Chapter 13 · Chapter 13

The engine did not turn over.

The driver's hand stayed on the key. He was waiting for something behind us, and it came: the steward at the glass, and I lowered it, and he said, "The majlis asks for you, Sayyidati."

I got out. He held the door. Across the courtyard the water ran down the tiles the way it runs in a house that has never once let its pipes be heard, and at the arch I stepped out of my heels and left them at the edge of the carpet, soles down and pointing away from the room, and went in with the abaya over my head and the tarha where I had put it.

The smoke had not thinned. Neither had the room.

Saad's uncle stood below the sadr with a folded page in his hand. Nobody had given him the seat. Nobody gives that seat. He stood the way men of his generation stand when they have decided to be patient for exactly as long as it takes, and not one minute longer.

Saad had not moved from where he had said Kalas. His finjan was still in his hand, and empty.

"Ya ustadh," I said.