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of parting company with her bottom on a daily basis, but when she’s finished sweeping it remains straight and upright and firmly attached to her skinny buttocks.
    The water loiters at the doorstep now, cooling its steamy breath. Nuwwar straightens up slightly, so that the blood drains out of her lean cheeks into the rest of her body. The water rises and falls. Nuwwar’s chest rises, and with it the plastic slippers. Her chest falls, and with it the sandals. Broken bristles bob playfully around the opening of the narrow drain. The water lies above the drain, which is partly choked, rising and falling. The volume of water increases, rising and falling more, and the drain doesn’t drain it away! Nuwwar hurries to open the door and the water races over the doorstep onto the raised porch, then out into the street, but the slippers stay behind. Nuwwar picks them up two by two, slapping them together so that the fine spray bathes her face, or wiping their soles on the side of her dress, which is tucked into her long trousers, then putting them all with the sandals into the crate and lifting it out onto the right-hand side of the porch, the side that gets the sun, so they’ll dry quickly. They’ll go a bit hard and crinkled, but as soon as they’re worn again they’ll soften up. Now she reaches her hand into the narrow drain which opens out in the porch, scooping up grit and sand and bent and twisted bristles. She reaches in further – a green bean pod, stringy heads of okra, clumps of hair. The sluggish film of water trapped behind the doorstep begins to dwindle as the drain carries it slowly out into the porch. Nuwwar bends lower over the porch, watching as the water gushes out of the drain towards her feet. Her toenails are getting more brittle. They aren’t long like Umm Shihab the matchmaker’s, but Umm Shihab doesn’t clean floors, so her nails grow and she paints them.
    The murky water extends slowly over the porch, with broken bristles floating in it. Nuwwar’s body bends sulkily over the stunted broom, her head almost touching the ground, and she sweeps: swish, to the right; swish, to the left; swish, in front; swish, further in front. Swish, swish, swish. With her uneven nails she scrapes at a squashed piece of chewing gum.
    ‘God give you strength.’
    ‘The same to you.’
    But Nuwwar doesn’t look up. Head down, she continues sweeping. Even Rasmiyya keeps walking without turning around, hitching up her long dress well clear of her ankle with one hand, while with the other she tries to steady the tray of roast chickens on her head so that it doesn’t slip off the square of cloth placed under it. The smell of chicken is delicious. Every Thursday Rasmiyya’s household roasts a tray of chickens or spleen at the baker’s. Nuwwar’s family have their own oven, on the roof, in the laundry room itself, and Nuwwar is the one who roasts the chickens, but often her mind wanders, she forgets them and they are burnt to a crisp! The squashed chewing gum resists her, so she leaves it.
    There’s a lot of water on the porch now. She rolls her trousers up to her knees. Her legs remind her of her last geography lesson, two years ago – savannah grass – it’s meant to grow in the tropics, but she noticed afterwards that it grows on her legs too!
    She scrubs, and the chewing gum doesn’t dissolve.
    ‘Wipe me!’
    ‘Bring some paper.’
    ‘Where from?’
    ‘There’s a newspaper on top of the radio.’
    He bends over, raising his bottom up towards her face, and she wipes between his two small buttocks with a crumpled scrap of newspaper.
    ‘Didn’t you clean it with water?’
    ‘Of course I did.’
    ‘It doesn’t look like it.’
    ‘I did it very well. I swear! The spout of the plastic jug even went up inside when I was trying to pour out the water. It really hurt!’
    ‘You’re six years old, and you still don’t know how to clean yourself!’
    ‘But it hurts.’
    ‘Fine. Put your pants on.’
    ‘I