Misha looked at the money he had been given and knew what he would buy. A gun.

Chapter Thirteen

The Weather of Words

Edith’s grandmother believed that everyone was born with a secret number of heartbeats. Perhaps, thought Edith, it’s the same with words. Once you had used them up, they were gone. All she could do now was listen. Even if she wanted to speak the only sound that would come from her would be an unbearable wail.

Grandmother had told her a story when she was a child. A long time ago, every man knew how many heartbeats he had in him, knew the hour of his death. So it was that God came to a village and saw a farmer mending a fence badly.

‘That’s sloppy work,’ said God to the man.

The farmer shrugged. ‘What’s the point of building it well,’ he said, ‘when the fence will outlive me? In two days, I will be dead.’

God, being a tidy man, thought this was the wrong way to go about things, so he took away man’s knowledge of heartbeats. Not knowing the day of his death improved things and man began to live his life with more purpose. It was a story that made Edith smile, the notion of God being tidy.

Misha was expected back from the town in two days. On the morning of the first day, the butcher arrived at the cabinet maker’s house unannounced. Edith couldn’t think what he wanted, standing on the verandah with his hands stuffed into his pockets.

She showed him into the kitchen where her father sat at the table. He choked on a mouthful of bread when he saw the butcher.

‘I want to talk to your father,’ said the butcher. ‘Alone.’ He steered her out of the kitchen and closed the door behind her. She didn’t move from the hall and the walls were thin enough to hear what was being said.

‘She hasn’t seen the doctor,’ said the butcher. ‘About her voice, I mean.’

‘I can’t afford the doctor,’ said her father. ‘Anyway, I thought you said you liked a silent woman.’

‘There’s something she must say if the betrothal is to go ahead.’

‘That hadn’t crossed my mind,’ said the cabinet maker.

‘Of course it hadn’t,’ said the butcher.

Edith thought that if the matter wasn’t so serious it would be comical. She imagined Demetrius finding it so.

She answered a nervous knock on the front door. The doctor was a well-rounded man with a cushion of a face, his features almost lost in its puffiness. He followed her into the kitchen.

‘Good,’ said the butcher as the doctor took off his hat and coat and rolled up his sleeves.

‘Sit here, Edith,’ said the doctor. ‘And open your mouth wide.’ He held her tongue down with a metal spatula.