Every evening that December, and indeed throughout the winter, I swam laps in the empty and blue municipal pool. I would emerge into the cold night streets with my hair steaming and go for a long walk. On Christmas Eve I walked over the hill and into the next village, passing by the church just as the congregation was singing Hark! The Herald Angels Sing. I sat on a bench facing the nearby pond, where a number of geese were bracing themselves against a rising wind. A few weeks earlier the authorities had pulled the body of a girl out of the water. Her clothing had been found, discarded, on the hillside. I recalled reading that when the body’s temperature drops to twenty-nine degrees, people freezing to death tear off their clothing, a phenomenon referred to as paradoxical undressing. Scientists are not clear as to the precise causes, although it has been suggested that shortly before a person loses consciousness, the blood vessels near the skin’s surface, constricted from the cold, suddenly dilate, producing a sensation of extreme heat against the skin. We catch fire, burn up and wink out with an astonishing rapidity, I thought, sitting on the bench, idly watching the geese. A series of disjointed phrases ran through my mind: A pond for the children to die in. A hill to die upon. Is this the hill? The pond? This the bench? And then: Here at least we shall be free. The truth is, I once read, we all try to find some kind of dignity in our loneliness. There is little we can say in defence of these insane tribulations, according to one poet, except perhaps that they are a supreme act of love.