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thought, ‘Now he’s gotten himself into trouble, and it won’t be so easy to get rid of her.’ That’s what I thought. And it’s been even more trouble than I thought it would be: he’s dead, and she killed him.”
    Aisha sat back on her heels and looked satisfied; she’d said what she wanted to say. Maryam had laid a pack of cigarettes out on the floor and gestured for Aisha to take one. They all lit up, and Aisha tipped her head back to blow smoke at the ceiling.
    â€œGhani was weak, you know,” she said philosophically, “but I didn’t expect anything like this. She must have been at him. Hecouldn’t afford a second wife: we can barely make it as it is, even with him working in Singapore. But this woman wanted a husband. I think she just wanted to get out of Kuala Krai. It’s a dump—so far away in the jungle and all that.”
    Maryam would not have said it so bluntly, but she shared the sentiment. Kuala Krai was far from Kota Bharu and the coast, deep in the rainforests of central Malaysia, and though Maryam had never been there (why would she– there wasn’t anything to see) she imagined it as a small, gloomy place, hemmed in by overgrowth and claustrophobic in the extreme. She could easily believe someone who lived there would be desperate to leave and clutch at any straw to free herself from the jungle vines dragging her back to the ulu.
    â€œI think she killed him after she realized he wasn’t going to let her stay here,” Aisha continued.
    â€œWhere did she stay when she was here?” Maryam interrupted. “I mean here in Tawang?”
    Aisha thought for a moment, and shrugged. “Not here. I don’t know. Maybe in someone’s house?”
    â€œAny ideas?” Rubiah asked her. “I think we want to track down where she was.”
    Aisha narrowed her eyes, whether in thought or suspicion, Maryam couldn’t tell. “I don’t know,” she repeated, gritting her teeth slightly.
    Maryam nodded, and backed off her questions. She would visit Ghani’s mother, and it would be much easier to talk about this with his mother than his wife.
    â€œDid you ever go and see him when he played?” Maryam asked gently.
    Aisha nodded without speaking. “Before the kids were born, Iwent all the time. Not so much now: I’d need to find someone to take care of them or take them with me. It’s such a big job, you know.”
    â€œDid you go to my house when he was playing? It’s not so far away.”
    â€œDid I kill him, you mean?” Aisha snapped. “No. He was my husband. And I didn’t visit them when they played at your house.” She looked as though she might begin to cry. “I never thought it would be like this. I never thought he’d actually marry someone else. I never thought he’d even go around with anyone else. I thought he loved me.”
    Maryam patted her arm and smiled sympathetically. Mamat, her own husband, was a very handsome man, and even now, with his hair graying and his face ageing, she still thought him well worth noticing. She saw other women’s eyes follow Mamat as they walked through the market, but she believed he wouldn’t betray her. Still, all women said a man was only as faithful as his opportunities, and there was little collective confidence in any husband’s ability to resist an intriguing offer. How would she feel if he took another wife? Would she kill him? She really didn’t know. If Aisha had killed Ghani, Maryam conceded she had excellent reason.
    â€œI’m sure he did love you,” Maryam said quietly. “You know, men are so … unthinking sometimes. It doesn’t mean that much to them.”
    Rubiah nodded sagely, and she and Maryam began murmuring their thanks and their preliminary leave-taking phrases, when Aisha unexpected began to cry.
    â€œJust a week ago he was still here, and I didn’t