Chapter 6 · Chapter 6

The steward is young, and someone has told him to be thorough, and in a young man thoroughness looks like hands that have not yet learned where to stop.

He has the bag turned over the carpet. He gives it one shake, gently, the way one shakes a thing known to belong to someone else, and the receipts come out in a fan and lie down on the wool between his knees and the edge of the majlis.

Nobody speaks. The room has been quiet for some time now—the particular quiet of people who have decided to be witnesses and would like that fact noticed.

Eleven of them. I count before anyone else does, because counting is a discipline that remains mine.

The thin paper the machines give you, curled at the ends from being pressed into a pocket. A receipt from a press on Olaya, for letterhead and a new plate. A courier slip with a box ticked and a time written in a hand that is not mine.