When he lay naked before her, black, pink, yellow and bluish-green, like a charred map of the world, she poured lukewarm water into a bowl and set about washing those parts of him that were unscathed; he moaned and struck out at her. She had to sit on him, and also removed something from him she could not identify, was it underwear or burned skin? He passed out again and lay motionless like a corpse, but still breathing.

She carried on until she was finished, filled the stove with the rest of the rags, went upstairs to the South Chamber and came back with an eiderdown and a new rug, slipped the rug under him and laid the eiderdown over him, opened all the windows and doors, filled all the saucepans she had with water and put them on to boil. She fired up the stove, hotter than on any baking day, while reassuring herself time and again that his slumber was not the sleep of death.

In a frenzy she tore off her own clothing, and burned that too, washed her body, put on some dry clothes, and the stench was no less abominable.

She pulled the eiderdown off him and began to wash him again, rubbed the thin skin, which in places was as smooth and white as a cod’s belly, fetched some talcum powder and burn ointment, and a needle and thread, heated the needle over a candle and began to sew the gash in his thigh. Tremors spread through his frail body, but he still had a pulse, regular, and kept groaning until she put down the needle and bandaged the wound.

She shut the windows, went into the sitting room and looked at herself in the mirror above the chest of drawers, smacked her stiff, unrecognisable lips, then went back and sat down, alternately looking at him and down at her own hands, they were swollen and puffy due to the water and frost, but they were not shaking, and when she opened her eyes again she was lying curled up on the floor next to a stove that had gone cold in a kitchen without light, and outside there was silence.

~

She rolled over onto her back and lay listening to the calm, regular breathing on the bench, the night beyond the window panes was black.