Maryam and I first met in early June.
Three months later, we were married.
And two days after our wedding, we found ourselves in the back of a
Land Rover, bumping along a hot, dusty road in the south of Spain. Brown
hills stretched into the distance, striped with dull - green olive groves. A lone
hawk hung motionless in the hot sky. Not a human being in sight.
This was a honeymoon? This?
I’d hoped for a superluxury resort in Thailand — lying on a white sand
beach, drinking mojitos — but Maryam wanted to visit Seville. Apparently,
she’d taken a course on Moorish architecture at Harvard and become
smitten — and I couldn’t act like a philistine and refuse, could I?
It was stifling inside the car, and I had a bad headache. On the flight
over — we flew “commercial,” as Maryam called it, as the Khan family jet
was ferrying the family back to New York — I’d stayed up drinking
champagne and watching bad movies, but Maryam had popped melatonin
pills and sl ept the whole way.
Now I was exhausted and crusty, while Maryam looked freshly
scrubbed, her hair pulled back in a tight ponytail. She even smelled clean, a
bright citrus scent — so different from Farhan’s addictive salty odor. My
mind drifted to Farhan, the small curly hairs at the back of her neck, the
way the skin there always smelled of soap ... and then I caught myself. No.
I was not going to think about Farhan. I was married now. I had to
concentrate on Maryam.
Maryam scrutinized the scenery outside the car window, as if something
was wrong. “Look,” she finally said. “The hills are all dried out. It was so
much prettier on the website.” She held out her phone: A photograph of the
exact same lands cape, exc ept in her photo, the empty brown fields were
animated by thousands of orange sunflowers.
“It’s still stunning, though,” I said tentatively. “Nice shades of brown.”
“Brown? Hmm. More like a ... burnt ocher? Or a sienna? Maybe?”
Maryam wrinkled her nose, which she did when she was thinking. “No,
you’re right. It’s mesmerizing. Are you going to take a picture?”
This was an irritating habit Maryam had: She offered up an opinion and,
if it was met with resistance, instantly modified it. Besides, I hated taking
touristy pictures. I was too tired to explain this, so I said, “Maybe later.
When the light isn’t so harsh.”
Maryam nodded. She was busy texting on her phone, her thumbs
moving rapidly. Probably updating Abbas. To my annoyance, they were in
touch every few hours; along with Maryam, I seemed to have married her
father.
Most of the interactions between Maryam and me were like this —
distant, polite — and now the panic inside me ratcheted up. During our first
night together, in a hotel room in Mumbai, we’d instantly fallen asle ep, and
the final part of the marriage — the consummation — was still pending. How
would I have sex with this distant, guarded stranger?
I told myself that Maryam’s behavior was not personal; she must be
worn out. I don’t care what people say — getting married is exhausting. All
that talking, all that smiling, all that performative affection — and our
wedding ceremonies had lasted an entire week. We’d been shuttled from
event to event, with constant costume changes, like performers, until it was
all a blur.
I’d photographed twenty or thirty arranged marriages, and I knew the
wedding usually drew the couple together; it became the first ordeal they
survived. They began as strangers and, a week later, had developed the
camaraderie of two soldiers in a foxhole.
It was odd, then, that Maryam and I remained so distant, but I reminded
myself Maryam was different from other girls: She was encased in a bubble
of self - sufficiency. I consoled myself with one of Ma’s favorite sayings: “In
a love marriage, first comes attraction, then love, then disillusionment and
s eparation. An arranged marriage works backward. That is why it is
stronger, more lasting.” Surely, during our honeymoon, we would finally
relax and get to know each other.
The Land Rover bumped endlessly along the dusty road. I wanted to curl
into a soft bed and sle ep for days, but Maryam was already talking about
heading into Seville. She had compiled an exhaustive list of sites she
wanted to visit: churches, palazzi, convents, even a former l eper hospital.
I hoped the villa would have a pool. I closed my eyes and imagined
diving into cool, de ep water. A swim would clear my mind, pr epare me for
anything, even sex with Maryam Khan. Please, God, let it not be awkward.
