“People are constantly trying to persuade me that I did not kill my wife, and that she committed suicide. But I know better than they the deed I committed … Listen, I’ve heard Miss Zahra knocking on my door today. I don’t want to talk to that cunning bitch. That’s why I’m hiding in your room.”

“Andrew told me the police were coming to question us. Let them do it. I didn’t see anything.”

“Yes, you did! You saw us, and I saw you.”

“Really? Okay, everything except the very moment of the hanging.”

“Maryam’s time had come. It was all over for her.”

“Yes, Daoud, I know.”

“Who’s Daoud?”

“You!”

“Where’d you get that idea? My name is Majid.”

“Really? Sorry, I thought you were called Daoud … Can I call you Daoud anyway? It would be difficult for me to remember a new name now.”

“Fine. Majid, Daoud … It doesn’t matter.”

“You said it was your wife who died? I thought your wife was a mute … the one you’re always shouting at and who never says a word in return?”

Daoud considered me, lost in thought. Then he came and sat on the bed beside me.

“Silence is what killed my wife. My own silence, which spread over her head like a black cloud. I was like a storm that threatened to explode and sweep everything away. I maintained an utter, absolute silence. I didn’t even let her hear the sound of my breathing. I refused to address her. I no longer saw her, even when she was right in front of me. She started melting away until finally she was gone. They say she killed herself. Bullshit! I’m the one who killed her. I stopped eating in the house, so she abstained. I spent nights out, so she stayed up and didn’t sleep. That’s what happened: she dissolved just like a lump of salt. No different from Maryam, whom I hadn’t wanted to suffer the way my wife did. Maryam begged and pleaded with me for weeks. Poor woman. Death ate up her children and her husband. And my silence consumed my poor wife. When she died, all my words for her came out like water from a burst pipe. I couldn’t stop! Was it regret? No, don’t ask me that. Nothing can justify what I did. I actually took joy in my tyranny. The more she weakened, the more I harassed her. The victim, too, creates its executioner, Mr. N. There can be no executioner without a victim. But then, after her death, my wife became my executioner. She shrank, she faded, she withered away, as I expanded and became stronger. They say she swallowed pills and slipped into a coma, dying before she ever woke up. But no. She just melted away. Her light went out, and she vanished. As for the pills, I’m not sure. No doubt they gave people a reason not to come after me. Even in her death, she was afraid of me. Then my strength bounced back against me, for who was there to exercise it upon? What could I do with it on my own? I became an executioner without a victim. So I became my own victim. Then I became nothing, just as you see me now.