rite for her in the morning - Sahlah was a nighttime bather - but one that was understandable given the mind-numbing heat. Only Yumn knew the truth, Yumn who'd stood outside the door listening carefully, gathering information to store like kernels of corn against the potential famine of Sahlah's failure to please the sister-in-law to whom she owed respect, allegiance, and cooperation.
Such a little whore, Yumn thought as she watched Sahlah climb into the car and crank down both of the windows. Sneak out to meet him in the night, Sahlah, invite him into your room when the house is sleeping, spread your legs for him, join your bodies, rotate your hips, and still the next morning manage to look so pure so innocent so fragile so lovely so precious so ...
Little whore. Like a rotten egg that's perfect on the outside but, once cracked, reveals the corruption within.
^i a The baby whimpered. Yumn looked down to see that instead of removing the soiled nappie from him, she'd inadvertently wrapped it tightly round his leg.
"Beloved," she said, quickly removing it. "Forgive your thoughtless ammi-gee, Bishr."
He cooed in response, waving arms and legs.
She gazed down at him. Naked, he was magnificent.
She used the washing flannel to clean him, drawing it through his legs and carefully wiping his tiny penis. She eased the foreskin back and smoothed the flannel round it. She sang, "Amnii-gee's little love, Bishr. Yes. Yes. You are. You're Ammt-gee's one true love."
When he was clean, she didn't reach for a fresh nappie at once. Instead, she admired him.
From the shape of him, the strength, and the size, she could tell that he would be just like his father.
His masculinity affirmed her place as a woman.
It was her duty to give her husband sons, and she'd done that duty and would continue to do it as long as her body allowed her the privilege.
As a consequence, she would not only be cared for in her old age, she would be treasured.
And that was more glory than loathsome little Sahlah would ever attain in a thousand lifetimes. She could not hope to be as fertile as Yumn, and she'd already transgressed the tenets of their religion so seriously that she could never redeem herself. She was damaged goods, soiled beyond redemption and ruined beyond the hope of reclamation. She was, indeed, good for nothing more than a life of servitude.
It was such a lovely thought.
"Yes," Yumn crooned at the baby. "Yes, yes, what a lovely thought indeed."
She caressed the insignificant appendage between his legs. How incredible it was that such a small scrap of flesh could determine the role this child would play in life. But that is how the Prophet decreed it.
"Men are in charge of us," Yumn crooned to the baby, "because Allah made one to excel the other. Little Bishr, listen to Ammi-gee. Do your duty: shelter, protect, and guide. And seek a woman who knows how to do hers."
Certainly Sahlah did not. She acted the part of obedient daughter, dutiful younger sister and sister-in-law, subservient and docile as required. But that was only a role she played.
The real girl was the one who lay in a bed whose springs creaked rhythmically in the dead of night.
Yumn knew this. And she'd been intent upon holding her tongue about it. True, she'd not completely held her tongue. Some types of hypocrisy were not to be born. When Sahlah's morning vomiting had been followed so closely by her agreement to marry the first young man presented to her as a potential husband, Yumn had made the decision to act.
She would not be party to so great a deception as the family's flower-like Sahlah had obviously intended to perpetrate upon her fiance.
So she'd gone to Haytham Querashi privately, slipping out of the house on one of the many evenings that Muhannad spent elsewhere. She'd buttonholed the intended bridegroom in his ho516 tel and, sitting knee-to-knee in his garret of a room, she'd done her duty as any religious woman might have done, revealing the one ineradicable impediment to his upcoming marriage to her sister-in-law. The brat Sahlah carried could be got rid of, of course. But her virginity once lost could not be regained.
Haytham, however, had not reacted as Yumn had expected. The announcement, She's soiled, she's carrying another man's child had not led where tradition and logic dictated it should lead. In fact, Haytham had been so tranquil at Yumn's revelation that she had experienced a moment of dread