Chapter 19: Portion

On the morning two days before the first performance, Danika was setting a basket beside the door.

It was an empty basket. Whenever it was market day, she would have it out by the door from early morning, so I knew that was where she was going today.

Danika was not someone who told me beforehand what she intended to buy. Yet today, while wrapping two loaves of bread in cloth, she spoke first.

"I am going to the market today. I will be back before lunch."

"Oh, really? What are you buying?"

"Potatoes. We are out of salt as well."

As always, she said only what needed saying and stopped there. She had been that way since the day she came to this house, and I had long since stopped looking for anything more behind her words.

When I picked up the cane standing beside the door, its newly fitted metal tip stuck firmly against the threshold stone. After walking with it for two days, even the sound it made on the back streets had changed a little.

The paper Danika had drawn, with the dot Sandrone had marked at the end of the route, was still in my inner pocket. Even after I had carried it around for two days, Danika had not said a word about it.

"I’m off."

"Take care."

When I looked back once from the corner, Danika was still standing outside the threshold without having picked up her basket.

The theater was in a bustle from morning onward, with the first performance only two days away.

From the rehearsal room, the piano repeated the same passage over and over, and the footsteps of people moving through the corridor were faster than usual. The old man must have been there since dawn; by the time I entered the prop room, the candlesticks were already out of their boxes and lined up on the shelves.

"Start with the glasses today."

"Yes."

"You had the tip of your cane replaced."

"Yes, on my day off."

The old man looked once at the cane tip and said no more.

I wiped the glasses, counted them, and wrote them down on the checklist. There was more to count for the first performance, and I had to mark the chalk positions for every candlestick again, but though my hands were busy, my thoughts kept wandering elsewhere.

Vodianitsa’s name was no longer being pushed farther down the roster beside the rehearsal room door. Every time I passed it, my eyes went there on their own.

I crossed paths with Odette in the corridor. She did not slow down or turn toward the prop room, but a faint chill lingered where she had passed.

The day after tomorrow was when the two of them would take the stage as leads.

The old man started talking about the stool. There would be twice as many guests as usual that day, he said, so I was to move the stool about a foot farther inside the wings and set out one additional candlestick.

"It will be both leads’ first time on stage. The house will be packed."

"Yes, I’ll move it today."

I lifted the stool and moved it farther into the wings. Sitting there, part of the lower stage was obscured, but I could still see the singers’ faces well enough, so it seemed fine.

"After the performance the day after tomorrow, let’s do that thing we put off."

"That thing?"

"Didn’t you say the liquor wasn’t going anywhere?"

He meant the promise we had made on the day of the first full rehearsal, to go have a drink together afterward. We had postponed it until my leg healed because of my injury, but the old man had not forgotten. I only nodded instead of answering.

Vodianitsa’s tin had grown noticeably lighter this week.

She shook it for me every lunchtime as she passed the prop room, so there was no way I could miss it. Since filling it on her first payday, listening to that tin empty out had somehow become my concern too. Yesterday, it had barely made a sound when she shook it.

I decided what to fill it with while polishing the candlesticks.

I had given her honey last time, and she already had the tin, so this time I would fill it with candy. All I had to do was open the tin backstage before the performance and pour it in, yet I spent the entire time polishing one candlestick thinking of nothing else.

At lunchtime, I asked the old man if I could step out for thirty minutes.

He did not ask where I was going and simply picked up a rag. When I tore one of the loaves Danika had packed in half and set it atop a box lid, he glanced at it and continued wiping in silence.

"Will thirty minutes be enough?"

"Yes, thirty minutes will do."

Since coming to the theater, there were only two places I had ever slipped away to during work for thirty minutes at a time: the market candy stall, and the teahouse by the front entrance where I had gone to buy honey. Today, I headed for the candy stall I had visited first.

I went down the three steps by the back door and turned toward the market along the theater wall.

The market was crowded at lunchtime on a working day.

People brushed shoulders as they passed between the stalls, and from the mouth of the alley came a mingled smell of fish and bread. Danika had to be shopping somewhere around here too, but no matter how I looked, I could not see her white headscarf.

