Chapter 6 · Untitled Chapter

They brought the coffee back at the turn of the hour, when the older man had turned the second page and the room had settled into the particular patience of men who intend to be seen being patient.

The servant came in with the dallah in his left hand and the cups in his right, and he poured until the finjan was a little under half, and the scent of cardamom went out over the wool of the runner before it reached any of us. He set the first cup at my uncle's right, on the tray at his knee.

The second he carried along the runner, past the men of the Dosari bench, and I watched his wrist begin to turn, and I understood that he meant to take it past me and come back only if the reading allowed it.

The order of the cups is the order of the room. Everyone in that majlis knew it, and nobody looked anywhere.

Saud lifted two fingers off the arm of his chair.

That was all. The servant's wrist stopped turning as though it had met a wall.