S ilence. Dead silence.
The silence was all around them. No birds sang; there was no wind. Here in this desolate place, it seemed to her that even the weather had ceased to be. The sky was white, a blank canvas. No rain fell; no sun shone. There was only death.
She stepped forward. Faint with fear, nauseated by grief, she stood beside the grave for a long time, cradling the almost weightless bundle. The silence was so intense she could almost touch it. She turned quickly, seized by dread. But the man had not abandoned her. There he stood, not looking at her, his pale face shadowed beneath the trees.
“It is time,” he said.
Slowly she knelt down. She slid the baby’s swaddled body from her arms into the waiting earth. As she did so she felt his head loll backwards on his tiny neck, as if it still held life.
She began to weep, her stricken sobs piercing the air while the man shovelled soil into the hole, firmed it with his foot and covered it with sodden leaves, handful after handful until all sign of the disturbance of the earth had disappeared.
Exhausted now, she knelt silently, but she did not listen to his prayer. Her ears were assailed by screams. Inhuman screams. First one, then more and more crows darted between the trees and settled nearby. Their ragged feathers and glittering eyes were repellent to her, a vision of horror.
“This place is cursed,” she told the man. “I will never return here.”
The man’s gaze did not shift from the grave. His voice was a whisper. “Neither will I.” He wiped his hands on his handkerchief and shouldered the shovel. “We will never again pay respects at our son’s grave.”
“What need is there to pay respects?” she asked. “Our son is not dead.”