In Enigmate, Chapter VA

Prologue / Chapter I / Chapter II / Chapter IIIA / Chapter IIIB / Chapter IV

~ * ~

I wish I were on yonder hill;
’Tis there I’d sit and cry my fill,
’Til every tear would turn a mill.
Is go dtí tú mo mhuirnín slán.

‘I don’t like that song.’ Jenny’s voice came muffled and petulant from beneath her quilt. ‘It’s not happy enough.’

‘Which one do you want?’ Susan asked patiently, swinging a little in her hammock. The candle flickered near her feet.

‘Love and Freedom.’

‘I’m tired of that.’

‘I’m tired of Siúil a Rúin.’

‘I’m singing, so I get to choose the song.’

‘But I’m listening, and I don’t want to listen to Siúil a Rúin.’

‘How about Scarborough Fair, then?’

‘No. I want Love and Freedom.’

‘I’m not going to sing Love and Freedom.’

‘You never sing what I want.’

‘That’s not true. I sang Love and Freedom Saturday night, and Friday night.’

‘You didn’t sing it last night, though. You just sang hymns.’

‘That’s because it was Sunday.’

‘But it’s Monday now.’

‘Girls!’ Molly entered in her nightgown. ‘If Susan has finished singing, both of you ought to be in bed.’

‘We are in bed,’ Susan said, ‘but she’s not happy with my songs.’

‘She won’t sing anything that I like,’ Jenny complained.

‘Don’t you both like Love and Freedom?’ Molly asked.

‘I’m sick of it,’ Susan said, at the same time that Jenny whined, ‘She won’t sing it!’

With a sharp glance to Susan, Molly said very pleasantly, ‘I know that you’d rather not, Susan, sweet, but can’t you please sing it for your sister, just once?’

‘No.’

‘If she sings Siúil a Rúin, I’m going to hide my head under my pillow,’ Jenny declared.

Molly shook her head. ‘It’s past Jenny’s bedtime, and your father wants the light, so you both may as well be quiet now.’ She kissed Jenny and took the candle from Susan’s shelf. ‘Good night, girls. Sleep well.’ The faint glow followed her into the kitchen and vanished as the door shut.

Susan lay down, still swinging, and singing in her mind. And now my love has gone—

‘Su?’ Jenny whispered. ‘What comes after dimitte nobis?’

‘Debita nostra.’

‘And then sicut et nos?’

‘Yes.’ She ran her fingers along the knots of rope.

If he e’er comes back, ’tis but a chance,
Is go dtí tú mo mhuirnín slán.

‘Su?’ Jenny whispered again. ‘I’m sorry I was mad at you. I just don’t like that song.’

‘It’s all right,’ Susan said softly. ‘I’ll sing you Love and Freedom another day.’

‘Hurray!’

‘Hush,’ Susan whispered. ‘Molly will scold us if she hears you.’

‘Su, Molly said that I shouldn’t talk to you about Qian Ang.’

‘It’s all right. It’s just that—well, we argued, and I don’t want to think about it. Don’t worry about us, though. I really don’t—’ She stopped as the door opened; Molly came in and lay down on the bed beneath Jenny’s.

‘I love you, Molly,’ Jenny whispered.

‘I love you, too, Jenny,’ Molly whispered back.

Susan waited about a quarter of an hour, and then she got up silently, wrapping a quilt around her, and went on tip-toe to the kitchen.

Her father looked up from his ream of proofs and ran his fingers through his wild, orange hair. ‘A little mouse has come to get warm by the stove,’ he said quietly.

‘Yes,’ Susan said with a smile. She sat down beside him, where the heat ran through her quilt. ‘I can’t sleep.’

‘You aren’t thinking too much, are you?’

‘Maybe.’ She traced a whorl of the rug. ‘You’ve heard about Qian Ang? He was a friend of—’

‘Yes; I’ve met him.’

‘When?’ she asked, looking up in surprise.

‘Last week, but you were asleep, I think; and also several years ago.’

‘What do you think of him?’

‘From what I can tell, he’s quite a nice young man.’ He paused. ‘Molly seems to think that there’s something between the two of you.’

‘It’s not what she thinks.’

‘Do you want to explain it?’

Susan shrugged. ‘What did she tell you? Honestly.’

‘She thinks that you’re taken with him, but that you’re afraid he dislikes you because you feel imperfect.’

