“We met when you gave me an aba. And again when the old sheik died. I suppose you were doing his death mask, or something.”

And then a disturbing thought disrupts the exchange of pleasantries. “Is that why you’re here?” I ask. “To do mine?”

“No,” he assures me, “that’s not why I’m here. Or why I was with the old sheik when he died. He was my older brother. I was there to smooth his bed of death.”

“And now you’ve come to smooth mine?”

“No,” he repeats, “let’s just say this is a social visit. But I don’t want to exhaust either your limited strength or your patience. Is there anything else you’d like?”

“Well,” I shrug, “I’d like to live, and…” I wave the rat skin, “this should help me do it.”

“To what end?” he asks. “To what end do you want to live?”

An insensibly pointless question. The goals of life are hardly worth pondering when your feet are in the fire and the flames are creeping up.

“I suppose I could list a number of reasons,” I say. “Let’s just say I prefer it to death. It’s a personal thing, not the least cosmic. My dying won’t affect the fate of nations or anything like that.”

“But your living might.” He steps toward me, a most persistent catechist. Those glistening blind eyes hold mine, and there is nothing consoling about them. “You are a gifted and rebellious youth,” he goes on. “Just how rebellious are you?”

“Not very.”

“Come now, young man. I heard you talking with my brother. I got the impression that you might have agreed with him.”

“About what?”

“About the encroachment of Western ideas, and keeping them out of Assama. However, I am not a man of power or persuasion. All I can do is offer you a proposition.”

“Whatever it is and however I feel, don’t you think it comes a bit late? I’ll be dead in a week or two.”

“Perhaps you won’t. You’ve remained alive so far, despite Abdul’s wish to have you killed an hour after your trial.”

“I thought Abdul’s word was law. He is your nephew?”

He nods. “There are some of us who oppose my nephew. We do not like his ways, and we have so far succeeded in putting off your execution.”

“But how…?”

“You have a good friend in Yussuf Chapouk.”

“The rat-catcher?”

He nods. “And your comrade in arms and a traditionalist.”

“He has more clout than the sheik?”

“He is adept at augurs and portents. The entrails of a special rat, a ring-tailed rat, foretold him of disaster if you were to die so soon.”

“And Abdul believed it?”

“No, but the people did. Abdul does not wish to oppose the will of the people. Not yet.”