While the guests watched the vows at the wedding, Kathmiya was fluffing pillows and sweeping floors and wiping windows in the new couple’s two-story home just blocks down from where she used to work.
The wedding suite was crisp with unscuffed Persian carpets, billowy sheer curtains, bright silk flowers and the most stunning apricot-and-cream satin bedspread Kathmiya had ever seen.
It was Odette who made the bed, with four old ladies watching intently when she started with a stark white sheet.
Seeing the look in the eyes of the older ladies, Kathmiya remembered the chicken that had been sacrificed in her sister’s honeymoon suite, and knew they’d all be gathered around Leah, hoping that she would bleed freely, at least until the marriage was sanctified.
That night, Kathmiya watched from a distance when Leah came. Instead of acting regal like Fatimah, she just looked terrified.
It wouldn’t be so hard as all that, Kathmiya thought. Fatimah had survived the ceremony. Not so bad, because your mother is there, and your sisters, and those old tribeswomen who sit like judges in court to make sure you are a virgin…a sisterhood to protect you through the process…
But instead, the bride and groom went alone into the bedroom.
How totally barbaric, Kathmiya thought with a shudder.
When the door shut behind them, all the women sat just outside with the grim determination of people who knew that the sacred must be upheld above the humane.
There was nothing to look at except a closed door, but Kathmiya was transfixed. Finally, it swung open and the women went inside. When they came back out they were holding up the sheet and pointing to the watery red streaks that made it go from pristine to priceless, at least for Leah and her family.
You should have brought a chicken, Kathmiya thought when she saw the lackluster stain.
Back in her new bed that night, she finally let her thoughts go to rooms in her mind that had been boarded up for so long…
…My wedding will be in the marshes at the Sheikh’s tent but much bigger than Fatimah’s and I won’t have an old husband I’ll have someone young and handsome he doesn’t have to be rich but we’ll have enough that I never have to work again at least not in Basra I can weave carpets like a regular girl I can blend in with everyone else and no one will remember that I got married so late and no one will mind that I was sent away when I was young and everyone will treat me like absolutely nothing special and I can finally just live with simple blessings that take up all my time so I never have any reason to come back here for anything at all.
She closed her eyes. First night in a new home.
But she still couldn’t sleep. There was another room with its door wide open and a bright light shining through, and if she didn’t go in she’d never put it out and it would keep her up all night.
…Shafiq he never forgot me he always wanted to be my friend his brother said no of course just like my mother slapped me on the ferry but we can spend a little time while I’m stuck here waiting for someone to find a husband for me and we can eat Jell-O and ride bikes and best of all have a secret friendship that no one else knows about so even though I’m just the pointless maid with no life of my own I really do have a life and a reason to smile that no one else knows about but him and me.
She tried to turn off that light but it only grew brighter. She could hardly sleep because she was wondering: will he or won’t he? Would it be like last time, no contact for three years, or was this a new chance for true companionship? Everything she owned was paltry: a few coarse outfits, shoes for the city, a vase with savings waiting to be spent after her father’s demise, a strange dinar she could not decode, and a book that was equally inscrutable. Anything clandestine, anything undisclosed or furtive or surreptitious or private would give Kathmiya a certain measure of power, she felt sure.
Her mind went black and she slept like she was tucked under an apricot-and-cream-colored satin bedspread.