“Madar!” Her breath twisted in her lungs.

“She can’t hear you,” he barked.

Lying flat on her back, his shadow a dark blanket between her and the light of the oil burner, she swore that one day she would destroy Jacob the Fatherless.

Dawn after dawn, she splashed cool water on her face, tossed a chador over her head, and walked with Jacob to the Alley of Lanterns to watch him build their house with his own hands. He dug her an estakhr behind the house, paving it with turquoise tiles and filling it with fresh water from a well he had dug.

“Your private estakhr!” he announced, pausing for her appreciation.

Rebekah watched the sun dance on the golden waters and her heart beat with anticipation. Could the Ancient Zoroastrian’s prophecy of jewels and love and happiness come true in this house?

Jacob lifted a finger. “You must always swim fully dressed, or I’ll flog you to death. Even the stars of heaven must not set eyes on a single toenail of yours. Be chaste and virginal at all times, except in my bed, when you’ll transform yourself into a whore. And I’ll reward you by treating you like a queen.”

The next evening, Jacob arrived home carrying a dress of crushed velvet, a pair of kid boots, and a chador of China silk. He flung them at Rebekah’s feet, stepped back, and slapped his thighs with gleeful pride.

Rewarded for the evenings she had surrendered her body to him!

She slipped back into the kitchen to serve his dinner: shank, bone marrow, and mint. Tonight, as every other night, she hid a portion of the meal. Her loneliness was easier to bear if she imagined a time when the stranger with the sweet voice would knock on her door and ask her to collect provisions for the road because they were, at last, leaving for a safer place.

“Where’s the mint?” Jacob demanded when Rebekah returned with the steaming stew.

She hurried back to the kitchen. Delicate leaves, slender sprigs, lush bunches of mint had become her friends. Most of his waking hours, while he labored over the kiln, he chewed or smelled mint she picked from her garden. It seemed she had trained him, like a dog, to associate the taste and smell of mint with that of liquid gold. Now the scent of mint made him feel as omnipotent as when he melted gold, so that he didn’t seem to have to copulate with her as often to validate himself.

She heard his approaching steps, heard him linger at the door, enter the kitchen. She did not move. There was nowhere to flee. He was behind her, his stomach flattening her against the wood burner, his breath on her neck, his voice calling her a whore-wife, his hands tearing her vest, groping her buttocks, dragging her back into the room, pushing her down on the pile of garments he had purchased.