This was meant to be the ultimate threat, the winning card. If you don’t carry the bundle of your crippled son, drape yourself in a black abaya and hop on a plane to Saudi, your husband will take another wife. You will be replaced; your spot will be taken. Easily, because from the vantage point of his expat status, he would not struggle to find a successor to Moni. They are aplenty, and he could pick and choose from virgins to university professors, from those with salaries to those with influential brothers. How would you feel, Moni?

She was too stunned to reply. Where was this heading, divorce? She could almost hear the collective condemnation from parents and friends. They would almost certainly take Murtada’s side. They would say that she had failed in her duty as a wife, she had put her child first and that was not proper, not natural. Will Adam ever thank you for this sacrifice? Will he ever give you anything in return? But instead of pondering these questions, reasonable in their own way, worthy of consideration, she revolted against the sarcasm between the words, the insinuation that Adam was incapable of gratitude, unable to give, not worthy of her sacrifice.

It is not sacrifice, it is me. Me and him belonging together. His discomfort mine, his inability my duty. She should find Salma and tell her that her marriage to Murtada was coming to an end. She would tell her that in her search for the boy she found the refectory and it was true, there was a quality in the room, something that lingered from long ago, magnetic and lulling; something that understood and welcomed. But before she could name this quality, the door opened, and he came in. She stood up, went forward and gave him a hug. ‘I am sorry, Adam, I am sorry,’ she repeated. He seemed more substantial than she remembered, taller. Perhaps because she was hugging him. She drew back. Adam.

He smiled and pushed past her. Not unkindly, but still she felt chastened. She watched him climb up the stairs to the pulpit. When he reached the top, he stood and surveyed the room, his eyes scanning the whole area but dispassionately, as if he couldn’t see her. She remembered what Salma had told her about the monks having their meals in this room while one of them would stand on the pulpit and recite the prayers. But he would not have been as young as that boy. Adam. She must think of him that way. That was his name.

She tried it out now. ‘Adam,’ she said out loud. ‘Come down.’ The mother who had been leaning forward over her children’s puzzle sat back in her chair and gave Moni a quick look. The teenagers around the pool table, who had found the heated conversation in Arabic a curiosity, did not take any notice.