One cycle of the prayer beads.

***

Desolate, she stammers, “I’m going… I’m going… I am… mad.” She throws her head back. “Why tell him all this? I’m going mad. Allah, cut off my tongue! May my mouth be filled with earth!” She covers her face. “Allah, protect me, guide me, I’m losing my way, show me the path!”

No reply.

No guide.

Her hand buries itself in her man’s hair. Beseeching words emerge from her dry throat: “Come back, I beg you, before I lose my mind. Come back, for the sake of your children…” She looks up. Gazes through her tears in the same uncertain direction as the man. “Bring him back to life, God!” Her voice drops. “After all, he fought in your name for so long. For jihad!” She stops, then starts again: “And you’re leaving him in this state? What about his children? And me? You can’t, you can’t, you’ve no right to leave us like this, without a man!” Her left hand, the one holding the prayer beads, pulls the Koran toward her. Her rage seeks expression in her voice. “Prove that you exist, bring him back to life!” She opens the Koran. Her finger moves down the names of God featured on the flyleaf. “I swear I won’t ever let him go off to fight again like a bloody idiot. Not even in your name! He will be mine, here, with me.” Her throat, knotted by sobs, lets through only the stifled cry “Al-Qahhar.” She starts telling the prayer beads again. “Al-Qahhar…” Ninety-nine times, “Al-Qahhar.”

The room grows dark.

“I’m scared, Mummy. It’s all dark.” One of the little girls is whimpering in the passage, behind the door. The woman stands up to leave the room.