Pedro

A couple living in the countryside amidst the harsh Bedouin life.
The husband was a harsh farmer, accustomed to toil and labor in the fields. His heart was hard, and he spoke little. He married his wife not out of love, but because she took care of him: cooking, cleaning, and looking after him as he wished. He never saw her as a partner, but rather as a duty imposed upon him by life.

The wife is a poor woman who works as a maid in the homes of the wealthy, knowing the meaning of humiliation and hardship from a young age. She is mostly silent, enduring more than she shows, and her heart is full of feelings she has never been allowed to express.

They live in a dilapidated house, a single room built of stone, furnished with simple rugs for sitting on the floor, and a tiny kitchen that barely meets their needs. There are no bedrooms, so they sleep on the floor, each in their own world, despite the close proximity of their homes.

Life between them is cold, silent, full of unspoken tension, where cruelty is mixed with need, patience with pain, and feelings remain locked in their hearts.
He returned at sunset, his shoulders heavy with fatigue, his face taut as if the earth had not yet unleashed its fury. He threw his tools near the wall and sat down violently on the ground.
His wife looked at him silently, then he broke the silence with his rough voice:

— Where is the food? I spent the whole day in the fields.

She replied calmly that the fire had not yet been lit.
He breathed heavily and said:

— Always late… I don’t know why I got married in the first place.

She lowered her head, clutched her dress in her hands, and said nothing.
Silence returned to fill the stone room, but his words remained suspended in the air, heavier than the weariness itself.