I passed the fishmonger’s stall without stopping. The man did not recognize the ordinary fellow in the hat today either, and I did not bother slowing down.

The candy stall was where it always was.

The amber-colored sweets in the glass jar were unchanged, as were the metal tins with floral lids stacked beside it. Paper bags hung next to the tins, apparently for people who only bought candy.

All I had to do was ask for one bag. Yet the words would not come easily.

For Vodianitsa’s first performance as a lead, a single bag of candy felt like far too little for me to give her. Still, I was probably the only person who knew her tin had grown light, and my hand moved toward the bags before drawing back again.

On my first payday, I had spent half a month’s wages here. Back then, all I had thought about was repaying what I had received, but today, when I had no such thought, I hesitated even more.

"What are you staring at so intently?"

"The candy. How much is a bag?"

The merchant named his price. While I took out my coins, he opened the glass jar and scooped a generous portion of amber pieces into a bag.

"They’re that color because there’s honey in them."

Someone was beside me.

I had no idea when she had arrived. There had been neither footsteps nor any sign of her presence, but when I turned my head, a person dressed in white stood right beside me.

She wore long robes of white and navy. Her black hair, long enough to trail along the ground, glinted reddish-purple; behind her head, white feather-like ornaments spread like wings, and a moon-shaped jewel hung at her chest.

I could not see her eyes. White lace had been tied across them, so I could not tell whether they were open or closed beneath it.

Even the way she stood was somehow strange. She was clearly standing on the ground, yet looked as though she were floating, and though there was not a breath of wind, only the hem of her clothes fluttered softly.

People passing between the stalls went around her, as though avoiding a collision, yet no one looked at her. Nor did anyone seem to see the person standing in the middle of them all.

Her face was directed toward the glass jar.

"...What color is this?"

Her voice was low and slow. Though it was a question, the end barely rose, and for a moment I could not tell whether she was speaking to the jar or to me.

Since I was the only person standing nearby, she had to be speaking to me.

I hesitated to tell someone whose eyes were covered that it was amber. What use was color to someone who could not see it? Yet she remained still, facing the jar as though waiting for an answer.

"It’s amber-colored."

"Amber?"

"Darker than yellow, but lighter than brown. When sunlight hits it, you can see a little through it."

As I spoke, I looked at the jar again. I had meant to leave it at amber, but once I started describing what I could see, my explanation kept growing longer. Beside me, she only listened quietly.

"They are all different shapes. Some are round, some are broken, and the ones near the bottom of the jar are stuck together."

A white hand rose and touched the side of the glass jar. Her fingertips slowly traveled downward along it, stopped around the level where I had said the candy was stuck together, then fell away.

"Here?"

"Yes, right about there."

"I see."

She tilted her head slightly. It seemed as if her covered eyes had turned toward me rather than the jar, but the lace gave me no way to be sure.

"What about the tins?"

"The tins?"

"The ones beside it."

"They’re small metal tins. There are flower patterns stamped on their lids. The flowers are red, and where the paint has chipped away, you can see the color of the metal."

I had only then realized myself that the flower patterns were red. I had passed this stall for months, but only when I tried to put it into words did I truly notice. Her covered eyes were directed toward those tins too.

"You are... the first person to tell me things that way."

The merchant put a small sample piece on some paper and held it out, telling her to try it. When no hand came forward, he finally seemed to notice the lace, and awkwardly withdrew the paper.

"He’s offering you a sample."

"It’s fine. I’ll hear about it from you."

I was about to ask what she meant by that when the merchant held out my bag.

I handed him the coins and took it. After folding the opening twice and slipping it into my inner pocket, the bag fit neatly into the spot where the honey jar had once been. All the while, the person beside me did not leave.

"It makes a sound."

"That’s the candies knocking together. Because they’re in a bag."

"It would sound different in a tin."

"Yes, a tin rings more."

She said it as if she had heard that particular tin before. There was no way she could know the sound it made every lunchtime in front of the prop room, but somehow it did not feel strange enough to question.

"Are you going to put them in a tin?"

"Yes. The person receiving them carries one around."

"Does she like candy?"

"Very much. She keeps a floral tin inside her coat and takes them out one at a time to eat."

