I can’t do what Frobisher is asking of me. There will be no refit. I can’t retreat, meditate, take spiritual instruction. This is a fitting point to end this pretense. When I’m healed I will find a self-drive van similar to the one I hired in Fulbrook, and take these last few things away. Where to, I have no idea. The speed of the collapse is making my head spin.

What will I do? Fifty-five-year-old man seeks employment. Skills: Baptizing unruly toddlers, extremely low flying. Can walk a long way in snow. Quite a long way. Not as far as some.

—

Upstairs I find that my bed is made. The kindness of that simple act nearly overwhelms me. The bedroom is peaceful, with a sloping floor. I light the gas lamp on the night table and sit down on the bed.

It is Advent, I realize. I hope the winter will come quickly, bring that bitter snap in the air, a sniff of frost, and the Christ Child coming. Veni, veni, Emmanuel, O come, O come, Emmanuel. Thou Rod of Jesse, thou Dayspring, thou Key of David. I’ve been in one long Advent for years and years. I stand up, preparing to get into bed without praying but I can’t. I haven’t done that since I’ve been able to talk. So I get cautiously down onto my knees and pray, O come, O come, into the darkness of my closed eyes.

I climb into bed, arrange myself to the advantage of my injured side. The sheets aren’t mine. These are white and crisp and scented with lavender. My eye is caught by a jug on the chest of drawers. In the jug, some tall white dahlias.

In the morning the sunlight is gentle, the silence broken only by the occasional bleating of sheep. Mr. Corey’s, I assume. I lie in bed, as passive as I was on my return to England after the war and my mother brought me chicken broth.

From Luckenwalde to Leipzig, from Leipzig to Halle and then to Brussels. We had time for our freedom to fall on us gradually. I remember the last flight: one quick hour and we landed in England. A young WAAF fed us in an aircraft hangar: I tackled a mammoth plateful of food with three companions but we had to push it away, it was beyond us. When she brought us three more plates we realized that the first plate had been a single helping. Then they loaded us onto a Forces train and we chugged through Shropshire toward an RAF base. The hills rose and fell under a haze of warmth and the trees were in full leaf. I went to sleep immediately and so did many others. It was shock, or disbelief: yes, a sleep of disbelief. Shropshire, hills, trees, liberty: none of it could possibly be real.