Chapter Eight
When I could walk no more, I hailed a taxi. It took me past the streetlights fast falling behind us and sped me on to the road up the mountain. After a few minutes, its headlights sent forth a ray of light that swept between the trees lining both sides of the road, their boughs meeting in towering arches above us. It finally alighted before on the steps of the Yasser family palace.
As soon as she opened the door, the servant girl Safiya said, in that drowsy way of hers, ‘Roxane Hanem is waiting for you in the library.’
In the library I saw Roxane wearing a black robe and standing near piles of papers with an old yellow book in her hand. It looked like she’d been reading from it. I immediately realized that those pages were the manuscripts I’d spent the last months poring o