"Is that tin empty?"

"Almost. That’s why I’m going to fill it."

Before I knew it, I was telling a stranger about Vodianitsa. I had simply answered her questions, and somehow we had reached that point. At the mention of the floral tin, she nodded slightly.

She seemed to be someone with poor eyesight who had come to the market alone. I looked around to see if she had company, but everyone was only going their own way. No one stopped by her side.

"Did you come alone?"

"Yes."

"The market is narrow, so it’s dangerous. Carts come through too."

"It’s all right. I can feel everything."

I did not know what she meant, but I did not ask. Her tone made it feel as though prying would only drive her away.

"It hasn’t snowed yet."

"Snow?"

"The thing that comes from the sky."

"Ah, it’s the season when snow melts. It probably won’t snow for a while."

"Really? I like snow."

"I don’t. The roads get slippery when it snows."

The conversation about snow ended there. I had said I disliked it to someone who said she liked it, leaving me with nothing more to say, but she did not seem disappointed.

Nor did she seem pleased. The corners of her mouth beneath the lace were always slightly raised, making it difficult to tell whether she was smiling or not. With that face, she simply stood beside me.

"What color is the sky?"

I looked up. The sky visible between the awnings was gray, though one patch was a little brighter.

"It’s gray, but one part is brighter. I don’t think it will snow."

"I see. Then what color are you?"

"Me?"

"Your clothes."

I looked down at myself. A black coat with worn cuffs—the very coat Danika had washed to rid of its smell of machine oil.

"Black. The cuffs are a little worn, and what I have on underneath is gray."

"Black?"

"Yes. My hat is black too."

It was the first time I had ever described my own appearance aloud. Marketgoers merely glanced once at an ordinary man in a black coat and black hat before passing on, but to this person, I had to explain every detail in words.

"What were you looking at?"

"Me? The candy."

"You stood in front of it for a long time."

She seemed to know better than I did how long I had been standing there. Feeling strangely caught out, I adjusted my grip on my cane.

"It’s for someone. I was trying to see whether one bag would be enough."

"Is one bag... too small?"

"It seemed a little small."

"Only the person receiving it knows whether it is small or not."

I had no answer to that one slow sentence.

The merchant glanced at the blindfolded customer. He seemed uneasy about her standing in front of the stall for so long, and when his gaze settled on me, I nearly said we were not together, then stopped myself.

If he asked what we were to each other, I would have had nothing to say. I felt uneasy leaving someone with poor eyesight alone in a market where carts passed through, but I could not think of any particular reason to remain beside her either.

"The path is a little wider beside the fish stall over there."

"It’s all right. I like it here."

"Here?"

"It smells like candy, and I can hear your cane."

I looked down at the cane. I was standing still now, so she must have meant the sound it had made against the stones as I walked here.

"You know the sound of my cane?"

"Yes. I have been hearing it for a while."

I could not tell whether she meant since I stopped in front of the stall or from before that. It felt odd to ask, so I let it go, and she added nothing more.

The smell of baking bread drifted from somewhere. Her head turned slightly toward the scent before returning to where it had been.

"That’s baking bread. From the stall over there."

"Yes, I know."

"Ah, sorry. I told you something you already knew."

"No. I like it when you tell me."

"Everyone is going around you. Along that side."

"Yes. They always do."

She said they always did as calmly as though discussing the weather. Standing in the middle of people avoiding her seemed to be simply part of her ordinary life, and somehow, I had become someone who did not avoid her as I stood beside her.

Since she said she liked being told, I described the things before the stall one by one. How many tins were stacked there, which side the bags hung on, whether the glass jar lid was metal or wood. As I spoke, her head turned to follow each thing I mentioned.

That was when the cart came.

From deeper in the alley came the loud rattle of wheels over stone. A heavily laden cart pushed through the narrow gap between the stalls, and while its driver shouted for people to move aside, one of the containers atop the cart rolled off and shattered with a crash.

Her shoulders flinched.

The loud noise had startled her. Her raised shoulders froze in place, and the cart was coming straight toward her.

My hand moved before I could think.

"Watch out!"