I told myself the honeymoon wouldn’t be too bad. After all, I knew
Maryam: For the three months between our engagement and the actual
wedding, we’d spent hours talking on the phone.
Maryam had begun her residency in New York, and she often called me
from the hospital; in the background, I could hear the wailing of
ambulances. We talked a lot about the research she was doing on
schizophrenics: the strain of it; the long hours she spent documenting her
observations; her interactions with her attending physician, a difficult
French woman who barely spoke English.
Yes, I knew about Maryam’s research interests in detail, but what did I
actually know about her friends, her social life, her hobbies? She laughed
and said the hospital took up her entire life; when she came home, she
showered, ate, and fell into bed. If she had the energy, she’d go for a long
run. I knew that the first year of residency could be intense, but it seemed
odd that Maryam had no friends, and I made a mental note to ask her sister
for more information.
You see, during these months, I’d gotten into the habit of chatting with
Farhan, and she would throw a tantrum if I didn’t call her every day.
Farhan’s demanding nature should have been a red flag, but back then I was
surrounded by demanding Indian women — and I took Farhan’s
possessiveness as a sign of her attachment to me. We talked on video chat
while Farhan lazed about her tiny, dark two - room apartment in Chinatown.
I wondered why she lived there when the Khans owned many residential
buildings uptown, but she assured me that Chinatown was now “très chic”
and favored by creative types. We talked while Farhan sipped endless cups
of yerba mate — part of her weight - loss regimen — and she chuckled when I
asked about Maryam’s personal life. “Friends? Ha. Mimi only has people
she works with. Don’t worry, Ali. You don’t have any competition.”
I told myself that Maryam clearly put all her effort into her work. Or
maybe she was an introvert. Either way, as a couple, we’d be fine because I
always made friends.
Anyway, I didn’t dwell on any of this — I was busy planning the
wedding.
Breaking the custom, my father insisted we get married in Mumbai and
that he would pay for the wedding. I suppose that was his way of having
some control, of asserting himself against the superrich Khans — and Abbas
understood the situation and graciously agreed. So, I drove Ma around
Mumbai to finalize the arrangements: We sampled canapés in caterers’
kitchens in Mahim; visited the Dadar Flower Market in the cool earlymorning hours;
auditioned Chirag Bhai’s brass wedding band. Ma loved a
good project, and for once we didn’t argue and had a wonderful time
traipsing around the city.
All the while, the guest list expanded and crossed seven hundred. The
Khan clan was extensive, and there were our Mumbai and Delhi relatives
and Papa’s business contacts. Abbas Khan also sent a list of prominent
Ismailis he wanted us to invite; clearly, the approval of the community was
important to him. All through this process, Maryam was busy at the hospital
and deferred to all of my mother’s decisions, which earned her huge points.
Ma beamed and said, “This girl is really Very Sensible,” her highest term of
praise.
Then the wedding was upon us. The New York Khan clan flew in on a
chartered Airbus A320, and I met them at their palatial suite at the Taj
Palace Hotel. Abbas Khan was the first of the family to pull me into a tight
hug, followed by his characteristic double - handed handshake, but when I
tried to chat more about art collecting and photography, Abbas distractedly
said, “Yes, yes, son, we must talk more,” and then spent most of his time on
his phone yelling at his office in New York. At the time, I chalked up his
mood to the pressures of work — Tiger Corp was very close to being chosen
as the developer of the West Side railyard redevelopment. Later I learned
that this was classic Abbas behavior: Once a deal was closed, he turned off
the charm and directed his attention elsewhere. Still, there was so much
going on, I didn’t have time to dwell on the change in Abbas’s demeanor.
