Chapter 4 · Chapter 4

The majlis filled before the coffee did.

By the time the first Dallah came round there was no room left along the walls, and men who had stood at the back of that room for twenty years were standing at the back of it again, in the same places, in the same order, as though the carpet had been ruled. The shutters were closed against the morning. The mabkhara had already been through twice and the Oud sat in the air like something poured and left to settle.

The compacts were on the low table in front of the Sadr, four of them, each in its own folder, each folder with a green edge. Two scribes sat at the small desk to the left of the Sadr with the register open between them. The witnesses were already seated in the row behind, and they had the look of men who had been told the hour and not the reason.

My father sat two places from the Sadr. My uncle sat at the Sadr itself, which he had done since before I was born, and which no one in that room had ever thought to remark on.