the world differently too.
In the taxi that brought them to the theatre, the aunt gave her three small, beautifully wrapped packages. The first contained an antique bible with a leather cover and a tiny metal lock, which must be ornamental, for why would one lock a bible? The second held a slender silver torch attached to a key ring which the aunt suggested she use to locate the keyhole in the front door at night, since there was no external light. The last parcel contained a set of exquisite pearl combs which the girl was persuaded to push into her dark locks. It occurred to the aunt that, clad thus, the girl looked like a bride.
It was very hot outside, the culmination of a string of hot days, and a record for the month. They arrived at the concert hall early and stood outside to wait, for there was no air-conditioning in the foyer. The facades opposite looked bleached, and the asphalt gave off a hot black smell. Women around them stood wilting in expensive gowns, while their escorts fanned florid faces. The leaves of a caged tree hung motionless as the sky grew ever more mercilessly and perfectly blue. God might have had eyes that colour when he expelled Adam and Eve from the garden, the aunt thought dizzily, feeling her blood vibrate under her skin and hoping she would not faint.
She decided they should walk a little to escape the press. Around the corner, they came unexpectedly to a church and the aunt led the girl inside. The coolness beyond the arched stone doorway was so profound that she could have wept for the relief of it. They sat in the very last pew until the glimmering stars that had begun to wink before the aunt’s eyes had faded. Then she glanced sideways at the girl and wondered if she had not been drawn into the church for a reason. The girl had a dangerously potent look. The aunt uttered a silent prayer that she should be safe, while the girl sat immobile beside her. Of course she was a heathen, her sister having abandoned their religion, but in the eyes of the church it was better to be a heathen than a member of another church. The latter went to hell, while heathens and unbaptised babies went to the grey eternity of limbo.
The aunt didn’t believe in limbo anymore. Not exactly. But she didn’t disbelieve either. Her mind was not shaped for such decision-making. She had a nostalgic affection for the innocent rites of her childhood faith, and in old age would be able to draw her religion tightly back around her like a beloved shawl.
The girl liked the cold smell of the church, the cool tobacco-dark shadows striping pictures of dim, tortured saints and the faint humming of the stone under her feet. She liked the little banks of candles and the font of water and the smell of wood polish on the pews.
Finally the aunt touched her and motioned that they should go. If God existed, and the girl was in some sort of danger, perhaps He would see fit to intervene. The aunt could do no more.
The performance they had come to see was merely competent and afterwards the aunt said it was a shame but one could never be sure with violinists. Excellence was as likely as mediocrity. But it was a pity.
Neither had the girl enjoyed the performance, finding the music too consciously intricate. The violin had sounded to her like something begging to be free. She had a sudden profound longing to hear the disordered cadences of the waves and the yearning grew until it hurt the bones in her chest to keep it in. It was the first time in her life that she had consciously desired anything and she wondered if wanting was something that came with the bleeding.
Outside it was hotter than ever and the sun still shone, although it was now early evening.
The aunt wished she had arranged a taxi so they could go immediately and directly to her friend’s apartment. With the crowd swelling around them, there was no chance of hailing one, so they walked, searching for a telephone. The aunt’s eyes watered at the brightness of the sun and she flinched when sunlight flashed off an opening window and stabbed into her eyes.
The girl was thinking that the heat was a trapped beast prowling the streets with its great, wet, red tongue hanging out,