In Enigmate, chapter VIIIA

Prologue / Chapter I / II / IIIA / IIIB / IV / VA / VB / VIA / VIB / VII

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‘Su, look, there’s a dragon!’

‘No, there isn’t.’

‘It’s a baby dragon: its wings aren’t grown yet. It’s grey. Are dragons usually grey?’

Susan stopped and turned around. Jenny sat crouched like a cat at the edge of the road, peering intently into the grass; her shawl trailed in the gravel behind her. She sighed. ‘Jenny, dragons don’t exist. Come on.’

Jenny squealed and jumped. ‘It went le le le with its tongue! I wonder if it can breathe fire yet.’

‘Jenny, you’re getting your shawl all dusty.’ She supposed that she would have to wash laundry soon; and Jenny was too small to help her. ‘We have to go now.’

‘Molly used to look at animals with me.’

‘Later you can draw Molly a picture of your dragon. But you’re not too big to be spanked. Get up and come now.’

Jenny jumped up and followed, still dragging her shawl. ‘What’s for dinner?’

‘Rice and beans and cabbage, if you stop lagging and we get to the ration office in time. Otherwise, baby spinach from the garden.’ If the rabbits had not eaten it, she thought.

‘Can I ride in the waggon?’

‘May I.’

‘May I ride in the waggon?’

‘No, you may not.’

‘Why not?’

‘You’re too heavy.’

‘No, I’m not. Molly used to pull me in the waggon on the way down.’

‘If you want to ride in the waggon, you have to pull it yourself.’ As she had hoped, Jenny had no answer for this. The waggon rattled bumpily behind her, and she kicked at the gravel as she meditated on her agenda: Cook dinner. Wash up after dinner. Wash laundry. Weed the garden. Split wood. Her father had asked her to write a letter to Molly before he went to Easthill the next morning. The windows were starting to look grimy, and Jenny was outgrowing all her skirts. ‘Why does everything have to happen all at once?’ she wondered aloud.

‘I can’t do that,’ Jenny said.

‘Do what?’

‘I can’t ride in the waggon and pull it. It’s not going to work.’

‘Then you’ll just have to walk.’

‘I don’t like to walk. I’m going to skip! O, look, there’s a butterfly! It’s flying, Su!’ Jenny ran down the road after the speck of rainbow. With another sigh, Susan picked up her dirt-smudged shawl and tossed it into the waggon; she wanted to be cheerful, but it was too much work.

When they reached the ration office, the queue was already overflowing into the main road; she could just see the roof of the building from her place at the end. She sat down on the edge of the waggon to wait, while Jenny ran off to join other children in a mud-puddle. At least, Susan thought, she could not get much more dirty than she was already. Several soldiers walked past. Susan wondered how much soap was left. There was at least one whole bar of soap, the kind that was not much good for laundry.

‘Susan.’

Susan looked up in surprise; it was Qian Ang, for once without his blue jacket. Behind him, a girl about his age, though not so tall as he, rested an elbow up on his shoulder. ‘Hi,’ Susan said. ‘I didn’t see you, at first, without your jacket.’

‘It’s getting too warm for that,’ he said. ‘How are you?’

‘Well, thanks. You?’ She had been about to answer, stressed, but somehow she wanted to be nothing but well before that girl. She looked questioningly at the girl, who smiled warmly as if she recognised Susan, but Susan did not smile.

‘Fairly well,’ Qian Ang said. ‘I heard about your grandmother: I hope that she gets better soon.’

‘Thanks,’ Susan said automatically.

‘Maybe you don’t remember me,’ the girl said, and now her smile was more amused. ‘I’m Hazel. I’m a security guard—like Qian Ang—in the HQ. We met in February during a search, and you had a love note in your—’

‘I remember now,’ Susan said.

‘Don’t feel bad about forgetting. I probably would have forgotten, too, but Qian Ang’s told me a lot about you.’

Qian Ang smiled sheepishly, and Susan said nothing.

‘And I’m sorry, too, about your grandmother. How’s the housekeeping? Is your sister a handful?’

