Her father married his daughter, blind from birth, to a beggar, and what happened next shocked many. Zainab had never seen the world, but she felt its cruelty with every breath.

Zainab fled. She did not use her staff; she ran by instinct and agony, finding her way back to the cabin with her feet in despair. She sat in the darkness for hours, the cold earth seeping into her bones.

Quando Yusha si ritirò, l’aria sembrò diversa. Su olor a humo de leña ahora olía a engaño quemado.

“Zainab?” he asked, noticing the change. He placed a small package on the table: bread, perhaps, or some cheese. “What’s happened?”

“Were you always a beggar, Yusha?” she asked. Her voice was hollow, like a reed rustling in the wind.

The silence that followed was long and heavy, filled with things that could not be said.

—I told you once —he said, his voice devoid of its poetic warmth—. Not always.

My sister met me today. She told me you’re a liar. She told me you’re hiding. You use my darkness to stay in the shadows. Tell me the truth. Who are you? And why are you in this cabin with a woman you pay to take you up?

Muoviti heard it. Not moving away from her, but drawing nearer. He knelt at her feet, his knees hitting the hard earth with a dull thud. He took her hands in his own. They were trembling.

“I was a doctor,” he whispered.

Zainab leaned back, but he held her.

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