‘I don’t feel imperfect: I am imperfect. He’d been so patient and kind, and I never so much as thanked him.’

‘You were very ill, Susan, and he knew it. I doubt that he expected you to think of it.’ He paused. ‘Something more?’ he added, with a sharper look over his glasses.

Susan bit her lip. ‘On Friday, when Molly and Jenny had gone to get the rice, he came to ask me something, which is a long story that I’ll skip, since I never did find out exactly what he’d wanted to ask, and he happened to repeat something thoughtless I’d said when we’d first met—well, to be honest, I’d said, “Since when has a soldier of Anguo had any honour?” which I really shouldn’t have said—and on Friday, he mentioned it, only teasing, I think, but I was angry and said that my opinion hadn’t changed, which also I shouldn’t have said, and then he was angry as well, but a cold sort of angry, and thoroughly disgusted with me, apparently expecting me to sell him for thirty pieces of charcoal if ever I have the chance, and when we’d argued for a bit, which was really my fault, he left.’ Her shoulders slumped. ‘Does this even make sense? I don’t know.’

‘Yes, it does.’ Her father crumpled a sheet of paper and threw it into the open stove. The fire leapt up around it, and it fell into a cloud of ash. ‘Anything more?’

‘No.’

‘Do you want to talk more about it?’

‘Not unless you do.’

‘I might.’

‘Are you angry with me?’

‘Not angry, no.’

‘Upset?’

‘No. If anything, disappointed, maybe, that you’ve waited so long to tell me: it’s already Monday.’

‘I had to think about it,’ Susan said vaguely.

‘Would you have told your mother right away?’

‘Yes, of course.’

‘Good.’ He nodded. ‘Do you want my advice?’

‘Yes sir.’

‘If he comes again—which I have good reason to suspect will happen eventually, seeing that his copy of Hamlet is still sitting on our counter—then return the book, apologise simply, and leave it at that. Otherwise, forget the quarrel. In either case, don’t fret about his opinion of you. You already said that he’s nothing to you.’

‘I did?’ Susan asked, blushing deeply.

‘Didn’t you?’

‘Not in those words, but you’re right: I oughtn’t to care about what he thinks, if I have no feelings for him.’ She rose, gathering up her quilt. ‘Thanks.’

‘You are most welcome. Sleep well, Susan.’

‘Good night.’ Susan slipped back to her dark hammock, repeating her words in her mind: I oughtn’t to care about what he thinks, if I have no feelings for him. If.

When she woke, a faint pale line showed beneath the heavy drapes over the windows; Jenny and Molly were asleep in their bunks, but her father’s bed was neatly made. She dressed and crept out to the empty kitchen, silent except for the hissing fire. Above an opaque space of snow, the window showed a soft, unbroken blue.

She found a scrap of paper, wrote a hasty note, and left it in plain sight on the counter: Going for a walk. Susan. Then she went out into the icy morning, with Hamlet beneath her shawl.

In little more than an hour, she reached the last hill outside the town of Braidedge and paused, with the risen sun on her right hand and the tireless wind through her wet skirts. In the valley, between the muddy roads, heavy brick buildings and paintless houses sent up feathers of black smoke against the white glare of snow. She ran a numb finger along the edge of the book, chiding herself: Frailty, thy name is woman. She was answerable for no one but herself; she had nothing else to lose.

She kicked at the gravel of the road and slogged on down the hill. Soon she was level with the steeple of the largest building and its spire broken off just before the point; and then as it grew, it reached higher than she. Its concrete walls rose bloodstained from a sea of snow and grime and red mud. In the arch of the open doorway, a few men in camouflage slouched beneath grey smoke-clouds that hovered about their heads; they looked up at her with eyes watching like fishhooks.

Steeling herself, she walked to the lowest step and stopped with eyes cold and level with those of the nearest. ‘Look at that,’ he said, more loudly than needful for his companions’ hearing. ‘What does she want.’ It was not a question.

‘I am looking for Li Qian Ang,’ she said sharply. ‘Do you know whether he lives here?’

‘You his girlfriend?’

‘Most certainly not.’

‘Well, maybe I don’t know him anyway.’ He grinned at her, but she did not move. ‘What d’you want him for? Run off without paying you last night?’

‘He lent me Hamlet—a book—and I’ve come to return it.’

‘Oh, Hamlet, is it? Sure I’ve read it. Old blind Homer, hm?’

