Summary

Document No. 5 is blank, since Yehya has secured neither a permit nor a rejection. Tarek can no longer sleep, even with drugs. Instead, he stares at Yehya’s file and hopes for a result to appear. Sabah knows how obsessed Tarek is with Yehya’s case and blackmails him for more privileges. To Tarek, the blank box on the document is the Gate, “vast and vague” (140). He realizes that despite his loyalty and dutifulness, the Gate no more serves him than it does the injured rebels. Tarek finally sleeps by imagining the box widening to “swallow … and imprison him" (141).

In “Zephyr Hospital,” Amani checks in and proceeds to Zephyr’s Investigations and Instructions Desk. There, she impersonates Yehya’s cousin and asks for his file, claiming to have lost her authorization. The official becomes...