Selwa, Koether, Noor ch 4: Waiting on the centerfuge

This is the last bit about Noor, before the story begins to follow Koether more closely. I'm kind of having a hard time figuring out exactly who Noor is. I kind of want her to be a very calm person, but I'm not sure if that's really the case, and I don't think that's how she comes across in here. By the way, in Arabic 'auntie' would really be 'Khala', that's actually what Noor would be calling her aunt. 

Auntie! Are you okay? Called Noor.

I’m fine, habibti. I’m just finishing washing these clothes.

Can I help? offered Noor.

No, no, I’ve already gotten them in the washer. Go out and wait with the others, I’ll be right out.

Noor stepped away from the wash room and walked down the hall, with the stormy sound of the clothes-washer doing its business receding behind her. She joined her cousins at the front door.

- Noor, did you know? Amer said, as she settled on the front step between Mariam and Zeezee in her adorable red-and-white. Mariam finally lost her last baby tooth!

- oh, let me see! Noor placed her hand under Mariam’s pearly chin and tilted it upwards. Smile! Look at you! you look so cute.

Mariam laughed blushingly.

so, said Noor, winking at Amer, what did the tooth fairy get you?

silly, laughed Mariam again. There’s no tooth fairy.

- Well, well, we are quite mature! Exclaimed Noor. But are you sure? Are you positive? Cause I know a ten-year-old in Sweden who was quite sure she saw some fairy dust sprinkled over the krona she found under her pillow. You mean the tooth fairy didn’t leave you anything?

- Noor, Noor, you can’t say things like that, Zeezee broke in.

Noor steeled herself for one of Zeezee’s I’m-a-grown-8-year-old lectures, as betokened by Zeezee’s hop and step as she did a peculiar in-place march in front of Noor’s face.

- When Johanne – this was Zeezee’s school-teacher – tried telling me that the tooth fairy would come after I lost my tooth when we all ate carrots at snack-time, Mama called him later to say that Muslims don’t believe in that, even if the Danes do, and that he can’t things like that in class. And when I saw him the next day, he said he was sorry.

With resolve, Noor managed not to roll her eyes.

Auntie actually called him about that?

Yes. And she made him promise not to say things like that again.

- Well, that is a relief! nodded Noor sarcastically, reaching forward to readjust Zeezee’s crisp white headscarf. We should stomp out fairy corruption wherever we find it! Zeezee, please hold still so you’ll look presentable at the showcase. Any case, I wonder what’s taking Auntie so long. We need to leave right away, or else we’ll be late.

Still digesting the story of the misfortunate lost tooth, Noor made her way back to the washroom. It was empty, but Auntie poked her head out of the bedroom next door, which Zeezee and Mariam shared.

what are you up to, auntie? Asked Noor.

- Oh, I was just going through Zeezee’s drawer’s, straightening her clothes. You know how she keeps things a mess!

- oh, but auntie, we have to leave now. Zeezee is introducing the showcase, we can’t get there late!

- I know, I know, we won’t be late, we’ve got a couple more minutes.

- okay, auntie, please let me help you get this cleaning done faster, begged Noor. Somehow, she felt very responsible for bringing her Muslim family on-time to the punctual event.

- let’s see, why don’t you straighten the prayer rugs and prayer clothes in that closet over there, while I get Zeezee and Mariam’s outfits ready for tomorrow.

Noor stared.

- of course, aunt, I’ll really hurry. She moved swiftly to pull open the closet door, while auntie rummaged further in Zeezee’s room.

- is there anything else we need to do, asked Noor, feeling slightly desperate. Was, perhaps, the clock on the wall early?

- well, said auntie thoughtfully, I wish there was, but really I’m ready to go. It’s just that I’m waiting for the clothes-washer.

- oh, auntie, you’ve already gotten the load started! Why are we waiting?

- I just need it to start the centerfuge, explained her aunt apologetically. You see, sometimes in the centerfuge the washer makes strange noises and starts jumping around. I always stop it and untangle the clothes if that happens.

