Solihin caught vengeance in her eyes, tired eyes that no longer gleamed like those of a cat. Circumstances had changed but Salimah still stoked a fire deep within him. He would fight to get the woman he had struggled to win years before.

—

Solihin had developed and perfected his master plan. Tonight was the night. He had paid neighbourhood thugs to intercept Haji Ahmad on his way home after evening prayers. Familiar faces. Some had been among those who accused Salimah and forbade her dancing. Solihin had never before hired thugs on account of a woman.

It wasn’t hard to shadow Haji Ahmad. Everybody knew his habits; he wouldn’t set out until the rest of the congregation had left the mosque. Solihin’s minions dragged him from the main road to a deserted alley. He put up a fight.

At one in the morning, Solihin picked up Salimah. With no time to dress, Salimah wore only a negligee, adding a leather jacket as protection against the night breeze. She also had on a rumpled headscarf. Solihin drove his motorbike towards an area covered in scrub that people rarely passed through, a place where evil spirits brought death to infants. Occasionally, he gazed at the sky. How strange the moon was that night.

In the bushes, Solihin set down a black plastic bag beside Salimah, not saying a word. She stared at the pale face of her devotee, then shifted her gaze towards the dowry she had demanded. Carefully, she knelt, patting the plastic surface, weighing it. Damp. Heavy. She took a long look inside to confirm that Solihin had kept his promise.

‘Put on the music,’ Salimah’s voice was icy.

Solihin had made sure the batteries in the cassette player were charged. Setting it on the ground, he played a song that Salimah always sang when she performed, a song that made him fall in love over and over; a song that resounded as, in his dreams, the woman, damp with perspiration, ran her hands all over him.

Salimah loosened her headscarf. She tossed her jacket towards Solihin and began moving to the rhythm of the music. Solihin bathed the object of his worship in the beam of his torch, trying to recall how the stage lights had bathed her. There was always something elusive about her. A pent-up passion, reserved for who knows what. Salimah raised the tip of her negligee, past her knee, past her thigh, then higher and higher still until Solihin glimpsed her famed hips. The woman twisted slowly, biting her lips, not taking her eyes off Solihin. Salimah’s body was withered, emaciated, but in the eyes of Solihin she hadn’t changed at all. His heart pounded so hard he thought he might die.

Her negligee had now fallen to the ground. His goddess shimmied, moving back towards the plastic bag. Solihin was drained and shaking. Salimah lifted the offering he had made to her. The head of Haji Ahmad.