I grabbed her white sleeve and pulled her half a step toward the stall. At the same time, the cart brushed past where she had been standing, while its driver grumbled as he went away without even looking back.

My hand remained on her sleeve.

Only then did I realize what I had grabbed. It was exactly like the way Vodianitsa had pulled at my sleeve in this market, in front of those masked people. Except this time, I was the one holding someone else’s sleeve, and even after the cart had gone by, I had forgotten to let go.

I released her.

On the day the stage set had fallen, my body had moved before my mind could catch up too. It had never happened again afterward, but it had happened again today in front of the candy stall—and this time, my leg was perfectly fine.

Oil from the broken container spread over the stone ground. The cart driver never returned, and while the stallholders hurriedly used their feet to stop the oil flowing toward their goods, she alone remained still.

"It smells like oil."

"The container broke. It didn’t reach your feet."

Only after I said that did I realize it was what I should have told her first. Things she could take in at a glance had to be given to her one piece at a time in words, and through it all, she waited quietly.

The merchant leaned over the stall and asked if she was all right. I nodded on her behalf.

"I’m sorry for grabbing you so suddenly. Are you hurt anywhere?"

"...I’m all right."

Her shoulders slowly lowered, and her other hand felt over the spot on the sleeve I had held. It was not the gesture of someone checking for pain, but as though she were confirming whether something remained there.

"I am... sensitive to loud sounds."

"A lot of people are."

"Thunder too. And carts."

"What do you do on days when there’s thunder?"

"I stay home."

For some reason, the word home sounded strange coming from her. Perhaps it was because she was dressed unlike someone who would stay rooted in a home, but it was not as though I could know such a thing.

"Carts make noise beforehand, so next time I’ll tell you first."

Once I said it, I realized I had spoken as if there would be a next time. There was no reason there would be another time with someone I had met only once at the market, yet the words had slipped out on their own. She nodded faintly at them.

"Still... no one has ever held on to me like that."

She spoke so slowly that after every phrase, I could never tell whether another would follow. Sometimes, if I waited, she continued. Other times, that was simply the end.

I did not know how to answer the remark that no one had held on to her. I could not tell whether she meant no one had ever been beside her, or whether people had been there but had not grabbed her. Either way, it was not my place to pry.

The bag in my inner pocket rustled.

Not knowing what to do for someone who had been startled, I took out the bag and picked up one piece of candy. It was taking one from Vodianitsa’s share, and my hand paused for a moment.

Still, I held it out.

"Try one. You were startled."

A white hand rose. Without feeling around, it came straight to where the candy was and took it, but she did not bring it to her mouth.

She simply held it in her hand. Her thumb stroked one edge of the candy, as though she were confirming by touch my words that some pieces were broken.

"Aren’t you going to eat it?"

"What color is it when it melts?"

"When it melts? It melts in your mouth, so I’ve never seen it."

"Then I’ll keep it."

I could not quite make sense of her saying she would keep it rather than melt it. It sounded as though she meant to leave something that would disappear untouched, so that it would not disappear. It seemed far too heavy a thing to say over a single piece of candy, and I could not think of a response.

As she said it, the corners of her mouth rose a little higher. They were always raised enough that I could never tell if she smiled, but just then, she truly looked as though she were smiling.

The hand holding the candy rose to her nose and then lowered again.

"It smells sweet."

"The merchant said it has honey in it. He said that’s why it’s amber-colored too."

I was only repeating what the merchant had just told me. At the word honey, her hand raised the candy to her nose once more.

I folded the bag closed again.

I remembered Odette’s hand at the full rehearsal, tightly holding the candy Vodianitsa had given her without eating it. Their hands looked nothing alike, yet the way they held the candy was similar enough that I found it hard to look for long.

I had always been the one counting what I received, but now I stood on the giving side. Being on that side, I could see whether the recipient ate the candy or merely held it. When I had only received things, I had never known such details could be seen.

"Who is this for?"

"A singer."

Once I started, the next words came easily. The words I had said to Lyuba in the darkness beside the stage, and to Sandrone atop the blacksmith’s crate—I was saying them for the third time now.

