The next morning she wakes up in her bed. She feels empty. There is dried blood on her tights. Her body aches, but at least it’s a reminder that she’s alive. She goes down to the kitchen. She finds a piece of paper torn from a notebook with her father’s handwriting: ‘Aunt Márti died during the night.’ Leila finds the drawer where her father hides his ciga­rettes and takes one out. She smokes it in the garden and when she’s finished she puts it out on her thigh.

It doesn’t feel bad or good. It doesn’t feel like anything at all.

The mourners are singing, just like the church itself. The wind grows ever stronger outside, the wood creaks. The song is familiar to all. Most of them have grown up singing it, the words spill off their tongues, although there are some to this day who don’t understand their meaning. They are not in Hungarian.

The priest adjusts his glasses again, turns the pages of the book hesitantly. As the song ends he gives a signal for all to be seated. There are no benches or chairs in the church; the devotees can only kneel before the Lords. There is no decoration on the walls, just marks and signs burnt into the wood, which only a hundred years ago ensorcelled anyone who laid eyes upon them. Today they are less effective; they’re just for show. The priest opens his arms.

‘My brothers and sisters in mourning, let us close our eyes and think of the ebb and flow of the tides, the relentless movement of the planets, the black aether that awaits us out there, beyond earthly life. Let us remember the dreams of the Great Lords, and together let us wait for the eternal awakening. Kth’na’fhre at’hmas . . .’

‘. . . ath’ram k’tnass.’

Csabi repeats the sentence in front of the mirror and he feels that something isn’t right. It’s months before the funeral. He should push his tongue further back to form the right sound when changing between ‘h’ and ‘r’. He feels like punching the mirror, punching his stupid reflection. He can’t even manage to do this one thing right. To form one goddamn word the right way.

What was the next line anyway?

He throws away the book in frustration but immediately regrets it. If it were a consecrated, leatherbound copy, he would have had to cut off his fingers as punishment for this offense. Fortunately it was just a student’s copy. If it were the genuine article, he would lie to avoid punishment. But then nothing would make any sense. If he ever so much as thought that he could get away with lying, that would mean that He is not watching all the time.

He is always watching, he repeats inside his head. Always.