‘O, it’s—’ Susan shrugged. ‘Jenny’s in the mud right now.’

‘It’s a few days late, maybe, but I made—’

A small mud-gnome shaped remarkably like Jenny ran up with shrieks of delight. ‘Qian Ang! Qian Ang!’

‘Princess Genevieve!’ Qian Ang picked her up, mud and all, and swung her around in the air as she continued her strobe-like noises. ‘All right, quieter, please.’ He set her down and turned her toward Hazel. ‘Jenny, this is Hazel.’

‘Hi, Jenny!’ Hazel said with excitement. ‘It’s nice to meet you. Qian Ang’s told me that you like to draw.’

‘Yes, and I’ll draw you, if you want me to.’

‘I’d like that a lot. I was starting to tell Susan that I was cooking today and I made some soup and bread for you, to give her a break from cooking.’

‘I don’t need—’ Susan began.

‘Bread!’ Jenny imitated a mud-covered rubber ball. ‘Mama used to make bread, lots, and Molly, sometimes, but Susan can’t. And I really like bread.’ She smiled, showing three gaps in her teeth. ‘What kind of soup?’

‘Just plain chicken soup.’

‘Is it have chicken meat?’

‘Yes, that’s why it’s called chicken soup.’

‘Susan said there weren’t any chickens in the world.’

‘I didn’t—’ Susan began.

‘Sometimes they’re hard to get,’ Hazel said.

‘Do they run fast?’

‘The chickens? I guess so, but I didn’t have to catch this one. It was already dead.’

Jenny wilted. ‘It died?’

‘It had to die, so we can eat it.’

‘Did it go to heaven?’

Hazel thought for a moment. ‘If God lets chickens go to heaven, then it did.’

‘I bet it did,’ Jenny said. ‘I bet it’s telling Mama that I’m trying to be a good girl, and this morning Susan tripped on the broom and she breaked a plate and she told me to go outside and she was really mad and—’

‘I wasn’t—’

‘—and I found a huge beetle and I put it in a jar and I named it Alexander the Small and I wanted to put it in the closet to scare her but I was trying to be good so I didn’t.’

Susan wanted very much to point out that Jenny had left the broom on the floor in the first place; and she also wanted to ask whether it was the jar that Jenny had broken that afternoon, and whether Alexander the Small had been in it at the time, and whether a large beetle was now at large in their house; but she sensed that it might be beneath any dignity remaining to her to defend herself.

‘I’m glad,’ Hazel said, ‘but don’t you think that part of being good is not making too much work for your sister?’

‘I help a lot.’

‘I mean, she probably has to wash the laundry, and you’ve made quite a mess of yourself there.’

Susan supposed that she ought to like Hazel a good deal more now, but she found that she was only annoyed.

‘I guess so,’ Jenny said, looking ruefully at her once-white shirt. ‘Sorry, Su.—What’s your name? I forget—forgot, I guess.’

‘Hazel.’

‘Miss Hazel,’ Susan added.

‘Miss Hazel, do you like knobby trees with holes?’

‘Very much. Do you?’

‘Yes, and—and—and—there’s a very knobby and holey tree here, and ants run up and down it and sometimes they carry things like bits of leafs! Do you want to see it?’ She wiggled, almost glowing.

‘Yes, I do! Show me.’ Hazel set the bag that she was holding in the waggon; and, grabbing her hand, Jenny dragged her off into the trees.

‘So,’ Qian Ang said. ‘If I remember correctly, Hazel was asking whether Jenny was a handful; I take it the answer is very much yes.’

‘I wasn’t the last person to touch the broom before I tripped over it.’

‘I wondered.’ Qian Ang smiled. ‘I thought that you might like a break from her.’

The queue was moving now; she got up and began to pull the waggon up the path. ‘Then you came here to find us?’

‘Yes.’

‘Thanks.’ After two metres, the queue stopped, and she sat down on the edge of the waggon again.

‘Any time.’ He sat beside her, with his heels dug into the ground to keep it from tipping. ‘We haven’t talked much lately.’

