Chapter 6 · Untitled Chapter

The council smells different from the majlis, though it is the same room. The Oud has gone thin and paper has taken over — cut paper, dust, the mineral smell of a chandelier that has been burning since before the sun was low enough to need it. The house lights that chandelier early. It is a small vanity, and I have written it down as one.

They do the coffee first. The coffee is the only thing in this house that cannot be hurried, and I have learned to read the whole afternoon from it. The Dallah goes to the eldest, who takes his Finjan in his right hand and does not drink. Then to the man at the head of the carpet, then down the wall in an order that has nothing to do with age and everything to do with what a man is owed.

I map the order before the papers come out. That is the useful hour. The dates sit at the rim of each cup; two men take one, and one man waves the dish away, and the servant does not offer it again.