"Why what?"
"Why bring me here? You have nothing. Now you have nothing left, and a woman who doesn't even see the bread she eats."
She heard him move against the doorframe. "Perhaps," he said softly, "having nothing is easier when you have someone to share the silence with."
The weeks that followed were a slow awakening. In her father's house, Zainab lived in a state of sensory deprivation; she was told to remain still, to be silent, to be invisible. Yusha did the opposite. He became her eyes, but not through mere description. He painted the world in her mind with the precision of a master.
"The sun today isn't just yellow, Zainab," he said as they sat by the river. "It's the color of a peach just before it bruises. It's heavy. It's the feeling of a warm coin pressed in your palm."
He taught her the language of the wind—how the rustling of the poplars differed from the dry clicking of the eucalyptus. He brought her wild herbs, guiding her fingers over the serrated edges of mint and the velvety skin of sage. For the first time in her life, darkness was not a prison; it was a canvas.
She found herself listening to the rhythm of his return each evening. She found herself reaching out to touch the rough fabric of his tunic, her fingers lingering on the steady beat of his heart. She was falling in love with a ghost, a man defined by his poverty and his kindness.
But shadows always lengthen before disappearing.