‘Shakespeare,’ one of the others said seriously. ‘You know, the one, Wherefore art thou Romeo.’

‘Yes, Shakespeare,’ she said icily. ‘Can you please tell me where Li Qian Ang is?’

‘Well, sweetheart, that’s it. I don’t know wherefore art your Romeo is.’ He dropped his cigarette and, getting to his feet, stepped on it. Above his head, the arch was smeared with mud, except for the carven letters FIRST METH. ‘I won’t kid you: you’re not gorgeous, but you’re pretty high. I like girls with guts, and you’ve got a lot of that. I’ll give you fifty dollars cash if you—’

‘I would die first,’ she broke in, making every word fiercely crisp. ‘And if none of you can answer me, I am leaving immediately.’

‘It’s Chelsea,’ the second one said. ‘You know, skinny Chinese kid, glasses, crazy about football and weird old books. Used to have that redhead friend, probably the girl’s brother or something.—That sound right?’ he added, looking at Susan.

‘Yes.’

‘They’re playing on the east side.’ He nodded toward her right.

‘Thank you.’ As she turned, the first started down the steps, and she added pointedly, ‘I think that I can find my own way, thank you.’

‘Let her alone, Yasser,’ someone said. ‘She looks like the type to murder you in your sleep.’

Gathering her skirts carefully, so as to avoid both the grimy snow and any semblance of coyness, she walked around the corner of the building. The sun fell orange and warm on the ground and the wall. In a wide basin of mud, some two dozen young men were playing football, half of them shirtless; a corresponding number of shirts lay crumpled by the wall, as well as a worn blue jacket and a pair of glasses on it. It would be easy, she thought, to leave the book with them and disappear; but she sat down on the wide sill of a boarded window to wait.

She knew very little about football except that each team was trying to kick the ball into the other team’s goal, which seemed to be marked out by long sticks set upright in the ground; and she could not tell at first which was Qian Ang.

‘Cross it, cross it!’ someone shouted, ‘You’re not Brazilian!’ and the one who had been running with the ball, apparently a member of the shirted team, kicked it in a high arc across the field. A shirtless player somehow flipped fully upside-down to kick it in the opposite direction and then landed on his hands, sliding face-first into the mud. He got up laughing.

‘Which team are you on now, Chelsea?’

‘It’s not a shirt, it’s war paint!’ he answered, and she knew his clean accent: it was Qian Ang.

Someone else appeared around the corner, calling, ‘Quarter to nine!’ and the game promptly ended, with the skinned team hurrying to collect their shirts and follow the others to the front of the building. Susan held her breath for a moment; but as no one seemed to see her, she quickly resumed normal breathing.

Qian Ang dove into a patch of clean snow and rolled through it several times, and then ran after his team; all but one were already vanishing around the corner.

‘Chelsea, that was great!’

‘The landing failed; but thanks.’ He laughed and pulled his shirt over his head. ‘We were, what, one point away?’

‘Nine to nine, ja. We’ll get them next time.’

As they started to leave, Susan dropped to the ground. Qian Ang glanced over his shoulder; then, stopping, he put on his glasses and met her eyes. Any smile was gone. ‘Just a minute, forgot something,’ he called. ‘I’ll be right there.’ When the other was gone, he ran back to her. ‘Susan, you oughtn’t to be here.’

‘You forgot your book,’ she said mildly, holding it out.

‘Thank you; that’s very careful of you.’ He took it and turned to go.

‘One moment, please,’ she said, running to keep up with his long steps. ‘What I really—’

‘I’m sorry; I don’t have time to stand and talk,’ he answered without pausing. ‘Nor to bring you home, though doubtless you much prefer this anyway. I hope that you are well and will return safely.’

Susan said nothing but quietly followed him through the deserted doorway. Through another door, a large room with a tee-shaped window was lined with long tables and benches; but before she had half seen it, he turned down a dark, narrow stairway, and she hurried after him. The air was warm and bitter with sweat.

They entered another room larger than the one above it; in the green glow of florescent tubes, eight straight rows of old matresses and beds of assorted kinds stretched completely across it. A large number of men were spread throughout the room doing various things, but she had hardly glanced at them when the lights flickered and at once went out. Except for a few scattered curses and interjections that she did not recognise, it was quiet.

Susan felt suddenly cold. ‘Qian Ang,’ she said aloud, but not very loudly.

