Chapter 8 · Untitled Chapter

They did not send for me to open it. They sent for me to be counted.

The steward came to the door of my room and stood at the edge of the light and said the hall was still lit, and I said Ya'teek al-afiyah, and he walked ahead of me to hold the door. In the corridor the smoke had gone stale, and behind me, two courtyards off, Hana's door stood open the width of a hand, and I did not go back and close it, because a door closed is a door somebody asks about.

I took my shoes off at the edge of the carpet and set them straight and did not let my feet point at any man as I came in. My abaya was closed to the wrist. The tarha was where it should be. Nobody in that hall had ever seen me otherwise, and nobody was going to, and the fact that this was never said aloud was the only thing holding the arrangement up.

The dallah went round from the sadr outward, high pour, less than half in each finjan, dates at the rim. It reached me last.