THE MAYOR CLEARS his throat. He pushes aside his plate. He regards his youngest daughter, who is chewing her bread enthusiastically, and not giving him any encouragement at all.
I am an indulgent father, he begins. Which is a fine beginning; which is what he rehearsed. Firstly: his affectionate nature and dislike of tyranny; secondly: his public obligations; thirdly: the strange reports that have lately reached him, of sightings, and silences, and the odd, glittering look in his youngest daughter's eye, the bits of grass seen caught in her hair; and fourthly: he cannot remember fourthly.
Emma, he says.
And notices, as he often does, the stubbiness of her fingers. It would be quite impossible to pry those fingers from anything they might decide to grasp. One day, he expects, they will lengthen into cool, slender, white fingers, from which will issue all sorts of gentle touches and the pretty, even handwriting that he sees on invitations. As it stands, her lettering is heavy on the page, and executed with the same methodical relish with which she is now sawing off another piece of bread. But yes, her fingers will lengthen, and her complexion will not be so swarthy, and little curlicues will bloom upon the barren slopes of her alphabet.
Emma, he says again, and because her mouth is full, she reaches across the table and squeezes his hand. Yes, Papa, I am listening, is what her stubby fingers say. With warmth, and great insistence; and what a very pleasant feeling it is to be gripped by such fingers, and to know that nothing could ever tear you from their hold. The mayor finds himself thinking that perhaps it would not be so terrible were his daughter to remain always like this: this small, this brown and sturdy, like a jug.
I am an indulgent father, he repeats, helplessly, and he can go no further.