What would Salma think if she saw Iman now? A snake might not remember the year before, the month before. That desire to know, to check, to measure against, was human. Iman had moved from one container into the other. Her soul was in an animal’s body after years of being in a human. The outside form could change but not the inner. Her human shape itself had been a costume, like the princess ball gown she had found in the cupboard, like the warrior trousers. It had not been about the hijab covering her femininity after all, but it was about her femininity covering her human soul. There would always be Iman, the soul, heading out and returning. Her soul was the origin from which there was no escape.

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fourteen

Salma had seen his red T-shirt through tears. Tears she was hiding from Iman. It stunned her that Iman would insist that she was not going to move in with her once they left the loch. She had known that Iman was gestating a rebellion, weaving daydreams of independence that could never materialise. And this had given Salma comfort. Soon enough Iman would come to her senses. She would move into Salma’s house, sharing a bedroom with Salma’s eldest daughter. Salma would take her to a lawyer to claim as many rights as she could possibly get from Ibrahim. They would spend hours discussing Iman’s future, the kind of job she could do, whether Moni’s idea of the three of them running their own clinic was feasible, whether Iman was eligible for benefits or an educational grant or an apprenticeship scheme. All the sensible proper things that needed to be done. And, by extension, Salma too would practise what she preached and become sensible and proper. She would stop the messaging and phoning, the dreams of packing up and leaving. She would shrug off the holiday fantasies and get on with being a good wife and mother. She would stifle all Egypt, the Beloved nostalgia and buckle down. But instead, Iman was abandoning her, and Amir had come all the way for her. All that he said on the phone had not been empty promises and threats.