The rain falls down on last year's man

An hour has gone by

And he has not moved his hand

She puts her foot down. Says in the book that it can do one-thirty, one-forty kilometres per hour comfortably. She will concentrate now on getting through the Karoo, try to make Victoria West before morning, Beaufort West by eight or so, pass through the Hottentots Holland tunnel by midday. This is no place to be alone, despite its beguiling beauty.

Time and distance, even this paltry distance, will help to free her. Burden of the mother. Mother, wife, lover, lover-mother, lover-wife, unloved mother. Unloved, in sum, except for those wonderful, unguarded moments, Mikey, Silas, and, of course, black João, beautiful as jet. Even Du Boise does not matter any more.

But the skylight is like skin for a drum I'll never mend

And all the rain falls down, amen

On the works of last year's man.

Carry your own burdens,

Mister my friends.

She hums, laughing at her ability to paraphrase the lyrics.

Amen, Amen.