THE SUN SETS. Torches are lit and held by slaves. I whirl, sway, and step, step, step. While I dance, I am free of my fate. Admat moves with me, and he is eternal.
But finally I need food and drink more than I need to dance. I bow at the waist and stop. Mati wraps a shawl around my shoulders. The night air is cool. The shawl is linen, embroidered with purple thread. I run my palm across the smooth cloth, then touch Mati’s cheek to thank her for the shawl. I want to feel everything.
Mati leads me to the feast tables and loads a plate for me with goat cheese, onions and lentils, millet bread, and mutton spiced with mustard.
The bread breaks in my hand—proof of its freshness. I devour it and spear a chunk of mutton with my knife. The mustard is sharp, the mutton moist and gamey, baked to the melting point. I’ve never tasted anything so good.
The musicians stop playing. I hear Uncle Damki’s shout of laughter. A young pig roots under the table. I see its back legs and its spotted rump.
The magnificent slave stands at the end of the table, stacking dirty dishes. Out of the corner of my eye I watch him as I eat.
He collects two tall piles of plates. He’ll take the plates and go, although I want him to stay. Like the joy of dancing and the delicious food, his magnificence holds off my grief. I wonder if he belongs to Uncle Damki or to Belet’s parents.
He doesn’t go—as if he heard me want him not to! Instead he begins to unpile the dishes, re-creating the mess he has just cleaned up.
I’m so surprised, I nudge Mati.
“What is it, love?”
He stops moving.
“Never mind.” I don’t want to cause him trouble. I take my last bite of mutton. My plate is empty.
Mati takes it away and entwines her arm in mine. “I think we should congratulate Belet’s parents.”
Her parents have sworn no oath that they mustn’t be congratulated. I don’t want to see their joy. I don’t want to speak about Belet and Uncle Damki, who have years ahead of them. I free my arm from Mati’s. “You go.”
“I don’t want to leave you.”
“I’ll be fine.”
She goes. The slave is piling dishes again. Why?
Several other wedding guests—no one I know—are taking food, but they don’t seem to notice him. What if he is invisible to everyone but me? What if he is my guardian, sent by Admat to watch over me in my last days?
I doubt this, but I risk smiling at him.
He drops a plate.
It plummets. But then, in the instant before it strikes the baked mud street, it hovers in the air and comes down softly, unbroken.