Paradise

Khalil returns at dawn but says nothing of his absence. He distances himself from Yusuf. Yusuf visits the Mistress again, and she talks of her first husband whom she married when she was almost 15 and he was in his 50s. He was a widower, and all his children had died after a few weeks. Zulekha’s father had given her Mzee Hamdani as a wedding gift. Buying and selling enslaved people was forbidden but not keeping people who were already enslaved. Hamdani’s mother had been enslaved and had died. Zulekha has Yusuf sit closer to her. She has him touch her face, and she holds her hand over his. Eventually, he leaves without saying a prayer. Amina is rather distant. Yusuf finds Hamdani in the garden and asks why he didn’t take his freedom when the Mistress offered it. He answers that he is free every morning he wakes up and has been since the moment he was born. Zulekha, he says, cannot give him what is not hers to offer. Hamdani states that gardening is his life’s work. Yusuf asks Khalil about Amina, but Khalil tells him to let her answer for herself.