“We walk, Pamuk and I, to the street in Qissa Khawani where the publishers are. The printing businesses that once published books preaching jihad now print wedding cards and business brochures. We sit in a chaikhana to have Peshawari qahwa. The air in the street is filled with smoke and the aroma of barbecued meat. Across the street, an old man in a shop as ancient as him, is busy cleaning gemstones. One by one, he takes them out from behind the glass counter and blows on them, as one does to spectacles to clean them. He rubs them to a sparkle with a piece of cloth.”
