That was it. He had been ignoring the obvious and not listening to her. He’d seen her as an indie chick, a debating diva, a girl like any other, but in among it all she was still a young Muslim woman and the way to get a young Muslim woman to stay was to make her your wife.

After all the times she had turned him down, her change of mind took him by surprise. His hormones racing, he wasted little time. The nikaah was conducted that evening. The imam was an old school friend, and Zan was ‘wali’ for his sister, standing in as her guardian until Elyas met Akbar Khan, which happened the very next morning…

The silence was rich, brimming with the unsaid. Sanam Khan had pulled her kameez straight over and over again, as if removing the creases would somehow iron out the problems that lay ahead. Her mind raced from obstacle to obstacle, aware that women and their honour had caused great wars among the Khans. Elyas knew her concerns. His grandfather’s stories had not been pretty, and he knew that Jia’s reluctance was in part due to them. Tight-lipped, her mother beside her, her husband adjacent on the soft cream cushions of the carved wooden sofa, Jia sat, waiting for her father to arrive.

The silence was broken by a clatter of plates from the kitchen. Sanam Khan took her daughter’s hand. ‘It will be OK,’ she said. And for the first time Elyas noted how similar mother and daughter were. Tall and slim, Sanam Khan was an elegant woman. When she laughed, her eyes were more hazel than green, and when she stopped they darkened to emerald. This they did with the arrival of Akbar Khan. Everyone got to their feet. He looked from his daughter to the young man.

‘Who is this?’ he asked. The room remained silent, tempered only by the sounds of activity coming from the kitchen. It ended with the arrival of the manservant, who came in balancing plates of buttered naan in one hand and fried eggs in the other. The old man’s vision was poor. He didn’t see Akbar Khan standing in the doorway, and as he sidestepped to avoid him, he lost his balance, almost losing one of the plates. Sanam Khan moved swiftly forward and rescued it.

‘Chilli Chacha, how many times have I told you to use the trolley?’ she said. The old servant nodded in short, sharp bursts before scuttling off back to the kitchen. ‘Here, sit here,’ Sanam Khan said to her husband, directing him towards the table and beckoning Jia and Elyas over.

Legs crossed, his eyes low, Akbar Khan waited as everyone sat down. The room was pregnant with tension, the waiting unbearable. Sanam Khan finally spoke. ‘This is our guest, Elyas,’ she said.