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This was hardly likely. If Yumn ever thought or spoke of anything besides her intention of achieving a third pregnancy—within thirty-seven months of marriage and before her second son was eighteen months old—Rachel wasn't aware of it.
    “Sorry,” Rachel said. “I didn't mean to startle you.”
    “I do hope not.” Yumn looked about for her scattered sewing. She squinted at the scarf, using her good right eye and closing the left one, whose wandering she generally hid by draping a
dupattā
to cast a shadow over it. When she seemed intent upon returning to her work and ignoring Rachel indefinitely, Rachel spoke again.
    “Yumn, I've come to visit Sahlah. Is she about?”
    Yumn shrugged. “She's always about, that girl. Although whenever I call for her, she goes stone deaf. She needs a proper beating, but there's nobody willing to give her one.”
    “Where is she?” Rachel asked.
    “‘Poor little thing,’ they think,” Yumn continued. “‘Leave her be. She's grieving.’
Grieving,
mind you. What an amusing thought.”
    Rachel felt alarmed at this remark, but out of loyalty to Sahlah she did her best to hide it. “Is she here?” she asked patiently. “Where is she, Yumn?”
    “She's gone upstairs.” As Rachel turned from the sitting room, Yumn added, “Where she's prostrate with mourning, no doubt,” with a malicious chuckle.
    Rachel found Sahlah in the bedroom at the front of the house, the room that had been fitted out for Yumn's two small boys. She stood at an ironing board, where she was folding a mound of freshly dried nappies into perfect, neat squares. Her nephews—a toddler of twenty-seven months and his younger brother—lay in a single cot near the open window. They were fast asleep.
    Rachel hadn't seen her friend for a fortnight. Their last words hadn't been pleasant ones, so despite her rehearsal of prefatory remarks, she felt gawky and overcome with awkwardness. This sensation didn't arise only from the misunderstanding that had grown between them, however. Nor did it arise from the fact that in entering the Maliks’ house, Rachel was aware of walking into another culture. Instead, it rose from the acute appreciation she had—refreshed each time she looked at her friend—of the physical differences between herself and Sahlah.
    Sahlah was lovely. In deference to her religion and to the wishes of her parents, she wore the modest
shalwār-qamīs.
But neither the baggy trousers nor the tunic that hung below her hips managed to detract from her looks. She had nutmeg skin and cocoa eyes, with lashes that were thick and long. She wore her dark hair in one dense plait that hung to her waist, and when she raised her head as Rachel said her name, wispy curls like cobwebs fell round her face. The sole imperfection she possessed was a birthmark. It was strawberry in colour and strawberry in shape, high on her cheekbone like a tattoo. It darkened perceptibly when her eyes met Rachel's.
    Rachel started at her full view of Sahlah's face. Her friend looked ill, and Rachel immediately forgot everything she'd rehearsed. Impulsively, she held out the gift she'd brought. She said, “This is for you. It's a present, Sahlah,” and at once felt like a miserable fool.
    Slowly, Sahlah brushed the wrinkles from a nappie. She made the first fold in the material, lining up the corners with intense concentration.
    Rachel said, “I didn't mean any of it. What do
I
know about love anyway? Me, of all people. And I know even less about marriage, don't I? Especially when you consider my circumstances. I mean, my mum was married for about ten minutes once. And she'd done it for love, according to her. So there you have it.”
    Sahlah made two more folds in the nappie and placed it on the pile at the end of the ironing board. She walked to the window and checked on her nephews. It seemed a needless thing to do, Rachel thought. They were sleeping like the dead.
    Rachel winced at the mental figure of speech. She had—she