The dictator's wife says, "My hair never grew back. I wore dead women's hair, made into wigs by dead wigmakers. I had closets full of dead people's shoes. I went and sat in my closets sometimes. I tried on shoes."

She says, "I used to think all the time about killing him. But it was difficult. There were children who sat at the table with us and tasted his food. Every night before I went to bed, his soldiers searched me. He slept in a bulletproof vest. He had a charm made for him by witches. I was young. I was afraid of him.

"I never slept alone with him – I thought for a long time that that was how a marriage was, a man and his wife in a room with a bodyguard to watch what they did. When the dictator fell asleep, the bodyguard stayed awake. He stood beside the bed to watch me. It used to make me feel safe. I didn't really want to be in a room alone with the dictator.

"I don't know why he killed people. He had bad dreams. A fortune-teller used to come to the dictator's house to explain his dreams to him. They would be alone for hours. Then I would go in, to tell her my dreams. He would stand just outside the room listening to my dreams. I could smell him standing there.

"I never dreamed about the dictator. I had the most wonderful dreams. I was married. My husband was kind and handsome. We lived in a little house. We fought about little things. What we would name our children. Whose turn it was to make dinner. Whether I was as beautiful as a movie star.

"Once we had an argument and I threw the kettle at him. I missed. I burned my hand. After that, whenever I was dreaming, I had a scar on my hand. A burn. In dreams my husband used to kiss it."

The dictator's wife says, "The fortune-teller never said anything when I told her my dreams. But she got skinnier and skinnier. I think it was a bad diet, the dictator's dreams and his wife's dreams, like eating stones.

"I dreamed I got fat from having children. Every night my dream was like the most wonderful story that I was telling to myself. I would fall asleep in the same bed as the dictator. The guard would be looking down at us, and all night I would dream about my house and my husband and my children.

"Here's the weird thing," the dictator's wife says. "In my dream, all our children were shoes. I only ever gave birth to shoes."

The visitor may agree that this is strange. In dreams the visitor's children are always younger than they really are. You can pick them up in one hand, all of them, like pebbles. In the rain, or in bathwater, they become transparent, only their outlines faintly visible.

"My life was weird," the dictator's wife says. "Why wouldn't my dreams be? But I loved those children. They were good children. They cried sometimes at night, just like real babies. Sometimes they cried so hard I woke up. I would wake up and not know where I was, until I looked up and saw the dictator's bodyguard looking back down at me. Then I could go back to sleep."

She says, "One night, the dictator had a dream. I don't know what. He tossed and turned all night. When he woke up, he had the fortune-teller brought to him. It was early in the morning. The sun wasn't up yet. I went and hid in my closets. He told the fortune-teller something. I don't know what. Then his soldiers came and got her and I could hear them dragging her away, down the stairs, out into the garden. They shot her, and in a little while I went out to the garden and pulled off her shoes. I was happy for her."

"I never asked him why he killed her or why he killed anybody. When we were married, I never asked him a question. I was like the fortune-teller. I never said anything unless he asked me a question. I never looked at his face. I used to stare at his shoes instead. I think he thought I was staring at his shoes because they weren't clean, or shiny enough. He would have them polished until I could see my face in them. He wore a size eight and a half. I tried his shoes on once but they pinched the sides of my feet. I have peasant's feet. His shoes were narrow as coffins."

Tears slide down the dictator's wife's face and she licks at them. She says, "I had a daughter. Did I tell you that? The night before she was born, the dictator had another dream. He woke up with a shout and grabbed my arm. He told me his dream. He said that he had dreamed that our child would grow up and that she would kill him."

She doesn't say anything for a while. Visitors may grow uncomfortable, look away at the rows of shoes in glass boxes. The bed and the dictator's wife are reflected in each pane of glass. The dictator's wife says, "When my daughter was born, they put her in a box. They threw the box in the harbor and the box sank. I never gave her a name. She never wore any shoes. She was bald just like me."

The dictator's wife is silent again. In the silence, the glass boxes seem to buzz faintly. There is a smell as if someone is standing nearby. All the people under the bed are listening. Far away, the other old woman is humming as she dusts the cases. At this point, the visitor asks, hesitantly, "So how did she grow up and kill the dictator?"

The dictator's wife says, "She was dead so she couldn't. One day the dictator was picking strawberries in his garden. He stepped on a piece of metal. It went right though his shoe. The dictator's foot got infected. He went to his bed, and he died there six days later."

The dictator's wife's voice gets scratchy and small. She yawns. "Nobody knew what to do. Some people thought I should be executed. Other people thought that I was a heroine. They wanted to elect me to office. I didn't want to be dead yet and I didn't want to stay there, so I packed up the shoes. I packed up every single shoe. I went to my aunt and she packed up Effie's things. Effie had gotten so tall! She was walking around outside without a hat on, as if sunlight wouldn't hurt her. We didn't recognize each other. We got on a ship and went as far away as we could. That was here. I had ninety-four steamer trunks and there wasn't anything in them but shoes."

The dictator's wife stops talking. She stares greedily at the visitor, as if the visitor is delicious. She looks as if she would like to eat the visitor up. She looks as if she would like to eat the visitor up in one bite, spit out the visitor's shoes like peach stones. The visitor can hear Effie coming down the aisle, but the dictator's wife doesn't say another word. She just lies there on the bed with her teeth out again, in the glass beside the bed.

Effie motions for the visitor to follow her. Each case has a name printed on a tiny card. You can't see over the top of the stacked cases, but you can see through them. Light has collected in the boxes and the glass is warm.

Effie says, "Here. These shoes belonged to a famous opera singer."

The opera singer's shoes have tall green heels. They have ivory buttons up the side. The visitor looks down at Effie's feet. She is wearing wooden sandals – Dr. Scholl's – with thick red leather buckles. Her toenails are red. They match the red buckles. When she sees the visitor looking, she bends over. She turns a small key in the side of the shoe. Red wheels pop out of the bottom of the Dr. Scholls. She turns the key in the other shoe, and then she straightens up. Now she's quite tall.

She rubs a glass case with the dusty dress one more time, and then raps it sharply. It rings like a bell. "Museum's closed now," she says to the visitor. "There's a three o'clock matinee with a happy ending. I want to see it." She skates off down the narrow glass aisle, balanced precariously on her splendid shoes.

4. Happy ending.

The man and the woman are holding hands. They are getting married soon. If you looked under the table, you'd see that they aren't wearing any shoes. Their shoes are up on the table instead. The fortune-teller says, "It's just luck that you found each other, you know. Most people aren't so lucky." She is staring at the shoes – a pair of old black boots, a pair of canvas tennis shoes – as if she has never seen such a splendid, such an amazing pair of shoes. No one has ever presented her with such a pair of shoes. That's what the look on her face says.