The second crush/attraction/disloyalty to her husband – she could not decide on how to name it except that it was a secret – involved a client and was less light-hearted than the shop assistant. The dull, small, grey cubicle in which she worked lit up in crimson, warming her until she was flushing, the partitions narrowing until she felt the need to escape. It was a struggle not to drop the bottle of oil, an effort to keep her voice from rising a pitch. The second time he scheduled a session, he spoke to her in a way that made her realise that her hijab, which she had always depended on for protection, had become useless. It was flimsy and hypocritical. The fire was closer than ever. One word, one step, one stumble. The third time he scheduled an appointment, she called in sick. The fourth time he scheduled an appointment, she made sure she had the day off. The fifth time he scheduled an appointment, she assigned him instead to one of her colleagues who owed her a favour. He asked after you, he asked after you, she would hear and enjoy hearing. But she was sensible enough to keep away from the temptation. To save her soul, to save her marriage, to save her sanity. Keeping away was the right thing to do.
‘Where are you, Salma?’ Amir asked.
‘Far away.’
‘Tell me.’
‘No.’
‘Tell me.’
‘No.’
He threatened he would find her, one way or the other. This week or the next. After the holiday, she would return to find him in her city. He knew the name of the city where she lived.
‘A big city,’ she laughed. ‘And you don’t know my exact address.’
‘There are two ways to get information,’ he said. A bribe or a threat. He elaborated on how he would bribe her. She laughed and laughed. And the threats?
It was Moni who noticed the smell. Fastidious, squeaky-clean Moni having to share a room with Salma’s running gear, the sweat-stained tops and soaking sports bra; the training trousers streaked with grass and whatever else. She wrinkled her nose and walked around the room, sniffing. ‘Can you smell that, Salma? What is it?’
Salma was fiddling with her hair in front of the mirror. She reckoned it had grown thicker since they’d arrived. ‘What kind of smell?’
‘A nasty smell. Foul.’
‘I can’t smell anything.’ Under a harsh light, the top front of her hair exposed glimpses of her scalp, but not as much. She had stopped parting it in the middle, an unflattering look. The past was where her luxuriant hair grew, in another country. ‘Why do you care about your hair, when it’s always covered?’ one of her colleagues had asked when Salma moaned about the price of hair-thickening products. Moni or Iman would never ask such a question. They knew that their headscarves were as important and unimportant as a bra or a pair of sandals. Salma cared about her thinning hair. She just did. What she didn’t care about was the smell in the room, if there was really a smell. It must be Moni’s imagination.
Moni stalked the room, sniffing. She picked up objects and held them up for inspection. In the mirror, Salma watched her with amusement.
‘It’s your phone!’ Moni pointed at it, lying on the side table near Salma’s bed. ‘The smell is coming from your phone,’ she said with triumph.
Salma turned around in disbelief. Suddenly possessive, she sprang across the room and picked up her maligned phone. Now in her hand, it felt valuable and irreplaceable, barely a few days old. ‘Phones don’t smell,’ she murmured, bringing it up to her nose. She barely sniffed it before wiping it on her sleeves.
Moni shrieked. ‘Don’t do that! Disinfect it or at least find out what’s on it.’
‘There is nothing on it,’ said Salma. ‘I had it on the grass earlier on. I remember chucking it in my shoes at some point.’
‘I see. So, you then hold it up to your cheek and your ear.’ Moni was astounded. ‘I would be careful if I were you. All the germs you might pick up.’
Iman was lying on the floor of the forest. When she closed her eyes, she heard what she didn’t want to hear – the distant sound of shelling. The sounds of nature should be louder than those of humans and their weapons. Early in the morning, she had sneaked off and gone on an adventure. She had taken the ferry and then the bus to the nearest town, walked into a hair salon and demanded a bob like that of Lady Evelyn. So much of her black hair had fallen on the ground. And how had she afforded all this? By stretching her hand into Moni’s purse. Given Moni’s carelessness with cash, she would never notice.
The crescendo of the forest suddenly in her ears. She turned and saw the trees blocking out the sun. A chill seized her body. She sat up and gathered her cape closer, over her hair and shoulders. Today’s costume was that of Padmé Amidala. Iman had ached and almost begged the cupboard for a tweed skirt or jodhpurs,