I was very nervous to see Maryam, but she was calm and composed as
always and gave me a formal sideways hug, and I got a whiff of her clean
citrus perfume. Then Farhan pulled me tightly into an embrace — as usual,
she smelled deliciously salty — and st epped back to examine me, saying,
“Ali, you’ve lost weight. Been working out?” I she epishly admitted I’d
been getting in shape for the wedding, and Maryam seemed pleased and sat
down next to me and was about to say something, but then Farhan threw
herself into an armchair, laughed somewhat unkindly, and said, “Aww, you
two make such a cute couple.”
Then she launched into a long story about Maryam as a three - year - old:
“Mimi was so cute, just like a doll, and she’d say ‘Hannie’ — she couldn’t
pronounce ‘Farhan’ — ‘dress me up like a bride,’ and I’d wrap her up in
Mama’s red tablecloth. We’d pretend we were going to the Jamatkhana to
get married, and afterward, we’d lay out Maryam’s play tea set and have a
wedding rec eption with lemonade and crackers.”
Farhan chortled heartily. “Oh yes, Maryam’s been looking for the right
boy to marry since she was little. She loves weddings. Did you know, Ali,
that when I was getting married, Mimi here tried to convince me that my
groom - to - be, Zafar, was madly in love with me — just so she could attend a
huge, fancy wedding in Dubai? Too bad Zafar turned out to be a
philandering no - good. Ah, you’re such a romantic, aren’t you, Mimi?”
Maryam’s eyes moistened. She got up abruptly, said, “I think I’m going
to take a nap,” and vanished into one of the many bedrooms in the suite.
I turned to Farhan and hissed, “What the hell are you playing at?” but
she just shrugged and said, “Oh, Mimi’s just emotional about the wedding.”
Right then, I should have pursued Maryam and found out what was
wrong. Instead, I remained there, half listening to Farhan’s endless stories —
and for the next day, Maryam was chilly toward me. Should this thinly
veiled hostile dynamic between the sisters have been another red flag?
Having grown up with garrulous Hassan, I was accustomed to an elder
sibling dominating all conversations, and I attributed the friction between
the sisters to garden - variety sibling rivalry.
Like many siblings who have been narrowly characterized by their
parents since birth, the Khan sisters seemed to be locked into wellrehearsed roles:
Farhan was voluble, boisterous, profane; Maryam was the
compliant, overeducated, introverted one. Looking back, though, there were
a couple of moments during the weeklong wedding when I caught a
glimpse of another, different Maryam.
Our mehndi ceremony took place in the morning. Later that afternoon,
our two families sat around in the Khan’s suite at the Taj Palace Hotel, and
the women hiked up their saris and compared the intricate henna designs on
their legs. The patterns on Maryam’s skin had turned very dark, which was
apparently considered an auspicious sign.
We were being served tea by a busty young Maharashtrian waitress. She
seemed nervous, and her name tag said that she was a trainee. Abbas sat
across from me, his legs spread, frowning down at his phone as he texted
back and forth with his office in New York. I’d seen Abbas’s sharp eyes
wander over to the waitress a few times, but it didn’t bother me. He was a
man, after all, and she was exc eptionally pretty. As he texted, Abbas
absentmindedly held out his teacup in midair for a refill, and the waitress
poured a stream of boiling tea from the heavy silver teapot. Her hand must
have shaken, because Abbas suddenly yelped, slammed the cup down, and
clutched his right hand. “You clumsy dolt,” he screamed at the waitress.
“Idiot! Don’t you know how to pour tea?”
The waitress turned pale. She instantly offered Abbas a napkin and
called down for a bucket of ice, but Abbas wasn’t satisfied; he let out a vile
stream of Hindi curses, and the girl erupted into tears and fled the room.
The whole outburst was so unexpected that even I — used to Ma’s temper
tantrums — shrank back. I had seen Abbas’s charming side and observed his
tense, distracted businessman’s demeanor, but so far, he had hidden the
violence at his core. I made a mental note to never be on the receiving end
of Abbas’s volcanic eruptions.
