Chimes dragged her unwillingly through the second night. Her muscles hurt. She could not draw into herself enough to sleep. She became the hour of three in the morning, four in the morning. When she journeyed towards the old clock, she was Jesus walking down the corridor and the emptiness stopped assaulting her. She said hello, copied his voice like a birdcall: two notes rising, one sinking halfway. She rehearsed the tension in his jaw. His elegant features jumped expressions under the clear sky of his brow.

When information circulates it transforms; she looked from a gold face through strong blue eyes; she walked on long legs with an athlete’s pleasure and became the forward stiff-legged gait, the awareness of ass in the short tunic. She abandoned her breasts and belly for a flat expanse of skin. She had lived like a pendulum whose constant travel in space gets it nothing except the loss of a measure of time. She stopped the farcical ticking to establish inaction. The pendulum batted her palms. The terror of the corridor was avoided.

•

She lurched upright in bed. Her own shout took her by surprise. Her breath was quick, her chest heavy, throat closed off. She tested parts of her body, thinking wild pain must be accompanied by a visible disease or rupture. It amazed her that grief could be pitched so high in a body undefined and slack. She experienced herself most deeply in her love for Jesus. The more she was excluded from that depth, the more she was aware of it. He deprived her of depth without allowing her to be shallow. She tore long welts on her forearms to summon insanity but relentless consciousness was the madness that arrived.

“I’ve gone crazy,” she told herself. “Being mad with grief doesn’t mean thrashing around or any activity that puts you in motion or relation. It means lying on your side frozen in one position as hours pass.” Margery was grounded. The upward prayer of belief turned back on itself, pinning her to the bed: silence descends. The town slept; she heard the rush of water, a torrent pouring through a sluice, and the foggy cry of bitterns from the salt marshes. “It means the story is over.” With first light the roosters; with sunrise the dogs.

50

Margery said, “You must comfort yourself and stop sorrowing.”

“Ah, where will I go . . . St. Barbara . . . hem of blue and silver . . .” Margery diced carrots and turnips on the trestle table and cooked them in a soup with bread and beer. “Take it away, dear Margery. Give me no food but my own child.” Margery saw that Mary’s tender smile and courtesy were forms of condescension; Mary’s kindness meant to exclude. She comforted Margery but would not allow Margery to comfort her.