‘Susan, you’re still here?’

‘Yes.’

‘What on earth are you thinking?’ His voice grew slowly nearer, and more sarcastic. ‘Following the snake into its hole of dishonourable knaves?’

‘I didn’t mean it,’ she said evenly, ‘when I said that my opinion hadn’t changed; I was angry, and not thinking. And you were right that I ought to have thanked you, but I—it was my own pride; it wasn’t anything that you’d done, honestly—I suppose I hated you, and I don’t blame you if you hate me, too. Only, I wanted to say that I am grateful for what you’ve done, and sorry for the way I’ve treated you; and I wanted to ask if you’d forgive me.’

As she spoke, the sound of feet and voices faded altogether and her final words fell in silence. The dark space seemed vast and ravenous. ‘Qian Ang,’ she said again, and her voice shook with more fear than she had admitted to herself. She stretched out a blind hand and hit his arm. ‘Sorry.’

‘Yes,’ he said quietly, taking her hand, ‘yes, I forgive you.’ In the next silence, his thumb ran thoughtfully over her folded fingers. ‘And I also must ask your forgiveness.’

‘Of course I—’

‘No, let me say it all. I—I spoke cruelly, and harshly, and I acted out of anger, and I—before this, I was unwilling to forgive you. I was wrong. Please forgive me.’

‘I’ve already forgiven you.’

His hand tightened. ‘Let’s find some light, shall we? Everything will be in chaos for the next hour at least; they lose in time what they save in the cost of proper wiring. Could we talk for a bit?’

‘As you wish,’ she said, and her pulse felt suddenly lighter. She bit her lip; this nervous warmth was no less a weakness than tears.

‘The stairs are right here. Will it be too cold for you outdoors?’

‘No. Thank you for asking, though.’

He laughed, and she felt suddenly very happy. As they ascended the stairs, the darkness thinned. ‘We’re going another way,’ he whispered. ‘Try to be quiet.’

They slipped down a hallway toward a speck of light at the end. A cold draught met them: an open window, she guessed, and saw as they came nearer. The red earth lay four metres below it. ‘Think you can make it?’ he asked. ‘I’ll catch you.’

‘Yes.’ She smiled.

He slipped over the edge and landed softly on his. ‘Your turn,’ he called up quietly.

Susan sat down on the sill beneath the pointed arch, straightening her skirts. ‘What am I supposed to do?’

‘Close your eyes and slide off.’

Taking a deep breath, she closed her eyes and pushed herself off the sill. She was hardly frightened before his arms broke her fall and set her on her feet.

‘You all right?’

‘Yes. Thank you. And—you’re quite good at that. Catching, I mean.’ Her face felt hot.

He shrugged. ‘I used to play the craziest games with my sister. There’s an old cellar southeast of here; the house is long gone, but it’s a good hiding place.’ He pointed toward one of the surrounding hills, this one mostly covered with trees. ‘

‘Why are we hiding?’

‘I’m not supposed to leave without permission during the week. I’ll be all right, though; I’ll just be sure not to get caught on the way back. Also, I don’t want anyone to overhear us. Did you mean what you said on Friday about the letter?’

‘What did I say?’

‘If I recall correctly, it was, If you expect me to risk my life for your own secrets, you’re mistaken.’

‘That.’ She coloured deeply. ‘No, I didn’t mean that either.’

‘I thought as much.’ They walked in silence down winding alleys until the close-set houses cut off at the foot of a hill. An iron gate crossed the path into the trees, but he lifted her over it and climbed over himself. ‘I ought to tell you what was written in the letter,’ he said at last.

‘You needn’t, if you’d rather not. I don’t blame you for not trusting me. I’ve been a—well, I’ve been pretty awful.’

‘You haven’t. It wasn’t true; I really have plenty of reasons to trust you. And I don’t blame you for hating me. The stupid things I say make even me hate myself, sometimes.’

‘I hated you before our quarrel,’ she said quietly.

‘Why?—and you needn’t blush. I only wondered.’

Susan pressed one hand to her burning face. ‘I don’t know; it doesn’t really make sense. I think that I was trying to—trying to direct my hatred of myself to someone else.’

‘Please don’t hate yourself.’

‘I wish that I were more of a stoic.’

‘Aren’t you?’

‘You saw me cry.’