- what happens if you don’t? asked Noor.

- I’ve never left house with the centerfuge still not on, so I really don’t know, admitted auntie, as she straightened coats and winter shawls packed on the upper shelves. Don’t worry, habibti, it should start any minute now.

- I’m sure it will, agreed Noor limply, glancing anxiously at the clock.

- Noor, you go and get uncle to start the car, and get everyone in the car, so you’ll be ready as soon as I’m done.

Suppressing a groan, Noor turned to follow her aunt’s orders. The car started up, the children squeezed themselves into the back seat.

- good thing Selwa’s not here, and you’re in her place! Exclaimed Amer, as Zeezee bounced noisily on his lap.

- Zeezee, please calm down, commanded Noor, as Zeezee’s elbow pecked sharply at her ribs.

She twisted herself around against the car door.

how is Selwa doing? Asked Noor.

Fine, fine, said uncle from the driver’s seat

But not engaged yet, added Amer.

- They say she’s fatter than ever, laughed Zeezee. They say all she does is eat grandmother’s cooking! We’d never fit in the car if she was here.

- watch out now, teased Noor, leaning over to poke Zeezee in the stomach. Zeezee squealed. You might end up just like her.

- that was why Selwa left, added Amer. Not to get married, but so we could all breathe again in the car.

- Amer, stop, complained Mariam.

- Amer! Said uncle from the front.

- yes, it’s bad luck to talk like that, chimed in Noor. Zeezee, remember about the showcase.

Noor looked at the car clock.

should I go get aunt?

- No, leave her to come at her own time, advised Amer. When she washing clothes, nothing can bring her out, except maybe if the Queen walked in and ordered her. And maybe not even then.

- but I just don’t want Zeezee to be late.

- Noor, it’s okay, assuaged Zeezee. Don’t you want clean clothes tomorrow?

Selwa, Koether, Noor ch3: Noor's grandmother

Noor’s grandmother, Bibi (also known by her given name, Betool), reigned as the voice of calm and reason in the clan. Betool was not even the eldest person on the living and breathing greenery of the family tree; one of her uncles was still living, but he was in Iraq, and frail, and could be reached only through the crackly telephones. Every little while, an ominous woman’s voice would appear on the line to say, ‘‘three minutes – remaining.’’
Betool was very aware and present in all her children and grandchildren’s lives, on top of spending about ten hours a day in prayer. She knew everyone’s grades in school, and she knew who had loaned money to whom, and had such a thing occurred, she would have known precisely which of her sons-in-law was mistreating one of her daughters. Then she would have had some things to say to him. On each of her grandchildren’s birthdays, even those absent in Sweden, she consumed in flame the requisite number of candles on an old tin circle, faintly stained with waxy residue.
Sometimes, she cried a little bit, when the sad stories of the past bobbed up. Noor knew which names, with their associated traumas, to avoid mentioning. Howver, if Noor asked her, or if Koether was curious, Betool would commence the telling of the abridged, happy version of ‘The Story of Old Times’. There was the story of Betool walking to school when she was a tiny child of nine, in the black-and-white photo days of Baghdad. A man had asked the group of school children if they wanted a picture. Everyone pitched in some left-overs of pocket change.
This was a not a picture on prominent display in the Danish house. It was hidden amongst papers and trinkets in a cabinet, that Noor and Koether had once gone sleuthing through, while their grandmother and TV murmured in the background. It showed the child figure of Betool, whose hair someone had parted to a side and neatly pinned back, the straight tresses stopping primly at a puckered, obedient mouth above a porcelain oval of a chin, and a dress of some stiff material out of which popped knobbly knees.
Then there was the story about Betool when she gave birth to her first girl, and made a pact that every one of her kids must graduate college. Ah, she was not aware, then, that doing so involved the simple matter of dodging a war and a sudden exit from her homeland. But it made no matter, the decree held, just as her mother had insisted that her daughter continue school past compulsory levels.
The younger kids might listen in to these tales, but they amused themselves much more with the jokes and characters Noor related to them from the ready repertoire of her university acquaintances. She told them, when Khala Majeda had been busy with kitchen pots, about the professor who took whole groups of his students out for drinks after lectures. Mariam looked shocked, and Noor had caught Koether smirking slightly at Mariam’s ten-year-old innocence from the corner of her eye.
‘‘Does he pay for everything?’’ Amer demanded.
Hahaha, he gloated when answered in the affirmative. After some fiddling, he had transformed the story into the ‘‘professor who showed up drunk to class. Dude, he’s awesome!’’
Or, the professor who had abruptly broken off his lecture, with perhaps a hundred students’ waiting pens posed over their notebooks, to confess: ‘‘yes, I got a divorce, what can I say, I made a mistake.’’ To the immediate sympathy and collective ‘awwwwww’ of half the female section of the audience, and the rolled eyes of the rest.
Koether had just graduated from her university in Lund, and whenever anyone mentioned her new teaching job, or wanted to hear stories from the school, Koether would nod self-importantly while looking nervous.
But Mariam said rather wickedly of her older sister, ‘‘Selwa comes home with the same story every day, all about her bad grades.’’
Sh-sh, Noor admonished her, but Selwa was at that point holed up in her room, pursuant of significant chatter with an assemblage of her closest friends from school, and Koether said, rather prissily, ‘‘watch out before the same thing happens to you!’’
‘‘Koether, you planning on failing any of your students?’’ Amer asked.
‘‘No, all my students are going on to college.’’

