But hate is just as void of sense as love. Its fire is cold, burning with evil. There was another man, a shadow of him, and she had to try to make him appear in her mind now, the one who had elevated her to the light with his gentle voice and his good, warm hands, protected her, made her forget. He mustn’t notice anything. Maybe (with a tiny, futile wisp of hope) in a little while everything could go back to how it was. She would carry out the food and ask, in a perfectly normal voice, who was on the phone. It would be strange if she didn’t ask; it would arouse his suspicions. Suspicions of what? She could say with a little smile: I heard what you said, that I don’t dance. But I can dance actually, even with the bad leg. Maybe, maybe then everything would be even better than before, when there would no longer be anything between them that they couldn’t mention.

And she told herself that he wouldn’t love her any more or less than before, since he did marry her, after all – and everyone knows he did it despite that. The hate, and its painful and false vision, slowly disappeared. Maybe he had said it that loudly to actually help her? But the thought that he might have known her anxiety about the subject all along filled her with incomprehensible shame, which was more unbearable than everything else.

She drew out her tasks, feeling almost like a dominant enemy was awaiting her, out in the cozy living room. She had to go in and set the table, but how could she look him in the eye and act naturally?

In a panic, she put the meat on the dish, set the plates on the tray, forgot the salt and pepper, and walked down the long hallway, listening for her own footsteps, her limping footsteps, which he now heard approaching, just like every other evening, and yet not like any other.

He put down the newspaper and smiled at her. ‘That smells good,’ he said. She started setting the table without looking at him. She formed the sentence privately, the difficult, meaningful sentence: I heard the phone; who was it?

She tried to buy herself some time. While we’re eating, she thought, while he’s occupied with the food – then he won’t look at me.

She went out to get the glasses and felt his gaze glide mercilessly over her body, making her movements stiff and awkward, so the shorter, skinny leg hobbled more obviously than usual down the hall. Tears burned her eyes, tears of hate and shame, which could never be alleviated by crying.