Mariam was in the kitchen, grinding cardamom pods in the stone pestle and mortar. That she, too, was wearing a headscarf was the main thing Lucija noticed – a fellow nun – and, also, her sweet face. Skin the colour of Lucija’s polished-wood rosary beads from Dubrovnik. The room, a steamy, eye-stinging cauldron of frying and spices. The wooden board on the table, beautiful with its cathedrals of finely sliced onions. In a metal bowl, red lentils were soaking lazily in murky water, like tourists floating in the Adriatic. Lucija stood by the table, smiling, while Mariam tipped spices into hot oil and stood over the stove, stirring. Mariam was busy; she didn’t speak; but when at last she glanced at Lucija – oh! – Lucija saw she had big black eyes. Black lashes.

It was only when they started eating supper that they started talking about the places they came from. Mariam was homesick, too, a bit. Quite a lot. She wouldn’t speak about the people she loved. Too many tears came into her eyes when Lucija asked about them. She spoke haltingly of the food she ate at home, listed all sorts of delicious things, and how to prepare them. It was hard to make the things she most craved, here in Britain. She had been trying really hard, since coming to Eva’s house. Eva was pleased but – Mariam wrinkled her beautiful face, and held up a forkful of the spicy thing she had made with lamb mince and courgette. Something about it wasn’t quite right.

‘It’s delicious,’ said Lucija, feeling an all-over tingling that might have been the chilli.

They also talked about the things they had brought with them from their countries. Lucija had brought very little, other than her memories. But Mariam had her brightly coloured clothes, she had the book of poetry her father had given her, and shyly, very shyly, she fetched from her room a carved stone to show Lucija.

‘A vagina stone!’ Lucija exclaimed, for the pebble was deeply carved with the Neolithic V that Gimbutas had described in the woman-temples along the Danube. Lucija knew about vagina stones from Eva’s book. She used to draw them, the Vs, on all her school textbooks.

Luckily, Mariam didn’t know the word vagina. Instead, she mimed birds flying with her fingers. The birds flew across Eva’s kitchen in the colours of Mariam’s clothing, orange, and indigo. Suddenly Lucija felt breathless. She felt an electricity inside her.

Oh my God, she thought, help me.

‘Yes?’ Mariam asked.

‘Birds, yes,’ Lucija said. ‘Maybe.’

‘Maybe,’ Mariam echoed.

LUCIJA: Eva had offered her a job, teaching her daughter. Mariam had told the doctor she was a teacher because it sounded good. But she wasn’t a teacher. Nevertheless, she tried teaching the girl anyway.

ZOE: We had one or two lessons. She told me the four most important things about her country were: 1. Arabic letters are written opposite from English ones, right to left; 2. The Prophet of Islam (PBUH) loved poetry and women; 3. Pakistan’s greatest poet is Shah Abdul Latif; 4. The quickest way for women to find freedom is to learn some English.