And oddly, Farhan was even more frightened than I was. When Abbas
started yelling, her lower lip trembled, and she retreated into a corner of the
couch like a frightened little girl. Maryam was the one who took control:
She sprang to her feet and said, in a firm tone, “Calm down, Papa. It was an
accident.” She retrieved some sort of cream from her handbag, applied it to
Abbas’s hand, and stood in front of him, saying, “It’s fine. Slightly scalded.
You’ll be fine.”
Okay, Maryam was trained as a doctor, but the discr epancy in the sisters’
responses was noticeable: Farhan got shakily to her feet and left the suite
while Maryam sipped her tea calmly and continued displaying the intricate
paisley mehndi designs on her arms. After a few minutes, I said I was going
to the toilet and walked out of the suite in search of Farhan.
I found her sitting in the stairwell, head bent, we eping silently. I asked if
she was okay, and she shook her head no but would not elaborate. I held her
tight and hoped that I was some comfort to her, but she was still crying
when I left a few minutes later. I could not stay longer, as my absence
would be noted.
When I returned to the suite, Abbas was smiling she epishly and
apologizing to my parents for his behavior. My mother, who hated any sort
of social awkwardness, was quick to say, “Oh, please, don’t mention it.
These things happen,” and the afternoon regained its festive tone, but an
hour later I glimpsed Maryam in the hallway talking to the young waitress
— recovered by now, with a blank, stoic face. Maryam pressed a thick wad
of money into her fist, and I pretended not to notice, but later, at the family
dinner, Maryam whispered to me, “Had to make sure the waitress was taken
care of. Don’t need bad press coverage during our wedding,” and that is
when I discovered that the New York gossip rags were obsessed with Abbas
Khan, the real estate billionaire who had come out of nowhere, and would
pay obscene amounts of money for juicy tidbits about him.
This is what it’s like to be superrich, I thought. Okay.
The second instance of Maryam’s complex personality was revealed to
me at the end of our weeklong wedding.
We had survived the pithi ceremony, when Maryam was carried into the
room in a palanquin, and we sat side by side on matching chairs while
turmeric paste was rubbed over our limbs, a symbolic cleansing. We
survived the sangeet, a fancy dinner followed by a show: Cousins and
n ephews performed synchronized dancing to the latest Bollywood tunes,
and this led to a full - fledged dance party, and everyone bopped to bhangra
beats, even the old aunties and uncles.
We survived our actual marriage, the nikah ceremony, which took place
in the grand old Ismaili Jamatkhana on Samuel Street, presided over by the
Ismaili mukhi. The nikah - nama texts were read to us, and we both signed
the wedding contract. As a gesture of trust, the Khans had set the mahr — the
sum of money gifted by the groom to the bride — as zero, but my father had
insisted on a token amount, so I ended up giving Maryam a paltry hundred
thousand dollars. After the wedding ceremony, Maryam and I dug through a
platter of rice to find our wedding rings — and, of course, Maryam found
mine first and placed it on my finger.
At the end of the week was one final dinner, the wedding banquet, held
at a luxury hotel outside the city. Maryam and I sat up on a raised dais,
receiving a constant stream of guests. We were starving but unable to eat
because friends and relatives were waiting in line to congratulate us and
hand over envelopes stuffed with cash. Maryam surr eptitiously sipped a
Diet Coke and passed the envelopes to a female cousin, who shoved them
into a large silk bag. People gave lavish amounts — this was Abbas Khan’s
daughter, after all, and the wedding was a perfect opportunity to curry favor.
At one point in the evening, I stole away from the dais to meet Farhan.
She was unrecognizable, squeezed into a white lehenga embroidered with
silver thread, her usually unruly hair sw ept into an elaborate updo — but it
was still Farhan. She led me inside a tiny room at the back of the hotel and
made a ta - da gesture: She had bribed the caterers, who’d made me an easyto - eat
hamburger and fries, which I devoured, accompanied by a stiff vodka
tonic. It felt good to eat, drink, be away from the loud, overwhelming crush
of the wedding.
