Chapter 7 · Chapter 7

The pact came up from the archive room before the coffee did.

I had not taken off the abaya. I had come in from the car, sat down on the edge of the sofa in the upper hall, and stayed there until the steward came to say the majlis had been called again, and I went down the way I was, shaila still pinned, the cloth of it gone warm from being worn all day.

They had put the lamps on low. Nine men, and the same nine, and my uncle at the head of the carpet with a long roll of paper across his knees.

He did not look up when I came in. He untied the string and let the roll go, and the paper ran out along the carpet, one hand's width, two, a good arm's length of it, the edge brown and soft as cloth.

"Sit," he said.

I sat.

The steward brought the dallah and poured, less than half into the finjan, and put it into my right hand. The cardamom came up off it. I did not drink.

"Al-Subait archives," my uncle said.