Chapter 7 · Chapter 7

The woman from the gate was heard first, and she was quick about it, the way people are quick when they have said the thing over to themselves in the car.

She had opened the gate at ten. She had not looked at the car. She had looked at the lamps, because two of the lamps on the north wall had been out since Thursday and she had told the gardener twice.

The pen wrote down all of it. That was the nature of a record. It did not weigh what it took.

When she was dismissed, her sandals made a small sound on the marble, and the majlis closed over the place where she had stood.

"Ya ustadh," said Mubarak, from the threshold.

He had taken off his shoes before he came in, as everyone did, and he stood with his hands at his sides and his eyes on the middle distance, which is where a man looks when he has decided in advance not to look at anything.

Eleven years he had driven for this house.