Chapter 10 · Untitled Chapter

The lights go down under the northern archways at eight and not one minute before, and I have known this for eleven nights, and tonight I intend to prove it to myself in ink.

From the gallery I can see the whole of the majlis floor without being in it. The screen is old pierced wood, dark with oil from hands that leaned here before mine, and through its small geometries the room below resolves into pieces: a shoulder, the corner of a cushion, a hand lifting and setting down.

I have the notebook open on my knee. My pen is uncapped. The lamp behind me is turned low enough to keep me out of the wood and high enough to keep the page legible, which is the only measurement I have ever been careful about in this house.

The columns run down the left side of the page in my small hand. Hour. Door. Who entered. Who carried what.