9308-3953

his palm and said “This is the world.”
The bird appeared to consider the remark. Hopped a bit on his palm, looked over the
precipice of his fingers and then, with a sort of awkward jump, flapped its way to a patch of grass at
Davy’s feet. There it sat among the green grass, a fluttering invitation to larger, stronger birds of
prey.
This was a mistake, Davy fretted. Too much freedom can be fatal, especially when it is
unfamiliar.
But just as he thought this, the bird hopped, and then again, as if testing both its wings
and its confidence. Slowly, unsteadily, it flapped a few feet in the air. He held his breath as it rose a
bit more, leaving the ground behind it. And finally the bird climbed higher, into the sky.
Davy crushed the remains of the cage within his hands. The curved walls, the grand
onion dome, the little perches and the small mirrors. They crumbled to his feet as he continued to
watch that small yellow dot in the sky, growing even smaller, and smaller yet.
Of course it’s a girl, he thought. The way it looks at you so helplessly and then leaves,
all at once, without looking back. “You are welcome, milady,” he called after the tiny bird. “’Twas
my pleasure to serve.” And he stood guard there on the cliff until he could no longer see her at all
***
The Khajuraho Temple
2:40 PM
“We have faced death together once before, you and I,” the old man said. The words
were murmured gently and without malice. Even the setting was companionable. Two heavy English
rockers pulled in close congress on a portico, both of them facing the blazing sun.
The woman sitting beside him – younger, but not young – stretched out her legs and
propped them onto a woven footstool. The legs, muscular from years of hard work, were encased in
khaki trousers, much like women wear on safari. Yet this woman had never been on safari, nor had
she ever dined in a restaurant, been examined by a doctor, or taken a lover into her bed. Her life had
been both very big and very small and now, sunk low into reflection just as a human must be in these
circumstances, she felt a pang for every road she had left untraveled.
“Yes, we have faced death,” she said to the man and her voice, like his, was pleasant
and conversational. “In fact, as I recall, you attempted to throw me into the very jaws of it.”
“But you lived, did you not? And I have spent my life trying to make amends for that
singular day.”
“You have come to ask my forgiveness?” she asked brusquely.
“I know it is too late for that,” Anthony Weaver said to Leigh Anne Hoffman. “Your fate
diverged from that of Michael, it is true. But it is not because you were a girl as you undoubtedly
think. It was your age. I was afraid that you might remember. That you might someday ask me about
that day on the outskirts of Cawnpore.”
“I did remember.”
“It was Rose’s idea to take you to the orphanage,” he said, as if such a thing might matter
now. “That part was all Rose’s idea.”
“Then I am not sorry that I killed her,” Leigh Anne said matter-of-factly. “Even though
my draught was aimed at you. Would you like tea?”
“I’d rather have something stronger.”
“I have that as well.”