‘Susan, that’s just ridiculous. You were quite ill. You’re one of the two bravest girls I know.’

‘Thanks.’ The heat that had just been fading rushed back into her face. ‘I’m still not much of a stoic.’

‘Better that way. Feeling pain is the price of being able to feel at all: a high price, maybe, but I think that it’s worth it.’ He paused for her to catch up a few steps. ‘Please don’t try to stop feeling things.’

‘All right,’ she said halfheartedly.

They had come nearly to the crown of the hill, and in the sloped side was dug out a square cellar with mossy stone walls, full of leaves. Qian Ang stepped down into it—it came to his knees on the near side, and over his head on the far—and gave her a hand as she followed. ‘Welcome to my cathedral,’ he said. ‘It’s a nice place to think and pray.’ He lay down on the leaves with his hands folded beneath his neck. ‘The letter.’

‘Yes.’ She sat down, carefully spreading her skirts over her bent knees.

‘It was asking whether you would deliver a message for me.’

‘Why—?’ She checked herself. ‘Of course, if you’ll give me the address.’

‘That’s the problem.’

‘You don’t know it.’

‘Yes and no; but that’s not the problem. The problem is that I’m not allowed to reveal it.’

‘If it’s such a secret, wouldn’t you rather deliver it yourself?’

‘No,’ he said firmly. ‘It’s—I can’t get around telling you the truth—it’s a conspiracy.’

She nearly laughed until she saw his anxious face. ‘You’re not teasing me?’

‘Not at all. And if you were to repeat one word of what I tell you, I could very well be dead within a week. It’s no more a game than this is a free state.’

‘I’ll keep a secret.’

‘I know.’ He was quiet for a moment. ‘I need to send another conspirator a simple weekly message, one of four variables; but we need someone between me and this other person, a fuse, as it were.’

‘I’m not quite sure what you mean.’

‘You know how all the lights suddenly went out this morning? That’s the fuse. I don’t know a whole lot about how it works, but if there’s some kind of hazard with the electric wires, the fuse breaks and everything quits. I’m afraid that it’s rather a complex metaphor. Anyway, the wire of communication, if you will, breaks at this in-between person. Does that make any sense?’

Susan hesitated. ‘I don’t think so. I’m sorry.’

‘Don’t be sorry. It’s my fault. How do you think that I should explain it?’

‘I think that you’re about to ask me to be this in-between person,’ Susan said slowly, ‘but you’re going too cautiously. Tell me what you want me to do.’

‘Brava.’ He smiled. ‘If you agree to it, I’ll give you a number every week, and you’ll leave a corresponding signal where the other person will see it. You’ll do it blindly: never meeting this other person and never knowing what the numbers or signals mean. Because of this, no one will be able to trace the messages past you, or likely, even to you.’

‘What sort of signal?’

‘I don’t know that. I was thinking perhaps candles in the window, but that would be too obvious to your family, and I doubt that one could count candles from the road.’

‘We can’t waste candles that way,’ she said briskly, and added, ‘Would this person have to come at night?’

‘Not necessarily.’

Susan ran a hand over her green headscarf, thinking. ‘I could hang one of these on the clothesline. I have five or six different colours.’

‘Do you normally hang them out?’

‘Yes, when I wash them, though then there are several at once. It can be the one at the far end, by the oak tree. No one will suspect anything.’

‘What colours do you have?’

She counted them off on her fingers: ‘Brown, green, pink, blue, purple. Brown and purple are rather alike, though, so we’d best not use brown. Which colour is for each number?’

Qian Ang shrugged. ‘It needn’t be a number, I suppose. It could be a word.’

‘Or a shape? Then if I’m not at home, you can leave it in a note for me.’

‘A shape is too obvious.’

‘Something like a flower or a star isn’t.’

‘This is true. Green would be a leaf, of course, and pink, maybe a heart.’

‘Blue, a star. That leaves purple, a flower.’ She paused. ‘We’re getting ahead of ourselves. I haven’t agreed yet.’

‘I know.’

‘If I won’t do it, will you have to kill me?’ she asked boldly.

‘Of course not. And no one else—besides the two of us—will know that you’re a part of the conspiracy.

‘What is this conspiracy doing, anyway?’

‘I’m not sure that I can say.’

‘Is your conspiracy doing anything that’s—that’s not right?’

‘I doubt it, but define “right”.’

