Chapter 6 · Chapter 6

The cups came round a third time.

The attendant came along the carpet with the Dallah in one hand and the small cups in the other, and he came to me before he came to the man in the sadr. It was done smoothly, in the way a thing is done when it has been decided earlier and only the doing is left. He bent and the gahwa came out of the spout in a thin gold line and stopped well before the cup was half full.

I laid my hand flat over the cup. Not to take it.

"Ya'teek al-afiyah," I said. "The sadr first. I am not seated where I am served before him."

His eyes went sideways, once, to the far end of the majlis, and found nothing there to help him, and came back to me. He straightened, and carried the Dallah down the carpet the way it should have gone in the first place, and the elder at the head took with his right hand and signaled after the second pouring, and only then did the room let its breath out.

I did not look at Salman Al-Humaid. I did not have to.