“Then he drew many other lines, one next to the other, as straight as the hair on the back of a frightened dog, and every group of four had a line through it.”

When Fatima shows her to her loom, Hussain makes marks on a slate that represent her debt. The imagery of a frightened dog is intended to exemplify Fatima’s fear, and it also reflects the dehumanizing treatment she receives from Hussain.

“I had been working for Hussain Khan for three years, and I had never been put in the Tomb. Some of the other children were envious, and said I was Hussain Khan’s pet and that’s why he didn’t punish me.”

Fatima is Hussain’s favorite because she submits without complaint, making her easy to manage, and she is good at making the carpets. Some of the children turn against Fatima and are jealous of her rather than uniting against Hussain. By creating strife among the children, Hussain has an easier time oppressing them.

“He has been erasing those lines for three years, and they were still all there, or at least that’s how it seemed to me. Sometimes I even thought there were more of them, but that wasn’t possible—the lines on the slate couldn’t be like the weeds in my father’s garden that grew overnight and crowded the crops.”

The author uses dramatic irony to reveal that when the children are not around, Hussain replaces the lines that he erases. Fatima, like many of the others, trusts him when he says she will eventually pay back her family’s debt. By providing false proof of the children’s progress, Hussain both motivates the children to work hard and prevents them from rebelling against him.