Chapter 9 · Untitled Chapter

They had taken the chair the night before, and tonight the hall had been rearranged so that nobody would have to look at the gap. The cushion was gone. The carpet had been beaten and laid straight, and the brass table stood where it always stood, and on it, squared to the edge, was a folded paper with a seal on the fold and a number under the seal.

It had been set out before the tray. That told me more than the paper did. A house does not put a document under the gahwa unless it wants the document seen first.

The steward came to me with the dallah, and I turned my cup over and put it down again, and he poured anyway, less than half, and I took it with my right hand and did not drink. The dates sat at the rim of the finjan where he had left them. Beyond the table the hall filled the way it fills when the men have come early on purpose.

"It came this morning," said the man at the far end, the one who had counted the vote. "To the house, not to her.