MadamIn the daytime, the girl was no more than a creakingbedspring, a patter of footsteps overhead. She was watersplashing in the bathroom, or a teaspoon¹ clinking against glassin the bedroom upstairs. Occasionally, there were sightings: ablur of billowing dress in the periphery² of Madam's vision,scurrying up the steps, arms folded across the chest, sandalsslapping the heels.
But it was inevitable³ that they would run into each other.
Madam passed the girl on the stairs, in the narrow hallway, inthe kitchen, or by the door as she was coming in from theyard. When they met like this, an awkward tension rushed intothe space between them. The girl gathered her skirt andbreathed out a word or two of apology, and, as she hurriedpast, Madam would chance a sidelong glance and catch ablush. Sometimes she could smell Rasheed on her. She couldsmell his sweat on the girl's skin, his tobacco, his appetite. Sex,mercifully, was a closed chapter in her own life. It had beenfor some time, and now even the thought of those laborioussessions of lying beneath Rasheed made Madam queasy⁴ in thegut.
At night, however, this mutually orchestrated dance ofavoidance between her and the girl was not possible. Rasheedsaid they were a family. He insisted they were, and familieshad to eat together, he said.
"What is this?" he said, his fingers working the meat off abone-the spoon-and-fork charade⁵ was abandoned a week afterhe married the girl. "Have I married a pair of statues? Go on,Madam,gap bezan, say something to her. Where are yourmanners?"Sucking marrow⁶ from a bone, he said to the girl, "But youmustn't blame her. She is quiet. A blessing⁷, really,because,wallah, if a person hasn't got much to say she mightas well be stingy with words. We are city people, you and I,but she isdehati. A village girl. Not even a village girl. No. Shegrew up in akolba made of mudoutside the village. Her fatherput her there. Have you told her, Mariam, have you told herthat you are aharami1? Well, she is. But she is not withoutqualities, all things considered. You will see for yourself, Lailajan. She is sturdy, for one thing, a good worker, and withoutpretensions. I'll say it this way: If she were a car, she wouldbe a Volga."Mariam was a thirty-three-year-old woman now, but thatword,harami, still had sting. Hearing it still made her feel likeshe was a pest, a

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