Mariam
n the daytime, the girl was no more than a creaking bedspring, a patter of footsteps
overhead. She was water splashing in the bathroom, or a teaspoon clinking against glass
in the bedroom upstairs. Occasionally, there were sightings: a blur of billowing dress in the
periphery of Madam's vision, scurrying up the steps, arms folded across the chest, sandals
slapping the heels.
But it was inevitable that they would run into each other. Madam passed the girl on the
stairs, in the narrow hallway, in the kitchen, or by the door as she was coming in from the
yard. When they met like this, an awkward tension rushed into the space between them.
The girl gathered her skirt and breathed out a word or two of apology, and, as she hurried
past, Madam would chance a sidelong glance and catch a blush. Sometimes she could smell
Rasheed on her. She could smell his sweat on the girl's skin, his tobacco, his appetite. Sex,
mercifully, was a closed chapter in her own life. It had been for some time, and now even
the thought of those laborious sessions of lying beneath Rasheed made Madam queasy in
the gut.
At night, however, this mutually orchestrated dance of avoidance between her and the girl
was not possible. Rasheed said they were a family. He insisted they were, and families had
to eat together, he said.
"What is this?" he said, his fingers working the meat off a bone the spoon and fork
charade was abandoned a week after he married the girl. "Have I married a pair of statues?
Go on, Madam, gap bezan, say something to her. Where are your manners?"
Sucking marrow from a bone, he said to the girl, "But you mustn't blame her. She is quiet.
A blessing, really, because, wallah, if a person hasn't got much to say she might as well be
stingy with words. We are city people, you and I, but she is dehati. A village girl. Not even
a village girl. No. She grew up in a kolba made of mud outside the village. Her father put
her there. Have you told her, Mariam, have you told her that you are aharami1? Well, she
is. But she is not without qualities, all things considered. You will see for yourself, Laila
jan. She is sturdy, for one thing, a good worker, and without pretensions. I'll say it this way:
If she were a car, she would be a Volga."
Mariam was a thirty three year old woman now, but that word, harami, still had sting.
Hearing it still made her feel like she was a pest, a cockroach. She remembered Nana
pulling her wrists. You are a clumsy Utile harami. This is my reward for everything I've
endured. An heirloom breaking clumsy Utile harami.
"You," Rasheed said to the girl, "you, on the other hand, would be a Benz. A brand new,
first class, shiny Benz. Wah wah. But. But." He raised one greasy index finger. "One must
take certain...cares...with a Benz. As a matter of respect for its beauty and craftsmanship,
you see. Oh, you must be thinking that I am crazy, diwana, with all this talk of automobiles.
I am not saying you are cars. I am merely making a point."
For what came next, Rasheed put down the ball of rice he'd made back on the plate. His
hands dangled idly over his meal, as he looked down with a sober, thoughtful expression.
"One mustn't speak ill of the dead much less the, shaheed. And I intend no disrespect
when I say this, I want you to know, but I have certain... reservations...about the way your
parents Allah, forgive them and grant them a place in paradise about their, well, their