Chapter 6 · Chapter 6

The majlis was fuller at the same hour than it had been the day before.

I knew it from the car. Eleven cars along the wall, two with their engines still running, and the driver came around and opened my door and looked at the ground until I was out. I told him I would send word. "Ya'teek al-afiyah," I said, and he took the car away to wait in the shade.

The gate knew me by now. The attendant at the door knew me by now. It is a strange thing to be expected in a house where you are still being decided.

Inside, the sandals at the edge of the carpet told me the rest. The door to the inner corridor was shut. My uncle Rashid sat at the far end with his back to the wall — outside the wing, where he had been told to stay, and where, being my father's brother, he would stay and call it his own decision.