‘I guess not.’ She was not sure what to say, so she said, ‘I don’t really know what to say. No, we haven’t. We should, sometime.’

‘This isn’t the best place,’ he said more quietly.

‘No.’ She looked toward the head of the queue and then back as she felt his fingers between hers. ‘Will you come for dinner?’

‘If it’s not too hard for you.’

‘No, it’s fine.’ She shrugged. ‘She didn’t need to bring food.’

‘She wanted to. It was her idea.’

‘It makes it feel like a funeral. Molly’s coming back as soon as her hip heals.’

‘Yes.’

‘I’m a terrible cook,’ Susan muttered.

‘Don’t take it as an insult to your cooking. Hazel’s incapable of insulting anyone. She’s trying to be helpful.’

Susan shrugged again. ‘How long have you been friends?’

‘All our lives.’

She nearly asked why he had not mentioned her before but remembered that he spoke rarely of his sister and never of his parents, let alone of any friends. ‘I wonder what time it is,’ she said, looking along the stagnant queue. She guessed that about thirty families were ahead of them.

Qian Ang looked behind them at the lowering sun. ‘Somewhat before eighteen.’

‘We won’t make it, then.’

‘When does the office close? Eighteen o’clock?’

‘Yes.’

‘What will you do if it closes before you get there?’

‘Manage.’

‘I mean, do you have any food left?’

‘Yes.’ She paused to count in her mind: The rice left would make two meals for herself, Jenny, and their father; and she might be able to stretch it to three with the little onion in the cupboard and any spinach that grew. That left three days before the next Friday. The soup and bread might cover a day or two, depending on how much they ate tonight.

‘If it comes to it,’ he said, ‘there’s always fasting and prayer.’

‘Is piety so substantial?’

‘For forty days, maybe. But we don’t need to come to dinner tonight.’

‘No, please do. It’s fine. And then we’ll be able to talk more.’

The queue was moving again, now very quickly; and then she saw that it was turning around and returning to the main road. ‘Well,’ Susan said but could think of nothing else to say. ‘Where’s Jenny? and Hazel?’

Hazel must have seen everyone departing, because she appeared a moment later, dragging a reluctant Jenny. ‘The office is closed?’ she asked and Susan shrugged as if she did not care.

‘It’s not my fault we were late,’ Jenny said primly. ‘I always went with Molly and we were never late.’

Susan bit her tongue. Of course, she thought, Molly had never been late, because she had never had to spend the afternoon searching the house for the papers which she had hid between the mattress and the headboard and about the location of which she had forgotten to inform her granddaughters.

‘It’s probably not Susan’s fault, either, honey,’ Hazel said. ‘It doesn’t have to be anyone’s fault.’

‘She did lose the papers.’

‘That’s a lie and you know it,’ Susan snapped.

‘My legs are really tired,’ Jenny said, looking very pitiful. ‘Can I ride in the waggon?’

‘May I.’

‘I don’t want to say “may I”.’

‘Here you go.’ Qian Ang swung her into the waggon. ‘Careful, don’t squish the bread.’ He started up the hill, a bit faster than Susan and Hazel were walking.

‘We don’t need to stay for dinner,’ Hazel said.

Susan shrugged again. ‘It’s fine.’

‘Do you ever hear news from outside Anguo?’

Susan looked sidelong at Hazel. Lethal. From the Latin letum meaning death, Qian Ang had said of the conspiracy, and implied of his occasional foreign news. ‘How would I?’

‘I don’t know, maybe from Qian Ang. My cousin in Easthill has a friend whose mother lives in Germany and sends them news that she sends to me to share with Qian Ang and—others.’

Susan said nothing. The road bent up the hill.

‘So you live on Madman’s Hill?’ Hazel asked.

‘No, this hill. It doesn’t have a name.’

‘This is Madman’s Hill. Or Deadman’s Hill, depending on who tells it. They say some kind of an old lunatic ghost lives at the top.’

‘That’s stupid. I’ve lived here all my life and never seen anyone mad or dead.’

