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and steam rose as she carried back her bathwater. The rising sun shone purely, for the air was still free of the dust that would gather as activity increased about the farm.
    Precious as her time grew as each day wore on, with mending and looking after Mumtaz and cleaning and storing the wheat and rice from the market and a thousand other household chores assigned her by Amina, Shabanu spent a long time in her bath.
    Though water was plentiful here at Okurabad, Shabanu still prided herself on being able to bathe in very little. When she and her sister were small, her mother would pour a thin stream of water over each of their heads, soaping their hair, then rubbing the soapy water into their shoulders, backs, and bellies. By the time each girl was rinsed, only a single cup of water had been used.
    The air felt cold and astringent as Shabanu pulled her
kameez
over her head and, loosening the string of her
shalwar
, stepped free of her clothing.
    She loved the bare austerity of the servant women’s bath, with its swept-smooth dirt floor, whitewashed walls, thick, tallowy soap, and rough, wind-dried towels. The baths in Rahim’s house puzzled her—their pale pink tiles, perfumed soaps, and soft towels that refused to absorb water seemed frivolous and useless.
    She stood on a small platform of thin wood slats beside the drain and scooped the hot water from her pail with a plastic cup. She shivered with pleasure as it ran over her scalp, through her hair, and then splashed cooler over her shoulders and down her spine.
    The soap smelled clean and honest, and produced a slippery lather as she rubbed it over her shoulders and chest. She ran her hands over her full round breasts.
    As she stood there in the bath, Shabanu thought of her many blessings, the things that brought her pleasure and made her life worthwhile: First, of course, was Mumtaz, who grew stronger and cleverer and more beautiful by the day; then there was Rahim, who treated her well and wanted enough for her to be happy that he allowed her these small freedoms, and who gave her beautiful gifts of jewelry and clothes; and there were the gifts themselves—she loved to wear them, but more important, they gaveher a sense of material well-being, as they might always be sold if she needed money; and the women she loved—Zabo, Sharma and Fatima, her mother and Phulan—for, though she saw them seldom, their strength, wisdom, and beauty were folded in and around the chambers of her heart, as if they had become an organic part of her.
    That same morning she asked Mumtaz to stand before her to have her hair brushed. In the afternoon Shabanu took her to the bazaar at Multan and let her pick her favorite colors in cotton lawn so fragile and light the
darzi
clucked his tongue over it when he sat down to cut it into pieces for small
shalwar kameez
.
    As the days began to lengthen, Rahim noticed the change in how the child looked. He stopped now and then to speak to Mumtaz in the courtyard, and she curtsied to him.
    Still Mumtaz played by the canal and climbed thorn trees in her new
shalwar kameez
. Every afternoon when she came back for her nap, Shabanu undressed and bathed her and sat down to mend the rips in the knees and sleeves of the soft cotton garments as Mumtaz slept.
    One afternoon Rahim returned from a hunt in the desert, the jeeps dripping blood from their floorboards. Mumtaz stood watching as the men unloaded the dead deer, their delicate hooves crossed and pointed toward the sky.
    Her father saw her and went to the back curtainof his big four-by-four, returning with something in his arms. Mumtaz stood her ground, unaware that the small, angular bundle was for her. He stooped before her, and the first thing she saw was a timid face with large, brave eyes shining brightly from it.
    Rahim held out the fawn, and Mumtaz lifted her hand gently to touch the velvety place between those beautiful eyes. The fawn struggled, kicking out its legs, and Mumtaz withdrew her hand