Summary

Story 5, “In Other Rooms, Other Wonders," pages 113 – 128, begins with a description of how Husna “needed a job … stole up the long drive to the Lahore house of the retired civil servant and landlord K.K. Harouni, bearing in her little lacquered fingers a letter of introduction from, of all people, his estranged first wife.” (113). Husna is seated in a waiting area by a servant later identified as Rafik (see “Saleema – Section 2”), and is eventually seen by Harouni himself, reminding him of her troubled family history and, in a sudden turn of attitude from the subservient to the determined, indicates her independence. Harouni invites her to come every day to study typing.

Husna begins her lessons, but doesn’t do well: narration describes how she lets herself give in to daydreaming. Harouni, meanwhile, starts making efforts first to see her, and then go walking...