‘I didn’t say that I believed it,’ Hazel said mildly. ‘I just wondered if you lived here. Qian Ang never said which hill you lived on. How do you like it?’

‘I don’t know. I guess it’s fine.’

‘Is the ground much good for a garden around here?’

At last they arrived at the little house and stood in the kitchen where sunlight came drab through the smudged windows. Susan had forgotten how dirty the stove was; but at least there was enough wood for dinner. When she had stirred up the fire, she poured a cup of the quart jar of soup into a pan and added water almost to double it.

‘Anything I can do to help?’ Hazel asked.

‘No, thanks.—Jenny, wash up as much as you can and set the table.’

‘I can do that,’ Hazel said. ‘Where are the dishes?’

‘Right there.’ Jenny pointed to the cupboard. ‘After dinner want to see the squirrel tree?’

‘Yes! Are there a lot of squirrels?’

‘I don’t know, maybe ten.’

‘Don’t set a place for me,’ Susan said, measuring the soup in her mind.

‘You should eat, Susan,’ Qian Ang said. ‘And I’m really not hungry, if it’s—’

‘No, I’ll eat with Papa when he gets home,’ Susan said. Somehow it did not seem quite a lie until she had said it.

‘I want to eat with Papa,’ Jenny said.

‘He won’t be back until after you’re asleep. Wash up, now.’

‘Remember that potato soup?’ Hazel asked.

Qian Ang sighed and shook his head. ‘I’ll never live that one down.’

‘What happened?’ Jenny asked.

‘Qian Ang was making mashed potatoes, and he mashed them without draining the water out first.’

‘Haven’t you any mercy? I was only eleven, and cooking for seven girls, I was bound to fail. Besides, if we’re discussing cooking errors, I seem to recall a salad—’

‘O, please. That’s been five years. Hasn’t my cooking improved enough for everyone to forget about that?’

‘Four years and five months. I’ll attempt to forget it if you forget the potatoes.’

‘What happened about salad?’ Jenny asked.

‘Hazel made a salad for Christmas that all the children hated and kept moving to each other’s plates. I went to get more water, and while I was gone, they put all of it on my plate.’

‘Did you eat it?’

‘Yes.’

‘The soup is hot,’ Susan said. The others sat down, and she ladled the soup into three bowls and set them on the table. Bouncing a little, Jenny blew on a spoonful of soup so that it splattered across the table. ‘Don’t waste it,’ Susan said crossly as she went to get a rag.

‘Aren’t you going to wait for grace, honey?’ Hazel asked.

‘Mama and Molly said grace, but Susan doesn’t.’

‘I don’t suppose she’d mind if we did.’

Susan stood still, facing the window, letting her hands rest on the cool countertop. Yes, she thought, and what could she say? Could she give thanks for a dead mother and a missing brother and a crippled grandmother and a father working long days; for an empty cupboard and a dirty house like a cage around her; for a tactless, needy little sister who flaunted all her failings to her suitor who did not love her and his childhood sweetheart who thought that she needed help? When she wrenched her feelings into words, they were caustic words and hateful, and she was disgusted with herself; but here she cut short her thoughts, because Qian Ang was speaking.

‘Father, we thank You for this meal and ask Your blessing. Also, we thank You that by Your grace we may glory in tribulations, knowing that tribulation works patience; and patience, provenness; and provenness, hope; and we thank You that hope does not dismay because Your love, O God, has been poured freely in our hearts by Your Holy Spirit who has been given to us. In Jesus’s name we pray. Amen.’

‘What’s tribulations?’ Jenny asked at once.

‘Hard things that happen,’ Hazel said. ‘When you miss your mama or Molly, that’s a tribulation for you.’

After a pause, Jenny said in a higher voice, ‘I don’t like tribulations.’

‘No one does. But they help us become—O, honey, don’t cry. It’s all right.’

Susan heard as if through the static of a radio a chair scraping across the floor, and Jenny crying in a very damp and undignified way. ‘I want Molly to come back. It’s all alonely here.’

