I didn’t know if I ought to laugh too, or how long we were supposed to remain seated, and since this was after the business in the cafeteria, I really shouldn’t have been sitting there at all. But then we were drinking beer, and I could tell it would be only a matter of time before the wind shifted. And then here it came: “Mette,” I heard, as Mark went over to a wall​ 104where he’d hung up a bunch of curios from a trip to Morocco. “Mette,” he said, taking down an oblong object a good yard in length. It looked like beef jerky, and he threw it in my lap and asked if I knew what it was. “Yeah,” I said, “it’s a dried bull pizzle,” and then Henrietta howled with laughter. The would-be teacher laughed too, and the Switchman’s Shanty was apparently out in the kitchen, but Mark’s eyes grew still. Still, but not frozen. More like one of those places that leases farm machinery, after closing time—the plowshares, the leaking grease fittings. Then he said that he hadn’t reckoned I’d know. “Nice job,” he said, and hung the pizzle back up on the wall, while Henrietta laughed so hard that she almost couldn’t get it under control. I looked parched in my face, she said. “You look simply withered, Mette.” A little while later I wanted to go home, and then the Switchman’s Shanty wanted to go home too. We walked to the station together, and I remember her telling me how funny Mark was when they were alone. He was a real teddy bear, she said, breaking twigs off the hedges we passed. I thought of Henrietta, her laughter, I thought of the would-be teacher, his unmoving features, and what sort of person brings a pizzle home from holiday. That isn’t normal, I thought, and then it was right after New Year’s and we were headed to England, and on board the ferry Mark told me about the freezer chest.