Chapter 19 · Chapter 19

I lifted the cloth.

The tent breathed out at me — lanolin, henna, and cold ash in a lamp not yet lit. Daylight came through the goat-hair weave as a heavy brown dusk, just enough to show the centre pole, the rugs rolled and stacked, and the cushions laid out for a bride that had not yet been sat upon.

Shimon stood at the pole with his back to me. His cloak lay folded over his arm; he set it down upon the rug without turning round.

"You did not lift it," he said.

"No."

"Why not?"

I let the curtain drop behind me. The stay-ropes took the weight, and the camp outside went out of the world. "Because every eye among them was waiting to see whether I would yield to their custom."

He turned then.

I had seen him countless times in the flat white light of morning, yet never like this — the roof of the tent making his frame seem broader, the dusk taking nothing of his weight away.

"There is no white cloth," I said.

"No."

"They will say it was not proved."

"Let them say it.