“Now he is a little older than you,” Afsoon chimed in. “But he can’t be more than…forty. Forty-five at the most. Wouldn’t you say, Nargis?” “Yes. But I’ve seen nine-year-old girls given to men twenty years older than your suitor, Mariam. We all have. What are you, fifteen? That’s a good, solid marrying age for a girl.”

