Mr. N leapt from his chair, knocking it back, then tripped over it and nearly fell on top of it. He felt as though his spinal cord had been cut. He wanted to ask how and why and whether she had been alone. But Mr. N’s mouth was dry, his tongue stiff as stone, and he was unable to move his lips, not even to utter a single syllable.

Sa’id went to the wardrobe and swung open its double doors. He took out the garment bag that Miss Zahra had brought in and threw it on Mr. N’s bed. Silently, efficiently, like an automaton, he opened the zipper and removed a jacket, followed by some pants, a white dress shirt, a black tie, and finally a leather belt. Setting everything to one side, he returned the hanger and the bag to the wardrobe. Then he took a pair of socks out of a drawer, and pulled a pair of black shoes with laces from underneath the bed. That done, he took off his own jacket and slung it over a chair. He reached over and opened the window because sweat had started running down his temples and his armpits. A sour odor filled the room, the kind that would invade the apartment whenever Sa’id came back dripping from one of his workouts, muscles gleaming with perspiration. Thurayya would hurry to dry him off with a towel, calling for Mary to drop whatever she was doing and draw a bath for him. Yes, Thurayya, Sa’id’s mother: she was the one who had died the day before yesterday, alone in the old folks’ home, without any friends or family around her.

Sa’id took in the sight of Mr. N frozen in the middle of the room, staring at the floor. Then Sa’id checked his watch. If he allowed his little brother to move at his own pace, they’d be late for the burial. He took charge and began dressing him, just as he used to do when N was a child—and Mr. N let him do it, just as he’d done when he was that child. Sa’id threaded one of Mr. N’s arms through a shirtsleeve, then he crossed behind his brother to do the other. Satisfied, he started on the buttons, moving from the top down.

When their father left them, so to speak, this was precisely how Sa’id had positioned himself to do up N’s necktie. N was nine, Sa’id sixteen. Thurayya had been too preoccupied with the ideal forms her own grief might take—what to wear, how to do her hair, and whether to put a black scarf over her head or not—to pay much attention to her boys. Her stylist, Isa, hurried to find her, as did her tailor, Angel, and many of her friends—those she felt she could trust with the news of her widowhood, and who she thought would behave well under the circumstances. N sat alone in his room, not wanting to see anyone. Mary kept looking in on him from time to time, afraid for him. She brought him water to drink and used some to wipe his face. “God protect you, my dear,” she said, concerned. “How could he not think about you … ” And then, with tears, she added, “What have you done, poor Doctor!”