up off the fire. She puts it on the table. She puts the skillet over the flame then stirs the mixture with a spoon. She leans forward to take a good look at it then heads towards the jar of ghee with the spoon in her hand. Father tilts his head some more to see what she is doing. She turns suddenly and catches sight of him. She screams. Her hand slips off the handle of the pan and what’s in it spills all over the floor. She beats her chest with her hand: “You scared me. Damn you!”
Father goes into the kitchen and yells: “Damn you and damn your life! Can’t you be careful?”
She screams back: “What kind of a job is this?”
“Pick up what you’ve spilled.”
She pushes him and goes toward the front door: “Just see for yourself who’ll pick up for you. I’m leaving.”
Father screams after her: “Then go to hell.”
~ ~ ~
We walk behind a woman wrapped up in a wide black sheet. Her face is covered with a burka that shows only her eyes and that is held up by a shiny brass chain that comes to a point over her nose with a light fabric hanging down like a flap covering her mouth. She is walking with quick steps while she clutches the sheet around her body. From the corner of my eye, I pick up father’s glances at the swaying of her full bottom. I trip over a brick and he scolds me: “Be careful.”
Narrow crowded alleyways. Old doors and stone benches in front of tiny shops. Smells of mud, decay, and axle grease. She stops until a vegetable cart passes, pulled along by a horse. She stretches the black sheet around her body, making its shape more clear. A beautiful perfume comes from her body. I go out to the living room. I look around for my mother. The annoying sound of the stove’s fire comes from the kitchen. I steal inside their bedroom. The bed. Across their mattress is a lace bedspread. I take the blue perfume bottle from on top of the dresser and I smell its rim.