She hesitated. ‘The general standard of justice that most decent people understand.’

‘That would be God, if you believe in Him,’ Qian Ang said dryly.

‘I believe in you,’ she said impulsively and then coloured deeply.

‘But not in God?’

‘I used to. I don’t know anymore.’

‘I see. In any case, we’re doing nothing of which He wouldn’t approve.’ He paused, looking sidelong at her. ‘All right, all right. It’s not fair of me to ask you to do something without telling you what it is. Mainly, we’re getting people to India.’

‘But isn’t India at war with us?’

‘Us?’

‘Anguo. Isn’t India at war with Anguo?’

‘Yes, but we’re not Anguo. We’re hardly even citizens of Anguo—we’re slaves, captives. Case in point: The Braidedge clinic is the only one in fifty kilometres. Can you imagine how many people die because they can’t get help soon enough? And the knaves who run this blasted state won’t build another, under the pretence of raising money for war. How much of their taxes, I wonder, really goes toward the war? They haven’t paid us yet. They’re sucking the life from us, they’re killing us piecemeal, they’re—but I really needn’t give an entire oration.’

‘Is India any different?’ she asked cautiously.

He sighed. ‘Look, you didn’t believe everything that they told you in primary school, did you? About the alliance with Bangladesh, and the assassination of Anguo’s P.M.?’

Susan flexed her hands, watching the tendons contract. ‘Not quite everything—’

‘You did, didn’t you. Well, it was a forced alliance, an invasion, if you will. The P.M. came to Dhaka after Anguo had taken over, and India killed him then, trying to stop it all.’

‘I thought that India hated Bangladesh.’

‘Their relations are tenuous at times, but against Anguo, they’re united.’

‘Then it is true, that they abuse prisoners of war?’

Qian Ang sighed again. ‘Not at all. They treated Will better than Anguo would have. But you knew that.’

Susan stiffened. ‘No, I didn’t,’ she said more quietly. ‘He was in India?’ She pressed her hands together until her knuckles were red and white, but her fingers still trembled. Her voice became suddenly fierce. ‘Tell me everything you know.’

‘Susan.’ He got up and knelt beside her, and his hands closed around hers. ‘Get a hold of yourself. It’s all right.’

‘Tell me,’ she whispered.

‘I don’t know much.’

‘He’s a prisoner of war? Why haven’t we heard?’

‘I don’t know. I’m sorry; I didn’t mean to frighten you. I thought that you knew.’

‘I didn’t know anything.’ She took a deep breath. ‘I’m fine. Just tell me.’

‘He was hurt pretty badly, about a year ago, and Anguo left him for dead, but India took care of him. No, no, not killed him. That’s not what I meant.’ She was shaking now, and he set his hands on her shoulders. ‘Get a hold of yourself. It’s all right now. They—cared for him, I mean. Last I heard, about six months ago, he was doing quite well. He’d had seven or eight surgeries and a lot of physical therapy.’

‘You aren’t just saying that to—?’

‘I wouldn’t lie to you. Listen—’

She jumped to her feet and went to the edge of the cellar, looking out through the grey trees. He followed her. ‘I’m sorry, Susan, I didn’t mean to frighten you. I thought that you knew.’

‘I didn’t know anything.’

‘I’m sorry.’ He paused. ‘If you want to go home, I’ll come with you.’

‘I can find my way,’ she said without moving.

‘Really, I don’t mind. And I haven’t met your mother yet.’

Susan traced the lines of her palm. ‘She—there was something wrong with her heart,’ she said quietly. ‘I didn’t quite understand it. She had surgery down in Easthill last winter, but it didn’t help.’

‘I’m sorry,’ he said again, and under his breath, ‘He didn’t say anything.’ He sat down on the stone edge of the cellar. ‘Have you cried about that yet?’

‘No.’

‘You can, if you want. I don’t mind, and no one else can hear.’

‘I don’t want to start.’

They stayed in still silence for a long time; then, softly, he began to sing:

I wish I were on yonder hill;
’Tis there I’d sit and cry my fill,
’Til every tear would turn a mill.
Is go dtí tú mo mhuirnín slán.

‘I like that song,’ Susan said.

‘So do I.’ He sighed and shook his head.

A black bird flew between the trees. Susan took a step back, kicking at the leaves. ‘Slán,’ she whispered.

Qian Ang got to his feet. ‘Let’s go,’ he said.

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