Chapter 5 · Chapter 5

The decree came at twenty to ten in a folder the colour of weak tea, carried by a clerk from the family office who would not sit down until he had been given coffee.

He was near sixty and had the dry, careful manners of a man who has spent his life being the second person in a room. He took the Finjan in his right hand, drank, shook it once, and the steward stepped back without pouring a second measure. Only then did the clerk set the folder upon the low table and fold both hands across it, which is how an office man says: the paper is not mine, only the errand is.

"From the office, Sayyidati. It is to be read in the majlis before the midday prayer."

I had the Abaya on before the car door was shut, the Tarha pinned at the second fold the way one learns to fix it in an entrance hallway with keys already in hand.

Inside the majlis, the air smelled of Oud smoke and chilled stone.