"She sings at the theater. When she sings, the glass in the ceiling trembles. The day after tomorrow is her first performance as a lead."

"The glass trembles?"

"Yes. I saw it myself a month ago."

"How does it tremble?"

She meant for me to describe the song in words, just as I had described the color of the candy. I did not know how to turn a song into words, but I opened my mouth anyway.

"It begins low, then rises steadily at one point, and that is when the glass in the ceiling begins to hum softly. There isn’t even any wind, so at first I thought it was some other sound."

"Another sound?"

"She is alone on stage, and everyone in the audience is holding their breath. The glass is the only thing trembling."

As I spoke, I could almost touch the memory of that day a month ago, sitting on the stool and nodding along. Someone who had never seen the trembling glass was listening as intently as if she had.

"What does her voice sound like?"

"Water."

The word came out before I had time to think. Afterward, I considered why I had said water. When I first opened my eyes in the house in the forest, the pot atop the stove had been simmering softly. Her song began low like that, then rose as though coming to a boil.

"It starts like the sound of flowing water and goes all the way to boiling. The glass rings when it boils over."

"Water."

"Yes. Water."

She silently rolled the word water around in her mouth once more. Her lips formed its shape, and the hand she held near her chest clenched a little tighter.

"Where do you listen from?"

"Beside the stage. There’s a stool there, so I sit and listen."

"A stool?"

"It’s for theater staff. It’s closer than the audience seats, so that’s where you hear the glass tremble first."

"A song like that... I have never heard one before."

"But you haven’t heard it yet."

"Yes. That is why it is the first."

I could not grasp what she meant. A song she had not even heard was somehow a first, and I did not know how to take that, so I remained silent. Her hand holding the candy rose toward her chest.

The candy rested beside the moon-shaped jewel. While we stood facing each other like that, I completely lost track of time.

"It’s the evening after tomorrow. You can come through the front entrance, but there are stairs by the audience seats, so be careful."

"I know."

She answered so shortly that I could not tell whether she knew about the stairs or the front entrance. I was about to ask what exactly she knew when her lace-covered face turned slightly to the side.

"Someone over there is watching you."

I turned my head.

Danika was standing beside the fish stall, three stalls away.

She held a basket filled with potatoes. I had no way of knowing how long she had been standing there, looking in this direction.

Only then did I spot the white headscarf I had not seen earlier. Even when the fishmonger asked whether she was not buying fish today, Danika did not turn her head toward him.

When our eyes met, Danika came toward us.

As always, there was no expression on her face as she approached, making it impossible to guess whether she had been watching for a while or had only just arrived. Only the potatoes in her basket swayed with her steps.

"I have finished shopping. Potatoes and salt."

"Ah, yes. I just stepped out for a little while too."

I did not say why. The candy bag rustled in my inner pocket, but I could not tell from Danika’s expression whether she had heard it.

"Have you been standing there for a while?"

"Yes. At the fish stall."

The fish stall was three stalls away from the candy stall. From there, she would have seen me explaining the color of the candy, grabbing the stranger’s sleeve, and pressing candy into her hand. At that thought, my face grew hot.

Danika did not look at my face. She only rearranged the potatoes in the basket once, using the same familiar motions as always, and I could read nothing from them.

She did not glance toward the person beside me either. I could not tell whether she had already looked and turned away, or had never looked at all. Her eyes were only on me.

"Her eyesight is poor, and a cart came through. So I stayed with her for a moment."

I did not know whom I was saying it for. I had not intended to introduce them, but standing between them made me feel as though I should say something.

Danika lowered her head a fraction. It was a nod whose meaning I could not tell.

Throughout the time Danika crossed those three stalls, the lace-covered face had followed her. Her head aligned exactly with Danika’s face, too precisely for it to be following the sound of potatoes in a basket. Even after Danika stopped beside me, she did not turn back toward me.

Then she spoke.

"You have lightning inside you."

She was speaking to Danika. Her voice was low and slow, as though discussing the weather, so I did not understand at first. Danika’s expression did not change in the slightest, even after hearing it.

"Lightning?"

"Yes. Lightning that makes no sound."