Once I was done eating, I returned to the dais refreshed and in a good
mood, convinced the worst of the ordeal was over. A few minutes later,
though, a huge brute of a man with bloodshot eyes — a Punjabi client of my
father’s — stumbled onto the stage and thrust a money - filled envelope at me.
He leaned in, pulled my cheeks, and said, “Are yaar, Ali, you are marrying a
rose, a real rose!” The man k ept twisting the flesh of my cheeks, muttering,
“You got yourself a real rose — and now you must pluck this rose!” It hurt
like hell, but this was Papa’s client — what could I do?
I turned beseechingly to Maryam, but she was busy with the money
envelopes, and I didn’t want to call security and make a scene — but the pain
was unbearable, and the blood was draining from my cheeks.
Finally, Maryam looked up and figured out my predicament. She was
wearing a heavy gold - embroidered crimson wedding sari. Her head was
covered, she was weighed down by ropes of jewelry, and yet she moved so
fast: Her hand closed deftly around the man’s wrist and twisted it
downward. He yelped in pain and clutched his wrist, confused at what had
happened, because by then Maryam had withdrawn her hand and returned it
to her lap.
She smiled demurely, said, “Let us help you, Uncle,” and waved at
someone. Seconds later, a tall, gaunt man jumped onto the stage. He was
dressed all in white; his thinning gray hair was brushed straight back, and
he had a bucket - shaped beard and a clean - shaven upper lip, like an Indian
Abe Lincoln. I could not tell if he was a servant or a family friend, but he
grabbed the drunk by the elbow and ushered him firmly — but courteously —
off the stage.
I grinned thankfully at Maryam, but she was busy chatting with the next
set of guests. Later that night, I asked her what she’d done to the man, and
she said she had worked in the hospital’s emergency room and learned some
tricks to deal with belligerent drunks and gangbangers high on PCP.
Those two moments should have altered my understanding of Maryam’s
character, but there was so much going on, so many people, so much noise,
that I failed to register their importance.
I didn’t know it at the time, but as we began our honeymoon, I would
discover yet another side of her.
Our honeymoon villa, twenty kilometers outside Seville, did have a huge
pool at the rear, a de ep rectangle of crystal clear blue, overlooking the dusty
olive groves.
I delayed the pleasure of plunging into its refreshing d epths and
wandered through the high - ceilinged rooms, the tomato - red floors
pleasantly cool under my feet. It wasn’t just a house but the summer palacio
of a duke from Madrid, built in the Arab style — tile roof, white stucco
walls, wrought iron balconies — the rooms arranged around a central
courtyard in which a fountain plashed musically.
Apparently, Abbas had found the palacio — three living rooms, seven
bedrooms — and insisted on booking this place for us at some exorbitant
cost. I had casually mentioned to Maryam that perhaps it was better to stay
at a hotel closer to Seville, but she appeared in capable of countermanding
her father’s wishes. Maryam and Abbas seemed unhealthily close — all that
texting — and I wondered exactly what their relationship was and how much
of a role Abbas would play in our marriage. Many of my newly married
Indian friends had r eported back that their in - laws were maddeningly
intrusive, chiming in about where to live and what to name their children. I
remembered Abbas lashing out at the poor waitress, and a tremor of anxiety
ran through me. Clearly, the old man had to be handled carefully.
I wandered through the large bedrooms, and the empty four - poster beds
seemed spooky, intended for a large family, not two disconnected
individuals. Jesus. Had I made a terrible mistake by marrying into the
Khans? Maybe I should have settled for a less high - profile family. Maybe
that girl from Cleveland. She was a bit simple, but her parents were jovial
and unassuming and ran a chain of day care centers ...
Outside, there was a loud, crisp splash.
I hurried to the back patio, and there was Maryam, in a navy blue on epiece, her face
obscured with goggles, swimming laps in the pool with a
professional swimmer’s effortless hard - charging pace. All at once I
remembered that I had never really learned to swim properly, that I thrashed
about in the water like a dog, and I became self - conscious. Maryam saw
me, pulled up to the edge of the pool, and said, “It’s marvelous. Why don’t
you come in?” but I waved her away. I sat on a hot cushioned couch
overlooking the pool, sulkily eating slices of chilled watermelon.