‘I know, honey. And she wants to come back to you, and as soon as she can, she will. But it’s—’

‘And I want Mama to come back, and she can’t, because she’s dead!’

‘I know. Here, honey, let’s go outside for a bit, shall we? Ai, you’re a big girl. It’s going to be all right, and you know why?’ The door scraped open. ‘Because when we love Jesus—’ The door shut.

Silence rushed in like a tsunami. Susan realised that her legs were shaking.

‘Where shall I put the soup? We probably won’t eat it tonight.’

‘I’ll get something,’ Susan said coldly. She opened the dish cupboard and found another jar. ‘I can put it away,’ she said.

‘Are you all right?’

‘Yes.’

‘Jenny doesn’t cry often, does she.’

‘No, never.’

‘I hope that you’re not—not jealous.’

‘Jealous of what?’ She held her hand as steady as she could, pouring every drop of soup into the jar.

‘That Jenny didn’t come crying to you.’

‘Why on earth would I be jealous of that? She complains to me enough as it is.’

Qian Ang shrugged. ‘Sometimes it shows a lot of trust to cry with someone.’

‘How do you know?’ she heard herself say.

‘I’ve cried before. Not often, but a few times, about important things.’

‘If you think that I’m going to cry now, you’re wrong. I don’t cry unless I’m delirious.’

‘No, I didn’t think that.’ He sighed. ‘Would you like me to leave?’

‘No.’

‘Then do you want to talk about what’s upsetting you, or be cheerful?’

‘What if I don’t want to do either?’

‘Then I suppose I’ll leave. There’s no point in sitting around while you fret to yourself.’

‘You know I can’t just be cheerful, like that.’

‘Can’t you? Have you tried?’ he asked in a practical tone, as if it were quite easy.

‘How?’

He paused to think. ‘Singing helps, and smiling, sometimes. The best way, though, I think, is to be kind to others. I feel as if everything I say is scolding you, but I don’t mean it that way. I think that you and Jenny would both be happier if you were kinder to her.’

Susan set Jenny’s bowl of soup on the back of the stove and put the rest of the soup and bread in the cupboard. ‘And if she were less annoying.’

‘I think that she would be less annoying if you were kinder to her. She probably just wants attention. She’s not even half your age, and she’s hurting as much as you are.’

‘Who said that I’m hurting?’

‘Well, you aren’t happy.’

Susan slapped the dishrag onto the table, and water sprayed across the table in lines of tiny drops. ‘I will be happy if I want to, but I will not be thankful for tribulations. I don’t need you to analyse my frame of mind. I don’t need anyone to feed my family, and I don’t need anyone to look after my sister for me. I can handle it. You and Hazel can go talk about salad in Siberia, for all I care.’

‘So you do want me to leave; all right,’ he said calmly. ‘There’s nothing yet, but I should know by Sunday, so I’ll leave you a note sometime this weekend. And, Susan,’ he added, about to open the door, ‘don’t be too hard on yourself.’

She did not answer. As she turned away, the weak flames of the stove flashed through her vision, and she seemed to see in them the crisp paper of two letters, burning. ‘No,’ she said. Heat rose to her face, and it took all her will to make herself speak: ‘Don’t go yet.’ The door, a bit open, shut again, and his boots stopped and turned around. Brownish sock showed through a worn spot in one toe. ‘I was—I was wrong to say that, and I—yes. Will you forgive me?’

‘Yes.’ The toe twitched. ‘Shall I go now?’

‘Only if you like.’ She lifted a sheepish smile to face him, and he smiled in return. ‘I’ll try to be happy now. Thank you for—for caring enough to scold me, and—’ And I love you, she thought, and as his smile grew from cheerfulness to wonder, she realised that she had said it aloud. Heat rushed back into her face; she opened her mouth but found nothing to say.

However, there was no time to speak before the door, opening again, hit him in the back of the head. At once he hopped away from it. ‘Ouch! Hazel.’

‘Sorry, was that you? Don’t stand in front of a closed door, bonehead.’

‘I wish I had a bone head,’ he said ruefully, touching the back of his head.

