...a deathly serenade...

described in a clinical manner, rather than
finding cliche ś. G sat, after a few minutes he
began to stroke his beard, whilst still chewing
some tobacco. He was in the armchair and Lucia
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA
and Ahmed were on the couch, with her doting, I
was sat closest to the door in another chair.
Mustapha had been sent away by Lucia a few
hours earlier and she had intended to make
amends for sibling disagreements they seemed to
have maintained for a time. G then started to
speak in a laconic voice that I instantly
considered hypnotizing: rhythmic and quite loud
also, as if the same voice for the call for prayers
was now closer. He was reading a passage of the
Quran. And even I was quite enraptured; there
was something about G, I considered the detail in
the way he spoke as rather specific, he
pronounced each word slowly and only looked up
at Lucia and Ahmed once or twice, just as he
begun. I think, at the time, that it would create a
scene if, for example, a glass smashed, but I deny
the thought for the look on Lucia’s face. This is
the first time I had seen such sincerity in the way
she was behaving. I was shocked that she didn’t
dismiss such a reading as unnecessary, but then
again, she too often prays, perhaps not five times
a day, but on many occasions I assumed she did, I
considered. When the room was quiet Ahmed
turned to Lucia and started to talk about the
negative consequences of what can only be
referred to as secularism. She did not chastise
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