Maryam went back to doing her laps. I craved the coolness of the water,
but I was locked into my irrational decision, and I would not budge. She’s
showing off, I thought, she’s doing this to humiliate me, knowing even then
it made no sense.
Soon Maryam pulled herself out of the pool. She was as sleek as a seal,
and I couldn’t help but admire her runner’s sculpted thighs, slim waist, and
small, perfectly shaped breasts. Why hadn’t I stripped down and joined her
in the water? It would have broken the ice, allowed us to be virtually naked
together.
The lost opportunity hung in the air. A heavy, sullen feeling settled into
me, like I had been made to do something against my will. I became
monosyllabic and morose, and to balance out my sulkiness, Maryam
became cheerful and lighter. It was a familiar dynamic — this is how my
mother dealt with my father’s grumpiness — and this realization irritated me
further.
That night we drove into Seville for dinner. We dined alfresco at a
cobblestone plaza in the old Jewish Quarter, and Maryam relished her fish
while I toyed with a very expensive, undercooked steak. For the next three
days we traipsed around the medieval town, studying the pointed arches of
the Alcázar palace, walking up to the top of the Giralda tower, sitting in the
shady courtyard of the Casa de Pilatos. The place was exquisite — ancient,
worn stone, the soft tinkle of fountains, the perfume of orange trees — but I
could not shake my sour, ill - humored mood.
I shudder to reconstruct an image of myself, in a pink polo shirt and toolong khaki
shorts, camera hung around my neck, slouching after Maryam,
who wore a short yellow summer dress that showcased her runner’s thighs,
her fine - boned face shaded by a wide - brimmed straw hat. I must have
looked like a disgruntled younger brother, not a proud new husband.
The next three evenings, right before bed, Maryam did not rush under
the covers, as she had on our first night in Mumbai. She showered and sat at
the dressing table in the dim, shuttered bedroom, leisurely applying
aromatic gels and creams, but I was still caught up in my childish rage,
claimed I was exhausted, and hurried into bed. Maryam stayed up and read
her Seville guidebook while I closed my eyes tightly and waited for the
snap of her book closing, the rustle of her body sliding under the sheets.
On the fourth day, my mood was still dark. Maryam and I were
wandering around the narrow lanes of Seville and came across a high stone
wall that surrounded a nunnery. The massive wooden entrance door was
shut, but a small metal re volving cage was set into its center, with an
engraved brass plaque next to it. Maryam translated — she spoke perfect
Spanish — and the plaque said, PUT MONEY HERE AND THE SISTERS WILL OFFER
UP A BLESSED TREAT. The mysterious nature of those words united us, and I
pulled out a twenty - euro bill from my wallet, placed it in the cage, and spun
it inward with a creak.
We waited for a few minutes, but nothing happened. I had just said,
“This is a rip - off. Should we ring the bell?” when the cage creaked back
toward us, and it now contained a small unlabeled cardboard box. Inside
were yellow squares, and Maryam ate one and sighed and said, “Oh my
God, Ali, you must try this.” I complied, tasting the soft creaminess of
almond paste infused with the flavor of orange blossoms — and soon
Maryam and I had gobbled down the whole box, giggling in delight. I was
about to put in more money and buy another one, but I could tell from
Maryam’s face that this would ruin the whole experience, and so I desisted.
We walked off together, and my sulky mood had miraculously lifted.
Passing a tiny jewelry store, I impulsively bought Maryam a pair of green
hammered - metal flamenco earrings, and she removed her understated silver
hoops, r eplaced them with the new pair, and twirled and strutted like a
flamenco dancer, saying “Olé!” It was a great relief to see Maryam doing
something silly, and I couldn’t stop giggling.
In that ancient city, I found I could please Maryam, and that she was
very human.
