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188 Doc­ u­ ments III My ­ father im­ me­ di­ ately con­ tacted the ­ archives about his great dis­ cov­ ery. He asked them to in­ form his fam­ ily that he would re­ main an­ other day on the road. The ­ courier from the ­ archives who ­ should have ­ called had a drink some­ where en route and did not get to our house until the next day, after my older ­ brother had al­ ready gone to find out what had hap­ pened to our ­ father. My ­ father was im­ me­ di­ ately given the ­ go-ahead by the high­ est au­ thor­ ity to re­ view the doc­ u­ ments and have them trans­ ferred to the Na­ tional ­ Archives. It was not easy for him to con­ vince the imam to trans­ fer the doc­ u­ ments to an­ other place after they had re­ mained so many cen­ tu­ ries in that holy place. My ­ father ­ clearly ex­ plained to him that these doc­ u­ ments were ad­ min­ is­ tra­ tive court doc­ u­ ments that some­ how or other had ended up in the ­ mosque. The imam, who also knew Ar­ a­ bic ­ script from the Koran, now as­ sured that these were not holy books, al­ lowed my ­ father, after three hun­ dred prom­ ises not to dis­ pose of the books, to take them and in­ form the imam of their fu­ ture fate. My­ father ­ agreed, and they ­ parted as ­ friends. My ­ mother, car­ ried away by the day’s ­ events, for­ got her many press­ ing wor­ ries and, per­ haps for the first time, did not no­ tice when my­ father ar­ rived home with his travel­ ing bag. He was tired from not hav­ ing slept the night be­ fore, but in his face there was a new ex­ pres­ sion, one that none of us in the house had ever seen. Maybe he had worn such an ex­ pres­ sion once or twice a year, when we chil­ dren ­ brought our re­ port cards home with ex­ cel­ lent ­ grades at the end of the ­ school year or when my ­ mother ­ brought him a book he had long been seek­ ing. But, to all of us, it was clear as day that some­ thing sig­ nif­i­ cant had hap­ pened to him that would mark the re­ main­ der of his life. It was clear that he had found an exit from the lab­ y­ rinth of man­ u­ scripts that led out into life. 189 189 When he had re­ gained his ­ strength and the fam­ ily had re­ turned to its daily rit­ u­ als, my ­ father got to work on the pile of archi­ val doc­ u­ ments from the ­ mosque. Time truly re­ sided in them. ...

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