Qissat Read Online Free PDF

don’t want to.’
    ‘Go indoors then.’
    ‘I want to stay on the porch without pants.’
    ‘It’s rude. We’re in the street, and there are people going past.’
    ‘I like the feel of the cool air on me. It tickles.’
    She likes to try and spend a long time in the bathroom too: the door’s locked and there’s nobody chasing after her with a stick. ‘Upset stomach’, she says, if someone bangs on the door. She lets her bare thighs squash against her stomach and breasts, and flattens her bottom until her buttocks nearly break loose, and the scraps of cool air coming in under the door make them feel sticky. She closes her eyes and imagines that her smooth behind is salep cream stretched tight, with drops of water falling on it, cool and slow. When she cleans herself, she deliberately lets the spout of the plastic jug tickle her between the thighs, especially the two fleshy bits protruding opposite each other like a black woman’s lips, and a strange drowsiness creeps through her limbs, a drowsiness she’s only noticed recently. Nuwwar doesn’t understand it, this feeling, but it’s a short thread beginning far away, from deep down somewhere, and twisting rapidly into shape. Sometimes the thread begins when she catches sight of Ibrahim in the distance. She knows he is going to pass by their porch. She is bent over the broom, the water swirling around her feet. She straightens up quickly, rolls her trousers even higher, stuffing her dress down inside them, pushes her sleeves above her elbows, and pulls back her headscarf so that a few brown curls escape onto her broad forehead. Ibrahim is coming closer. And the thread is spinning from far away. And the drowsiness increases. She hides her hands behind her back, as they’re a bit rough, the nails almost non-existent. If only she could paint them so they’d be like Umm Shihab’s! Umm Shihab’s are hard, long, and painted bright red. Umm Shihab visits them constantly. She brings up the subject of Ibrahim with her mother. She says Ibrahim’s mother is looking for a wife for her son. A strong wife, fair-skinned, tall and from a decent family. She must be strong, a good housewife and nice-looking, as Ibrahim – God bless him! – is a strong construction worker, his powerful chest muscles clearly accentuated by his tight-fitting cotton shirt when he heaves a sack of cement onto his shoulder.
    Ibrahim is getting closer, and the feeling of drowsiness increases rapidly.
    ‘God give you strength, Nuwwar.’
    ‘And you, Ibrahim!’
    ‘God give you nothing, girl!’ shouts her mother from inside the house.
    The broom starts out of Nuwwar’s hands, the thread snaps, and the drowsy sensation plummets into the dirty water at her feet.
    ‘What are you doing out there?’
    Nuwwar bends over the broom again and sweeps. Swish – swish – swish. Ibrahim is walking away. She sweeps faster. Swish, swish, swish, swish.
    ‘Washing the porch.’
    ‘Does it take you all that time to wash the porch? Are you planning to finish today? To hell with you, you useless girl!’
    ‘I’m going up on the roof now.’
    Nuwwar climbs up to the roof terrace, but before she goes she makes sure she buries one of the newly washed slippers in the muddy earth beside the porch. There’s a flight of steps twisting up from one side of the yard onto the roof, and from the roof the whole valley is visible. The jumbled throng of colours is at its most striking at this hour of the day, exactly between daybreak and noon. The neighbouring rooftops outstrip theirs in the broad panorama of the lives spilling out from them. The women’s heads bob up and down untiringly. In every direction the air is thick with the smell of bread. Orange and beige rugs are spread out on the walls, jostled by grey blankets shaking off last night’s damp. Yellow pee stains flutter in and out of sight on the bedding hung to air on washing-lines. Nuwwar goes into the laundry room, confident in the knowledge that she’s