When Rosa came back, she held a pair of scissors and a straight razor. He sat on a wooden stool near the stove. She poured water from a kettle into a small basin, placed it on a table beside him. “I used to shave my father,” she said. “I was the only one in the household he trusted.” She asked Karak to strip to his undershirt, and he complied.

His face was level with her waist, at the place her blouse was cinched into her skirt. She was facing him as she drew a part in his hair. Her forehead glistened with moisture. Her arms glowed gold in the sunlight. He could smell the tang of her. She must have been outside before he arrived, perhaps caring for the chickens. She stood behind him now, her hands on his hair, loosening the tangles with a comb. He could feel the teeth sweeping across his scalp.

“Why do you bother with the knots?” he asked, impatiently.

“To keep it neat after it is cut.”

Her fingers caressed his forehead, his ears. More water trickled into the basin. She pulled together all his hair at the base of his neck. He heard the scrape of the scissors’ blades as they worked. He thought he would not care as the hair fell away, but he did.

When he saw himself in the handheld mirror, he did not know who he was. He felt light-headed. He would never again wear a dastar. The countrymen he met would no longer think he was part of the Khalsa. All this, Rosa had no way of knowing, and she never would. She silently showed him the long black locks, wrapping them around her fist. A part of himself. It was nothing, wasn’t it, only hair? He had never thought of himself as a religious man, but now it was evident to him: this was more than hair, and it was more than religion. He had had a choice. Other men would have chosen differently.

“It is thick, no?” she asked, smiling. She twisted the strands, rolling them into a knot. “It is like a snake!”

“It is like a snake,” he agreed, and laughed; he must not show that it hurt him.

When this first cut was over, she hummed a tune that he recognized from the fields, soft and low. She tipped his head back to inspect the part, and he felt her breasts against the crown of his head, the sound of her voice vibrating against his scalp. He closed his eyes. The scissors clipped around his ears, around the crown.

Then she stood before him and took up the shaving brush.

She put soap on the beard, spread it with gentle strokes. She dipped the razor in the water. “Don’t worry,” she said. “You must trust me.” She raised her eyebrows for a moment, to tease him. Then their eyes met, and she was serious.