'Excellent, excellent,' he said distractedly, shoving the papers into a folder and withdrawing a slim grey book. 'It's clear to me now that you're ready to go deeper, young lady. High time I started giving you some language lessons.'
Ghe'el… ghavoola… ghae'teine…
He gave her the lesson in her bedroom, Carol having invited him in; somehow the living room held bad associations for her now, and
Rosie himself seemed just as happy to escape it. The two of them sat sipping iced tea, Carol on her bed and Rosie propped like an animated rag doll in the high-backed chair.
For more than an hour he read to her from the book he'd brought, an old, flimsily bound language text entitled Some Notes on Agon di-Gatuan or 'The Old Tongue,' With Particular Respect to Its Suppression in the Malay Subcontinent. Appendiced with a Chian Song Cycle and Primer. It had been privately printed in London in 1892, and the binding was now held together with black electrical tape. Rosie, face half buried in the book, would read a string of words aloud in a strange high singsong voice, and Carol was expected to repeat them with the same accent and intonation.
Riyamigdl'eth… riyamoghu…
'It's actually the only way to learn a language,' he assured her. 'The way a baby does – by imitation and constant repetition.'
He seemed convinced that he was right, and surely he knew what he was talking about. But the words she repeated were meaningless to her, like catechisms in an alien religion; for the life of her she couldn't remember a single one only seconds after repeating it, and she couldn't understand how familiarizing herself with some obscure phrases from a long-dead native dialect was supposed to help her in her reading. What possible good was all this going to do her? What was this Old Language, anyway?
'It's rather special,' Rosie explained, looking up from the book. 'It's the language people speak when they speak in tongues.'
This didn't sound right at all, but she didn't have the heart to argue with him. 'I don't think I understand,' she said, hoping he wouldn't lose patience with her. 'What do the words mean?'
Rosie smiled. 'It's a song about angels,' he said. 'One of the Dhol Chants.'
'Dhol?' The word was somehow familiar.
'Yes, like in the Dynnod. You remember.'
'But I thought that was Welsh,' she said, thoroughly confused now, and already weary of it all. Maybe it was the heat; the iced tea didn't seem to be helping much. 'How can something be Welsh and also Malayan and also be spoken in tongues if it's not-'
'Carol,' he said gently, shaking his head, 'the important thing is simply that you memorize this little rhyme.' He returned to the book.
Miggke'el ghae'teine moghwvoola…
Carol struggled to say the words. They seemed formed for other mouths than hers, other tongues. Yet somehow Rosie didn't seem to mind; he just kept nodding and smiling and watching her with satisfaction in his eyes. The alien sounds reverberated in the room, as if every word she'd uttered were hanging in the air, filling the space around her like incense, softening the edges of things and making her so dizzy she couldn't think straight. Later she recalled Rosie patiently explaining something about 'who the Vodies are,' and wondered if she'd heard right; and there'd been something he'd said about 'things hidden behind the clouds' – had she been dreaming? – and she vaguely recalled his promising to teach her the rules for ancient games, contests, dances, and she herself thinking how this, at least, would have a bearing on her work, maybe she could teach them to the children in the library…
'And next time,' he added, 'I'll teach you something special, the real names for the days of the week.'
She wanted to ask him what he meant, why he was filling her head with such strange impossible things that made no sense at all, but he had gotten to his feet and was already opening the box on the night table.
'Because you've been such a good pupil,' he said, eyes twinkling. He sliced the ribbon with a surprisingly sharp fingernail and lifted the lid. Inside, something pale lay covered by tissue paper. He reached down and withdrew a white silk short-sleeved dress that glimmered in the light.
She heard herself gasp. 'Oh,' she said, 'how beautiful!'
She got up from the bed and felt the cloth; it ran like water in her hand. There was, she saw, no label in the back, or else it had been removed; maybe Rosie was embarrassed about where he'd bought it, or maybe he was ashamed of how expensive it was. She held it next to her body. The style was old-fashioned and a little full for her, yet it was cut rather short, almost embarrassingly so, in fact; she would have to keep her legs well together when she wore it. But oh, how lovely it was!
'I can't wait to try it on,' she said.
Rosie shook his head. 'I don't want you to. I'm sure it'll fit well enough.' He flashed a sheepish grin. 'Actually, I have to tell you, this dress originally belonged to a friend, but she only had a single opportunity to wear it, and, well' – he shrugged – 'I wanted you to have it. You may find it a trifle large, but I think it will do One. I've taken the liberty of having it altered.'
'I'm sure it'll be perfect,' said Carol.
'What I was hoping was, maybe, if you had some time, you could wear it this Saturday night. We could make an evening together, you and I – unless, of course, you have some nice young man to look after you, someone a bit more handsome than an old thing like me.'
'Why no,' she said, grateful for something to do, 'that would be wonderful. I have no plans at all. Honestly, it's so sweet of you, Rosie, giving me something like this. You know, I've been needing a summer dress; I had absolutely nothing nice to wear.'
He was nodding. 'Good,' he said. 'When I saw that dress I immediately thought of you, because you see' – he smiled – 'it's your natural color.'
On his way home that evening, as he sits on one of the old folks' seats on the northbound bus, blinking at the passing lights and smiling at the occasional passengers who jostle him as they climb aboard, he thinks about the snow-white dress, the woman he's just left… and remembers the first time.
The first woman to wear that dress had been a farmer's daughter. Strong, better muscled than the slips of girls these days. And tediously pious. And trusting.
Like all first times, it hadn't gone very well.
The groundwork had been boring but necessary, exactly the sort of stupid sentimental story she'd been brought up to believe. He had told her he was going to marry her; he'd said he had great plans. He intended, he'd said, to make something of himself in the town. They had gone for long walks together, along country lanes and over the fields and through the woods.
Especially through the woods.
How she had enjoyed it, dreaming of the future with him! She had probably enjoyed it right up till the end.
He had tied the rope too tightly, that was his mistake. She'd been heavier than he'd thought, which had tightened the noose even more. And her struggles, once he'd gotten the dress off her, had made it tighter still, cutting off her wind before he'd gotten more than halfway through the other things he was supposed to do.
Oh, he had chanted the right words, and had drawn the necessary pictures in the earth below her as she struggled, and he'd even anointed her body with the black powder, in the special way the Master had prescribed…
He had tied that rope much too tightly, though. That had been his big mistake. She had died far sooner than he'd intended.
But then, he had just turned twenty-two, and this had only been a dry run, an experiment. He was still young. He would practice.
Next time, he vowed, he would get it right.
July Eighth
Good to get up in the country again: warm breeze, sunshine, sound of birds outside. Lay in bed listening to them late into the morning. Sarr was off clearing brush from the area just beyond the stream, amp; every so often I could hear his scythe ring out as it struck against a particularly thick branch. Deborah was closer by, just behind the house, hanging laundry on the clothesline. (Must remember to give her these pyjamas of mine, maybe also the bedsheets. The dampness around here makes it harder to keep things clean.) Later heard her working in the garden; from time to time she'd call out to one or another of the cats, scolding them for going after birds.