Chapter 15 · Chapter 15

The record stopped, and the stopping of it was louder than anything that had been entered into it.

The clerk set his pen down first, closed the folder, and gave his attention to the carpet. On the long bench two of the men were already gathering themselves to go, and one of them — silver ring, silver beard, a cousin of somebody's cousin — could not let the hour end without one more offering.

"For the paper, Ya ustadh," he said. "She was the last one seen."

Salman did not lift his voice. He had not lifted it once in four hours, and every man in that hall had spent the four hours learning what the quiet cost.

"Then let the paper have one thing and the hall have another," he said. "The hour is the matter. Not the lady's name."

The cousin studied his own hands as though they had spoken without him.

They went out one behind the other, and the steward came through with the dallah, and I watched the order of the pouring change. The eldest on the bench, then the second, then — before the third —