📸 Photo

there! Stay away from the cliff! Get right back here!’

At last she returned. She wasn’t at all frightened or upset. ‘Let’s go back into the tent,’ she said quietly.

She spread her poncho out over the sleeping bags, and we lay down, holding one another. I was conscious of being cold and yet felt curiously indifferent. The coldness didn’t matter; it was alien to me. I hovered in other worlds.

‘Do you want to?’ she asked in a murmur.
Do I ever! I thought to myself, but what makes me think I can?

‘I’m not sure that I can,’ I said.

Dede laughed. She removed my belt and stretched out on top of me. I guess I was off in another world. Everything felt different, new, unfamiliar. It was endless. When it happened, it just went on and on for I don’t know how long. Afterward we just lay there. I was still trying to get Dede to tell me into what army I had been conscripted and where we were. She didn’t even try to answer my questions. She only laughed. The horses galloped along with me until daybreak.

Dede pulled me outside, but my legs wouldn’t do what I wanted. I stood there, watching while she took the tent down and packed our wet belongings. She wadded everything up and shoved it into the packs, and we started trudging back toward the village.

‘Have you come down?’ I asked her.