Chapter 10 · Chapter 10

Ammi came at the hour when the house is awake and not yet dressed for anyone, and the steward's boy walked ahead of him down the corridor striking the doorframes with the flat of his hand at every turning, so the rooms behind those doors would have their warning. I heard the knocking from the majlis and had time to put my Abaya straight and set my Shaila where it belonged, and I was standing when he came in.

He came in with his hands empty and his ring catching the morning, and he went to the head of the room and sat, and no one in this house would be fool enough to sit there first while he was still on his feet.

The coffee came in behind him. The boy held the Dallah high and the Gahwa fell in a thin gold line into a Finjan not half full, and Ammi took it in his right hand and turned it once and did not drink.

"You did not sign," he said.

"No, Ammi."

"The pen is still there." He looked at it, lying on the wood beside the sheet where I had left it.