Salem stood leaning lazily on the kitchen
door watching Hala; she was busy
stirring something in a big pot then she added vegetables inside it and covered
it. She had already dressed for work and she had rolled the long sleeves of her
blouse up.
What are you doing in the kitchen; it is
only five a.m. the smell woke me up, he
finally announced his presence.
Oops, sorry. We’re having a dish party for the new comers
in the department and I am making koushary and lentil soup; I did not fry the
onions yet to avoid the smell; you smelled the cakes maybe?
How nice, cooking at dawn for your Indian,
Bengali, Pakistani and lovely Saudi colleagues and complaining every day about
cooking for you own kids!
Hala wanted to remain calm; she will wake
the kids up in half an hour and Salma will give her a hard time before she
leaves for school; then she will six
hours of teaching. She started to scoop
the rice and lentils out of the tefal pot with a big spoon and place it in the
oval stainless steel serving dish, then she placed the lid on the pot again and
opened the oven and placed it inside to keep it warm for lunch. She moved
mechanically like a robot and the tense muscles in her shoulders and back
started to ache.
I will serve his breakfast first; I don’t
want the kids to feel any tension; it is enough what Salma feels about school
and abayas and all. She behaves like someone taken to jail to serve a life
sentence, every morning.
She removed the dishes of boiled egg halves
and the chick peas from the table in the center of the kitchen to the other
side. She will use these later for decorating kousahary. She started serving
cheeses and cold cuts right from the fridge. Salem followed her movement from
the fridge to the cook to heat something in a pan and sat at the table.
"Do you expect me to eat that cold stuff?"
I am preparing foul and scrambled eggs.
Do we have any konafa? I want a piece with
tea.
I ran out of Konafa…let me write it on the
list or I will forget; she said as she moved to write something on a long piece
of paper she placed under a magnet on the freezer door.. but I have some cakes
for your tea, I have just baked it.
"An ideal wife", he said with a
tone of ridicule; see I don't use the words you hate anymore…. I said"
ideal", not "good". Satisfied?
Thank
you! She still tried to act naturally, she had prayed God to help her remain
calm for Salma's sake and now it is Salem playing on her nerves and looking for
a morning scene. She hoped that he will eat and go back to sleep again before
he pumps into Salma, witnesses her ugly morning rituals and starts to fight
with her. She had never hated school
back in Egypt; even in kindergarten. Poor
Salma, she misses being with Kareem in the same class, and she misses
her old friends and the club and
swimming under the sun rays every Friday morning and tennis practice twice a
week. Even though they go to an
international school, they still have to follow Saudi school regulations, separating
boys and girls and forcing girls to wear black abayas on top of the uniform.
Welcome back. we missed the poetic language and emotion infused writing. Salma
ردحذفThank you Salma
ردحذف