Chapter 8 The Fourth Hour

On the ninth day Avelin woke at the fourth hour and did not know why she had woken, which was the second thing to happen in her life that her daughter had not noticed before her. Trenn heard it anyway. Trenn heard the bed move and the footstep on the floor and the door of the room open and close, and Trenn lay in her bed with her eyes open and she listened to her mother walk the length of the room and stand at the window and stand there, and after a while Trenn got up and came to the door of the stair and she did not go up, because she understood that if she went up she would have to say something, and if she said something then the thing would be said, and the thing that would be said was the thing on the list. "Mother." "I am getting up." "You were already up." "I am getting up." "I have been up since the third." "Then we are both up." Silence. The cloth on the window was moving in the wind, and the wind was going down the long street, and the Yard was striking the fourth hour in the distance, and the bell was one bell. Avelin turned from the window. She had her band out, and the cuff was unrolled, and the brass was the colour of the fourth hour, and she was looking at it, and she was not looking at the number, because the number was 1174 on the House's book and the metal was 1268 and the difference was ninety-four, and she had looked at the difference enough times in the last nine days. "I could have lifted you," Avelin said. "No." "I could have lifted you off the bed with one arm and carried you down the stair and out to the Yard and back again, and the standing would not have moved, and the metal would have moved, and you would not have known until next month." "I know." "Then I could have done it." "I know that you could have." "Then why did I not." Trenn stood in the door of the stair with her arms at her sides and her feet on the floor and her reading spectacles on the nightstand behind her, and she thought about the question, and she thought about the list, and she thought about the ninth line that had nothing on it, and she thought about the eight things her mother could still do, and she thought about the foundry, and she thought about the two men, and she thought about the roll that was closed, and she thought about the card in the drawer under the table, and she thought about the fact that her mother had refused twice and had spent ninety-four Hours in nine days and had not told her once. "Because you have decided not to," Trenn said. "I have not decided." "You have decided. You have decided at some point in the last nine days that the spending is not the foundry and not the bench and not the read, and that the spending is the deciding, and that you can stop deciding and the spending will stop, and that if you stop deciding then the metal will not move, and the metal will not move, and the date will not move, and you will sit at the table for the rest of the eight months and a half and you will hold the ladder and eat the apples and read the list." "That is what you want." "That is what I want. It is not what you want. You want the foundry. You want the two men. You want the read of a hundred and forty clerks in a night, and you want to give it back in the morning, and you want the standing not to move, and you know that the metal will move, and you know that the metal has been moving for nine days because you have been deciding, and you know that the deciding is the second measure, and you know that the second measure is the only thing that is honest, and you want it anyway." Avelin looked at her arm. She rolled the cuff over the brass and she buttoned the sleeve, and the brass went under the cloth, and the fourth hour went on, and the wind went on, and the bell was one bell. "I will come to the Yard on the fourteenth," she said. "I know." "I will be measured." "I know." "Then the date will move." "Then the date will move." "And you will know the date." "I will know the date." "And you will count it." "I will count it." "Then stop counting." "I will not stop counting." Avelin put her hand out and she held her daughter's hand, and the holding cost nothing on the ledger, and it cost something on the metal, and the metal did not say so, and the metal would say so on the fourteenth, and the fourteenth was five days away. "Five days," Avelin said. "Five days." "Then I will hold your hand for five days." "I will let you." They stood in the door of the stair with the wind in the cloth and the bell at the Yard and the fourth hour going on, and neither of them said the thing, because neither of them could say it yet, and because to say it would have been to make it true, and the list had a ninth line with nothing on it, and the ninth line was the thing, and the thing was not on the list, and the list was on the table, and the table was in the room, and the room was in the house, and the house was on Vail Street, and Vail Street was on the long street, and the long street went to the Yard, and the Yard had a bench in it, and the bench had a ruler on it, and the ruler was waiting. ---