I did not know what soundless lightning meant. I was the one who had asked, but her answer was directed at Danika, and Danika did not so much as stir at that answer either.

"Doesn’t lightning scare you? Thunder comes after it."

"This one makes no sound, so it is all right."

The person who had said she was sensitive to thunder declared this lightning harmless. The shoulders that had hunched before the cart did not rise even a little this time.

Danika’s expression alone remained unchanged.

Then she adjusted her grip on the basket handle, stepped forward half a pace, and stood beside me. The half-step that had always been behind me had come forward, placing her subtly between that person and me.

The other person stepped back half a pace as Danika moved forward. Neither of them made a sound, and between those two silent people, only my cane made any noise.

It felt as though the bustle of the market avoided this spot alone. The fishmonger continued calling prices, and the broken oil container was still being cleaned up, yet nothing could enter the space among the three of us before the candy stall. Even the merchant had paused, scoop in hand.

The knuckles of Danika’s hand gripping the basket handle had gone white. Her expression was unchanged, but that hand looked as though it were clutching something other than the basket.

It was the merchant who broke the silence. He hooked the scoop back over the mouth of the glass jar, and metal made a small sound against glass. As though she had been waiting for it to fade, Danika spoke.

"It is time for you to return. Shall I walk you back?"

"What? Has it already been thirty minutes?"

I looked at the awning shadows and saw that it really had. They had grown about a handspan longer since I first stopped before the stall.

"I will go with you as far as the back door."

"All right. Go on, then."

She had taken up Danika’s words and directed them to me, but while all her other words had been slow, only the words telling me to go came quickly. When she finished, she tilted her head a little farther toward Danika.

Danika said nothing about the lightning. She did not ask what it meant or look at the stranger; she only said it was time for me to return.

I figured that, being someone with poor eyesight, she must have a habit of speaking about people based on how they felt to her. She asked about colors and said she could sense carts, so perhaps she spoke of people that way too. I thought Danika’s silence was simply her ignoring a stranger’s odd remark.

Yet that half-step stayed with me.

I looked beside me without knowing why it bothered me, but the face beneath the lace gave nothing away.

I could not tell what passed between the two of them. One had covered eyes, and the other no expression. All I could see were the hand holding candy by her chest and the hand gripping the basket handle, yet the sight of them facing each other was strangely quiet.

That quiet made me deeply uncomfortable, so I spoke first.

"Then I’ll be going. Be careful of carts."

I bowed my head. Though I knew greeting someone who could not see was pointless, my body did it on its own. As though she knew of my bow, she dipped her head slightly in return.

"That song."

Her hand still held the candy against her chest.

"I’ll come hear it."

Come to think of it, I had not told her the theater’s name. I wondered if she would know which theater to come to from only hearing about the day after tomorrow and the front entrance, and I was about to ask when the hand holding the candy lifted slightly.

I could not tell whether it was a farewell or whether she was showing me the candy. Before I could decide what to say, she had already turned away.

"Take care!"

I called after her back, and instead of answering, she raised the hand holding the candy once more.

Neither of us ever mentioned a name. It was not because we lacked time; she simply did not seem to intend to ask, and she seemed like someone who was all right without a name, so I left it that way too.

She walked between the stalls. Her steps were so light they seemed not to touch the ground, and until her long black hair vanished among the crowd, the hand holding the candy remained at her chest.

People stepped aside along her path, yet no one turned to look. Through that gap, her white back dwindled to a dot and disappeared.

Nothing remained where she had stood. It seemed as if a faint candy scent lingered, but that had likely been the stall’s smell all along.

As the merchant set down his scoop, he asked whether I knew that young lady. When I said no, he tilted his head. It was strange to him that I had stood next to someone I did not know for thirty minutes, and honestly, it was strange to me too.

I did not know where she was going. It troubled me to think of someone startled by carts passing through that market alone, but there was nothing I could do. I only pressed once against the inner pocket holding the bag.

Danika was watching her retreating back.

Her expression was unchanged, and only after the other person had vanished completely did the whitened knuckles of her hand relax.

"Is there anything else you need to buy?"

"No. I bought everything."

The question of who that person had been never came from Danika’s lips.

"Then let’s go."

