Chapter 12 · Chapter 12

He let the quiet stand until it had weight, and then he stood up.

Not toward me. Toward the window, where the shutter laid its stripes across the carpet and the dust went on turning inside them. He reached up and took the agal off first, one motion, and the ghutra came away with it, folded once and laid on the arm of the chair with the exactness of a man who had been taught young that even this is done in front of someone.

"You don't have to do that," I said.

"I know." He sat back down. "The hall isn't here."

"The hall is forty paces away."

"Then it can walk." He pushed the dallah toward me with the back of his hand, an offering made without looking at it, and I understood that we were going to do this properly, and that properly meant coffee first and the argument after, the way it always had in this house.

I took the tarha off. Not for him.