Page 67 - Leadership in the Indian Army

mother, feeling nauseated and homesick.

It was with the sun's westward crawl that Mariam's anxiety really

ratcheted up. Her teeth rattled when she thought of the night, the time

when Rasheed might at last decide to do to her what husbands did to

their wives. She lay in bed, wracked with nerves, as he ate alone
downstairs.

He always stopped by her room and poked his head in.

"You can't be sleeping already. It's only seven. Are you awake? Answer

me. Come, now."

He pressed on until, from the dark, Mariam said, "I'm here."

He slid down and sat in her doorway. From her bed, she could see his
large-framed body, his long legs, the smoke swirling around his

hook-nosed profile, the amber tip of his cigarette brightening and

dimming.

He told her about his day. A pair of loafers he had custom-made for the

deputy foreign minister-who, Rasheed said, bought shoes only from him.

An order for sandals from a Polish diplomat and his wife. He told her of
the superstitions people had about shoes: that putting them on a bed

invited death into the family, that a quarrel would follow if one put on

the left shoe first.

"Unless it was done unintentionally on a Friday," he said. "And did you

know it's supposed to be a bad omen to tie shoes together and hang

them from a nail?"