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The gifts and rituals of love were practically over. No longer did anyone come knocking to offer their perfume or wait at home to receive the perfume of others. The traders in aromatic plants had started to shut up shop for the usual end-of-season holiday. It was a relatively chilly final Saturday in November when Mikhail Rajaee came to visit me.
There was nothing odd or unusual about his visiting. Quite the opposite – his not doing so would have been stranger, for he came frequently on his horse Abar, which he had been given by the state as a perk of his job. In pursuit of taxes, he rode him all over Sur and its surroundings, as far as the wadis and mountains.
Usually, he asked me about things to do with our approaching wedding or our future children, Maria and Jamari. He might p
