Chapter 10 · Untitled Chapter

The finjan did not shake in my hand, which by then was the only thing in that hall I still owned outright. The paper lay on the carpet at my feet with its number turned up, and the whole room had gone quiet in the particular way a room goes quiet when it is waiting to learn which of two people it should be afraid of.

Faisal turned around.

"I will say it once." He did not raise his voice. It reached the last row anyway. "The notice stays closed. Tonight it stays closed."

"Ya ustadh." The man at the far end had found his sentence again. "It came sealed. Sealed things are read."

"Then read it," Faisal said. "Stand in the middle of this hall, break the seal with your own hand, and when you have finished, tell me which of you will stand behind the name written inside. Not tonight. For the years it takes."

The man's hand went to the edge of his thobe and stayed there. Nobody filled the silence. Somewhere behind me the bakhoor turned over and the oud smoke went sideways across the carpet, over the paper, and dispersed.

"Wallah," Faisal said.