On the evening of the second day, as they sat down to eat, the rain stopped – just like that, as if someone had turned off a tap. The headman said that if the sun shone the next day, the route between the two villages would dry out enough to be safe. If that happened the first feast would be held the following evening, and the wedding parties would begin their journeys on the day after that.

There was excitement over the meal that night, with everyone talking at once. The empty bowls had been cleared away when the old woman pointed at the door and spoke. Everyone except Ivy was to leave – they could stand outside or visit another house, the old woman didn’t care. She had something to tell Ivy and Ivy alone.

Everybody was in a cheerful mood, and she was the senior woman in the village. Good-naturedly, they all did as she asked. When the door closed behind the last straggler, the old woman motioned Ivy into the inner room. They remained there for quarter of an hour, and for all that time the old woman looked into Ivy’s face and spoke gravely to her. At the end, she took off her bracelet of red seeds and rolled it over Ivy’s fingers and onto her wrist.

When the others were allowed back inside, the old woman announced that she’d held onto an important secret for most of her life and now she’d passed it on. The anthropologist said, ‘But Ivy doesn’t understand a word of what you’ve told her!’ The old woman looked at him with pity and scorn. She informed him that he’d missed the point. She’d unburdened herself of her secret before she died, and had done so in a way that preserved its secrecy.

Ivy woke up early the next morning. She crossed the living area, where people were still sleeping on the floor, opened the door a crack and slipped outside. What she saw there, through the mist drifting in the valley, turned her bones to ice. All the trees on the hills were hung with white. Later, walking about the village, Ivy would see the fallen blossoms everywhere, tiny stars stuck in the mud. But standing in the doorway, she didn’t realise at first that the rain had caused the trees to burst into flower. ‘When I saw all that white,’ said Ivy, ‘I thought of brides. I thought, They’ve killed all the brides and strung them up in trees.’

Why am I remembering this? It all happened a very long time ago, and Ivy hasn’t told the story in years.

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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Acknowledgements

Thank you to the Literature Fund of the Australia Council, especially Lina Kastoumis; to the Copyright Agency and the English Department at the University of New South Wales, especially Anne Brewster; and to the English Department at the University of Sydney.