"Yes."

Danika did not take the first step. Only when I adjusted my cane and began walking did she follow, taking her usual place half a step behind me.

Once we left the market and went up toward the theater street, the smell of fish faded behind us.

The half-step that had come forward in the market retreated behind me again once we reached the street. I could hear potatoes knocking together in the basket behind me.

It was her usual place. When I left through the blue door, when she had followed me to the theater that night, she had always been exactly that far behind. I had never once thought that distance strange.

But today, it kept troubling me.

After hearing the remark about lightning, Danika had only said things a maid ought to say. It was time to return, she would come with me, let us go. There was no Danika herself anywhere in those words, and that was exactly what bothered me.

When I thought about it, Danika had always spoken that way. Wondering why something so ordinary kept getting to me today, I turned around.

Danika was walking half a step behind me with the potato basket, matching my pace. Her steps aligned perfectly with the rhythm of my cane hitting stone, so it was my own pace that faltered when I turned to look.

"Walk beside me."

The words came out before I could think.

Danika stopped. From that exact place half a step behind me, she looked at me.

"If you’re behind me, I keep having to look back. If you walk beside me, I won’t have to turn around."

That was not really why. It was not that turning around was difficult; I simply did not want to keep seeing Danika half a step behind me, saying only the things a maid ought to say. But I did not know how to say that, so I gave another excuse.

Since coming here, I could count on one hand the number of times I had asked anyone for something. Asking Danika to wash me, and asking the old man to lower a box, had both been requests to entrust myself to someone. Asking her to walk beside me was different in kind.

Danika stepped forward half a pace.

She seemed to hesitate for a moment, then one foot came forward, followed by the basket. She moved the basket to her other hand so that she herself stood between me and it.

Then we walked again.

"Should I carry the basket?"

"It is my job."

Danika was not about to hand a basket to someone using a cane. Still, perhaps it was only my imagination that her voice was a little gentler than it had been that morning.

As we passed the bakery on the street by the front entrance, the bakery owner greeted Danika. She bowed her head in return, and though the baker glanced at the man with the cane beside her, he did not seem to find anything strange about it.

It was natural that the baker knew Danika, since she passed by here on every market day. I was probably the strange one, standing beside her.

"People are staring because you’re standing beside me."

"It is fine."

It is fine was Danika’s usual answer. Only after hearing it did I think that asking her to walk beside me might be uncomfortable for her. But Danika did not retreat that half-step again.

It was the first time I had seen Danika walk beside me.

Her eye level was almost the same as mine, and the dark hair spilling from beneath her white headscarf swayed over her shoulders with every step. These were things I had never known because she was always behind me.

Only after more than three months since Danika came to the house did I notice, standing beside her, that there was a reddish tint around her eyes. I did not know whether it had always been there or whether it was only today.

My cane was in my right hand, and Danika was on my left. On the side of my dragging leg.

We walked side by side. Even beside me, I could not hear Danika’s footsteps; only the sound of potatoes knocking around in the basket.

That sound, which had always come from behind me, sounded somehow different from beside me. For a while, neither of us spoke.

"That person earlier said something strange, didn’t she? About lightning."

"Yes."

"Maybe because she can’t see, she describes people by feeling them somehow."

"Yes."

The two yeses were exactly the same length. I could not tell whether she was agreeing or merely letting the matter pass, and since nothing followed, the conversation about lightning ended there.

"Did you see the cart go by too?"

"Yes. It was an oil container."

She only briefly told me what she had seen. She must have seen me grab someone else’s sleeve before the cart as well, but Danika left that out, and I did not bring it up either.

The afternoon sunlight slanted down over the street. Within that light, the shadow of my cane and the shadow of her basket stretched out side by side ahead of us.

At the corner, a child carrying a water bucket looked back and forth between us before tilting his head. He must have found it strange that a maid was walking alongside a man with a cane.

Walking like that, we soon arrived before the theater’s front entrance.

A new notice announcing the first performance had been posted on the board beside the entrance. Under the date, Vodianitsa’s and Odette’s names were written side by side. Danika’s steps slowed slightly before it, and her eyes rested on those two names for a moment before returning.

