The biter stood behind me and reached out to touch its bulbous head, where it swelled out above the statue’s hands. “It is Angkhdt,” he said softly. “Prophet of God. The dog-headed master. It’s sad, isn’t it, that it would come to this?”

Questions, hard tenses, gods. I hated him. I hummed a few phrases of an anger song, a melody called

“I’m warning you,” but the biter took no notice. “Where is the barbarian?” he asked.

I turned to face him, furious. How could he force me to remember? The man was dead, gone, vanished out of mind. Time had closed its hand. In those days we were in love with a lie, that objects could disappear into the air, that there was no past, no future, that people needed the touch of my hand in order to exist, the image in my eye.

It was a lie I cherished rather than believed. In fact, I remembered very well. And I wanted him to know what had happened. I wanted him to know the man was dead. And so, though I said nothing, through music I put a little death into the air, a song called “now it’s over,” but in a complicated rhythm because I could not cover in my voice a small regret.

The biter listened carefully, tilting his head. With his forefinger, he stroked the underlip of the stone phallus, and his face took on a strange gentle expression. “They murdered him,” he said. “Which one?”

How I hated him! Him and his past tense. Him and his questions. Yet there was a power in his hawklike face that made him difficult to resist, a keenness in his eye. I dropped my head and muttered part of a song, my brother’s music, the man who had first struck the scholar down.

He recognized it. It was a beautiful song, spare, strong, proud, like the man himself. At the second change, I heard the biter hum a part of it himself, as if in reverie, frowning. He brought his wrists together, and with his whole hand he caressed the angry stump where his other hand had been. “It is he,” he said softly. “It is always he. Little brother,” he said, and stretched his hand out to touch me, only I ducked away. “Little brother,” he continued. “Don’t you see how men like him can kill us all?”

I started away, my face full of disgust, but he smiled and called out to me: “I’m sorry. I apologize. No biting. Or at least, only a little. Because I am talking about the future. Don’t pretend you never think of it.”

I turned to face him, because I was pretending. He was right. He said: “I see you. You are different from the rest. I see you. Before. I saw you. The others cannot think. You can.”

I stood appalled. He was trying to seduce me, I could tell. It was the biter’s slough of reason, of cause and effect, so easy to fall into, so hard to climb back out. I could feel tears in my eyes, and I bent to pick up a loose stone.