That night, we pulled the wooden shutters closed, but light from the
courtyard slipped through the slats and made tiger stripes across the bed. In
this gloom, unable to see each other’s faces, it was easier for me to shut out
all thoughts of Farhan, to reach for Maryam and pull her close. I kissed her,
and she kissed me back. I was encouraged and tried to take off her
nightgown, but got it stuck over her head, and she completed the task
herself. That was the first time I felt her naked against me, fresh from the
shower, her skin cool to the touch, smelling of the cream she had just used,
which, come to think of it, had a citrus scent.
It was not the awkward, formal coupling I had imagined. The only odd
moment came when I reached for the bedside light, but Maryam gestured
for darkness. In the pitch - dark room, she guided my hands and mouth
without hesitation; it was I who served her, and she who straddled me until
she was spent and collapsed forward onto me, covering my face with her
fresh - smelling hair. We lay like this, and it was completely silent exc ept for
the whirring of a fan, and I remember thinking, So, this is how arranged
marriage works!
I had become used to one - night stands with girls I’d met at photography
gigs, rich girls from conservative families who were beautiful and well
dressed but knew little about sex and did not have the confidence to take
their pleasure — and Maryam and I, well, it was a relief. I thought how well
matched we were and wondered if this was the right time to exchange
sexual histories — but Maryam, who had slumped next to me, sodden with
sweat, rose from the bed and slipped into the bathroom.
I caught a glimpse of her long, tan body when the bathroom light clicked
on, but she quickly shut the door. The water ran forever, and I assumed she
was showering — she was fastidious and could not abide being soiled — but
then I heard the faint but unmistakable sound of sobbing.
Maryam was crying in there, alone in the bathroom.
Panic grew inside me. Had I done something to upset her? I racked my
brain to find a transgression, and in that moment, I missed Farhan’s
straightforward manner — if I was at fault, she would have told me in no
uncertain terms. But this? Minutes passed, and Maryam’s muffled sobbing
continued, but I was reluctant to intrude; she clearly wanted privacy and
had gone to the trouble of running the shower to hide her crying.
Just then, all my earlier reservations came flooding back: Abbas’s
changing personas. The barbed, hostile dynamic between the two sisters.
Maryam’s strange attachment to her father. And now this: our first sexual
encounter, followed by a sudden crying jag.
Calm down, I said to myself. In time, you will get to understand Maryam
better.
I convinced myself that there was some mundane explanation for
Maryam’s behavior, and I was calmer when she emerged from the
bathroom, wearing a clean nightdress. Her face was pale and strained, and
she was clearly in no mood to talk. I told myself it was okay. We had the
rest of our lives to get to know each other.
Maryam got into bed and curled up against me. That is how we feel
asle ep: her clean, and me sweaty and smelling of sex.
The next day the contours of the bedroom were strange to me, but then I
saw our clothes from the night before, scattered across the floor, and I
remembered Maryam locking herself inside the bathroom and crying.
I could not make sense of it, but I was reluctant to bring it up.
At breakfast I found myself saying, “Can we just rest up today? I’m tired
from last night,” followed by a rueful grin, and I expected Maryam to grin
back and perhaps explain her behavior. Instead, she simply nodded and
went on sipping her breakfast, a smoothie, which she made with the same
three ingredients every morning: Greek yogurt, blueberries, and some sort
of protein powder. I doubted that blueberries were available in Seville, but
the fridge was filled with them. Had one of Abbas’s minions been here to
stock up?
Maryam and I did not talk that morning about the crying or anything
else.
We did swim. I pr epared some humorous comments about my wild,
splashing style, but once we got into the pool, there was no chitchat.
Maryam kicked off from the shallow end and shot past me, swimming with
easy, powerful strokes, and did not stop.
Underwater, her eyes covered by goggles, she was lean and inscrutable.
The frame I had been putting around her since the night before — my
passionate wife — fell away, and she became strange to me again. Like some
undersea creature, she pushed herself relentlessly through the water, as
though her life d epended on it.