He kicks Naģe’s head, stomach and breast. An abnormal, suppressed anger is released with each kick. He kicks Naģe like an old rotted fence post, like a pumpkin thrown out on a compost pile. When she is no longer moving, to make certain, he kicks her again. Then he wipes his sweat-drenched forehead and walks off along the forest road.

The woods are so quiet, benevolent and fragrant. In a high tree top a bird sharpens its beak against the tree bark. A deer races past and a snake slithers by. White cobwebs criss-cross between the pine and fir trunks.

Like the wounded in a mine field, Naģe drags herself along the ground. She has to get to the marsh. Among the mounds of cranberries and marsh tea. To lie down in the white, damp moss, to fall asleep and force herself never to get up. And wait, perhaps wait for a long time, until he arrives and takes her. Death, deliverance ... How good that it is now, how good that it was not then. Now she has something to give.

In her head there is a wonderful emptiness.

It does not hurt, humiliate, despise or denigrate.

Naģe’s bag remains on the forest road. Inside it are sandwiches with smoked meat and her home-made pickles. They could have eaten them together.

The Shame of Gaveiki