‘O, well, it makes you a-door-able, doesn’t it?’ Hazel rolled her eyes.

‘I am excessively diverted.’

‘I don’t believe you. O, I was going to ask, I suppose Jenny needs to bathe and go to bed soon? It’s getting quite dark now. Maybe you and Su can have an unpicnic while I put her to bed, if Su doesn’t mind.’

‘It’s Susan,’ Susan said. ‘And Jenny can wash up herself.’

‘Susan. Sorry. Well, Jenny said that she needs a lot of help with her hair, and I really don’t mind; I love little kids. I want a lot of them, myself. Anyway, you two can talk or look at “consolations” or something. Where’s the soap and such?’

‘I know!’ Jenny’s voice came from behind Hazel. ‘I can show you.’

‘Thanks,’ Susan said reluctantly. ‘I’ll put on some water.’

‘Don’t bother, I can do that too, and Jenny can help, can’t you, honey? And you might want to find a picnic blanket; the ground’s a bit damp.’

Susan found her oldest quilt in her closet and a shawl, and she and Qian Ang went outside and up the stairs into the night. The sky was clear black except above the highest point of the hill, where the moon was almost full. Around them, the trees huddled thick, edged with fine-branching twigs but fading into a solid blur. The grass smelled damp and dark green.

‘For a house of clouds, as they used to call this area, it’s a beautifully clear night,’ Qian Ang said in a voice just above a whisper. ‘Do you think that the roof of the woodshed is safe?’

‘To sit on? Yes; and it’s almost flat.’ Susan tossed the quilt and shawl onto the low roof and let him help her up; then he climbed after her. She spread the quilt over the shingles and they sat quietly for a long time. Looking at the stars, Susan felt that she had thirsted to see them a long time and only now, as she drank them, knew it.

‘Seek Him who makes Arcturus and Orion,’ Qian Ang said quietly.

‘Where are those?’

He pointed a little to the left of the hilltop. ‘Directly east, halfway up—if you call the centre of the sky all the way up—is Arcturus, one of the brightest stars, but right now it’s hard to see, because the moon is so close.’

‘I think I see it.’

‘It’s part of the constellation Bootes, the Herdsman.’

‘I didn’t know that you liked stars.’

Qian Ang laughed quietly. ‘Like doesn’t quite describe it. When we were younger—my siblings and I, and Hazel and her sisters and cousins—we used to have unpicnics, as we called them, every few nights, and find constellations.’

‘Where’s Orion?’ she asked when he did not continue.

‘West, the opposite side.’ They turned around. ‘And farther to the right, northwest, is Perseus. They’re both at the horizon, so they’re mostly hidden behind the trees. Perseus has meteor showers every year in July and August. Straight north is Polaris, about a third of the way up; and a bit to the right of it is Draco, the Dragon. Alpha Draconis was apparently the pole star for the Ancient Egyptians.’

‘Do you have a favourite constellation?’

‘Yes, but it’s hardly interesting.’

‘What is it?’

‘Vela, the Sail. I like the name. Right now, it’s on the horizon, south-southwest; but it’s not very bright. For the Greeks, it was part of a whole ship, the Argo, but later astronomers broke it into pieces.’

‘What’s that?’

‘Which? I mean, where is it?’

‘At the very top edge of the hill.’ She studied the faint point of light. ‘It looks almost as if—yes, it is on the hill. It must not be a star, after all. But no one lives higher than this.’ She pulled her shawl tighter around her.

‘Maybe it’s moonlight.’

‘It’s too bright for that.’

‘On a flat rock, or water?’

‘Maybe,’ she said, uncertainly. ‘Hazel said that this is called Madman’s Hill.’

‘That’s just an old story,’ he said, but his hand slipped under hers.

She smiled. ‘I’m not afraid. No one ever passes this way. Except—’ Except, she thought, the foresty conspirator who slipped past every week; and whenever she waited long enough to see him twice, he was returning up the hill. Involuntarily, she shivered. ‘Who looks at the clothesline?’

‘Someone. It doesn’t matter.’

