Chapter 8 · Untitled Chapter

They moved the assembly before I reached the end of the corridor. I knew it by the shoes.

A row of them outside the second majlis, the narrow one at the back of the house where the older men kept the colder arithmetic, and the door standing open on gahwa poured over the oud that had not yet gone out of the air. Smaller room. Fewer men. I had said it aloud with my hand on my abaya and the house had agreed with me faster than any friend would.

The house manager met me at the threshold with his hands folded and his eyes on the middle distance. "Sayyidati. They have gone into the small majlis."

"I know where they have gone."

He stepped aside. I left my shoes with the others and went in.

My uncle sat below the sadr, which was itself a sentence, and the men of the two families had arranged themselves around the walls the way they had arranged themselves an hour ago in the great hall, only closer, so that there was nowhere in the room to stand that was not in front of somebody. The dallah was still going round.