of potatoes, left them too to soak. She searched for flour, found it in the back of one of the
cabinets behind a row of dirty spice jars, and made fresh dough, kneading it the way Nana
had shown her, pushing the dough with the heel of her hand, folding the outer edge, turning
it, and pushing it away again. Once she had floured the dough, she wrapped it in a moist
cloth, put on ahijab, and set out for the communal tandoor.
Rasheed had told her where it was, down the street, a left then a quick right, but all
Mariam had to do was follow the flock of women and children who were headed the same
way. The children Mariam saw, chasing after their mothers or running ahead of them, wore
shirts patched and patched again. They wore trousers that looked too big
or too small, sandals with ragged straps that flapped back and forth. They rolled discarded
old bicycle tires with sticks.
Their mothers walked in groups of three or four, some in burqas, others not. Mariam could
hear their high pitched chatter, their spiraling laughs. As she walked with her head down,
she caught bits of their banter, which seemingly always had to do with sick children or lazy,
ungrateful husbands.
As if the meals cook themselves.
Wallah o billah, never a moment's rest!
A nd he says to me, I swear it, it's true, he actually says tome...
This endless conversation, the tone plaintive but oddly cheerful, flew around and around
in a circle. On it went, down the street, around the corner, in line at the tandoor. Husbands
who gambled. Husbands who doted on their mothers and wouldn't spend a rupiah on them,
the wives. Mariam wondered how so many women could suffer the same miserable luck, to
have married, all of them, such dreadful men. Or was this a wifely game that she did not
know about, a daily ritual, like soaking rice or making dough? Would they expect her soon
to join in?
In the tandoor line, Mariam caught sideways glances shot at her, heard whispers. Her
hands began to sweat. She imagined they all knew that she'd been born aharami, a source
of shame to her father and his family. They all knew that she'd betrayed her mother and
disgraced herself.
With a corner of herhijab, she dabbed at the moisture above her upper lip and tried to
gather her nerves. For a few minutes, everything went well Then someone tapped her on
the shoulder. Mariam turned around and found a light skinned, plump woman wearing
ahijab, like her. She had short, wiry black hair and a good humored, almost perfectly round
face. Her lips were much fuller than Mariam's, the lower one slightly droopy, as though
dragged down by the big, dark mole just below the lip line. She had big greenish eyes that
shone at Mariam with an inviting glint.
"You're Rasheed jan's new wife, aren't you?" the woman said, smiling widely.