Selwa Koether Noor ch 2: the Logic of a Kid

 This is the second chapter in the story of Noor, Koether and Selwa. They are all cousins living in separate spots in Denmark and Sweden. The most developed character is Koether (even though the story starts off focused on Noor). But i think it would all work out better if i had more things going on in Noor and Selwa's lives, but i didn't come up with anything when i planned everything out. that is something i've been trying to figure out the past few days.           

            Finally, Mariam appeared around the corner of the house, some dirt on her hands.

            “Hey, you! Salam,” called Noor.

            “Salam, Noor!” said Mariam, running for a hug, then remembering her hands.

            “Is anyone home?” Noor asked.

            “Only Bibi. I was in the backyard and didn’t hear you ring the bell till she called me.”

            “Is the front door open?”

            “Nope. I wanted to let you know first that I was coming, and now I’ll go back around and open the door for you.”

            That was Mariam’s way, Noor knew. Hearing that Noor was waiting at the door, ringing the bell, she would rush from the backyard and let her know help was incoming rather than have her older cousin stay alone the few extra seconds it would have taken to navigate through the house doors and change her shoes at the kitchen step; Noor ought to be assured immediately that deliverance was nigh. Now, she rushed back around the house, opened the back door, ran through the rooms, likely stumbling some in her haste, and finally opened the front door to give Noor a hearty welcome.

            Had Mariam’s older brother been with Noor, he would have been impatient at all the delay, and rolled his eyes at Mariam’s assumption that Noor had been waiting scared and helpless, deserted on the porch. Noor thought it sweet and took the extra minutes’ wait cordially. She had just come on the train from Sweden; it was the last week before her courses opened again at Stockholm University; school had opened for her little sister, Sara, the previous week, so this was a solo trip.

            It was a fine family for visiting. First, Noor’s grandmother, who they called Bibi, but was really named Betool. Then Majeda, who was married to Noor’s maternal uncle, Hussain. And their children: first Selwa, the oldest daughter and just a few years younger than Noor; then Amer, an adjusting teenager hawking his new store of “muscle” and hair in various areas; Mariam, a gentle ten-year-old; and ZeeZee, the youngest and most hyper of the bunch.

            They lived near the end of one of the train lines leaving Copenhagen and headed for her outskirts.