Chapter 14 · Chapter 14

The wing smelled of old wood, and of Oud that had gone into the panelling years ago and had never been asked to leave.

I stood two steps past the brass with the green book against my ribs. Behind me the majlis was still talking. It had been talking since the afternoon and it would be talking at midnight, and not one hour of it had touched the dates.

The hall had spent the week saying it. A man refused once does not ask twice, they said; a man who does not ask is finished; a finished man is a chair at the Sadr with the Gahwa going past him. They had built the week on that arithmetic and not one of them had opened the book.

A girl came along the arch with the Dallah in her right hand and the cups stacked in her left, and went by me into the hall without stopping. Two hours ago she had stopped.