Fadwa did not outlive Salem by much. Her energies seemed to dwindle rapidly. Her bitterness had no focus, and without active revenge she had nothing else on which to feed. Revenge had become the whole substance of her life. As a result, the death of Salem left her with new feelings of betrayal. She had lived out of hatred, a hatred that she had nourished with his misery. Fadwa had never made space in her heart, or in her body, for any other source of life energy. When the end came, she died mumbling something about feeling a lump in her throat. It was the betrayal that she had never been able to swallow, and the revenge that she had never been able to exact.