The blanket fell off, and Mama’s lips twitched, but she managed not to laugh, because that would break the namaz. After Mama had salaamed the two angels, one on her right shoulder and one on her left, she fastened a small scarf around Tahia’s head and tied a little knot under her chin. “There, jaan. Now you can learn to say your prayers with me.”

The second time Tahia put on the hijab was when she was fourteen. She begged to be sent to Muslim summer camp in the countryside, with all her friends, where she spent two weeks attending workshops and talks on Islam. Five times a day they prayed together in congregation, even when Tahia was so sleepy that she could hardly stand straight for her namaz. In between the classes, the counsellors fitted in camping, zip-lining, canoeing and archery practice, which Tahia loved almost as much as she loved the Islamic lessons. The girls had a choice whether or not they wanted to wear the hijab, but on the first day all the girls agreed amongst themselves that they would, so that nobody would feel left out if they didn’t.

Tahia liked the feeling of camaraderie around the ritual donning of the hijab in the morning, the girls warning each other with raised eyebrows and shocked giggles if a single strand of hair poked through the hijab. Late at night, they experimented with hairstyles and headbands, the tying of scarves in different styles – the Saudi way, with a cloth pinned tightly around the neck; exotic African turbans and headgear; while one or two of the girls just wore their hoodies all the time. Tahia wore her scarf the way her mother had taught her for prayers, but she took it off in the car on the way home from camp, put it in a drawer, and didn’t think about it again for some time.

The third time Tahia put on her hijab was when she went to university. She had to do something important to declare her Islamic identity. Her mother and father tried to persuade her not to do it, that it could be dangerous for her, but she insisted that she wasn’t afraid or ashamed. This time, she was eighteen, and she didn’t take it off. She wore it like a badge, a flag, a symbol of pride. She held her back straighter and looked people defiantly in the eye when they stared. Usually they couldn’t meet her eyes; or they’d glance and then quickly look away. Tahia sensed the opportunity to make her own rules about herself and how she carried herself in the world. Her Muslim classmates, the men, lowered their eyes when they spoke to her, but she could feel the illicit glances of appreciation and admiration, when she walked away. Maybe one of them would send a proposal to her parents after they graduated; she wanted to be chosen as much for her piety as for her hidden, imagined beauty.

But the day after the ban on wearing hijab in government offices was announced, Tahia came home late one evening. She’d been held back after work, and warned that she was in danger of losing the bank job she’d been employed in for the last five years if she continued to cover her hair. She had stared at her manager, who read off the new rule from a white piece of paper, as white as her scarf. He did not meet her eyes either; the paper shielded him from her shocked face. Questions were born and died on her lips; she knew that a hundred other young men and women were lining up for jobs like hers at the Unemployment Office. She could not afford to join them there.

Tahia stood in front of the mirror in her bedroom. She slowly took off the hijab and gazed at herself, her hair flattened by the pressure of the cloth, her features as unfamiliar as the uncovered stones in a dried-up riverbed. Naked and lost, yes, but she couldn’t deny the sense of relief at the idea that no more would she have to face the accusations in their eyes as she walked down the street, the furrowed brows, the whispers quieter than thoughts, asking her why she didn’t go home to her own country if she wanted to dress “like that”. The piece of cloth, so small, so insignificant, that she had learned to treasure for so many unexpected reasons, was not protection enough against this changing, volatile world.