Therefore it became the practice to cut out the tongues of the girls three months before they were due to be sacrificed. This was not a mutilation, said the priests, but an improvement—what could be more fitting for the servants of the Goddess of Silence?

Thus, tongueless, and swollen with words she could never again pronounce, each girl would be led in procession to the sound of solemn music, wrapped in veils and garlanded with flowers, up the winding steps to the city’s ninth door. Nowadays you might say she looked like a pampered society bride.

She sits up. That’s really uncalled for, she says. You want to get at me. You just love the idea of killing off those poor girls in their bridal veils. I bet they were blondes.

Not at you, he says. Not as such. Anyway I’m not inventing all of this, it has a firm foundation in history. The Hittites…

I’m sure, but you’re licking your lips over it all the same. You’re vengeful—no, you’re jealous, though God knows why. I don’t care about the Hittites, and history and all of that—it’s just an excuse.

Hold on a minute. You agreed to the sacrificial virgins, you put them on the menu. I’m only following orders. What’s your objection—the wardrobe? Too much tulle?

Let’s not fight, she says. She feels she’s about to cry, clenches her hands to stop.

I didn’t mean to upset you. Come on now.

She pushes away his arm. You did mean to upset me. You like to know you can.

I thought it amused you. Listening to me perform. Juggling the adjectives. Playing the zany for you.

She tugs her skirt down, tucks in her blouse. Dead girls in bridal veils, why would that amuse me? With their tongues cut out. You must think I’m a brute.

I’ll take it back. I’ll change it. I’ll rewrite history for you. How’s that?

You can’t, she says. The word has gone forth. You can’t cancel half a line of it. I’m leaving. She’s on her knees now, ready to stand up.

There’s lots of time. Lie down. He takes hold of her wrist.

No. Let go. Look where the sun is. They’ll be coming back. I could be in trouble, though I guess for you it’s not trouble at all, that kind: it doesn’t count. You don’t care—all you want is a quick, a quick—

Come on, spit it out.

You know what I mean, she says in a tired voice.

It’s not true. I’m sorry. I’m the brute, I got carried away. Anyway it’s only a story.

She rests her forehead against her knees. After a minute she says, What am I going to do? After—when you’re not here any more?

You’ll get over it, he says. You’ll live. Here, I’ll brush you off.

It doesn’t come off, not with just brushing.

Let’s do up your buttons, he says. Don’t be sad.

This morning I woke with a feeling of dread. I was unable at first to place it, but then I remembered. Today was the day of the ceremony.

The sun was up, the room already too warm. Light filtered in through the net curtains, hanging suspended in the air, sediment in a pond. My head felt like a sack of pulp. Still in my nightgown, damp from some fright I’d pushed aside like foliage, I pulled myself up and out of my tangled bed, then forced myself through the usual dawn rituals—the ceremonies we perform to make ourselves look sane and acceptable to other people. The hair must be smoothed down after whatever apparitions have made it stand on end during the night, the expression of staring disbelief washed from the eyes. The teeth brushed, such as they are. God knows what bones I’d been gnawing in my sleep.

Then I stepped into the shower, holding on to the grip bar Myra’s bullied me into, careful not to drop the soap: I’m apprehensive of slipping. Still, the body must be hosed down, to get the smell of nocturnal darkness off the skin. I suspect myself of having an odour I myself can no longer detect—a stink of stale flesh and clouded, aging pee.

Dried, lotioned and powdered, sprayed like mildew, I was in some sense of the word restored. Only there was still the sensation of weightlessness, or rather of being about to step off a cliff. Each time I put a foot out I set it down provisionally, as if the floor might give way underneath me. Nothing but surface tension holding me in place.

Getting my clothes on helped. I am not at my best without scaffolding. (Yet what has become of my real clothes? Surely these shapeless pastels and orthopedic shoes belong on someone else. But they’re mine; worse, they suit me now.)

Next came the stairs. I have a horror of tumbling down them—of breaking my neck, lying sprawled with undergarments on display, then melting into a festering puddle before anyone thinks of coming to find me. It would be such an ungainly way to die. I tackled each step at a time, hugging the banister; then along the hall to the kitchen, the fingers of my left hand brushing the wall like a cat’s whiskers. (I can still see, mostly. I can still walk. Be thankful for small mercies, Reenie would say. Why should we be? said Laura. Why are they so small? )

I didn’t want any breakfast. I drank a glass of water, and passed the time in fidgeting. At half past nine Walter came by to collect me. “Hot enough for you?” he said, his standard opening. In winter it’s cold enough. Wet and dry are for spring and fall.

“How are you today, Walter?” I asked him, as I always do.

“Keeping out of mischief,” he said, as he always does.

“That’s the best that can be expected for any of us,” I said. He gave his version of a smile—a thin crack in his face, like mud drying—opened the car door for me, and installed me in the passenger seat. “Big day today, eh?” he said. “Buckle up, or I might get arrested.” He said buckle up as if it was a joke; he’s old enough to remember earlier, more carefree days. He’d have been the kind of youth to drive with one elbow out the window, a hand on his girlfriend’s knee. Astounding to reflect that this girlfriend was in fact Myra.