Ever Read Free Page A

You need a woman. You need—”
    â€œHush!” Pado’s voice is both pained and amused.
    No one but my mati would be bawdy now. Who has such a mati? Let her live!
    Pado stands, paces, sits. “I want no one but you.”
    â€œI wish Fedo were here. She’d save me”—Mati laughs jerkily—“or she’d give me something to die quickly.”
    I too wish Aunt Fedo were here. Except for an asupu, only Aunt Fedo would brave a sick house. She knows remedies for a hundred ailments, and she never treats illness with a knife.
    But Aunt Fedo is inspecting her dead husband’s land. We don’t expect her back for weeks.
    Nia appears in the doorway and announces that theasupu has come.
    â€œBring him in,” Pado says.
    Nia nods and backs out of the room, her eyes on the altar flame.
    â€œThe asupu will make you well,” I say with a certainty I don’t feel. “Admat, the one, the all, will make you well.”
    But I’m not sure of this either. Admat himself decreed that everyone dies. I hope he isn’t angry with us—or with me. I sin often, although I usually don’t mean to.
    The holy text says:
    Admat’s anger, easy to arouse ,
    Hard to placate .
    Beware the wrath of Admat .
    Nia returns with an elderly man whose head curls are clearly a wig. He carries a rolled-up mat and a leather sack. Nia kneels at the altar and waits.
    The asupu stands on the threshold. “Who is ill?”
    No one but Mati is in bed, feverish and shaking. This asupu is too much of a fool to cure anyone.
    She laughs. The bed rattles with the force of her laughter.
    â€œMerem . . .” Pado says warningly. He tells the asupu, “The patient is my wife. The illness began suddenly last night and has grown steadily worse.”
    â€œBring candles,” he tells Pado. “Fetch a lamb for Admat and bring it here.”
    Pado nods to Nia, who hurries out. I watch the asupu put his sack on the rug next to the bed and unroll his straw mat. On the mat he arranges the sack’s contents: a blue mask, a branch with leaves still clinging, a square of stained wool, the skeleton of a mouse.
    I don’t mean to, but I picture a tiny asupu, a year from now, carrying his sack into the hole of a sick mouse. From the sack he produces Mati’s skeleton, which he will use to cure the mouse.
    I squeeze my eyes shut until the frightful vision changes into velvet colors behind my eyelids. When I open my eyes, the asupu is placing a knife next to the mouse’s bones. There is a nick in the blade. A nick! A nick will cause a jagged wound. I want to snatch the knife and run out of the house with it.
    Pado says, “Merem is an obedient wife. She has the constitution of an ox. She—”
    â€œâ€”a dying ox,” Merem breaks in, her voice hoarse.
    The asupu frowns. I would smile if I could. Obedientwives don’t interrupt their husbands.
    Nia comes back with Pazur, another servant. Nia has the lamb, which bucks in her arms. The lamb’s legs are tied together, front and back. Pazur has the candles. He puts them down by the asupu’s mat and leaves. Nia lays the lamb across Admat’s altar. Admat’s flame is steady again, although I still feel the faint breeze.
    The asupu waves two fingers back and forth in front of the lamb’s blinking eyes.
    Poor creature! I think, although I shouldn’t. Sacrifices are treasured by Admat.
    The lamb’s eyes close. The asupu guts it, and it makes not a sound.
    So that was the purpose of the knife! I am relieved down to my toes.
    The asupu reaches into the sacrifice and lifts out the quivering liver. He frowns over it, poking it here and there with his finger.
    Meanwhile, Nia lights the candles and arranges them on the floor around the bed. I hear her whispered prayer, repeated again and again. “As you wish, so it will be.”
    The asupu finishes with the liver. He sets it on the altar and goes to