‘Someone who lives on the hill?’

‘Why are you asking?’

‘Because I’ve seen someone going up the hill.’

‘Susan, the point of what you’re doing is not to know those things.’

‘That could be that person’s light,’ she persisted, ‘and if so, it’s stupid to have it on at night when everyone can see it. Don’t you think so?’

‘I still think that it could be moonlight,’ he said.

‘Is it a lunatic?’

‘Moonlight? Etymologically, maybe.’

‘No, the person who looks at the clothesline. Is that person dangerous?’

Qian Ang shrugged. ‘No more dangerous than I.’

‘That doesn’t comfort me. I’ve learnt, since first I saw you, you’re far more honourable than I’d thought but not at all weaker. You could probably kill me now if you wanted to.’

‘I can think of three or four easy ways, yes,’ he said with a short laugh. ‘I wasn’t trying to comfort you: I was telling you what I think is the truth. But you needn’t be afraid, so long as you don’t go looking for him.’

‘Him. So it’s a man.’

‘Maybe. As I said, you’re not supposed to know. Or rather, you’re supposed to not know.’

‘So it’s not Hazel,’ she continued.

‘No. It’s not Hazel. But that is all I will say.’

Susan looked up at the hill again, but the light was gone.

‘I have lifted my eyes into the mountains, whence comes my help?’ He paused to smile at her. ‘My help is from the Lord, the maker of heaven and earth. May He not give toward moving your foot, nor let Him grow weary who guards you. See, He shall not grow weary nor sleep, who guards Israhel. The Lord guards you, the Lord, your shelter at your right hand. By day, the sun shall not strike you, nor the moon by night. The Lord shall guard you from all evil; may the Lord guard your heart. May the Lord guard your going out and your coming in, from now and all the way into eternity.’

‘That’s a Psalm, isn’t it?’ she asked at length.

‘One-twenty-one.’ He lay back on the roof, with his hands folded behind his head; Susan sat as she was, hugging her knees to her chest. ‘I scold you sometimes,’ he said thoughtfully, ‘but I forget to tell you—I forget to praise you, I guess.’

‘I don’t need praise.’

‘I know. That’s what I like about you: You can stand on your own. You don’t melt onto everyone. And you guard yourself, your heart, so closely: you don’t flirt or act coy.’

Susan rested her head on her folded arms, looking across the gloomy trees. ‘Thanks,’ she said quietly. They were alone; they did not need to pretend for others. She could hear her heart in her ears.

‘And you can always scold me in return,’ he added in a smiling voice.

‘There’s nothing to scold,’ she said lightly. ‘You’re so perfectly good all the time, and I don’t know how you do it. It makes me feel nasty and selfish.’

‘Is that really what you think of me? I’m sorry. I’m no less selfish than anyone else. If you could see my mind, how harshly I criticise others, you’d despise me.’

‘I don’t think anything could make me despise you.’

‘Thank you.’ He traced the edge of a shingle with one finger. ‘Have you ever tried praying?’

‘Not since I was little.’

‘I pray for you a lot sometimes.’

‘Well, thanks.’ She waited a moment; she wanted to ask what he thought of her, whether it was only a game to him; she wanted to know whether he loved her; but she could not find words. ‘I’m sorry that I get angry with you sometimes. I’m trying to do better—’

‘I’ve noticed,’ he said.

‘—and I really do appreciate you. I admire the way you’re so strictly honourable, and I respect you a lot for it.’ Below them, in the stairwell, the door shut, and feet lept up the stairs. All in one breath, Susan finished, ‘And I want you to know that I really do love you.’ She made herself take another cold breath while she waited for his answer.

Qian Ang nodded. ‘I was going to tell you before, Hazel knows all about the conspiracy,’ he said in a low voice; ‘we don’t have to pretend for her.’

Susan swallowed, but her throat still felt dry. Behind the hilltop, clouds had begun to rise, drinking up all the stars, smothering the moon. She sat there with her knees wrapped in her arms, on the roof, on the hill, beneath the night clouds and the wind, and said nothing.

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