Then it’s time for a nap.

Darkness.

Silence.

The woman comes back. Less anxious. She sits down next to the man. “That was the mullah. He was here for our prayer session. I told him that since yesterday I have been impure, that I am menstruating, like Eve. He wasn’t happy. I’m not sure why. Because I dared compare myself to Eve, or because I told him I was bleeding? He left, muttering into his beard. He wasn’t like that before; you could have a joke with him. But since you people declared this new law for the country, he’s changed too. He’s afraid, poor man.”

Her gaze settles on the Koran. Suddenly, she jumps: “Shit, the feather!” She looks for it inside the book. Not there. Under the pillow. Not there either. In her pockets. There it is. With a big sigh, she sits down. “That mullah is driving me out of my mind!” she says as she puts the feather back inside the Koran. “What was I talking about?… Oh yes, bleeding… I was lying to him, of course.” She glances keenly at the man, more mischievous than submissive. “Just as I’ve lied to you… more than once!” She pulls her legs up to her chest and wedges her chin between her knees. “But there is something I’d better tell you…” She looks at him for a long time. Still with the same strange wariness in her gaze. “You know…” Her voice goes hoarse. She swallows to moisten her throat, and looks up. “When you and I went to bed for the first time-after three years of marriage, remember!-anyway, that night, I had my period.” Her gaze flees the man to seek refuge in the creases of the sheet. She rests her left cheek on her knees. The look in her scarred eye loses some of its wariness. “I didn’t tell you. And you, you thought that… the blood was proof of my virginity!” A muted laugh shakes her crouched, huddled body.