Pear Orchards: This Fear

3

THREE

December 1984

Noorah had the best months of her life after the day she and Ya’qoob became friends. It was the most fun she’d had since school started and she no longer felt lonely and neglected. Every single day, before the first bell rang in the morning, Ya’qoob invited her to play with him, and sometimes he showed up with a treat for her, too; and at recess, he always came looking for her. He didn’t mind that she never spoke and she didn’t mind that he never stopped. Miss Alice and her parents seemed less worried about her now that she had someone to play with at school, even though he tended to pull her into risk-taking activities that they would have preferred he didn’t—like climbing things not meant for climbing.

When Noorah woke up on the first day of winter break, she felt sad not to be going to school. No school meant no Ya’qoob. She had spent every single school day playing with him during recess and morning free play. At home, she would only have Mukhtâr to play with, and he wasn’t interested in playing with her much since ’Itbân came over frequently. She had no one to come over and play with her. Her only friend was Ya’qoob, and she didn’t think he knew where she lived.

As daylight peeked through the curtains at her bedroom window, she climbed out of bed to face a day that probably wouldn’t be very much fun. Dressed in her thick sleeper, she padded across the hardwood floor to the window and pulled aside the curtain. Everything was covered in white, including her father’s cherry trees. It would be fun to go out to make a snowman after breakfast. She hoped Mukhtâr would be willing instead of abandoning her to play with his best friend as usual. She wouldn’t count on it though.

She could already hear voices from the direction of the kitchen, telling her that her parents were already up. Her mother’s soft-spoken, lilting voice and her father’s warm baritone reached her ears. She didn’t hear Mukhtâr, but that didn’t necessarily mean he was still asleep. More often than not, he was shoving so much food into his mouth at one time that she thought he started to resemble a chipmunk. She’d seen chipmunks fill their cheeks with nuts until their faces bloated. Chubby cheeks looked cute on a chipmunk. On her brother, not so much. When one of their parents finally noticed his eating, they usually scolded him and reminded him to eat like a human.

Noorah was habituated enough to a morning routine to know that the first place to go wasn’t the kitchen. When she made her way out of the bedroom, she went to the hallway bathroom she and her brother shared. The door was open and it was empty. She remembered to say the du’â her mother had helped her memorize before she went inside.

She closed it but didn’t lock it. The one time she’d done that, she had gotten stuck and her father had had to break down the door to get her out. It was an experience she was in no hurry to repeat.

She unzipped her sleeper as she reached the toilet seat and pushed it down to her legs. She had a long-sleeved undershirt and thick leggings on underneath, but she still felt the cold. Pulling down her pants and underwear made her feel colder. The toilet seat was freezing when she sat down. It had been fairly recently that she’d started going to the bathroom by herself. Her mother still helped when it came to bathing.

When she was done, she reached for the hose to wash herself. The heater had warmed the water so that it didn’t freeze her sensitive skin. She remembered to hold the hose in her right and wash with her left. Right hands were for eating and clean stuff. Left hands were for washing yourself and dirty stuff. Shaytân ate and drank with his left. That sounded gross.

She slid off, returned the hose to its place, and then flushed the toilet. That was important. Otherwise, the whole bathroom started smelling like your pee or poop. Mukhtâr always seemed to forget and left nasty smells behind. Then Mami and Papi yelled at him. Noorah always tried to remember. It wasn’t nice to leave yucky smells behind that made other people feel sick.