Isabelle er er told me of further losses.
Up in ttic I leaned to make it give, t. Over and over. I empting fate. falling cause to collapse? ould roof tiles and beams and stone come craso t? ould it stop t go? I rocked and rocked, taunting t to fall, but it didn’t. Even under duress, it is astonis ay standing.
t, I ill feel it resounding in my eardrums and in my c. I leaped out of bed and ran to tairs, Emmeline at my heels.
e arrived on t time t Jo in tc t of tairs, and ared. In tanding in dress, staring up rose and fell in to settle. Fragments of plaster, mortar, ill falling from ttering, and from time to time I felt Emmeline jump as planks and bricks fell in the floors above.
tone steps ers of ar dug into my feet. In ter of all tritus of our broken slotling around ood like a g. Dust-gray -gray face and -gray tdress. Sood perfectly still and looked up. I came close to are to anot anotrellis pattern in t, and ttle attic room. Above all of t, self and tars.
I took ’s no use looking up there.”
I led tle c o bed,” I told John.
G- ure toroyed ceiling. It ion of a dro. “And I’ll sort t.”
But an er, ucked up in bed and asleep, ill tly as I aring at t where she had been.
t morning, c o he roof, and she was gone.
‘e’ve lost old Jochen. ”She’s dead.“
cinued to stare across tcable as t ually, in a voice t did not expect to be heard. “Yes.”
It felt as if everyto an end. I o sit like Joaring into space and doing not time did not stop. I could still feel my beat measuring out tomac in my t. I I instead I was scandalously and absurdly alive—
so alive I swear I could feel my hair and my fingernails growing.
For all t on my I could not, like Joo ter o o come out of t ime to stop playing and grow up.
‘I’ll put ttle on, tea.“
My voice my oo my skin and taken me over. So kno o do. I ly surprised. I spent ccer, cche villagers?
I settled quietly inside myself tea leaves, stirred and poured. S t , and as t, s tea reacomac last I stopped trembling.