"It’s the day after tomorrow. Vodianitsa’s first performance as a lead."

"I heard."

She did not say where she had heard it, but it was hardly new for Danika to know about the theater’s affairs as well as I did.

"Before the performance, I’m going to put the candy in her tin."

"Yes."

Only then did I tell her whose share the candy was. Once I said it, the bag in my inner pocket seemed a little lighter, and Danika answered with that single yes again.

We passed the front entrance and walked along the theater wall.

In the wall’s shade, the new cane tip slipped slightly in a gap between stones. At that moment, Danika’s hand was under my elbow. It hovered a palm’s breadth away, close enough to touch but not touching. Once my cane was steady again, it returned to the basket handle.

It was a hand I had not seen when she walked behind me. Whenever I stumbled, it must have reached me first, then quietly withdrawn if nothing happened. That hand had likely been behind my back every day.

The wind blew along the wall. It was still cold in this season of melting snow, and the end of Danika’s white headscarf fluttered once before settling.

I heard her adjust her grip on the basket handle beside me. The hand around it loosened once, then tightened again, and then I heard her speak.

"Master."

"Yes?"

"May I have one too?"

My steps stopped without my meaning to.

It was the first time Danika had asked for a share of something herself. From lips that had only spoken of tasks to be done and tasks completed, the word I came first, followed by a question of whether she might receive something.

I knew what she wanted without asking. From beside the fish stall, Danika had seen a piece of candy pass into someone else’s hand. She had said nothing all that time, only asking now that we had reached the theater wall.

I did not know why. I did not even know whether she liked candy. All I knew was that since coming to the house, she had never once said she wanted to eat anything. Yet that Danika was asking me for something now.

"Of course!"

I tried not to show how startled I was, but it might have been written all over my face.

Still dazed, I took out the bag and picked up a piece of candy. It was the second one I was taking from Vodianitsa’s share, yet this time my hand did not hesitate.

Danika held out her hand. It was bare, without a glove. When I set the candy in her palm, her fingers slowly curled around it.

She took the basket handle in that same hand holding the candy and walked on. She did not bring the candy to her mouth.

Though I had taken out a second piece, I did not begrudge it. That was strange enough that I kept turning it over in my mind as we walked.

I could not ask why she had wanted one. Danika started walking again before I had the chance, so I walked alongside her around the theater wall.

Two people had received candy today. Neither put it in their mouth. One held hers at her chest, and the other held hers along with a basket handle.

I did not know whether those two things were different or the same.

The three steps by the back door came into view. When I stopped my cane at the hollowed-out stone beneath them, the soundless footsteps beside me stopped too.

Danika adjusted her basket and stepped aside so I could climb the stairs. It was exactly the same distance she stepped aside every morning before the blue door.

Piano music drifted through the back door. The thirty minutes had already passed, but the piano in the rehearsal room was still repeating that same passage from the morning.

Two candies were missing from the bag in my inner pocket. I had seen exactly where both went, and what remained would go into Vodianitsa’s tin the day after tomorrow.

From the direction of the prop room, I could hear the old man dragging boxes. He was not someone who would scold me for exceeding thirty minutes, but I still felt a little rushed.

"This is as far as I go."

"Yes, thank you. Those potatoes must have been heavy."

"It is fine. We are having potato soup for dinner. I will have it simmering before sunset."

Her tone was exactly the same as when she had said she was going shopping that morning. Yet even as she spoke, the hand gripping the basket handle still held a piece of candy.

"I like potato soup."

Danika only dipped her head slightly. When she lifted it again, her eyes went once toward my inner pocket holding the candy bag, then returned.

As I was about to put my cane on the first step, Danika moved the basket to her other hand. When she opened her free hand, an amber candy lay on her palm.

Danika looked down at the candy for a moment, then put it in her mouth.

She was someone who always took out her own bowl only after I had put down my spoon. Yet beneath the back-door steps, she put candy in her mouth before I did.

The candy rolled into one cheek, puffing it round just as Vodianitsa’s had been on the forest path. Other than that cheek, there was no expression on her face.

With that face, Danika looked at me.

"It’s sweet."

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