I lie under the open window of our hotel, catching the sounds that drift in from outside, and mourn my dead baby. I hear children playing in the courtyard below and remember the sluice of blood that streamed between my legs. I listen to the women’s voices as they scrub the floors, the footsteps of other guests as they pass the door to my room. The sounds come at me through a gauze, as if I am disconnected from the world. I stare at the ceiling, trying to decipher the thread of a memory in the veins and cracks of the ceiling. I watch the water splash over my fingers and my ring slip into the well. I feel my hand in Clive’s and the imprint of my fingers on Roger’s skin. I recall the passion of Roger’s kiss and the excruciating guilt as my stomach cramps in pain. I see the shape of an infant in the clots of blood. Always it is as if the memory takes place just ahead of me, so that I am powerless to intervene. Then the images fizz and blur until all the elements twist together and Roger and Clive and I are part of some hideous beast. I tremble and scream and call out to the beast to beware, warning it of the murder it is about to commit. Sometimes I lash out and try to separate the bodies. Sometimes I lie motionless, sobbing to find the pictures of my life becoming so vengeful.

Water. Perhaps because of the oppressive heat of the Turkish summer I think constantly of water. I feel as if I am on a precipice and that at any moment I might fall into an abyss from which I shall not return. I watch myself plunge headlong, both dreading and longing for the fall. I can no longer contain the mechanisms of my body, the wild ravings of my mind. Only water can obliterate what I have done. Only drowning will thwart the monsters I might still create.

It is Roger who brings me back from the precipice. It is his hand that soothes away my terrors, his voice that coaxes me back to life. Day after day, night after night, he sits with me, reassuring me that I am not going mad. I cling to his hand, his voice, his faith in me. They are the beacons guiding me to safety.