~ ~ ~
HE CAME INTO THE KITCHEN and she was standing in a sort of pose, facing him, her shoulders askance. Her eyes were wide open and she was looking right at him. He could hardly bear it.
She stepped close to him and went up on her tiptoes to whisper something in his ear.
— I need to speak to you.
He could feel the length of her against his arm. The buttons on her dress pressed into his skin. That’s how close she stood.
— I need, can we meet in private? — When?
— Leave your house in the middle of the night, not tonight, but tomorrow. I’ll be outside in the street, and we can go somewhere to speak. Right after the clock strikes one.
Should he agree?
He nodded.
~ ~ ~
— WELL, WELL, WELL, said Martin. Well, well, well. This was a fine supper after all. I thought it would be just a disaster, but that market down in the square, why, it saves the day every time. You wouldn’t expect such a small market to have the things you need — but it is almost like they contrive to have only those things. The things you don’t need, they don’t have. The things you need, they have. What an idea! Why don’t all markets work that way?
Emma chuckled to herself.
— They must know you very well, she said. Maybe when they see you enter the store, they put out items just for you.
— If it’s true, said Martin, I should pay them double. What a great place this is.
He winked at the claimant. When the claimant returned his gaze, he indicated the next room with his head.
The claimant looked around. No one else had seen.
— I’m going to get a start on these dishes, said Martin.
He stood up and started collecting the plates. When Hilda got up, too, he shook his head.
— You cook, I clean, I cook, you clean. You know the rules. Fair is fair.
— I’ll help you, said the claimant.
— Now that’s some help I’ll accept.
The two men went into the next room.
~ ~ ~
HE MOTIONED MARTIN OVER to the far side, and shut the door to the kitchen.
— Do you know how Hilda and me got here?
— No, you’ve never said.
— As I understand it, this village is actually part of the Process of Villages. Hard to believe, but true, as far as it goes. In any case, just to get in, you have to take some examinations and prove that you are a decent enough person not to disturb anything. I’ll tell you a secret.
The man leaned in.
— Hilda didn’t pass.
The claimant looked at him in shock.
— But…
— Yes, she didn’t pass. Apparently she lies, and she is given to, what did they call it, precipitous actions.
— What was the test like?
— It was a week-long monitoring. You stay at a house and they watch you and send people to speak to you. After a while, they learn enough about you to make a decision.
— Did you pass?
— Of course I passed! You know me now, can you imagine I wouldn’t have passed?
— I didn’t say that, I just. Maybe it is a hard test.
— Oh no, it is easy. The easiest thing in the world. You would pass in a minute. But Hilda, well, she is a very odd young woman. It was her idea, too, to come here. She wanted to live in one of these so-called settled villages. She said the shapes were calm and comfortable. I said, the shapes of what. She said, all the shapes, the way everything there is better. So, here we are.
— But,
the claimant mulled for a moment.
— But, if she failed.
— I paid the man a large sum of money to look the other way.
The claimant turned his face away. He could scarcely believe it. He wanted to go back to the house immediately, but he felt he would be seen through. And so they sat there, quiet, for perhaps fifteen minutes.
— These fine spring days, said Martin. I could live like this forever. And I suppose we will, eh, friend?
He clapped the claimant on the back.
— I was just thinking, if you didn’t take the test, you must have come here before they started the test. Is that so? You must have been around here quite a while. You must know this little village backward and forward.
— When did they start the test?
— I don’t know — but these sorts of things, they always come up as soon as I’m the next one in line. Wouldn’t surprise me at all if they started giving them the week before we came.
Martin put rubber gloves onto his hands and turned the faucet on, twisting the hot-water knob as far as it would go. The water poured out and steam rose to the ceiling. It was blisteringly hot, but Martin didn’t flinch at all. He took each plate and thrust it into the water, without any concern for the spray. The water flushed the dishes of any and all debris. When that had been done, Martin gripped them, one by one, and scoured them with a soapy rag. As he finished each, he would hand it to the claimant, to dry and put away. The first dish the claimant received was so hot he could scarcely hold it, but he did, and he dried it with a soft white cloth and set it in the bureau behind him. In the bureau there sat row after row of perfect white plates, perfect white dishes, perfect white bowls, cups, teacups. Things of every sort were there, and it was just as it had always been. Every time that the claimant had opened such a drawer, the inside had been just the same. He loved to look at these rows of clean dishes. Why, he could…
— Martin Rueger! Another dish for you. Don’t fail me now!
The claimant wondered what Martin would tell him. He wondered why he had been brought into the kitchen. But it soon became apparent that it was just for his company — for that alone. This was an interesting idea, and one that he did not entirely understand.
Or, it wasn’t that he didn’t understand it, he decided. It was that he distrusted it. The examiner always said, distrust things that are too easy. One wants the struggle — one shouldn’t permit it to be removed.
When they had finished the dishes, Martin showed the claimant a special knife that they had brought with them for cutting fish. It was very thin and the claimant found it a bit terrifying.
— This is a filet knife. I have used it to cut many fish. If you were to pile all the fish that I have used this knife on, they would fill this room and more. You literally could not fit them in this room, not even considering their slipperiness. Even imagining that they could be easily stacked, they still would not fit. If I were to begin cutting them into tidy portions for meals today, I would almost never be done. A week from now — after a week of cutting, I would have cut just the smallest portion.
— You see, he continued, I used to work in a fish market. My father was a fisherman, and all my uncles. But, they wanted something else for me.
The claimant went back into the dining room.
— I can’t bear to eat fish, Hilda was saying. I just, I think of them swimming around and looking forward to seeing the sunlight on the surface of the water, and then my heart goes out to them.
— Oh, that’s rubbish, said Martin, coming up behind the claimant.
The two men sat down.
— For one, said Martin, the fish don’t really care very much about the sunlight. I mean, you would, if we stuck you in the water, but they don’t. And the other thing is — you love fish! You eat it all the time — and you even ask for us to have it when we haven’t had it for a week or so.
— He’s completely right, said Hilda. I was just talking about not liking fish. A person can do that, right? Talk about something, about not liking something. That’s okay, isn’t it?