“Do you like my new hairstyle, Mummy?” she asked at last.

Mrs. Shroff stared blankly for a moment. “Very pretty, my daughter, very pretty.”

Nusswan got home late that evening. He greeted his mother, and said there had been so much work at the office. Then he saw Dina. He took a deep breath and put a hand to his forehead. Exhausted, he wished there was some way to deal with this without another fight. But her insolence, her defiance, could not go unpunished; or how would he look himself in the mirror?

“Please come here, Dina. Explain why you have disobeyed me.”

She scratched her neck where tiny hair clippings were making her skin itch. “How did I disobey you?”

He slapped her. “Don’t question me when I ask you something.”

“You said you couldn’t afford my haircut. This was free, I did it myself.”

He slapped her again. “No back talk, I’m warning you.” He got the ruler and struck her with it flat across the palms, then, because he deemed the offence extremely serious, with the edge over her knuckles. “This will teach you to look like a loose woman.”

“Have you seen your hair in the mirror? You look like a clown,” she said, refusing to be intimidated.

Nusswan’s haircut, in his own opinion, was a statement of dignified elegance. He wore a centre parting, imposing order on either side of it with judicious applications of heavy pomade. Dina’s taunt unleashed the fury of the disciplinarian. With lashes of the ruler across her calves and arms, he drove her to the bathroom, where he began tearing off her clothes.

“I don’t want another word from you! Not a word! Today you have crossed the limit! Take a bath first, you polluted creature! Wash off those hair clippings before you spread them around the house and bring misfortune upon us!”