Page 98 - What Is Not Yours Is Not Yours

he couldn’t kill her, he could never kill her . . . she took him in her arms and fed

him to the fire he’d started. There was still quite a lot of him left when he
jumped into the swamp, but the drowned held grudges and heaved him out onto
land again, where he lay roasting to death while his bride strolled back toward
the city, peeling blackened patches of wedding dress off her as she went. She put
on some other clothes and took food to the prison where Arkady sat alone
contemplating the large heap of questionable publications the guards had left
him on their departure. Before Arkady could thank Lokum for the food (and, he

hoped, her company) she said, “Wait a minute,” and ran off again, returning an
hour later with his two friends. Leporello shook Arkady’s hand and Giacomo
licked his face; this was a joke they’d vowed they’d make the next time they saw
Arkady, and they thought it rather a good one. Arkady called out his thanks to
Lokum, but she had no intention of staying this time either: “We’ve got to get

you out of there,” she said, and left again.
“It’s autumn, isn’t it?” Arkady asked Giacomo. He’d seen that Giacomo’s
shoes and Leporello’s feet were soaking wet too, but he wanted to finish eating
before he asked about that.
“Yes! How did you know?”
“I don’t know. Could you bring me some leaves? Just a handful . . .”
Giacomo brought armfuls of multicolored leaves, and Leporello rushed

through them like a blizzard so that the richest reds and browns flew in through
the prison bars.
“Giacomo?”
“Yes, Arkady?”
“Is it right for me to escape this place? Those people where we used to live
—”

“There was a fire and they couldn’t get out. They would have got out if they
could, but they couldn’t, and that’s what killed them. If you can escape then you
should.”
“But am I to blame?”
Giacomo didn’t say yes or no, but attempted to balance a leaf on the tip of
Leporello’s nose.

—

WHAT ABOUT EIRINI the Fair? For months she’d been living quite happily in a big
city where most of the people she met were just as vague as she was, if not more
so. She ran a small and cozy drinking establishment and passed her days