The announcement of a new term arrived in the morning, with a photograph of chairman Dženan before the same poster as four years earlier. His wife, Belma, also recognized the tablecloth she had lent the association. She didn't recognize the meeting date because she hadn't known a meeting occurred. She had belonged since its founding, organized workshops, and recently called loudly for a different hall schedule. Dženan had said members would decide everything at the regular assembly.

Over breakfast, she asked when the assembly had taken place. He said last night, briefly, since everyone knew how they would vote anyway. Belma examined the photograph more carefully. Nobody who requested schedule changes was there. Dženan claimed invitations were sent but some people didn't read messages. Belma asked him to show hers. He couldn't. He had invited only a smaller group he considered reliable enough not to turn the meeting into an argument.

"Reliable for whom?" she asked.

Dženan grew angry that his own wife didn't understand how exhausting running an association was. Belma understood exhaustion. She had cleaned the hall after his events for years. She didn't understand why criticism made her someone denied a vote. She called the other excluded members. They agreed on a joint request for a repeated meeting without competing over who felt most hurt.

At the new meeting, Dženan tried managing the agenda, but members first elected someone else to chair it. Belma didn't nominate herself. She wanted everyone to hear proposals and vote, including those supporting her husband. The discussion lasted a long time, sometimes awkwardly. Dženan lost by a few votes. The new hall schedule didn't completely suit Belma, but she accepted the result because her question had at least been heard.

At home, their relationship was tense. Dženan said she could have supported him privately, while she said marriage didn't mean an automatic vote. They didn't resolve that conversation over one dinner. They needed to discover whether anything between them existed without her confirming his public role. Belma continued attending the association, while he avoided the hall for several weeks.

He returned for a workshop repairing old toys, without a position or opening speech. He sat at the table where Belma arranged materials and asked whether there was room. She moved a box but didn't give him work that would immediately make him the leader. He received a small brush and a wooden horse. By the evening's end, he was listening to other people's instructions for the first time without searching for an attack within them.