The Kitchen

Not in the record.

The phone lived on the shelf above the gas bottle, between the bread tin and the jar of lentils, plugged into the socket that only worked if you pushed the plug a little to the left.

That was the rule. It did not sleep with you, it did not go to the bathroom with you, and it did not go to Grandmother’s, because Grandmother’s street was the kind of street people looked at. It stayed in the kitchen, where there was always someone, and where, Malak’s mother said, the only thing it could hear was the kettle.

At 07:26 it buzzed against the bread tin.

Malak was on the floor with the baby, who had learned to sit up the week before and was now trying to learn to sit up and hold a spoon at the same time, and failing at both with great energy. She got up, pushed the plug a little to the left out of habit, and pressed the message with her thumb.

“It’s Nadia.”

She knew that already. It was Nadia’s mother’s number, and it had a picture of a cup, because Aaliyah had made them all choose a sticker on the first day, and Nadia had chosen the cup and then changed it to a star and then changed it back.

“Today we’re counting people. Count everyone who lives in your house. Everyone. Then send the number.”

A pause. A pan, somewhere behind Nadia’s voice.

“I’ll go first. Four.”

Malak counted on her fingers, standing by the gas bottle. Mama. Baba. Grandmother, who lived with them now because of her knees. Omar and Bilal, who were not allowed to say they did not count. Herself.

Six.

Then she looked down at the baby, who had got the spoon into his mouth the wrong way round and was looking astonished about it.

Omar always said the baby did not count, because he could not count. Omar said a lot of things. Aaliyah had said that you counted everybody who was there, even if they were asleep or annoying or both, and that if you were not sure whether someone counted you should count them and then argue about it afterwards.

She typed with one thumb, because the baby had her other hand.

Six. And the baby. Seven.

She sent it at 07:29. One mark, then two.

Then she thought about Nadia’s number.

Everybody knew about Nadia’s house. Malak’s mother had cried about it in this kitchen, with the tap running so nobody would hear, and then gone to Umm Fadi’s with a pot of rice and come back without the pot. Nadia’s mother had been in the house. Aaliyah had been in the house. Nadia and her brother lived at Umm Fadi’s now.

She counted it on her fingers. Nadia. Karim. Umm Fadi.

Three.

She counted it again, because Aaliyah said that you always check, and it was still three, and Nadia had said four.

Malak stood by the shelf with the phone in her hand. She was good at counting. She was the best in the group at it, except for Nadia, and Nadia was not wrong about numbers. Nadia had never once been wrong about numbers.

She did not send anything else.

Her mother came in from the yard with a basket of washing on her hip and saw her standing there.

“What are you sending?”

“It’s the lesson. Nadia’s doing the lessons now.”

Her mother put the basket down. “What’s the lesson?”

“How many people live in our house.”

Her mother went still, the way she did when a car slowed in the street outside, and Malak saw her look at the phone, and then at the window, and then at the baby, as if she was counting too.

“Who asked that?”

“Nadia. I said. It’s counting.”

For a moment Malak thought her mother was going to take the phone and delete it, the way she had once deleted a picture of the front door because it showed the number. Her hand came halfway up.

Then it went to the kettle instead, and she filled it, and lit the gas, and stood with her back to the room while the flame caught.

“Next time,” she said, “you ask me first. Before you send a number.”

“All right.”

The kettle began to tick as it warmed.

“Did you count the baby?”

“Yes.”

“Good,” her mother said, and did not turn round, and Malak knew from her shoulders that she was crying again, with no tap running this time, only the gas, and the baby on the floor saying a word that was nearly spoon.