The door clicked closed behind them, leaving the air in the room thicker and heavier on Leah’s reddened cheeks. As she stood alone for the first time with her new husband, she trembled, unable to think of anything to say. Luckily, David didn’t seem to want to talk. Instead he took her face in his hands and drew her toward him. Leah closed her eyes in anticipation, unsure of what to expect. What she expected least, though, was what happened next: in that instant, David tightened his grip on her face and slammed her head against the wall until she reeled to the floor.

“Now you know who’s the husband and who’s the wife around here,” he announced when she regained consciousness.

Leah lay where she had fallen in the corner of the room, trembling as a driven leaf, her skull pierced with pain. When she opened her eyes, her veil had fallen back over her face. Through the fabric, she saw him standing over her, leaning in between dark patches that clouded her vision. Then he pounced.

He grabbed her ankles and pulled her forward, her dress catching on the floorboards so that her pale legs were exposed. Then he scooted up on the floor and smashed the heel of his hand over her veiled forehead between her eyes, slamming her head against the wall again and again and again as he slid his other hand up toward the insides of her thighs, where no one had ever touched her before. When she started to scream, he shifted the heel of his hand down to her mouth, pressing the veil up against her lips, and kept slamming. For the sake of the couple’s modesty, the little music troupe had stationed itself just outside the door. No one outside heard a thing.

Suddenly David jumped up, hoisting her off the ground before taking her wrists in his hands and pulling her to the door. When he opened it, the guests greeted them with open arms, the men carrying David off to dance with them and the women moving in on Leah. But Leah pushed her way to her parents first. Everyone was smiling, thrilled, excited. Only her mother noticed that Leah wasn’t smiling.

“What happened?” her mother demanded, motioning to Leah’s sisters that they should distract the other guests. Leah started crying and wouldn’t stop until her parents had pushed everyone away. Then she showed them the swelling on the back of her head and started babbling that he had hit her, that he had slammed her against the wall, that he—

“But why in the world would he do that? He’s a scholar, a genius! How could he do such a thing?” Leah’s mother shouted over the music.

“I don’t know, he’s a lunatic! Ask him! Why are you asking me!” Leah screamed. Some of the guests nearby turned around to look. Her father glanced over his shoulder with a smile, waving them away. Her mother pushed her hand against Leah’s mouth, which made Leah nauseous. She drooled in her mother’s hand.