Were Malik and Laila in love even then—not like a grown man and woman, of course, but in the way the poets describe it, love written on souls and in the stars? Certainly, it never seemed to matter to Laila that Malik, too, was younger than she, nearly two years younger. But even as a boy, Malik had always seemed old beyond his years.

None of it counted for anything beyond the childhood gardens where the three of them played and laughed and made secrets and dreamed. When Laila was fifteen—with little time left to waste, in her parents’ view—her father arranged her marriage to one of his close business associates. The man was fifty-two and noted for his devotion to the Koran, hunting, and money—although not necessarily in that order.

For a time after the wedding, Laila contrived ways for her and Amira to be together. The first time she showed up unexpectedly at Amira’s house, she announced with a mischievous grin, “My husband thinks I’m at my mother’s today.”

“But won’t he be angry if he finds out you’ve lied?’’ Amira asked, aware as always of the many rules that governed a woman’s existence.

“Probably.” Laila yawned, as if her husband’s anger were of little concern.

Amira marveled at her indifference. “But why couldn’t you just say you were coming here? Our parents are good friends, after all, and surely your husband—”

“Amira, Amira,” Laila sighed impatiently, “don’t be such a child. A wife soon learns when a lie will please her husband far more than the truth. For example, why should I tell Mahmoud I’m here—or somewhere else—when it makes him happy to believe I visit my mother dutifully and often?”

As Amira frowned thoughtfully, her friend smiled sadly. ‘After all,’’ she continued, “when he comes to my bed at night, when he pokes and pinches and grunts and groans, shall I tell him he sounds like an old donkey—and smells like one, too? Or”—she paused for effect—“Do I pretend that he honors me with his attentions, no matter how vile and disgusting they are?”

Amira had no answer.

Despite the veiling and the walls that separated men from women, sex was no secret in al-Remal, not even to children. But Laila’s talk of married life made it seem unnatural, even sinister. Still more unpleasant was the assumption that, in this matter, as in all others, a wife owed obedience to her husband.