before it was replaced by something hateful.
Rasheed swung the belt again.
This time, Laila shielded herself with a forearm and made a grab at the belt. She missed,
and Rasheed brought the belt down again. Laila caught it briefly before Rasheed yanked it
free and lashed at her again. Then Laila was dashing around the room, and Mariam was
screaming words that ran together and imploring Rasheed, as he chased Laila, as he
blocked her way and cracked his belt at her. At one point, Laila ducked and managed to
land a punch across his ear, which made him spit a curse and pursue her even more
relentlessly. He caught her, threw her up against the wall, and struck her with the belt again
and again, the buckle slamming against her chest, her shoulder, her raised arms, her fingers,
drawing blood wherever it struck.
Mariam lost count of how many times the belt cracked, how many pleading words she
cried out to Rasheed, how many times she circled around the incoherent tangle of teeth and
fists and belt, before she saw fingers clawing at Rasheed's face, chipped nails digging into
his jowls and pulling at his hair and scratching his forehead. How long before she realized,
with both shock and relish, that the fingers were hers.
He let go of Laila and turned on her. At first, he looked at her without seeing her, then his
eyes narrowed, appraised Mariam with interest. The look in them shifted from puzzlement
to shock, then disapproval, disappointment even, lingering there a moment.
Mariam remembered the first time she had seen his eyes, under the wedding veil, in the
mirror, with Jalil looking on, how their gazes had slid across the glass and met, his
indifferent, hers docile, conceding, almost apologetic.
Apologetic.
Mariam saw now in those same eyes what a fool she had been.
Had she been a deceitful wife? she asked herself. A complacent wife? A dishonorable
woman? Discreditable? Vulgar? What harmful thing had she willfully done to this man to
warrant his malice, his continual assaults, the relish with which he tormented her? Had she
not looked after him when he was ill? Fed him, and his friends, cleaned up after him
dutifully?
Had she not given this man her youth?
Had she ever justly deserved his meanness?
The belt made a thump when Rasheed dropped it to the ground and came for her. Some
jobs, that thump said, were meant to be done with bare hands.
But just as he was bearing down on her, Mariam saw Laila behind him pick something up
from the ground. She watched Laila's hand rise overhead, hold, then come swooping down
against the side of his face. Glass shattered. The jagged remains of the drinking glass rained
down to the ground. There was blood on Laila's hands, blood flowing from the open gash